Teen on homecoming prank: I felt like 'trash'

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Sophomore student Whitney Kropp never saw herself as part of the "in" crowd at her high school, so she was surprised to find out she was voted to homecoming court. It turned out to be a prank, but now the community is rallying behind Whitney to show their support for her. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports.

By Sevil Omer and Kevin Tibbles, NBC News

Dale G. Young / The Detroit News

Whitney Kropp was named to the homecoming court as a joke by her classmates, but the tiny farm town of West Branch, Mich. has rallied around her.

Whitney Kropp, a sophomore at Ogemaw Heights High School in West Branch, Mich., said she was surprised to learn that she was picked by her classmates to be in the running for her school?s homecoming queen.

?I never thought I would be part of it because, really, it?s just for, like, the big popular people,? Kropp, 16, told NBC News' Kevin Tibbles on TODAY.

But she was soon humiliated when she learned Sept. 13 that her selection to the homecoming court had been part of a prank by other students. She said students pointed at her in the hallways and laughed, and the boy who was picked with her withdrew.

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?Some kids thought it would be funny just to put me in there as a joke to make fun of me,? Kropp said.?

But Whitney?s ridicule didn?t stop didn?t there. Her mother, Bernice Kropp, told NBC News on Monday that the bullying continued on Facebook.

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Kropp said her daughter, a sophomore, had been picked on before at school, but not to the extent of the peer vote that selects students to the court, which traditionally names a queen, king and?princes and princesses from each class. The high school has about 800 students.

?I felt like I wasn?t worthy. Why even be a part of this community, this world if I?m just going to be tossed around like basically a piece of trash?? Whitney Kropp said.

But then,?her mother said, ?other kids started coming up to her and saying, ?Whitney, don?t let them stop you from going to homecoming. You need to go ahead, you need to do it.'?

Bernice Kropp described her daughter as quiet, polite and kind, rarely finding fault with peers and people. She said Whitney has decided to attend the dance despite the prank as businesses and neighbors in the tiny farming town have rallied around Whitney.?

Kropp said Whitney even has a date for the dance this Saturday, "and it?s her boyfriend who has been very quiet and supportive through all of this."?

"You want to protect your kid, and you feel angry and mad at what has happened, but at the same time the outpouring to help her has been beyond expected," she said.?

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Word spread quickly through the community of about 2,100 residents in West Branch.?Resident Jamie Kline started a?Facebook support page, gaining more than 4,000 likes?in Michigan and nationwide. Personal stories of bullying and messages of encouragement filled the page, among them:

"You go, girl! From here in California, it looks like you won the vote legitimately but some of your "friends" got jealous and nasty about it. Their "joke" never really happened! Hold your head high and have a good time," Raymond Puffer.

"Whitney YOU are a beautiful gal inside and out and dont ever let anyone tell you any different,? Karen Morrison Gross.

"I am so proud of this young lady ((((You GO, Girl))))), her family and the awesome community we share! It's high time we ALL take a stand against bullies. They come in all sizes, ages and social arenas. Be Kind ALWAYS,? Ginger Warren.

Jen Case, who is with Whit?s End Salon in West Branch,?said the salon owner donated services?to cut, color and style Kropp?s hair. "Bullying is a big thing and we wanted to turn this into a positive moment," Case said.

Other local businesses are paying for Whitney?s dinner, gown, shoes and a tiara for the dance.

"We live in this community and we?re about the community and giving back," Case told NBC News. "We wanted to help this young lady have a special night."

?I?m excited to go because I can prove everyone wrong and say, you know, I?m not this joke that you guys thought of. You guys doing this has made me stronger and I?ve got more self-esteem than what I had," Whitney Kropp said.

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/25/14092311-teen-picked-for-homecoming-court-as-prank-i-felt-like-piece-of-trash?lite

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Thomas Cohn: Legal Challenges For Online Affiliate Marketing ...

Welcome to this interview of Thomas Cohn, a well-known consumer regulatory attorney, former Federal Trade Commission?(FTC) Regional Director, and 17 year FTC veteran. At Affiliate Management Days East 2012 (on Oct 9-10, 2012), Thomas will be speaking on FTC and State actions versus affiliates and merchants and how to comply with consumer laws to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

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Question: What are the major affiliate marketing threats that you have seen evolve over the past few years on the legislative front?

Thomas: ?There?s a big direct threat on the state level (sales tax legislation). ?On the federal level, there are only indirect threats such as the limited situations in the ?Rockefeller Bill? that became ROSCA.

Beyond legislation, there are new FTC regulations implementing legislation, like the MARS Rule (banning advance fees for mortgage assistance) and the Business Opportunity Rule (more stringent disclosure requirements, covering more types within definition).

But the threat even bigger than legislation or regulation, is simply the continual increase in enforcement actions by state AGs and the FTC against deceptive online marketing, and against the roles played in it by not just merchants, but also affiliates, networks, and others who allegedly play a role in helping to apply the deceptive practices against consumers.

Question: Can you give us an example of a case involving legal compliance?

Thomas: The actions that FTC has brought in the last 12 months have highlighted the FTC?s awareness of deceptive tactics in affiliate marketing, and its increasingly aggressive stance in going after them. ?Whether they involve merchants, affiliates, networks, or other third parties whom the FTC believes are ?assisting and facilitating? these tactics.

This includes FTC cases against merchants like Central Coast Nutraceuticals, Jesse Willms and LeanSpa. ?The ten FTC cases brought against individual affiliate marketers, and the two FTC cases against affiliate networks.

Other third parties may be vulnerable, too: lead generators, list brokers, payment processors and call centers have all been targeted by the FTC. ?There may be more investigations and/or actions against such third parties.

Question: What can affiliate managers merchants do to ensure? compliance with the laws and avoid regulatory scrutiny?

Thomas: Take a look at the enforcement actions cited above that have final orders requiring monitoring, and see how onerous these are to actually implement! ?Then realize that while these don?t apply to everyone, just to the named defendants, you should still consider them in your risk calculus.

Finally, come up with a robust monitoring program that you actually can and will follow, by checking out both merchants and their offers, and affiliates? published content, before doing business with them.

Then, after offers start running, periodically check up on at least those merchants and affiliates that are performing the best, to see just why they are the top performers. ?Are there any deceptive/false/unsubstantiated product claims, including testimonials/endorsements? ?Are there deceptive formats? ?Are there inadequate or missing negative option/free trial and/or continuity/rebill disclosures?

If so, either enforce modifications or terminate the relationship.

Question: What can the affiliate marketing industry do to ensure its growth, regardless of the emerging legislative challenges?

Thomas: Same as above. ?Make sure both merchants and affiliates stay as compliant as possible, or stop doing business with those who don?t. ?The best way to ensure growth is to stay on top of the content being published by reasonably monitoring merchants? and affiliates? advertising.

While online privacy is a perennial hot topic, affiliate marketers and affiliate networks may not be affected much by whatever behavioral targeting legislation is eventually passed. The more immediate privacy-related issue is data security. ?If you ?say what you do? with your consumer data, then you better ensure that you ?do what you say.?

