Feds Shut Down 26 Chinatown Bus Lines

Don't worry: Fung Wah and Lucky Star are OK

They're cheap, they're convenient, and according to the federal government, many Chinatown buses were also death traps. Authorities cracked down hard on Chinatown bus operators yesterday, shutting down 26 companies that they said were part of an "unscrupulous" network of bus operators that flouted federal rules, the New York Times reports. Chuck Schumer and Ray LaHood held a press conference in Chinatown to denounce the carriers, who shuttled up to 1,800 passengers a day from Manhattan to cities along the coast for ludicrously cheap fares. Those fares allegedly came with cut corners; Inspectors say companies hired drivers without checking their backgrounds, or even whether they had a valid license. They didn’t test them for drugs either, or make sure they were getting enough rest between trips. "Shutting them down will save lives," LaHood said. But two of the best-known operators, Fung Wah and Lucky Star were left unscathed in the crackdown.

"We are not saying all of the discount curbside bus companies are bad," Schumer said. "It's a good industry."

Why You Should Tell Everyone Your Salary

Because transparency tends to breed fairness

Maybe you really don't want your coworkers to know how much you make, but for the sake of pay equality, you should probably get over it, argues Irin Carmon of Salon. Many women are blissfully ignorant of how much less they're making than their male colleagues, she argues, and it's largely because companies discourage or outright forbid their employees to discuss their pay. The Paycheck Fairness Act—set for a Senate vote next week—would prevent them from doing that, but it's being bashed as a "liberal cudgel" and unlikely to pass.

Coming Soon: Contract-Free iPhone

Cricket to debut pre-paid version, but phone will cost you

 We hear you: You've always wanted an iPhone, but you've got commitment issues. You don't want to hop into bed with AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon for two whole years. Well, good news: Soon Cricket, a regional carrier owned by Leap Wireless, will be offering a contract-free pre-paid iPhone for the, erm, low-low price of $500 for the 4S, or $400 for the 4, CNN reports.

Baltimore Student: I Ate Housemate's Heart, Brain

Motive unknown for Alexander Kinyua from Kenya

 America's gruesome crime wave marches on. This time, a suburban Baltimore man lost his heart and part of his brain to his cannibal college-student roomie, according to police. Kenyan Alexander Kinyua, 21, told cops he stabbed 37-year-old Kujor Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie of Ghana, dismembered him, ate his body parts, then hid the rest of the head and hands in the basement laundry room. Investigators discovered the remains when Kinyua's dad reported finding them in the home they all shared, reports AP. The rest of Kodie's body was found in a trash bin outside a nearby church, said police. "I've been with the agency 40 years, and I would say this is the first time I can remember someone consumed the victim," said sheriff Jesse Bane. "I've not encountered that in this county, and I hope we never encounter it again."

Trayvon Martin case

Judge orders Zimmerman back to jail

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/01/2827932/judge-orders-zimmerman-back-to.html#storylink=cpy

George Zimmerman was ordered back to jail on Friday for misleading the court about his access to an Internet fundraising account.



Seminole County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Lester revoked the bail for Zimmerman — who is facing a second-degree murder charge in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin — after finding that Zimmerman and his wife concealed their access to a $200,000 account during a bond hearing in April.
Zimmerman, who was not present at Friday’s hearing, now must surrender to Seminole County sheriff’s deputies by Sunday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/01/2827932/judge-orders-zimmerman-back-to.html#storylink=cpy

Last Chance to View Transit of Venus on June 5

Two weeks after the stunning solar eclipse, Venus is scheduled to pass across the face of the sun on June 5, which NASA said will produce a silhouette "that no one alive today will likely see again."

Transits of Venus are very rare - they only occur twice every 120 years. The last time this happened was in 2004, and that was the first time that anyone alive at the time had ever witnessed it. If you miss it this time around, you're likely out of luck. The next transit of Venus is not expected until 2117.

