SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times

A woman’s decomposing body was found wedged inside the chimney of the house where her boyfriend lives Bakersfield, California and authorities say she died trying to gain access after being locked out.

The body of Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, a doctor who had an “on-again, off-again” relationship with the man, was stuck in the chimney for three days before being discovered by woman who was house-sitting, the Bakersfield Police Department said. Authorities said Kotarac died of asphyxiation.

It isn’t clear what kind of doctor Kotarac was, however, she likely was not an Oakland CA breast augmentation surgeon.  Had she worked as an Oakland CA liposuction surgeon, it isn’t for certain.

The woman “smelled an odor and realized it was coming from the fireplace,” Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Kotarac had come to the home Wednesday night but the boyfriend wouldn’t let her in.  “To avoid a confrontation,” DeGeare said, “he wouldn’t let her in.”

So Kotarac used a shovel and tried unsuccessfully to force her way in through a back door, police said. She then climbed the roof and slid down the chimney. But her boyfriend had already left the house, police said.

Kotarac was found stuck about 2 feet above the interior fireplace opening. In concluding that she died of asphyxiation, the Bakersfield coroner’s office deemed the death an accident.

______________________________________

MY TAKE: This is the kind of story that grabs the attention of everyone from Phoenix Arizona realtors to the guys running the Texas car accident law firm.  Nothing is more shocking than the image of a person stuck in a chimney, dead, for days on end.  It’s sad to think she wasn’t heard in time and could have been saved.  Phoenix AZ real estate folks might never look at a chimney the same way after reading this story.  Ditto for the Texas personal injury attorney and of course the liposuction surgeon.  It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s also not all that uncommon for people to get stuck in chimney’s.  Burglers are the usual suspects found wedged in the brick and mortar, not women, but this was obviously an unusual case of domestic/romantic drama.

OTHER RESOURCES:
Legal News for Californians
Redwood City criminal defense lawyer options don’t have to be expensive.  San Mateo County criminal attorneys for example will work with you if you are on a fixed or limited income.  Also, Californian’s should always apply for legal aid through the State Bar Association and you can check here for a list of resources for pro-bono lawyers.

ED Online Made Simple
Erectile dysfunction medication can be expensive. But you can buy Cialis and other ED meds online pretty cheaply these days.  However, before you start an ED med on your own, you should educated yourself and always get the advice of a doctor.  Click here for some important information.

SOURCE:  Associated Press

The economy is slowing, again, home sales appear to be dipping and stocks are on a long slide, and  now we are in what is traditionally the worst month in the market: September.  

Could stocks be headed for another September swoon?

“If history is any guide, for it’s never gospel, we may be in for another rough ride,” says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s.

Mutual fund managers tend to clean house after Labor Day, taking profits on winning stocks and weeding out portfolios before putting out the rosiest possible end-of-quarter reports for their clients.

September swoon

No month has brought worse results in the stock market than September. Here is the average monthly price change, from 1950 through July 2010, for the S&P 500 index. Months are listed from best performance to worst:

1.  
   • December: 1.6 percent gain
   • November: 1.6 percent gain
   • April: 1.5 percent gain
   • March: 1.2 percent gain
   • January: 1 percent gain
   • July: 1 percent gain
   • October: 0.6 percent gain
   • May: 0.3 percent gain
   • August: 0.1 percent gain
   • June: 0.04 percent loss
   • February: 0.2 percent loss
   • September: 0.6 percent loss

Source: Stock Trader’s Almanac

Workers coming back from summer breaks are also inclined to sell stocks as they get their financial affairs in order. This includes everyone from the San Diego contracts attorney to the commercial mortgage brokers NY. Any festering issues with the economy or stocks during the summer, when trading volume is light, tend to get put off until fall.

The result: September is usually a dog of a month for the market. It typically starts with solid market increases, then tails off, says Jeffrey Hirsch, editor-in-chief of the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

“There’s just a general selling bias in the month of September,” he says.