Any major hacking attack or other data breach could quickly bring an FTC investigation and/or enforcement action.

Question: If you were to leave affiliate managers with just one piece of advice today, what would it be?

Thomas: Compliance monitoring.?It doesn?t have to be perfect, but has to be reasonable and consistently implemented.

The FTC doesn?t care about cloaking/masking or other difficulties that affiliate networks/managers face in monitoring affiliates. The FTC?s view is that, if network profits are based on traffic that converts, then the network must do better to ensure compliant affiliate content.

* * * * *

Affiliate Management Days takes place October 9-10, 2012. More information about Affiliate Management Days being held in Ft Lauderdale, can be found here. Or follow the hashtag #AMDays on Twitter. There?s still time to register using code SBTAM150 to receive $150.00 off your pass.

Be sure to check out the rest of the?interview series from #AMDays.

About Geno Prussakov

Geno Prussakov is the Founder & Chair of Affiliate Management Days and the CEO & founder of AM Navigator LLC. As an award-winning affiliate marketing expert, he has contributed to the online marketing success of such top brands as Forbes, Nokia, Hallmark, Warner Music, Skype, Forex Club, and hundreds of small businesses.

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/09/thomas-cohn-legislative-challenges-affiliate-marketing-amdays.html

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Party over for Somali pirates? Attacks way down

HOBYO, Somalia (AP) ? The empty whiskey bottles and overturned, sand-filled skiffs that litter this once-bustling shoreline are signs that the heyday of Somali piracy may be over. Most of the prostitutes are gone, the luxury cars repossessed. Pirates talk more about catching lobsters than seizing cargo ships.

Armed guards aboard cargo ships and an international naval armada complete with aircraft that carry out onshore raids have put a huge dent in Somali piracy and might even spell the end of the scourge. One piracy expert said it's too early to declare victory. But the numbers are startling: In 2010, pirates seized 47 vessels. This year they've taken only five.

"There's nothing to do here these days. The hopes for a revitalized market are not high," said a pirate in the former pirate haven of Hobyo who gave his name as Hassan Abdi, a high school graduate who taught English in private school before turning to piracy in 2009.

Faduma Ali, a prostitute in the inland town of Galkayo that became a pirate haven, longs for the days when her pirate customers had money. As she smoked a hookah in a hot, airless room last week, she sneered as she answered a phone call from a former customer seeking her services on credit.

"Those days are over. Can you pay me $1,000?" she asked, the price she once commanded for a night's work. "If not, goodbye and leave me alone." She hung up and groaned out loud: "Money."

The caller, Abdirizaq Saleh, once had bodyguards and maids and the attention of beautiful women. When ransoms came in, a party was thrown, with blaring music, bottles of wine, the stimulant called khat and women for every man. Now Saleh is hiding from creditors in a dirty room filled with the dust-covered TVs and high-end clothes he acquired when flush.

"Ships are being held longer, ransoms are getting smaller and attacks are less likely to succeed," Salah said while sitting on a threadbare mattress covered by a mosquito net. A plastic rain jacket he used while out at sea dangled from the door.

Somali pirates hijacked 46 ships in 2009 and 47 in 2010, the European Union Naval Force says. In 2011, pirates launched a record number of attacks ? 176 ? but commandeered only 25 ships, an indication that new on-board defenses were working. This year, pirates have hijacked just five ships, the last on May 10 when the MV Smyrna and its crew of 26 were taken. They are still being held.

"We have witnessed a significant drop in attacks in recent months. The stats speak for themselves," said Lt. Cmdr. Jacqueline Sherriff, a spokeswoman for the European Union Naval Force.

Sherriff attributes the plunge in hijackings mostly to international military efforts ? European, American, Chinese, Indian, Russian ? that have improved over time. In May, after receiving an expanded mandate, the EU Naval Force destroyed pirate weapons, equipment and fuel on land. Japanese aircraft fly over the shoreline to relay pirate activity to warships nearby. Merchant ships have also increased their communications with patrolling military forces after pirate sightings, Sherriff said. Ships have bolstered their own defenses with armed guards, barbed wire, water cannons and safe rooms.

No vessel with armed guards has ever been hijacked, noted Cyrus Moody, of the International Maritime Bureau. A June report from the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said armed guards have forced pirates to "abort attacks earlier and at greater ranges from targeted vessels."

Some of those who live around Hobyo along central Somalia's Indian Ocean coastline say they never wanted the region to become a pirate den. Fishermen say piracy began around 2005 as a way to keep international vessels from plundering fish stocks off Somalia. But in the absence of law and order ? the country has not had a powerful central government for the last two decades ? small ransoms grew over time and criminal networks planned more organized and sophisticated attacks on the high seas, ultimately reaching out and taking freighters and yachts from mother ships 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the shores of Africa.

Two pirates with AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders wandered along Hobyo's beach last weekend near a Taiwanese fishing vessel that washed up on shore after the pirates were paid a ransom and released the crew. The town is mostly quiet, except for the sight of legitimate fishermen taking their boats out to sea. The price of a cup of tea ? which cost 50 cents during the piracy boom ? has fallen back to around 5 cents. The lobster haul has replaced international freighters as the topic of conversation.

"The decline of piracy is a much-needed boon for our region," said Hobyo Mayor Ali Duale Kahiye. "They were the machines causing inflation, indecency and insecurity in the town. Life and culture is good without them."

Monsoons have roiled the Indian Ocean the last two months. When the storms subside in about two weeks and pirates consider returning to sea, the number of successful hijackings ? or lack thereof ? will go a long way toward telling if the heyday of Somali piracy is truly over.

Pirate creditors fronted the money to buy skiffs, weapons, fuel and food for piracy operations. Loans for pirates were easy to come by when new ransoms were paid frequently. Now some financiers are more reluctant to front money for pirate operations.

Walking along a street in Galkayo, Saleh pointed to a house with pink flowers he once owned. He was forced to give it to a creditor. Another pirate, Mohamed Jama, relinquished his car to a financier. European naval forces disrupted five hijacking attempts by Jama, he said. The May attack on land destroyed skiffs and fuel he owned.

"He could not pay my $2,000, so I had to take his $7,000 car," said Fardowsa Mohamed Ali, a financier. "I am no longer in contact with pirates now because they are bankrupt and live like refugees."

Many former pirates are unemployed but Mohamed Abdalla Aden has returned to his old job as a soccer coach for village boys. Aden said he now earns as much in a month that he used to spend in a single day as a pirate.

"The coasts became too dangerous," he said while holding an old, beat-up mobile phone. "Dozens of my friend are unaccounted for and some ended up in jail."

An untold number of pirates have died at sea in violent confrontations, bad weather or ocean accidents. The U.N. says 1,045 suspected or convicted pirates are being held in 21 countries, including the U.S., Europe, Yemen, India, Kenya, Seychelles and Somalia.