The June 5 event, however, is expected to be widely visible. "Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be in position to see it," NASA said.

The seven-hour transit will begin at 3:09 p.m. PDT.

"The timing favors observers in the mid-Pacific where the sun is high overhead during the crossing," NASA said. "In the USA, the transit will be at its best around sunset. That's good, too. Creative photographers will have a field day imaging the swollen red sun 'punctured' by the circular disk of Venus."

As the planet passes in front of the sun, it will likely look like a small black dot. Like the solar eclipse, NASA warned enthusiasts not to stare directly at the sun. Something like a #14 welder's glass is an effective filter, and local astronomy clubs will likely have solar telescopes.


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U.S. job growth trips again, opens door to more Fed moves

U.S. job growth braked sharply for a third straight month in May and the unemployment rate rose for the first time in nearly a year, raising chances of further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve to support the sputtering recovery.

Employers added a paltry 69,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, the least since May of last year, and 49,000 fewer jobs were created in the previous two months than had been thought, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The report is troubling for President Barack Obama, whose prospects of winning re-election in November could hinge on the economy's health. Republican opponent Mitt Romney called the report "a harsh indictment" of Obama's policies.

Obama says could end Washington gridlock in second term

President Barack Obama waves to Honeywell employees after delivering remarks on the economy at the Honeywell Golden Valley facility in Minneapolis June 1, 2012. Obama is in Minnesota to urge Congress to pass legislation creating a Veterans Jobs Corps.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama told his supporters on Friday he could break Washington's gridlock in a second term, and pushed Congress to enact his "to-do list" prescriptions to heal the economy in spite of it being an election year.

At a political fundraiser in Minneapolis, Obama said that if he won re-election in November, Republicans in Congress who now oppose his every move would be more inclined to work with him.

"I believe if we are successful in this election - when we're successful in this election - that the fever may break," Obama told the campaign event.

"My hope and my expectation is that after the election - now that it turns out the goal of beating Obama doesn't make much sense because I'm not running again - that we can start getting some cooperation again," he said.

Work sharing: The way for states to reduce unemployment in the US

Individual US states should implement a 'work sharing' policy of reducing worker hours rather than laying them off.

Washington, DC - It is clear that we are not going to see any major action from the federal government to reduce unemployment any time soon. There is no hope that this Congress will support another round of stimulus and not much more hope from the next Congress, even if the Democrats somehow regain control.

What that means is that we are looking at a long, painfully slow recovery. Assuming that the economy continues to generate 200,000 jobs a month, roughly its average over the last three months, we will not get back to more normal levels of unemployment until somewhere near the end of the decade.
And it is certainly plausible that progress will be worse. That story assumes a recovery lasting for more than a decade, something the United States has never experienced.

This means that we should expect to see a labour market in which millions of workers will be unable to find jobs for long into the future. They will be unable to adequately support their families, and may even lose their homes, all because the folks in charge of running economic policy don't know what they are doing.

US unemployment drops to 8.2 per cent

While economic policy is best made at the national level, as a result of the bill that extended the payroll tax cut, there is a policy that states can pursue that might make a real difference. This bill included a provision that calls for the federal government to pick up the tab for state spending on work sharing as part of the state's unemployment insurance programme. This means that states can save themselves a great deal of money if they can encourage employers to use work sharing as an alternative to layoffs.

Work sharing, formally known as "short work", is an arrangement whereby employers reduce the hours of their existing work force instead of laying off workers. For example, if an employer was going to lay off 10 workers, she can instead have the same reduction in labour time by reducing the hours of 50 workers by 20 per cent.

Under the unemployment insurance system, workers would typically be entitled to roughly half of their pay if they were laid off. Under the short work system, the government would make up roughly half of the lost wages for workers who were put on short time. In this example, if their hours were cut back by 20 per cent, the government would make up half of the lost wages, or 10 per cent of their total wages. This leaves the worker earning 90 per cent of their former wages while working 80 per cent of the time.

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.