Four times in the past decade alone, the S&P 500 shed at least 5 percent in September. The average September decline since 1950 is 0.6 percent, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac. February is the next worst, with an average 0.2 percent loss, and December and November are the best, averaging 1.6 percent gains.

Of course, investors haven’t forgotten that the financial world collapsed in September just two years ago. And the Sept. 11 attacks, which delivered a devastating blow to the stock market, remain a painful memory.

This year, there’s a lot to frown about. The S&P 500 index is down 14 percent from its high in April, and was down 5 percent for the month of August.

Stocks have fallen because the economic recovery is faltering. The economy has slowed to anemic growth, home sales the last three months are the worst on record, consumer spending is lackluster and unemployment is stuck near 10 percent.

The slew of weak economic data sapped the market of what little midsummer momentum it had and further shook the confidence of already wary investors.

“I don’t think it would take a whole lot to get investors to start selling and consumers to start pulling back again,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “The collective psyche is on edge.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the central bank is ready to take additional steps to boost the economy, including buying more debt or mortgage securities in order to keep interest rates low.

But with the benchmark interest rate already near zero, any Fed action is unlikely to provide the oomph of past measures. Congress doesn’t appear to have an appetite for another stimulus package.

Also hanging over the market is an air of heightened uncertainty because the November elections will determine which party controls Congress for the next two years. The S&P 500 has declined an average 1.7 percent in the September before midterm elections since 1930.

Not that September isn’t bad enough already without all of this year’s baggage. It’s one of only three months, along with February and June, when stock prices typically decline.

The uncertainty is a serious consideration for financial advisers such as Dominick Vetrano of Fountainhead Financial in Chicago. He holds off putting more money into stocks beginning in August, even though he thinks the September market dips are usually psychological.

“There is little to gain by investing right before September and a lot to lose, so why risk it?” he says. “The September effect is well-documented.”

______________________________________

MY TAKE: Although news reports show a rise in both residential and commercial mortgage loans applications, there are still no real clear signs of a solid recovery for the housing market, yet.  I’d be willing to bet that every small business, too, from the small Blackberry repair service provider to the New York tax preparation firm will be cutting more corners, possibly not laying off workers, but definitely not hiring any more of them, and looking for ways to boost business without making any expenditures.  If I were a small iPod repair company or a tax preparation firm I imagine I’d be thinking about ways to streamline too, as it looks like we are in for a protracted recession.
Are you being pounded day and night by debt collectors?  You may want to contact a firm of collection harassment lawyers.  FCRA lawyers are trained to legally help you fight back against unlawful harassment by debt collection companies who step over the bounds in an effort to get you to pay a bill.

OTHER RESOURCES:
Debt Harassment Can Be Stopped

Tax Time Already?
New York tax planning accountants are already preparing to help you with you 2010 tax returns.  Now is the time to start collecting your documents, receipts and other paperwork that you’ll need to get your return in on time. If you’re a small business, you might want to dig out all the receipts for those home-office upgrades, equipment purchases and other items you bought because those can all be added to your operating write-off costs.

SOURCE: Associated Press

A judge removed a juror from a trial in suburban Detroit after it was discovered that the young woman wrote on Facebook that the defendant was guilty.

The problem? The trial wasn’t over. Hadley Jons, of Warren just north of Detroit, could be found in contempt when she returns to the Macomb County circuit court Thursday.

Jons, 20, was a juror in a case of resisting arrest. On Aug. 11, a day off from the trial and before the prosecution finished its case, she wrote on Facebook that it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re guilty.”

The post was discovered by defense lawyer Saleema Sheikh’s son.

This is not the only case involving a Facebook post and a faulty jury.  In Manhattan recently, a juror on a case who also worked for a New York City computer service company was questioned about his comments involving knowing a defendant. 

Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski confronted Jons the next day and replaced her with an alternate.

“You don’t know how disturbing this is,” Druzinski said, according to The Macomb Daily.

A message seeking comment was left for Jons on Monday.