"The risks involved in the hijacking attempts were very high. EU navies were our main enemy," said Saleh.

Several pirate attacks made worldwide headlines, including a high-drama rescue in 2009 of an American hostage by Navy SEALs. Pirates still hold seven ships and 177 crew members, according to the EU Naval Force. At the height of Somali piracy, pirates held more than 30 ships and 600 hostages at a time.

Despite the risks of being shot, arrested or becoming lost at sea, the potential rewards can be surreal in impoverished Somalia. Ransoms for large ships in recent years have averaged close to $5 million. The largest reported ransom ever paid was $11 million for the Greek oil tanker the MV Irene SL last year.

Widespread poverty and the lure of potential riches are why Moody says it's too early to say for sure that the piracy problem has been solved.

"We hope so. But at the same time we are definitely advising all vessels not to become complacent just because the numbers are down," he said. "The reward for the Somali pirate once they get a vessel is enormous, so just giving that up is probably not going to be easy."

Abdi Farah, an elder in Galkayo, said he believes the end of piracy is near. Locals say pirates brought vices that were foreign to Muslim villages. Farah said he is not sorry to see the piracy trade subside.

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Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/party-over-somali-pirates-attacks-way-down-163001992.html

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Farthest ever view of the universe assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2012) ? Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of humankind's deepest-ever view of the universe.

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time.

The new full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies, and includes very deep exposures in red light from Hubble's new infrared camera, enabling new studies of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The XDF contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

Magnificent spiral galaxies similar in shape to our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy appear in this image, as do the large, fuzzy red galaxies where the formation of new stars has ceased. These red galaxies are the remnants of dramatic collisions between galaxies and are in their declining years. Peppered across the field are tiny, faint, more distant galaxies that were like the seedlings from which today's striking galaxies grew. The history of galaxies -- from soon after the first galaxies were born to the great galaxies of today, like our Milky Way -- is laid out in this one remarkable image.

Hubble pointed at a tiny patch of southern sky in repeat visits (made over the past decade) for a total of 50 days, with a total exposure time of 2 million seconds. More than 2,000 images of the same field were taken with Hubble's two premier cameras -- the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, which extends Hubble's vision into near-infrared light -- and combined to make the XDF.

"The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen. XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before," said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 (HUDF09) program.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time. Most of the galaxies in the XDF are seen when they were young, small, and growing, often violently as they collided and merged together. The early universe was a time of dramatic birth for galaxies containing brilliant blue stars extraordinarily brighter than our Sun. The light from those past events is just arriving at Earth now, and so the XDF is a "time tunnel into the distant past." The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang.

Before Hubble was launched in 1990, astronomers could barely see normal galaxies to 7 billion light-years away, about halfway across the universe. Observations with telescopes on the ground were not able to establish how galaxies formed and evolved in the early universe.

Hubble gave astronomers their first view of the actual forms and shapes of galaxies when they were young. This provided compelling, direct visual evidence that the universe is truly changing as it ages. Like watching individual frames of a motion picture, the Hubble deep surveys reveal the emergence of structure in the infant universe and the subsequent dynamic stages of galaxy evolution.

The infrared vision of NASA's planned James Webb Space Telescope (Webb telescope) will be aimed at the XDF. The Webb telescope will find even fainter galaxies that existed when the universe was just a few hundred million years old. Because of the expansion of the universe, light from the distant past is stretched into longer, infrared wavelengths. The Webb telescope's infrared vision is ideally suited to push the XDF even deeper, into a time when the first stars and galaxies formed and filled the early "dark ages" of the universe with light.

The XDF/HUDF09 team members are G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), M. Carollo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH)), M. Franx (Leiden University), V. Gonzalez (University of California, Santa Cruz), I. Labbe (Leiden University), D. Magee and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), M. Stiavelli (Space Telescope Science Institute), M. Trenti (University of Cambridge), and P. van Dokkum (Yale University).

The public is invited to participate in a "Meet the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Observing Team" webinar, in which three key astronomers of the XDF observing team will describe how they assembled the landmark image and explain what it tells us about the evolving universe. Participants are invited to send in questions for the panel of experts to discuss. The webinar will be broadcast at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, September 27, 2012. To participate in the webinar, please visit: http://hubblesite.org/go/xdf/ .

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/odqdi6R4iCI/120925142555.htm

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Health Insurance: Marketing Health Insurance

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You may wonder what is right now will have a quick explanation about Medical Insurance plan. Just to get Heath Insurance Quotes. Therefore we invite you to easily search online for your current organization, your company can pay the marketing health insurance where accident was due to filling out the marketing health insurance from their pocket. In time, it should lower premiums on everyone's policies and health coverage is incredibly necessary, but many representatives don't support the marketing health insurance of what they believe to be your provider and request a Free Health insurance quote systems to get cheap medical insurance industry and the marketing health insurance are still on doubts that many are unsure of the marketing health insurance and elsewhere. One insurance company that covers everyone with tax-payer money.

However, it is often entirely too much information for an agent to familiarize themselves with. Most agents will simply look up its own search engine so that you already carry an expensive plan, then you can look out for are perks that insurance companies offer several different policies and plans on the first time.

Other factors that need to be true. Maybe you are without health benefits because private insurance was extremely expensive. Times have definitely changed! We live in a digital age now, so employee health benefits and private insurance was extremely expensive. Times have definitely changed! We live in a wide variety of programs available and that nobody should simply accept that securing the marketing health insurance for you.

Source: http://bibliophilebullpen.blogspot.com/2012/09/marketing-health-insurance.html

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Marissa Mayer planning to reveal her plans for Yahoo's turnaround tomorrow

The first "all hands" meeting of a CEO is always a time for high drama, so we're expecting big things tomorrow. New boss Marissa Mayer is telling employees about her plans to turn around the faded internet giant on Tuesday, with the same slides she used in closed-door board meetings in an act of "radical transparency." Yahoo's fortunes have been on the slide for a while, after Scott Thompson's scandal-ridden departure, patent clashes, security breaches and the sale of its Alibaba stake in order to spend $3.65 billion on quelling a shareholder revolution.

A report from AllThingsD says that Mayer's likely to introduce progress and goal tracking as a measure of performance. The new system will run from the company as a whole right down to individual employees, something that she picked up from her tenure at Mountain View. The same report has revealed that Mayer's pushing to improve the consumer experience in its Homepage, Mail and Flickr offerings (amongst others) at the expense of advertising -- a move that'll win her plenty of fans used to the minimalist Google homepage.

Filed under: Internet

Marissa Mayer planning to reveal her plans for Yahoo's turnaround tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/marissa-mayer-yahoo-memo/

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In Florida, A Felony Conviction is Forever When It Comes to Voting

Trish Ponder | Sep 23, 2012

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One Response ?

1. Peter Schorsch September 23, 2012 @ 1:13 pm

   Hey Trish ? do you have a source for this stat? I am going to list you all, but I would love to see the original source.

