Army Conducts Nighttime Exercises in Downtown Chicago

Following up on recent and unannounced training exercises in Florida and Washington state, the U.S. military is conducting a drill in Chicago. The Windy City’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) told the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday it is providing support for “routine military training exercises,” including flying helicopters in the downtown area of the city at night.

“The training sites have been carefully selected to minimize the impact on the daily routine of residents,” the OEMC said in a statement released to the public. According to a 2013 U.S. Census Bureau report, 2,695,598 people live in Chicago. Population density is 11,841.8 residents per square mile, making it one of the most populated urban areas in the United States.

The “realistic urban training” conducted by the U.S. Special Operations Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, includes the participation of soldiers from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment headquartered in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. According to the Tribune, the training is designed to prepare military personnel for overseas deployments. Read more >>

Stand-alone emergency rooms popping up

When Lisa Boncler gashed the side of her head on the gate to her front yard, she immediately called her neighbor for a ride to the emergency room.

In this fast-growing Houston suburb, six ERs are just a short drive away. She chose Texas Emergency Care Center, a facility that feels like a Western lodge with its earth-toned brick walls, leather chairs and coffee bar. The eight-bed ER that opened last year has almost everything — except, that is, an attached hospital.

"This is so convenient," says a smiling Boncler, 40, as a doctor prepared to close her wound with medical staples less than an hour after her accident. "I've been here before. It's always fast."

The speedier care offered at such facilities, which are springing up in many states, including Texas, Florida and North Carolina, comes at a steep cost, however. Stand-alone ERs, which are often located near high-end shopping centers and target consumers with private insurance, bill like regular emergency rooms. Those prices, which can top $1,000 for a single visit, are spurring worries that the rapid growth of the facilities will lead to higher insurance premiums. Read more >>

Demonstrations in major cities across the country over Zimmerman verdict

Angry crowds gathered in major cities across the country late last night following the not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin case.

The demonstrators carried signs and gathered en masse from New York to Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Though the marches were largely non-violent, police assembled close by to monitor activity - fearful strong reactions to the verdict could spill over into rioting.

In Oakland, California, long a hotbed of racial tension, some protestors turned violent - vandalizing police cars, breaking windows and setting fire to garbage cans.

One photo from the protests in the city shows men dousing a flag in lighter fluid and setting it alight. More demonstrations are planned today under the banner of 'Justice 4 Trayvon.' At least three separate protests are scheduled for New York City alone - one in lower Manhattan, one in Harlem an a third in Brooklyn. Read more >>

Schools conduct 'Minority Report-like' iris scans on students as young as six

Parents in Polk County, Florida were outraged after being informed that their children’s irises had been scanned without permission as part of a new security program. Parents first heard about the scheme in a letter sent out on Friday May 24, four days after the compulsory iris scans program had already begun.

The scans were taken as part of a new security program being introduced by the Polk County School Board, called Eye-Swipe Nano, which impacts students at Daniel Jenkins Academy, a high school, Davenport School of the Arts, a middle school, and Bethune Academy, an elementary school.

The schools allowed officials from Stanley Convergent Security Solutions to take iris scans of students between May 20 and 22. The scans are essentially optical fingerprints, which the school intended to collect to create a database of biometric information for school-bus security, much like the technology used in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. Read more >>

Underwater Borrowers Becoming Accidental Landlords

Maria Wells said she never intended to be a landlord. She sells real estate; she doesn't invest in it. Now the Florida resident owns two properties. One was her son's, but he had to move to take a new job.

The other was hers, but she got married and moved in with her husband. She can't sell either because she is underwater on both mortgages, so she rents them. Maria is one of a growing cadre of what the Realtors have dubbed, "Accidental Landlords."

"When I get enough equity, I will definitely sell," said Wells, who has been able to manage the properties because the rental market is so good that the income covers the mortgage payments and taxes. She does not use a property manager, as she wants to make sure the homes are well-maintained and keep their value. She's had some good tenants, but also some nightmares.

"One of the tenants certainly surprised me. They decided to change a water filter and go out of town, and then I got the call that 500 gallons of water had gone into my home. Fifty thousand dollars later…," she recalled. Read more >>

Video shows view inside killer sinkhole that swallowed man as he slept in bedroom

See Video Here

Two more homes have been condemned after a sinkhole swallowed and killed a Seffner man last month, and we're getting our first look at video shot inside the home before it was demolished.

Jeffrey Bush, 37, died when the hole opened up while he slept in the bedroom of the Faithway Drive home. His brother, Jeremy, tried to jump into the hole and save Jeff. He said at the time part of the bed could be seen below in the hole.