“I would like to see her get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight,” Sheikh said. “This is the jury system. People need to know how important it is.”

Sheikh’s son, Jaxon Goodman, discovered the comment while checking jurors’ names on the Internet. He works in his mother’s law office.

“I’m really proud of him,” Sheikh said.

Without Jons, the jury convicted Sheikh’s client of a felony but couldn’t agree on a separate misdemeanor charge.

______________________________________

MY TAKE: Personal information and secrets are no longer rarified.  It’s fine to use the Internet and even friends on your Facebook page to find childcare, get some good advice about buying Carhartt  flame resistant clothing, or even locating Marbella homes for rent.  But the site is being used for people to essentially spew out what they’re up to and comment on what your up to all day long; comment on your pictures; your status and your previous comments to other people’s pages.  It’s really too much connectivity for me.  Don’t get me wrong: I am one of those people who have used FB to ask friends about a good childcare center and even get some advice about NY computer support services.         

OTHER RESOURCES:
Mortgage Rates Set To Rise Soon

Is your Louisville mortgage a refinance product with dual loans attached?  You might qualify for  KY refinancing to help you consolidate the loans and make one payment.  Check with your lender to see if you qualify because interest rates are very low and they are expected to start rising again as the economy recovers.

Accident Attorneys for Texas Drivers
If you’ve been searching for a qualified and experienced Texas tractor trailer accident attorney you have choices. You can find out anything you need to know about an accident attorney or a Texas wrongful death lawyer on the Texas State Bar website.  Click here.

SOURCE:  Associated Press

An emerald pulled from a corn row pit on a North Carolina farm is reportedly so large it’s being compared with the crown jewels of Russian empress Catherine the Great.

The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. After the gem was cut and re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the original find, making it slightly larger than a U.S. quarter and about as heavy as a AA battery.

The emerald compares in size and quality to one surrounded by diamonds in a brooch once owned by Catherine the Great, who was empress in the 18th century, that Christie’s auction house in New York sold in April for $1.65 million, said C.R. “Cap” Beesley, a New York gemologist who examined the stone.

While big, uncut crystals and even notable gem-quality emeralds have come from the community 50 miles northwest of Charlotte called Hiddenite, there has never been one so big it’s worthy of an imperial treasury, Beesley said.

“It is the largest cut emerald ever to be found in North America,” Beesley said in a telephone interview from Myanmar, an Asian country rich in precious gems.

The discovery is a rarity for emeralds found not in the rich veins of South America and Asia but in North America, said Robert Simon, owner of Windsor Jewelers in Winston-Salem.

“Most of the stones that have come out have not been gem-quality that I would mount in jewelry,” said Simon, who was part owner of a 7.85-carat, dime-sized emerald found in the same community in 1998 that has since been set in jewelry and sold to a private owner.

Terry Ledford, 53, found the roughly 2-inch-square chunk rimmed with spots of iron a year ago on a 200-acre farm owned by business partner Renn Adams, 90, and his siblings. The rural community of Hiddenite is named for a paler stone that resembles emerald.

“It was so dark in color that holding it up to the sun you couldn’t even get the light to come through it,” a quality that ensured an intense green hue once the stone was cut with facets that allowed light into the gem’s core, Ledford said.

The North Carolina stone was cut to imitate the royal emerald, Ledford said. A museum and some private collectors interested in buying the emerald have been in contact, Ledford said.

Modeling an empress’s emerald is likely to have less influence on the North Carolina stone’s sale price than its clarity, color and cut, said Douglas Hucker, CEO of the American Gem Trade Association, a Dallas, Texas-based trade association for dealers in colored gems.

“A 65-carat cut emerald from North Carolina is a big, big stone,” he said. But “once an emerald is cut, it’s subject to the same type of market conditions that any emerald would be.”

Emeralds are part of North Carolina’s mineral claim to fame, though other places in the U.S. also are rich in gems. Maine mines have yielded aquamarine and amethyst, Montana bears sapphires, Idaho is known for star garnets, and Arkansas has diamonds.