Leave a Reply

Source: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2012/09/23/in-florida-a-felony-conviction-is-forever-when-it-comes-to-voting/

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Family Fountain of Hope saving babies | Zambia Daily Mail

FAMILY Fountain of Hope spokesperson Dr Getrude Tshuma, left, with Monde Himasiku.

While some cry to God to bless them with children, others abuse them by aborting or dumping them. In an effort to reduce termination of unwanted pregnancies, especially by distressed young girls, Family Fountain of Hope has embarked on a sensitisation programme that helps save babies. MUNIDE NYIRENDA now reports.
IT IS considered a joyous moment for a mother when she gives birth to a child but this turns out to be a sorrowful moment to some, who feel they are not ready to welcome the baby as part of their lives.
A month hardly passes without hearing disturbing news of newly born babies being dumped in either a near-by bush or pit latrine because they are unwanted.
High levels of illegal abortions have also been of concern. This has prompted a non-profit-making organisation, Family Fountain of Hope, to embark on sensitisation programmes and provide other services that offer alternatives to abortion in order to save babies.
?If you are pregnant and your first thought is no not me oh, please not me! You are scared, resentful, angry, you feel sick and your nerves are like hot wires, your whole world is changing and you do not want to face it, who will listen and really understand how scared and sick you are?
?We will,? says Family Fountain of Hope spokesperson Getrude Tshuma.
?We are all alive because somebody gave life to us. If you and I were aborted, we would not know its value. We are here because somebody loved and cared for us,? Dr Tshuma said.
She says her organisation is helping to sensitise, inform and educate people about the importance of life and dangers of abortion.
The organisation has so far counselled 30 women who almost aborted their unwanted pregnancies for various reasons.
The counselling sessions have also helped save the lives of 15 babies from being killed by their distressed mothers.
?Who knows what the future holds for them? Maybe some of these will be our future president, doctors, and teachers among other important people in society. There is no such a thing like unwanted pregnancy, if you do not want to have a child, stop having sex to protect yourself from having unwanted pregnancy,? Dr Tshuma said in an interview.
Services such as counselling sessions with parents, boyfriends and girlsfriends, medical advice, how someone can continue with studies or work and help links for accommodation are provided by the organisation.
It also equips young mothers with knowledge and skills on how to raise financial resources, helps with fostering healthy relationships, and provides maternity clothes and baby things.
Referrals for adoption among other services are also provided.
A volunteer for the organisation, Monde Himasiku, stressed the need for young girls to seek help from their centre as abortion is not the best solution.
Ms Himasiku said she is aware of challenges young girls and women face when they are impregnated such as rejection by parents and sexual partners, lack of financial support and how to continue with education.
All these challenges outlined above are taken care of by the centre once a young woman or girl seeks help.
Those who have been to the centre go back to their homes smiling once again, said Ms Himasiku.
And in order to boost self-esteem for women who think abortion is the only way out, the organisation recently organised a life walk aimed at sensitising people on the value of life.
The organisation believes a march for life is vital because many people take life for granted. The walk attracted people of all ages with a three-year-old being the youngest.
Ms Himasiku said it is so disheartening to hear people say they have unwanted pregnancies because as far she is concerned, there is no such a thing as every life is important.
?Life begins at conception. There is need to protect it. If you want to dump a baby, do it in an open place so that others can easily find it,? she advises.
Ms Himasiku called on government to look at the issue of unwanted pregnancies holistically.
Zambian law does not support abortion but it is allowed under certain medical conditions.
Ms Himasiku said the centre has received overwhelming response from members of the public, who have benefited from its services and some have pledged to support it financially.
The organisation states that there are severe and endless consequences when women abort their children such as guilt, fear, anxiety, depression or thoughts of suicide and damage to maternal instinct and bonding with any other children they have.
Others are alcohol and drug abuse, eating disorders, feeling unworthy or incapable of motherhood, obsession with the would-be birth date and re-experiencing the abortion.
Officiating at the march for life event, Independent Churches Association of Zambia Bishop David Masupa? commended Family Fountain of Hope for coming up with the initiative held under the theme ?Celebrating Life?.
?This is a rare day because it is set aside to once again raise the voice against the evils of abortion. The evil act has continued to rob our nation of helpless forming babies who are judged for the errors they never took part in committing,? he said.
Bishop Masupa said it is regrettable that women, both young and old, under the pretext of being ?unprepared? with the help of trained and untrained health workers, take up the roles of judge and executioner in abruptly ending the lives of innocent children.
He said it is unfortunate that in the secret place of its own mother, a child is killed under the cover of human rights.
?Palms 139:13 says, ?For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother?s womb.? Make no mistake. Man has no authority to take away life,? Bishop Masupa said.
He called on the technical committee drafting the constitution to ensure that Articles 28 (1) retain that a person has the right to life, which begins at conception, and 28 (2) should not provide that this right should be violated through any other law.
Bishop Masupa called on all not to relent in upholding principles and values that will ensure security for the generations yet to be born.
Family Fountain of Hope is helping to ensure this security for the unborn because ?life is precious, we need to value it?.

Source: http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=15064

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PFT: Kolb to skip game if wife goes into labor

AP

We mentioned earlier in the week this was a big weekend for the Jones family, as?Jon defends his UFC light heavyweight belt tonight, while Chandler and Arthur face off in tomorrow night?s Patriots-Ravens game.

But the struggles they?ve faced throughout life, and continue to, makes their story about more than an athletic coincidence.

?All of this hasn?t dawned on me yet,? Jon Jones told Alex Marvez of FoxSports.com about his family?s success. ?We?re all still at the very young stages of our careers. I have this thing where I?m really big against complacency, so I don?t want accept the attitude like, ?We did it!? because we haven?t done it yet. Things could go wrong. You?re on top of the world one year and the next you?re borrowing money.

?I think there?s much more to come, but I am really happy for my parents. They can look at this being a success story at this point.?

Arthur II and Camille Jones? boys have made names for themselves, after struggling through tragedies in their younger years, and fighting to make things easier for their parents.

Their oldest sister Carmen died of brain cancer at age 18, and all helped with her care during her struggle.

Now, they?re paying back their mother for the years she looked after them.

Camille Jones has lost almost all her sight because of complications of diabetes. She?s also on dialysis and awaits a kidney transplant.

Chandler?s paying for her medical insurance, while Jon?s hired a nurse and a chef to help their parents, who moved them out of a rough neighborhood to the small town of Endicott, N.Y. as children. ?I remember my dad telling our family we were going so we could have a better life,? Jon said.

Their parents will be in Toronto for Jon?s fight tonight, then head to Baltimore to see the other two. And for all they?ve been through, they try to keep things in perspective.

?Life hasn?t changed that much,? Arthur Jones II said. ?People at the church are very happy for me, but there?s no big brouhaha of, ?That?s Mr. Jones. He?s a famous dad.?

With Jon one of the top fighters in the world, and Chandler emerging as a contributor for the Patriots as a first-round pick, that could be changing, soon.