But the video -- shot by a contractor who examined the hole just before the home was demolished and provided by the county -- shows the sinkhole had grown to the point that it had swallowed the bed and Jeff Bush's body completely. All that can be seen in the hole is dirt.

The footage shows there was almost no floor remaining in the bedroom, though amazingly, clothes and other personal effects were still hanging on the walls, apparently undisturbed.

Bush's body was never recovered. The family has said they're hoping to regain control of the property from the county so they can setup a permanent memorial for Jeff. Read more >>

Record 47,791,996 on food stamps

On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it's ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.

The federal government also says that in a given month in 2012, the number of households on food stamps was 22,329,713.

The state with the highest average number of participants per month in 2012 was Texas, with an astonishing 4,038,440 folks drawing from the program. The second highest is California, with 3,964,221, and then Florida, at 3,353,064.

Washington, D.C., with an estimated population of 617,996, had an average of 141,147 participants. Meaning, roughly 23 percent of folks living in D.C. are on food stamps, according to the numbers provided by the federal government. The participation rate in Texas, which has an estimated population of 26,059,203, 15.5 percent. Read more >>

Florida nears 1 million permits for concealed weapons

The number of active concealed weapons licenses in Florida, already home to more owners of such registered weapons than any other U.S. state, is expected to reach the 1 million mark next week, a state official said on Wednesday.

Applications for the permits in the state of 19.1 million people have doubled since 2007. Only 0.3 percent of the more than 2 million total permits issued since 1987 have been revoked, said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.

"Floridians who are obtaining these licenses are obtaining them for the right reason and are using them in an appropriate way," Putnam said.

The state processed more criminal background checks for firearm purchases on Black Friday, the busy shopping day that follows Thanksgiving, than any single other day in the state's history, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey said. Read more >>

Gold Coin Worth $500 Wrapped In $100 Bill Found In Salvation Army Kettle

A gold coin worth $500 wrapped in a $100 bill has been found in a Salvation Army red kettle set up at an upstate New York shopping plaza.

The American Eagle coin was wrapped in a C-note and a memo that read: "This coin is solid gold and worth around $500. God Bless."

Salvation Army officials say about 400 gold coins have been found in red kettles over the past 30 years. Gold coins have found recently in kettles in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, North Carolina and Florida.

Source

Denny's to charge 5% 'Obamacare surcharge' and cut employee hours

President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.

Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours. With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is 'the only alternative. I've got to pass on the cost to the customer.'

The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, 'that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.' Claiming that he is not anti-insurance Metz has said that he understands the problems this will cause for his employees. Read more >>

Florida considering tattoo database

Jail officials in Florida are considering creating a database of inmate tattoos that could be used to help investigators who are searching for unidentified suspects in area crimes.

Capt. W.F. McClelland says the database is in the early planning stages.

McClelland says officials are consulting with county attorneys to set a policy. They're deciding on issues such as whether to catalog all of an inmate's tattoos or only the visible ones. And they're not sure whether to include photographs or simply a written description of the tattoos.

Once the procedures have been determined, officials say two jail lieutenants will be in charge of carrying out the plan.

Officials will be working with the Daytona Beach police, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office and other local agencies.

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Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars

This bus is a retired unit that has been customized. 

Never has unemployment been so high for so long. And as a result, more than 16 million kids are living in poverty -- that's the most since 1962. It's worst where the construction industry collapsed. And one of those places is central Florida.

We went there 16 months ago to meet families who'd become homeless for the first time in their lives. So many were living day-to-day that school buses had to change their routes to pick up all the kids living in cheap motels. We called the story "Hard Times Generation."

Then eight months ago, we went back to see how things had changed. We found that some families are losing their grip on the motels and discovering that the homeless shelters are full. Where do they go then? Well, they keep up appearances by day and try to stay out of sight at night -- holding on to one another in a hidden America, a place you wouldn't notice unless you ran into the people that we met in the moments before dawn. Read more >>

US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net. Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth. Read more >>

Home Rentals — The New American Dream

Steve and Jodi Jacobson bought their Phoenix-area "dream home" in 2005. They built flagstone steps to the front door. They tiled the kitchen and bathroom. They entertained often, enjoying their mountain views.

"We put our soul into that house," says Steve Jacobson, 37. Then, home prices tanked more than 50%. Steve, a software quality assurance engineer, suffered pay cuts. In 2010, foreclosure claimed the home and their $100,000 down payment. The Jacobsons didn't lose their desire to live in a single-family home, however. They now rent one, like many other former homeowners displaced by foreclosure.