It’s not fully known why small, subterranean cavities containing emeralds formed in central North Carolina, said geologist Michael Wise of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who has studied the underground world around Hiddenite for years.

Emeralds are produced where a superheated fluid carrying the element beryllium migrated through rocks that contain chromium, Wise said.

“This doesn’t happen frequently,” Wise said. “The conditions have to be just right to make an emerald. … It happens to be the case at this particular place.”

Adams said decades ago when his parents owned the farm, they allowed anyone with a shovel to dig for emeralds on the property for $3 a day. Virtually all of it was too full of flaws to be cut into precious stones and was mostly sold to mineral collectors, Adams said.

Ledford said they don’t plan to quit after pocketing the profits from their big find, Ledford said.

“We’ll definitely keep on mining,” he said. “It would be good to know you don’t have to go and could do it for pleasure. You feel like you’ve got to find something to survive but since we found this emerald, once we get it sold, there will be less stress.”  

______________________________________

MY TAKE:  If I could quite my job as an answering phone service representative and head out to North Carolina I would.  I love emeralds and I love the idea of mining for them.  They go great with formal dresses and evening dresses of course.  But I’d take the money and sell it and tell the owner of my   If answering service company good bye!  I would probably look for Blane homes for rent for a while before buying.  They do have some nice Eden Prairie MN homes for rent that I’d consider before moving out and setting up.

OTHER RESOURCES:
Data Offsite Management
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Be Seen On Top
The best SEO services companies out there are supposed to help your business with online visibility.  You want to be on top of the Google search engine and other top search engines and all SEO services providers can help you do that.  Most provide a range of services that give you different options to suit you budget.

SOURCE:  New York Times

Donna Ings, 47, finally landed a job in February as a home health aide, earning about $10 an hour, with a company in Lexington, Mass, after being out of work for more than a year.

Chelsea Nelson, 21, started two weeks ago as a waitress at a truck stop in Mountainburg, Ark., making around $7 or $8 an hour, depending on tips, ending a lengthy job search that took her young family to California and back.

Both are ostensibly economic success stories, people who were able to find work in a difficult labor market. Ms. Ing’s employer, Home Instead Senior Care, a company with franchises across the country, has been aggressively expanding. Ms. Nelson’s restaurant, Silver Bridge Truck Stop, recently reopened and hired about 20 people last month in an area thirsty for jobs.

Both women, however, took large pay cuts from their old jobs — Ms. Ing worked in the office of a wholesale tuxedo distributor; Ms. Nelson used to be a secretary. And both remain worried about how they will make ends meet in the long run.

With the country focused on job growth and unemployment continuing to hover above 9 percent, there has been comparatively little attention paid to the quality of the jobs being created in this still-struggling economy and what that might say about the opportunities that will be available to workers when the tumult of the Great Recession finally settles. There are reasons, however, for concern, even in the early stages of a tentative recovery that now appears to be barely wheezing along.

For years, long before the recession began, job growth had become increasingly polarized in this country, with high-paid occupations that demand significant amounts of education and training growing rapidly, alongside low-wage, entry-level, service-type jobs that do not require much schooling or special skills, according to David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The growth of these low-wage jobs began in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s and began to really take off in the 2000s. Losing out in the shuffle, according to Dr. Autor, are jobs that he describes as “middle-skill, middle-wage” — entry-level white-collar positions, like office and administrative support work, as well as certain blue-collar jobs, like assembly line workers and machine operators.

The recession appears to have magnified that trend, according to Dr. Autor in a recent paper, released jointly by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy group, and the Hamilton Project, which has a more centrist reputation. From 2007 to 2009, the paper found, there was relatively little net change in total employment for both high-skill and low-skill occupations, while employment plummeted in so-called middle-skill occupations.

A new analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal advocacy group, takes a different approach, identifying industries that have actually experienced job growth in 2010 and examining their median wages. It is a blunter measurement because it focuses on industries, within which there is often great diversity in income. Economists also cautioned that it was still too early to know exactly which sectors would eventually lead the way in a sustained recovery.