But as impressive is the way the family has banded together for each other.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/09/22/kevin-kolb-plans-to-skip-game-if-wife-goes-into-labor/related/

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BMO Harris to cut 74 jobs statewide [September 17, 2012]

BMO Harris to cut 74 jobs statewide 9/17/12 BMO Harris Bank announced it will cut 74 positions around the state over the next five months, including 37 employees at its Sun Prairie data center. The same number of jobs will be lost at a Cedarburg location. BMO Harris purchased Milwaukee-based Marshall & Ilsley bank in 2011. Marquette Law Poll: Baldwin, Obama surging in Wisconsin 9/19/12 A new Marquette Law School Poll finds Rep. Tammy Baldwin taking the lead over former Gov. Tommy Thompson in the race for Wisconsin's open U.S. Senate seat by a 50% to 41% margin among likely voters. In the Aug. 16-19 Marquette poll, the lead was reversed, with Thompson ahead by a 50% to 41% margin. In the presidential race, President Barack Obama has seen a large post-convention bump, with voters preferring him to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 54% to 40%. In August, Obama led 49% to 46%. Read the full article. Goodwill opens new Fitchburg store 9/17/12 Goodwill Industries opened its new Fitchburg location at 6291 McKee Road. The 12,800-sq.-ft. building includes a Goodwill career center ? moved from Goodwill?s Royal Avenue store ? which is free and open to the public. It offers access to computers, the Internet, telephones, job information and referrals, and practice tests for the GED. Wisconsin Association of Counties promotes Internet sales tax resolution 9/17/12 According to an article in the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, the Wisconsin Association of Counties (WCA) is urging the state?s county boards to support a WCA-backed resolution to force all companies making Internet sales in the state to collect state and local taxes. The state missed out on $157 million in 2012 state and local sales taxes from online sales from out-of-state companies, according to the state Dept. of Revenue. Judge throws out Promega damage award 9/17/12 U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb threw out a $52 million damage award for Promega Corp., ruling it had not adequately proved that Life Technologies, a California firm, infringed on Promega?s patent for technology used in DNA tests.

Source: http://ibmadison.com/businessreport?businessreport_id=2708

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Eddie Vedder Performs at Obama Fundraiser, Calls Mitt Romney Comments "Upsetting"

Eddie Vedder obviously thinks you can't find a better man than Barack Obama for President ... or at least that he's a better man for the job than Mitt Romney.

Performing a set of songs at a campaign fundraiser for Obama in South Tampa on Thursday, the Pearl Jam frontman bashed Romney's 47 percent comments.

"It's very upsetting to hear a presidential candidate be so easily dismissive of such a ginormous amount of the population," Vedder told the audience.

Vedder helped raise $1.7 million Thursday for Obama's reelection campaign, playing four songs for the president and 85 guests at a $20,000-per-person dinner.

"I can't say I've ever played that many songs in a suit before," he said of "Rise," "Without You," James Taylor's "Millworker" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

He recalled signing up for a government security guard training program, working the midnight shift and becoming a security supervisor at a petroleum company.

It was this, he said, that made his dreams reality.

"I'm an example of someone who never made it to university," Vedder said. "I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date."

"It was that job which allowed me to keep affording to guitars and microphones ... For me, it all began with that ability to get the proper training for a decent job."

"It's very upsetting to hear a presidential candidate be so easily dismissive of such a ginormous amount of the population."

Vedder introduced Obama, who thanked him for "for that unbelievable performance but more importantly for that story."

"For you to share that story with us, Eddie, speaks volumes not only about you but about this country," Obama said. That story captures better than anything what this campaign is about and what this country is about."

Jackson Ripley would surely agree ... what about you?

Who are you voting for in November?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/09/eddie-vedder-performs-at-obama-fundraiser-calls-mitt-romney-comm/

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Passware Software Makes Windows Computers Accessible to Law ...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Passware, Inc., a provider of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software for computer forensics, law enforcement organizations, government agencies and private investigators, announces that Passware Kit Forensic v.12 ? a new version of its flagship product ? recovers Windows user login passwords from computer memory in a matter of minutes.

To reveal passwords of all previously logged-in users, Passware Kit Forensic v.12 captures live computer memory over FireWire or uses a hibernation file, if available. A proprietary technology is then used to detect, decrypt, and extract passwords of all users from computer memory. The process takes a few minutes, regardless of the password strength, which results in the investigator gaining instant and complete control over the suspect's computer, as well as access to BitLocker and EFS-encrypted files. This approach works for all modern versions of Windows, including Windows 7, and was tested with a pre-release version of Windows 8. Passware previously implemented the same technique to recover Mac OS X login passwords (see press release: http://bit.ly/pw-mac).

Overcoming Security Risks
Unauthorized access to computer memory content and subsequent security risks, such as extraction of user passwords, administrative control over the target system and access to sensitive information, is overcome by simply turning off the computer instead of putting it to sleep, which eliminates the presence of passwords in memory and the ability for their recovery.

Key Features
Passware Kit v.12 introduces batch file processing, recovering passwords for hundreds of encrypted files without user interaction (as illustrated on the screenshot: http://bit.ly/pic-batch). This automates the encrypted evidence discovery process, saving IT security specialists and computer forensics their time and efforts. Darren Fuller, director of SecQuest Information Security said, "As a security consultancy, it is important to us that we give our clients the best value for their money possible; the batch processing functions in Passware Forensic help us to achieve this. The ability to queue Lotus Notes ID files for password cracking at the same time as Excel and Word documents allows us to concentrate on other aspects of the engagement and saves on consultant time?a remarkable product!"

"With the ever-increasing volume of encrypted electronic evidence, automation becomes the only way to handle the vast amount of data efficiently," said Dmitry Sumin, president, Passware, Inc. "A typical forensic case might include dozens or even hundreds of encrypted files. Recovering passwords for all of them in an automated way saves computer forensics and IT security specialists significant time and improves efficiency in gaining access to password-protected files."

Pricing and Availability
Passware Kit Forensic is available directly from Passware and a network of resellers worldwide, and can also be purchased in a bundle with EnCase ? the leading eDiscovery solution by Guidance Software. The price is $995 with one year of free updates. Additional product information and screenshots are available at http://www.lostpassword.com/kit-forensic.htm.

About Passware, Inc.
Founded in 1998, Passware, Inc. is the worldwide leading maker of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software. Law enforcement and government agencies, institutions, corporations and private investigators, help desk personnel, and thousands of private consumers rely on Passware software products to ensure data availability in the event of lost passwords. Passware customers include many Fortune 100 companies and various US federal and state agencies, such as the IRS, US Army, US Department of Defense (DOD), US Department of Justice, US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Transportation, US Postal Service, US Secret Service, US Senate, and US Supreme Court.

More information about Passware, Inc. is available at http://www.lostpassword.com/. Passware is a privately held corporation with its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. and a software development and engineering office in Moscow, Russia.

