You may want to check with your insurance company to find out what changes are coming your way. Homeowners are seeing a 4 to 8 percent increase in their rates depending on their policy. Insurance companies have been seeking, and winning, rate increase approval in states around the nation. Even people who have never made a claim on their insurance are seeing an increase in their rates.

There are two main reasons why insurance rates continue to rise. Devastating weather events and insurance fraud (like roofing scams) have hit cash reserves hard and insurance companies are now looking to make up the difference. The weather you heard about in last year’s news may cause a problem this year, too. In 2011, there were more federal disaster declarations than there have ever been—99 cases to be exact. Disasters ranged from the February blizzards, the tornado in Joplin, Hurricane Irene, wildfires, flooding, and 646 tornadoes. Between January and September, the insured losses totaled $32.6 billion. The Insurance Information Institute reports that this is about double the average. This means that insurers have to pay out approximately $1.85 for every dollar they make.

Insurance frauds are another problem. Sometimes homeowners themselves make faulty claims that raise the rates for everybody. However, such claims are often not the fault of homeowners. States that do not require their contractors to be licensed are seeing an especially high number of fraudulent claims. A roofer, who became a roofer yesterday, may offer to inspect a roof after a storm, and then cause damage in order to make a claim and get money. When this happens, insurers have to pay out money, and then recoup their losses. This can be troublesome for everybody.

Valentine’s Day should be all about celebrating the love in your life. Here are a few ways to plan an unforgettable Valentine’s Day, no matter what stage in a relationship you are at.

If you have been together 25 years…

When you have been together for this long, celebrate your past Valentine’s Day with a scrapbook of mementos, or a piece of special jewelry, or a romantic note asking him or her to be your Valentine.

If you have been together for 10 years…

Take some time to spend the day doing what you both love most. A little spontaneity can add some spice; a helicopter ride around the city, a horse and carriage ride, or a special dinner. Gifts can include something that the other would like as well. Tickets to a sports game or a spa day can be a way to let the other person recharge their batteries. You don’t have to feel pressured to spend a lot of money though. Just knowing how much you are loved can be the best present of all.

The holiday season usually translates into big business for retailers. During the holiday shopping season (November and December) merchants can make up to forty percent of their annual revenue. The sale season also provides insights about how people are spending their money. This holiday sale season showed the income divide in the U.S.

Compared to last year, high-end stores did well this season. On the other hand, stores geared toward shoppers in the middle and lower income brackets did not do as well. This disparity can be attributed to the divide between the affluent and less affluent in the U.S. Unemployment, together with an uncertain economy and a shrinking middle class, may be to blame for the lack of high sales in some stores. In December, Nordstrom had an 8.7% increase in revenue at stores open at least a year, Macy’s saw a 6.2% increase, and Saks had a 5.8% increase. J.C. Penney had just a 0.3% increase, Kohl’s had a 0.1% decline, and Target had a 1.6% gain, which was lower than what they were expecting. 

Besides the economy and the shrinking middle class, there are other reasons why consumers may not have spent as much money this past sales season. Due to the mild winter in most states, the demand for cold-weather merchandise like coats, hats, gloves, and scarves was lower than it has been in previous years. Now that stores are starting to receive spring items, cold-weather items will likely be placed on sale. People also put off shopping to earlier in the season since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year.

In the past thirty years, the twin birth rate (number of twins per 1,000 births) in the U.S. has risen 76 percent. The National Center for Health Statistics and the Center for Disease Control have released a new data brief that highlights the key findings on these statistics.

The data indicates that in 1980, 1 in every 53 babies born in the U.S. was a twin. In 2009, 1 in every 30 babies was a twin. That is a difference of about 865,000 twins. Between 1980 and 2009, there was a steady rise in the number of twin births across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the vast majority of states, the twin birth rate rose by at least 50 percent. However, in five states (Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island), the birth rate went up by 100 percent. During the 1980s and 1990s there has been an increase in the number of multiple births in Western Europe and other countries as well.

This rise in the number of twins is partially due to women having babies past the age of 30. Older maternal age accounts for one-third of the rise in twin birth rates. When looking at all births (single babies, twins, and higher-order multiples), the overall age distribution of women giving birth has changed over the decades. More women are having children later in life than they would in 1980. For reasons that are not quite clear, there is a higher spontaneous twin birth rate among women in their 30s (spontaneous meaning without the use of fertility treatments).