Nevertheless, the law project analysis offers a snapshot of where the employment growth has been so far. It found job expansion to this point has been skewed toward industries with median wages that are low to middling, with a disproportionate share of job growth happening in industries whose median wages fall below $15 an hour.

“There’s a striking contrast so far between which industries have lost jobs and which ones are growing,” said Annette Bernhardt, policy director for the law project. “If this kind of bottom-heavy job creation continues, it could pose a real challenge to restoring consumer demand and making sure working families have a way to support themselves.”

Both studies are disquieting because of the potential import for many who had once scratched out middle-class livings and are now looking for work. A unifying theme is the stubborn march of labor-intensive, low-paying service jobs, like the ones Ms. Ings and Ms. Nelson found.

Jobs dry up
Unless you’re in the software consulting business or work for one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country, you’ve probably not noticed how the recession really works in terms of who gets laid off first and who is the first to be rehired.

There is typically a downward slide during recessions, said Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, in which higher-skilled and higher-educated workers are re-employed first, often landing jobs for which they are overqualified, squeezing out the lesser skilled and lesser educated. Indeed, in the current downturn, the unemployment rate has climbed the most for the least-educated workers, suggesting they have been hit the hardest.

However, while researching workers who lost their jobs in California in the 1990s, Dr. Wachter found that people who fall in the middle when it comes to their educational background — possessing high school degrees or some college — and the skills required for their occupation tended to experience larger and longer lasting income losses after job loss than people on both the lower and higher end of the scale.

Ms. Ings had worked in a variety of office and administrative roles in the wholesale tuxedo industry. Her wages of just over $16 an hour were enough to build a relatively comfortable life for her and her daughter, Jillian, now 21 and in college.

“During her whole growing up, I never got child support,” Ms. Ings said. “I always had to try to find a job that paid well to help support her. That’s my job, being a mother.”

When Ms. Ings was laid off in March 2009, she dove into finding another “corporate job.” But she found that nearly everyone seemed to be looking for people with at least a college degree, if not more. She had only a high school diploma.

As a teenager, she had worked in a nursing home and enjoyed it. So, after getting her certified nursing assistant license, she applied at the Home Instead office in Lexington, which has been steadily hiring this year, said Jack Cross, the franchise owner. Nationally, the company has created more than 2,400 jobs this year, and home health aides are one of the country’s fastest growing occupations.

Ms. Ings adores her job, but her finances remain taut, even though she is working 50 hours a week. She had been without health insurance for her first few months, but soon the company will begin deducting for it — a further pinch on her already meager paycheck.

“I’m going to be coming home with nothing,” she said.

In Arkansas, Ms. Nelson has been hampered by her decision to quit college after a semester several years ago. She has worked a variety of jobs, including a three year stint as a secretary, earning about $12 an hour.

Last year, she and her husband, Kenneth, and their son, Riley, now almost 2, moved to Colton, Calif., where they had relatives and believed the job market would be better. They moved back to Arkansas this year, however, after struggling to find steady work.

He quickly accepted a factory job at $8 an hour, but she got rejection after rejection trying to find office work.

She eventually gave up and took up waitressing. The couple is living with her mother, trying to save enough for their own place.

“I don’t know, with the jobs we have, if we’re ever going to be able to make it on our own,” Ms. Nelson said.

_____________________________________________

MY TAKE:  If you think you’re going to go from unemployment to that $60K a year job load testing  position, or step right into a top collocation Virginia company, forget it.  The chances are that, unless you own and manage that collocation Los Angeles firm or some other company, you’ll find yourself like this woman: working for less alongside less skilled younger workers.

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L.A. Law Update
Los Angeles injury attorneys are here to help you.  If you need a Los Angeles criminal attorney and don’t know where to start, try legalzoom.com or 123 defender.com.

