NEW YORK — The delinquency rate on U.S. mortgage loans hit an all-time high in the second quarter, but the pace of growth for the rate slowed, a possible sign the mortgage crisis may be beginning to turn the corner. Data provided by credit reporting agency TransUnion shows the ratio of mortgage holders who are 60 days or more behind on their payments increased for the 10th straight quarter, to 5.81 percent nationwide for the three months ended June 30. That’s up 65 percent, from 3.53 percent, in the 2008 second quarter. Deliquency of 60 days is considered a precursor to foreclosure, because of the difficulty homeowners would have coming up with two back payments to bring themselves current. While the deliquency rate hit a new high, however, the increase from the first quarter to the second was 11.3 percent. In the two prior quarters, the rate jumped nearly 16 percent. That slowdown may be a good sign, said FJ Guarrera, vice president of TransUnion’s financial services division. ‘We have reason to be cautiously optimistic,’ he said. While there’s no way to know exactly why the pace of growth is slowing, Guarrera said, it […]
Bowing to international pressure and unprecedented protests by hundreds of women on the streets of Kabul, the Afghan government promised in April to review a new law imposing severe restrictions on women in Shiite Muslim families. Last week, though, Human Rights Watch discovered that a revised version of the Shiite Personal Status Law had been quietly put into effect at the end of July - meaning that Shiite men in Afghanistan now have the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met and that Shiite women must obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their houses, ‘except in extreme circumstances. Ahmad Masood/Reuters In June, some Afghan Shiite women signed a petition in support of a new law placing restrictions on them that human rights activists and Western leaders had opposed. The new law was signed by President Hamid Karzai, who is depending on support from Sheik Muhammad Asif Mohseni, the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, in this week’s presidential election. Shiites, who were oppressed by the Sunni-led Taliban government, are believed to make up between 10 and 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Sheik Mohseni and scholars close to him were allowed […]
The former mouthpiece for insurance giant Cigna divulges his role in misleading the public, the emotional day that led to his whistle-blowing, and what should really scare you. potter300.jpgIn June 2007, Wendell Potter was head of corporate communications at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance companies in America, when he attended the U.S. premier of Michael Moore’s Sicko. Potter was part of the team charged with discrediting Moore’s film, which advance word said was highly critical of the health insurance industry. Potter ‘sat quietly in the back and took notes, but soon realized he had a problem. ‘When I saw the movie, I’ll be honest: I thought it was a real good documentary. I knew from my own studies of other healthcare systems that it was an accurate portrayal of those systems and how they are able to provide universal coverage. Yet he was being paid by Cigna to tell people the opposite, that the film was full of lies. Just a few weeks later, Potter, who is from Tennessee, read in a local paper about a free healthcare expedition being held in Wise County, Virginia. He decided to check it out. Walking through the fairground gates, […]
Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll. At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years. In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either ‘conservative (31%) or ‘very conservative (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004. Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are ‘liberal and 5% who say they are ‘very liberal. Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are moderate. During Republican President George W. Bush’s second term, the number of self-identified conservatives as measured by Gallup dropped, riding at a low of 37% as recently as last year. According to new data released by Gallup on Friday, conservatives outnumber liberals in all 50 states–including President Obama’s home state of Illinois–even though Democrats have a significant advantage over Republicans in party identification in 30 states. ‘In fact, while all 50 states are, to some degree, more […]
A South Korean biotechnology firm will early next year open a centre capable eventually of producing up to 1,000 cloned dogs annually, a company executive said Friday. ‘We need this new facility to turn dog cloning services into a full-fledged business,’ Cho Seong-Ryul, director of RNL Bio, told AFP. The centre in Yongin city south of Seoul will cost some five million dollars and focus on cloning pets, working dogs and endangered species including wolves. RNL Bio is one of the world’s few companies operating dog cloning as a business. Another is San Francisco-based BioArts, which is involved in a patents dispute with the Korean firm. RNL Bio says it successfully cloned puppies of a retriever trained to sniff out cancer cells in humans. Four puppies are currently being trained in South Korea and Japan. Last year it arranged to re-create a pitbull terrier for a US woman in what it claimed was the world’s first commercial cloning.
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