But unlike traditional apartment renters, this breed of American tenants are older and have kids, U.S. Census Bureau data indicate. As they move from homes they owned to ones they rent, they're changing neighborhoods for better and for worse. They're fueling a land-rush as investors snap up homes, mostly in markets hard-hit by foreclosure, to rent to them. And their growth — in cities from Florida to California — has implications for home builders, school districts and companies that will jockey for the dollars they used to invest in homes, predict Wall Street analysts and demographic researchers. Read more >>

Hundreds of Thousands Receive Final Unemployment Checks - 500K Cut Off This Year

MSNBC
Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year.

The checks are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed. More than five million people have been out of work for longer than half a year. Federal benefit extensions, which supplemented state funds for payments up to 99 weeks, were intended to tide over the unemployed until the job market improved.

In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction of the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid. Since then, the jobless in 23 states have lost up to five months’ worth of benefits.

NASCAR Race Attendance Plummets Because of Economy

The study, from the pro-market think tank Public Notice and Race Fans 4 Freedom, finds that the economic downturn of the last several years has directly affected how NASCAR fans watch and enjoy their sport. Since 2009, race attendance per year has fallen below 4 million people, and the number has been declining severely as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed. The cost of attending—with higher gas prices, less disposable income, and diminished financial security—has increased. 

According to the study, the value of the sport, too, is threatened by the poor economy, with the stock prices of racing team companies plummeting in the last five years and sponsors pulling back on funding cars. “The days of $25 million sponsorship deals appears to be over for the time being, sending teams scrambling for support,” the study reads. The result is a less competitive field with fewer racers. 

“At the end of the day, these numbers really hit NASCAR fans’ quality of life,” says Liz Dyar, the founder of Race Fans 4 Freedom. Dyar adds that with nearly 75 million fans across the country, the NASCAR nation is a “great snapshot” of the country as a whole—and that with plenty of those fans in swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, their views on the economy could impact the election. More...

More Than 200,000 Long-Term Jobless Lose Unemployment Checks

More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program. Nearly half of them live in California, and the rest reside in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas.

 The federal extended benefits program has provided the jobless with up to 20 weeks of unemployment checks after they've run through their state and their federal emergency benefits, which together last up to 79 weeks.

But the extended benefits program is expiring throughout the country as the economy improves. To be eligible for these benefits, a state must show that its unemployment rate is at least 10% higher than it was in at least one of the past three years. More...

New Bank Fees Push Thousands Into Credit Unions

Image via WikipediaLast Friday, after Bank of America's (BAC) announcement of new fees on debit cards, retired postal worker Victoria Lee took her adult daughters to her local USPS Credit Union. "[My daughters opened] free checking accounts with no charges for the use of debit cards," Lee said. Like many Americans who are carefully watching every dollar, the Florida resident said she was grateful to have an alternative to retail Wall Street banks.

Meanwhile, a record-breaking 3,200 new checking accounts were opened over the weekend at the Navy Federal Credit Union, the world's largest credit union with 3.7 million members and nearly $48 billion in assets. The weekend surge -- which crushed the previous high of 2,500 -- fits into a larger trend for the credit union, which serves the Department of Defense and active duty military. It has had annual growth between 6.3% and 6.7% since 2007, and is on track to record a 14% uptick in membership this year, said Tisa Head, the senior vice president of savings products. In addition to its fee-free debit cards and accounts, another driver for the year's projected double-digit membership increase has been the credit union's willingness to post pay early for active duty members who use the Active Duty Checking account. More...

Economy Faces a Jolt as Benefit Checks Run Out

An extraordinary amount of personal income is coming directly from the government. Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. In states hit hard by the downturn, like Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, residents derived even more of their income from the government.

By the end of this year, however, many of those dollars are going to disappear, with the expiration of extended benefits intended to help people cope with the lingering effects of the recession. Moody’s Analytics estimates $37 billion will be drained from the nation’s pocketbooks this year. More...

Foreign buyers lifting U.S. home sales

Foreign buyers are helping to stoke home sales in U.S. vacation hot spots decimated by the real estate crash, especially in southern Florida.

For the 12 months ending in March, 31% of Florida's home sales were to foreign buyers, up from 10% in 2007, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors.

In Arizona, 6% of sales in the same period were to foreigners. That was down from 11% last year but still up from 5% in 2007, the data show.

Foreign buyers are being enticed by low U.S. home prices, down 30% nationwide since peaking in 2006, and the weakened dollar, which makes their money go further. Since the start of 2006, the Canadian dollar has soared 18% against the U.S. dollar, while the euro has gained 22%, says data tracker Oanda.

U.S. home prices, meanwhile, have fallen far more than the national average in some places — down 55% from their peaks in Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Phoenix and 36% in Los Angeles, says Zillow.com. Those are three of the most popular areas for foreigners searching for real estate on Trulia's website, that company says. More...