SOURCE:  Reuters

Some relief concerning the economic slowdown came this summer as U.S. consumer confidence edged up in August while prices for U.S. homes gained more than expected in June.

Another report on Tuesday, however, showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest registered a slowdown in August, and was just shy of the pace economists expected.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of U.S. consumer attitudes rose to 53.5 in August from an upwardly revised 51.0 in July.

The median of forecasts from analysts polled by Reuters was for a reading of 50.5. Forecasts ranged from 47.5 to 55.0.

The rise came as a relief to investors following a slew of weaker-than-expected economic reports in recent weeks. High unemployment and weak consumer spending are seen among the biggest hurdles for the recovery.

“This small improvement is encouraging. It suggests that even though consumers remain in a glass-half-empty mood, sentiment isn’t getting any worse,” said Zach Pandl, economist at Nomura Securities International in New York.

“We wonder if this level of confidence will sustain if the labor market deteriorates as we suspect,” he said.

U.S. stocks (.SPX) turned positive following the confidence data, while U.S. Treasury debt prices pared some gains and the U.S. dollar trimmed losses against the yen.

The government’s key monthly jobs report is expected on Friday, with a Reuters poll showing economists expect non-farm payrolls declined by 100,000 in August and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 9.6 percent.

HOME PRICE RECOVERY SLOWS

Also among the day’s more upbeat economic news, the S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.3 percent in June from May on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The rise was better than the 0.2 percent increase expected by economists polled by Reuters, though slower than the 0.5 percent rise in May.

However, the gain reflected the lingering boost from homebuyer tax credits that ended in April, and economists agree the effects of buyer tax credits have largely filtered through. They say home prices will be hard-pressed to sustain these gains with unemployment still near 10 percent.

Tuesday’s data also showed the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer dropped to 56.7 in August. The reading was 62.3 in July, and economists had forecast an August reading of 57.

The employment component of the index fell to 55.5 from 56.6 in July. New orders fell to 55.0, from 64.6. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the regional economy.

 ___________________________________________________

MY TAKE: With housing prices slowly limping upward and consumer confidence on the rise, it’s possible more aging boomers will begin with their plans. Visit any baby boomer site and you’ll quickly learn that the again seniors in our country are busy working to set up their lives so that they can live comfortably. They are meeting  senior financial planning companies to try and figure out how they’ll pay for an Ocean County NJ doctor house call and of course whether or not their homes will be worth what they are now when they hit retirement.

OTHER RESOURCES:

Legal Help in Philly
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SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines says he’s vowed to shutter a San Fernando Valley charter school over the alleged theft or misuse of as much as $2.7 million by the school’s founding principal.

The problems at NEW Academy Canoga Park turned up in an audit released Monday by the inspector general’s office of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

More than “$2 million of misappropriated and unaccounted public funds is egregious,” Cortines wrote in a letter to the board of the school. “Students have been inexcusably deprived of funds that were designated solely to further their education.”

As a charter school, NEW Academy is governed by its own board of directors, independent of L.A. Unified, which authorized the school. Los Angeles has more charters, public schools that are independently run, than any school district in the nation.

Virtually no local charter schools have been forcibly shut down by the district, although several have closed after officials failed to renew an expiring charter agreement, which typically lasts three to five years.

Other losses?
It’s often not easy to track down some unaccounted funds, especially when they might be related to small-scale expenditures, such as for imprinted pens for teachers or staff, Sacramento private security guards or fraternity clothing.

The elementary school of about 500 students faces a charter revocation hearing. The chairwoman of the school’s board contends that NEW Academy should survive because students are thriving.

Although the school’s scores are still in the lowest 30% of schools statewide, according to last year’s data, its students’ gains on standardized tests have been among the region’s strongest each of the last three years.

“It is clear that our school has been a victim of fraud,” board chair Maggie Cervantes said in a statement. “The school is taking aggressive and necessary steps to recover its assets and work to successfully resolve this issue. These steps have included terminating the employment of the former principal of the school.”

