NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: A handful of cities across the country, including Baltimore and Phoenix, have specialized courts that deal with sex-trafficking offenses.
Month: September 2013
Here’s why I object to the Harrisburg recovery plan: Harrisburg City Controller Dan Miller
In my view, with the sale and transfer of municipally owned assets, the burden is placed disproportionately on the residents and taxpayers of the city. While it’s true that the city’s major creditors have agreed to accept an immediate partial payment of approximately $210 million of the nearly $300 million debt, the plan calls for additional distribution of future funds that will make the creditors whole…
Bill Clinton: Putin ‘Kept His Word’ in Deals
NEWSMAX: … “You work for the best and prepare for the worst in this business,” Clinton said Wednesday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live.” “But I think it would be a terrible mistake not to take advantage of the opportunity” to get rid of Syria’s chemical weapons.” Calling Putin “very smart,” Clinton said he and Putin […]
Support crucial for non-profit journalism
USA TODAY Column: …How about if companies that have flourished in the new economy — think Apple, Google, Verizon — stepped up to the plate and subsidized some of these valuable but financially struggling upstarts, the journalist and Web entrepreneur asks. “If the winners of the new economy put a tiny bit of their wealth […]
Test scores flat, raising concerns about students’ readiness
USA TODAY: …In a report out today, the non-profit College Board says just 43% of SAT takers in the high school class of 2013 earned a score that indicates they will succeed in the first year of college. That percentage has remained “virtually unchanged” for at least five years, said Cyndie Schmeiser, chief of assessment […]
Syrian Rebels Throw in Lot with Al Qaeda
NEW YORK TIMES: As diplomats at the United Nations push for a peace conference to end Syria’s civil war, a collection of some of the country’s most powerful rebel groups publicly abandoned the opposition’s political leaders, casting their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda.
JPMorgan in $11bn settlement talks over mortgage securities
…The $11bn comprises $7bn cash and $4bn of mortgage relief for struggling homeowners as penalties for allegations that the bank packed mortgage-backed securities with faulty home loans in the run-up to the crisis.
Obamacare Premiums Report Shows Low Prices For Uninsured With Wide Variation
HUFFINGTON POST: The average price for basic health coverage purchased on health insurance exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s health care reform law will be $249 a month, not counting subsidies, in 48 states reviewed by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a government report published Wednesday.
Obama’s Evolving Doctrine
At the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Obama drove home the conclusion that he came to after his own party deserted him over a military response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 1,000 Syrians: The bigger risk for the world in coming years is not that the United States will try to build empires abroad, he argued, but that there will be a price to be paid in chaos and disorder if Americans elect to stay home…
Influential union leader seeks to spark momentum for McCord.
“I am friends with all of the candidates, I am friends with Allyson: She can’t win in the fall. Rob can. She can’t win in the center of the state. Rob can.”
China buys 5 percent of Ukraine’s total land to feed its growing population
UPI: China has just struck a deal to farm 3 million hectares (about 11,580 square miles) of Ukranian land over the next 50 years to feed its ballooning population… The eastern European country will give up 5 percent of its total land, or 9 percent of its arable farmland, under the deal between China’s Xinjiang […]
Tea Party’s Anti-Obamacare Strategy Gets GOP Backlash
NEWSMAX: … The clearest signal came on Monday evening, when more pragmatic Republicans moved to crush efforts by a trio of tea party-backed Senators – Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Marco Rubio – to paralyze the Senate unless they get their way on the government funding bill that scuttles Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. […]
Autumn gas prices fall like leaves
USA TODAY: Already on a 23-straight-day slide, regular unleaded gas now averages $3.46 a gallon — the lowest national average since January, and 35 cents less than year-ago levels. Prices are expected to drop another 20 to 25 cents in the coming weeks. Behind the fall: Record high refining in the U.S., shrinking consumer demand […]
Pace of US house price rises slows as mortgage rates climb
FINANCIAL TIMES: …The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index, which tracks property values in 20 metropolitan regions across the US, rose 0.6 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis, compared with economists’ forecasts for a 0.8 per cent gain. Prices rose 0.9 per cent in June. Even so, prices were 12.4 per cent higher than the same […]