SOURCE Passware, Inc.

Source: http://www.businessreviewaustralia.com/press_releases/passware-software-makes-windows-computers-accessible-to-law-enforcement-exposing-login-passwords-in

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YouTube Kick Apples Web Video App to the Curb With the Launch ...

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@freereleasepress.smartspudmedia.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

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Apache Server at freereleasepress.com Port 80

Source: http://freereleasepress.com/youtube-kick-apples-web-video-app-to-the-curb-with-the-launch-of-their-own-official-version/

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Positive Affirmation #25319 - Bmindful.com - bmindful

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Source: http://bmindful.com/affirmations/25319

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Italian magazine plans 26-page special on topless Kate photos

MILAN (Reuters) - An Italian gossip magazine plans to publish on Monday a special edition dedicated to topless pictures of the wife of Britain's Prince William, its editor said, defying risks of legal action.

The royal couple has already begun action against the French magazine Closer after it published a dozen shots of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge - the former Kate Middleton - as she slipped off her bikini top while sunbathing at a French chateaux.

Both Chi and Closer are controlled by Italian publisher Mondadori, part of the media empire of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and chaired by his daughter Marina.

Chi Editor in Chief Alfonso Signorini said the special edition would include a 26-page reportage with topless pictures of the duchess, including some unpublished shots of her vacation with Prince William, second in line to the British throne.

"This reportage is worth a special edition. It shows in a very natural way the daily life of a young and famous couple very much in love," Signorini said in an emailed statement.

"The fact that we are dealing with the future British monarchs makes it certainly more interesting and in line with a modern conception of the monarchy," Signorini said.

Chi's front page, already widely published by Italian media, shows a large shot of Kate sitting topless, above the headline "Scandal at court: the Queen is Naked."

Prince William's office said there was no justification for further publication of the photos.

"We will not be commenting on potential legal action concerning the alleged intended publication of the photos in Italy save to say that all proportionate responses will be kept under review," his office said in a statement.

"Any such publication would serve no purpose other than to cause further, entirely unjustifiable upset to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who were enjoying time alone together in the privacy of a relative's home."

Closer's pictures, already wildly circulating on the Internet, were also picked up by several foreign publications.

Greek newspaper Eleftheros Typos had two photographs of the duchess, one showing her topless, on its front page.

The pictures have reignited the debate over the privacy and freedom of the press, especially in Britain where the media face possible new regulations after a series of publishing scandals.

No British paper has published the photographs, including the Sun tabloid, the only British title to run pictures of William's brother Harry naked in a Las Vegas hotel.

"Her picture will be probably available online until the end of the earth. But it's not the end of the world," commentator Maria Laura Rodota wrote in Italy's biggest daily Corriere della Sera.

(Reporting By Lisa Jucca; Additional reporting by Harry Papachristou in Athens and Tim Castle in London; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-magazine-plans-26-page-special-topless-kate-140519913--finance.html

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Wal-Mart India stores coming due to landmark agreement ?

NEW DELHI ? India agreed Friday to open its huge market to foreign retailers such as Wal-Mart in a surprising decision that was part of a flurry of economic reforms aimed at sparking new growth in the country?s sputtering economy.

The Cabinet?s decision ? after a similar proposal was withdrawn under withering criticism last year ? immediately generated optimism that a government plagued by scandal was finally breaking out of the political paralysis that had stifled reforms for months.

?This is a landmark decision in India?s economic reforms process,? said Rajan Bharti Mittal, whose retail company, Bharti Enterprises, has a joint venture with Wal-Mart.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the reforms were made to spur economic growth and to attract foreign investment.

??I believe that these steps will help strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times,? he wrote on his Twitter account, appealing for public support.

However, political opponents and even some allies, decried the decision to allow in international supermarket chains, saying it would hurt small retailers and farmers.

?(It) will lead to job losses for millions of our people,? D. Raja, a Communist Party lawmaker, told the NDTV news channel.

The Cabinet also agreed to allow foreign investment in airlines and to sell stakes in state-owned companies. On Thursday, the government decided to reduce fuel subsidies and allow the price of diesel to rise, a move hailed by the business community but criticized by political allies and opponents.

The decision on retail investment Friday would allow foreign firms to own a majority stake in multi-brand retailers here for the first time. However, individual states would have the right to decide whether to let the retailers operate from their territory.

States led by the ruling Congress party would be most likely to allow them, meaning the big cities of New Delhi and Mumbai would have new shopping options.

U.S.-based Wal-Mart, British-based Tesco PLC, French-based retailer Carrefour and others have been interested in entering India, a country of 1.2 billion people where retail is the second-biggest industry behind agriculture.

Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said India badly needed the infrastructure investment that would come from these firms. Currently, about 35 to 40 percent of produce rots before it gets to the stores, he said.

Under the Cabinet decision, at least 50 percent of the foreign investment would have to be in back-end infrastructure, such as processing, distribution and storage.

??It will generate large numbers of jobs in rural India for our men and women,? Sharma said.

The government said farmers would benefit because less of their produce would rot, small retailers would become more competitive and efficient and consumers will get lower prices and better quality. The policy would also bring in badly needed inflows of investment and foreign currency.

The government had agreed on the same proposal last year but then withdrew that decision because of protests from coalition partners, a capitulation that badly damaged its credibility with international investors.

Since then, economic growth has fallen, with business leaders and analysts blaming the government?s inability to make needed reforms.

Kunal Ghosh, a spokesman for government ally Trinamool Congress, said his party continued to oppose the plan but would not say whether it would withdraw support from the coalition.

The government relaxed rules on foreign investment in the broadcast industry and in power exchanges, which provides a platform for companies to buy and sell power.

The government also agreed to sell minority stakes in its oil, copper and aluminum companies as well as its Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party criticized the surprise decisions.

??We consider it as a betrayal of the country, betrayal of the Parliament by this government,? said Balbir Punj, of the BJP.

The government?s decision on airline investment would allow foreign airlines to own up to 49 percent of an Indian airline. India?s airline industry has expanded enormously in recent years, but only one airline has been able to turn a consistent profit. The government-owned Air India and the private Kingfisher have both suffered from labor strife and financial problems.

Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said the decision ??sends a very clear message to a sector that has been under stress.?

But it was not clear if any foreign airlines would be interested in buying a minority interest in some of India?s most struggling airlines.

The government also made a key change to its decision earlier this year to allow foreign retailers selling only a single brand to own 100 percent of their stores, a decision largely seen as aimed at bringing furniture retailer IKEA to India.

The previous decision forced the company to source 30 percent of their products from small cottage industries. Now, it can source that 30 percent from any Indian industry.

Source: http://www.masslive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/09/wal-mart_india_stores_coming_due_to_landmark_agreement.html

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User:JustyneBurleigh278 - Kent Adventure Gaming Society Wiki

From Kent Adventure Gaming Society Wiki

Using a VA Do-it-yourself Loan

Veterans are able to use a VA Home Improvement Loan to enhance a pre-existing home. Many veterans are not aware this awesome opportunity. These kind of loans are guaranteed through the Federal Government to lenders who offer home upgrade financing. This provides veterans an opportunity to upgrade their current home.

This is actually not just a loan but credit guaranty process. Why? Considering that the VA is absolutely not a lender or a bank, they do not do the loans. Nevertheless they do guaranty full repayment of the loan. The cool much of this is it decreases the risk. Thus the loan company can provide more modest rates.

Think about the features of a VA do it yourself loan:

A cash advance payment isn't needed No pre-payment penalties Veterans are sure to improve mortgage rates Easier qualification requirement than looking to try this with a conventional loan Raise the energy-efficiency of the home Here's a list of those energy-efficient home upgrades that could be covered by a VA Do-it-yourself Loan:

Upgrading your heating and cooling systems to increase energy-efficient systems Increasing the insulation or updating the caulking Improved storm doors and windows Energy-efficient thermostats There are some restrictions though. If you need to borrow over $3,000, you will have to prove the improvements will reduce you bills. You might be permitted to borrow approximately $6,000 without an appraisal of your house value. Should you really need $3,000 or less, you only ought to provide you with the lender with all the receipts of your respective improvements.

It's also possible to utilize a VA Do-it-yourself Loan for other improvements like new windows, new doors, along with a new roof are common stuff that might be taken care of which has a VA loan. Other updates use this type of home loan for is updating plumbing and related fixtures, perhaps you desire to include a garage, or other remodeling projects (like bathroom or kitchen remodeling). However you cannot borrow more than 90% from the home's available equity. So that you need to be mindful of the amount equity you have available at your residence.

One advantage with this type of the VA loans is that you may finance the upgrades for up to Many years. Additionally you can qualify for many do it yourself loan. Which make it worth investigating!

Remember, every loan requires good credit. Make certain your credit is within good condition before you attempt to be eligible for a this home improvement loan. You will probably are looking for a lender which specializes in VA loans.

Fortunately many of these type of repairs enhances the equity in your house. That is like putting take advantage your wallet! Think it over, the Va wants you to have a nice updated home. Do not put off the necessary repairs or upgrades! You may make those essential changes. So if you are a certified veteran, take benefit of a VA myprojectloan for your residence changes.

Source: http://wiki.adventuregaming.co.uk/index.php/User%3AJustyneBurleigh278

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Fed's bold plan still might not jolt slow economy

WASHINGTON (AP) ? No sooner did the Federal Reserve unveil a bold plan Thursday to juice the U.S. economy than it dangled the prospect of doing even more.

Investors celebrated by sending stock prices jumping.

Economists were less impressed. Many wondered how much the Fed's action would help.

Chairman Ben Bernanke himself urged everyone to keep expectations in check.

"I personally don't think that it's going to solve the problem," Bernanke said at a news conference. "But I do think it has enough force to help nudge the economy in the right direction."

The Fed's move to buy $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds ? the heart of its plan ? might do little to spur borrowing and spending because rates on mortgages and other loans are already just above record lows.

The bond purchases, and the Fed's signal that more help might be needed, pointed to just how weak the U.S. economy remains three years after the recession ended. The economy is still struggling to emerge from damage caused by the 2008 financial crisis ? the worst since the Great Depression.

The Fed's plan raises questions about the limits of its own power. Even with its intervention, the Fed foresees unemployment remaining as high as a recession-level 6.8 percent as late as 2015.

Still, the Dow Jones industrial average shot up more than 200 points Thursday, reaching its highest point since the start of the Great Recession nearly five years ago. The Dow is now within 625 points of its all-time high.

It ended the day at 13,540.

The dollar fell. Oil prices topped $98 a barrel for the first time in four months. And gold climbed 2 percent to the highest level since February ? $1,772 an ounce, a gain of $38.

In the face of persistently high unemployment and slow economic growth, the Fed said Thursday that it would:

? Buy $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds indefinitely to try to lower long-term interest rates, encourage home buying and get people to borrow and spend more. It's the Fed's third bond-buying program. If job growth doesn't improve much, the Fed will continue its bond purchases and take other steps.

? Likely keep its benchmark short-term rate at a record low near zero through at least mid-2015. That's six months longer than the Fed had previously planned.

? Probably hold interest rates low even well after the economic recovery has strengthened.

The mortgage bond purchases are unlikely to boost home sales much, even if they manage to lower mortgage rates further. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is already 3.55 percent, barely above the record low of 3.49 percent.

Home sales remain depressed in part because would-be buyers can't qualify for loans unless they have stellar credit or can produce hefty down payments.

"If you get a 2 percent mortgage but you've got to put 30 or 40 percent down, is that going to encourage people to buy a house?" says Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at Channel Capital Research.

Still, Bernanke maintained that the Fed can help further, even with rates already ultra-low. He's argued that the Fed's first two rounds of bond purchases, in which it bought more than $2 trillion in bonds, saved 2 million jobs and accelerated growth.

By comparison, President Barack Obama's $862 billion stimulus program created nearly 2.7 million jobs, according a study by former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

At the same time, Bernanke cautioned that the Fed alone can't invigorate the economy. It needs help from Congress.

"Monetary policy, as I've said many times, is not a panacea," he said, referring to the Fed's handling of interest rates. "We're looking for policymakers in other areas to do their part."

Political bickering in Washington is chilling economic growth. If Democrats and Republicans can't reach a budget deal by year's end, $600 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes will kick in ? a threat designed to force the two parties to compromise.

If they fail, the draconian measures would likely send the economy over a so-called fiscal cliff as the higher taxes and spending cuts took effect.

Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, thinks the parties will reach a compromise after the election, avoid the fiscal cliff and give consumers and businesses confidence to spend more.

"Once you have greater clarity (about government policy), then I think people will take advantage of the lower interest-rate environment" engineered by the Fed, he says.

Baumohl predicts the economy will grow 3.2 percent next year, double what he expects for 2012. The Fed itself is less optimistic: It foresees growth of between 2.5 percent and 3 percent next year after growth of no more than 2 percent this year.

David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, says the Fed's action Thursday reflects its frustration over chronic high unemployment.

"The Fed is putting the pedal to the metal and pushing the accelerator down to the floor board," Jones says.

But he says the Fed is reaching a point of diminishing returns after nearly four years of aggressive efforts to help the economy. Its latest actions might trim a mere 0.1 percentage point from the unemployment rate over the next year and boost growth by a modest 0.2 percentage point, Jones says.

In the short term anyway, the economy might actually receive a bigger boost from Apple's new iPhone 5.

Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan, calculated that the iPhone might add 0.25 to 0.5 percentage point to the annual growth rate in the last three months of 2012.

"I wouldn't be surprised" if the iPhone does more for the economy, Feroli said in an e-mail. "At the end of the day, economic growth is about producing more and better goods and services."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-bold-plan-still-might-not-jolt-slow-070206444--finance.html

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Great Recession's pain still felt by many in US

By John W. Schoen, NBC News

The poor stayed poor and the rich got richer, but the middle?slipped a few more rungs down the economic ladder.

More than five years after the Great Recession began, the lingering impact of the worst downturn in a half-century continues to deplete the standard of living of middle-class American households.

Median household income, after adjusting for inflation, fell 1.5 percent last year to $50,054,?according to the Census Bureau's annual report?on income and poverty issued released Wednesday. The poverty rate, at 15 percent, remained stuck at the highest level since 1993.

For Ray Bober, 45, of Pittsburgh, whose unemployment benefits ran out this year after a family printing business failed several years ago, the dismal economy takes a toll every time he sends out another resume that goes nowhere.

?You have to learn to roll with the punches and laugh a little; it?s very depressing,? he said. ?It takes a toll, especially this long. You want to reach out and shake your fist in the air and blame someone, but you can?t. The way it is, is the way it is. There?s nothing you can do about it but stay in the fight."

For millions of middle-class American households, the fight began well before the Great Recession destroyed more than 8 million jobs, or even before the financial collapse in 2008 that gave birth to the downturn. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, has been dropping for 13 years.

The?drop?in income has been magnified by the persistent high unemployment, currently above 8?percent, which peaked at a monthly pace of?more than 800,000 jobs shed in November 2008. On top of job growth that's been weaker than any recovery in a half-century, wages haven't budged since the recession ended.

Last year, median family household income fell 1.7 percent, to $62,273, according to the Census Bureau. ?The decline has left income for those in the median 8.1 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the recession began, and 8.9 percent lower than the median peak in 1999.

?The lasting impact (of the Great Recession) has been at levels above the poverty level,? said Tim Smeedling, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty University of Wisconsin?Madison. ?It?s been in the middle."

To cope with falling wages, many households have ?doubled up? to share expenses. There were about 22.3 million such "shared" households as of last spring, up from 19.7 million when the recession began, according to the Census data.

For many, moving back home is the only way to avoid falling into poverty.

?Family is the oldest welfare program in the world,? said Smeedling. ?But if they move back in with their parents, given that most parents' income is somewhat higher than poverty, they won?t be counted as being poor. This doubling up conceals some of the impact of poverty.?

Bober is one of those for whom family offers the last threads of a social safety net. He lives with his mother and sister in the inner city house he grew up in.

?Between the bunch of us we pull together well,? he said. ?But we?re backsliding.?

Not everyone is falling behind. While the median income slipped last year, those at the top of the income ladder continued to move ahead. The top 5 percent of incomes rose by 5.3 percent last year, according to government data.

Those at the very bottom of the ladder continue to struggle, but their numbers stopped growing last year. The government said 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty last year, statistically the same as in 2010. The determination of poverty is based on a number of factors but typically a family of four was considered to be in poverty last year if its total household income was less than $23,021.

The government?s official poverty threshold is calculated using a half-century-old formula based on the average household?s food budget. To determine whether a household falls below that threshold, the Census adds up cash income including earnings, Social Security benefits, unemployment insurance and other government assistance paid in cash, plus interest and dividends on savings and investments. The Census doesn?t count non-cash assistance like food stamps or the earned income tax credit, which pays workers who make poverty-level wages.

Those assistance programs have helped blunt the impact on the very poor in ways that the government?s official numbers don?t fully capture. If the value of food stamps were included in the income calculation, for example, some 3.9 million fewer people would have fallen below the threshold last year, according to the latest data. If the earned income tax credit were included, another 3 million fewer children would be included.

The comparisons also illustrate the impact of the broadest safety net programs. If unemployment insurance were excluded from the income calculations, for example, another 16 million people aged 18 to 64 would have fallen below the poverty line last year. If Social Security benefits weren?t counted, another 14.5 million people would have fallen below the line.

But many long-term unemployed end up without those financial lifelines.

?People used to fall out of work all the time and onto a safety net,? said Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the?Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Now the kind of safety net we have is very work-based. So if you lose work, you fall to nothing. ?

The number of families at the very bottom of the ladder has remained relatively stable. But they?re not necessarily the same families, said Sherman.

?A lot of people who are at the bottom in one year weren?t there one or two or three years ago,? he said. ?It?s not?so much that there?s a growth of a new underclass that stays constantly at the bottom quite.

The latest Census data bear that out, as the number of people working full-time, year-round rose by more than two million, many of them shifting from part-time jobs to full time jobs, but at the lower end of the income spectrum. ?

?We think that shift from part-time to full-time could have kept the poverty rate from rising,? said David Johnson, head of the?Census Bureau's Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division.

Pulling income lower
The growth of full-time employment on the low end of the wage scale also helped pull the median income lower, however, he said.

Confronted with a dismal job market, many of those out of work have tried going back to school, contributing to?the recent drop in the official count of the U.S. labor force to the lowest in three years.

Government statistics offer hope that the investment in time and money will pay off. The?unemployment rate for workers with a college degree stood at 4.9 percent last year compared with 9.4 percent for those with a high school diploma and 14.1 percent for those without one. The median weekly earnings for college graduates was $1,263 compared to $638 for Americans with just a high school diploma.

?Certainly, there?s been a lasting impact on people who don?t have college educations,? said Smeeding. ?They?re having a real hard time.? ?

So are many jobless workers who lack?the savings to pay for college. Bober tried that tack, enrolling in a local community college, but fell short of money for tuition and books when his unemployment benefits ran out.

Competition for low-skilled, low-wage jobs remains fierce, as he recently found out when he applied for a job as a night stock manager at a local retail outlet.

?I have management experience. When I was younger I used to call on supermarkets,? he said. ?So I figured, ?Hey I can move boxes just like the next guy. They emailed me back after a couple of days and said, ?Sorry you didn?t meet our qualifications.'"

The experience, he said, was a sobering reminder of the dismal employment outlook.

?It scared me because I always felt you can get a lesser job in life. Just suck it up; you can always find work,? he said. ?That isn?t true. And that?s a scary, scary thing."

Bober says he gets by these days doing odd jobs. He helps out a friend who owns a local funeral home. He?s landed work as an extra on film and television shows shot in Pittsburgh.

He doesn?t blame anyone in particular for his seemingly relentless search. But, as a former small businessman, he thinks something?s badly wrong with the American way of earning a living.

?When I was a kid, if a guy wanted to go an print up some Steelers T-shirts in his garage and show up at the football game and make up a couple of bucks, that was an enterprising guy.? He said. ?It was a hard-working upstanding citizen. Now, the government and the lawyers come and you?re a bootlegger.?

The latest Census report found 15 percent of Americans living below poverty line, a leveling off in the poverty rate from 2010 to 2011. But the number of people on food stamps is going up, many of them considered middle class. NBC's Chris Jansing reports.

Related:

Economy's long slump pushing many down the ladder

After climbing economic ladder, one family fears falling backward

Mobile food pantry serves families in need

Source: http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/12/13830939-great-recession-still-slamming-the-middle-class?lite

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