The former principal, Edward Fiszer, could not be reached for comment. Although not identified by name in the published audit, Fiszer was the target of the inquiry, officials confirmed.

NEW Academy Canoga Park opened in 2005 as an unusual example of public-private collaboration using school bonds and other funding sources to combine a new school with low-income housing.

The school’s visible face, Fiszer, the author of three education and motivational books, was once honored as a “Champion of Children” in a City Hall ceremony.

Among the auditors’ findings is that Fiszer allegedly withdrew cashier’s checks totaling nearly $1.1 million from school accounts between July 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2009.

“The former principal claimed that funds deposited into his personal Ameritrade account were not withdrawn, but were deposited and repeatedly lost,” the auditors wrote, apparently as a result of unsuccessful investments.

One cost questioned by auditors was $62,247 paid to a company called Burgundy Bunny for science enrichment for fourth- and fifth-graders over a six-week period. “We performed an Internet search to verify the validity of the vendor,” auditors wrote. “We noted that the address and phone number were invalid. The address shows as a vacant lot. In addition, the business entity name does not exist.”

Auditors also allege that the principal paid a former teacher — who at some point married the principal — $129,450 for services as a grant writer, although a company was already being paid for grant writing.

The audit included a harsh assessment of the oversight by the charter’s governing board and the outside company that provided accounting services.

Handling the audit became complicated because the school system’s interim inspector general is a member of the board of directors of the charter’s founding organization. Jess Womack is board secretary of New Economics for Women, whose acronym, NEW, is part of the school’s name. Womack, a retired L.A. Unified attorney, recently rejoined the school system as inspector general. Womack recused himself from dealing with this audit, district officials confirmed.

The charter has a board of directors separate from New Economics, but there’s overlap: Cervantes is executive director of New Economics and Loyola Marymount University Assistant Dean Marta Sanchez serves on both boards. A second NEW Academy operates near downtown.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said it hasn’t yet received the audit for review for potential prosecution.

The school becomes the second San Fernando Valley charter school facing allegations of impropriety. The founders of Ivy Academia face felony charges related to co-mingling private and public accounts. They have denied wrongdoing.

MY TAKE: I’m sure school principals all over the country are guilty of accepting promotional products, like golf shirts and pens, but not quite clear about possible expenses for Sacramento CA private security     or Greek apparel unless we’re talking about a very expensive and exclusive school.  In this case, the schools are not any of the above.

OTHER RESOURCES:
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Source: Los Angeles Times

School opening in Los Anglees sparks criticism: it’s like the Taj Mahal of education.

The  opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation’s most expensive public school ever.

The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of “Taj Mahal” schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.

“There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail,’” said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. “Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.”

Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic.

“New buildings are nice, but when they’re run by the same people who’ve given us a 50 percent dropout rate, they’re a big waste of taxpayer money,” said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. “Parents aren’t fooled.”

At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel. 

Whiteboards Canada offers for classrooms and kids desks are also expensive, but not completely off the table for this project.

Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals.

The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other LA schools among the nation’s costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009.

The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation’s second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation’s lowest performing.

Los Angeles is not alone, however, in building big. Some of the most expensive schools are found in low-performing districts — New York City has a $235 million campus; New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January.

Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums, orchestra-pit auditoriums, food courts, even bamboo nooks. The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers.

“Architects and builders love this stuff, but there’s a little bit of a lack of discipline here,” said Mary Filardo, executive director of 21st Century School Fund in Washington, D.C., which promotes urban school construction.

Some experts say it’s not all flourish and that children learn better in more pleasant surroundings.

Many schools incorporate large windows to let in natural light and install energy-saving equipment, spending more upfront for reduced bills later. Cafeterias are getting fancier, seeking to retain students who venture off campus. Wireless Internet and other high-tech installations have become standard.

Some pricey projects have had political fallout.

After a firestorm over the $197.5 million Newton North High School in Massachusetts, Mayor David Cohen chose not to seek re-election and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill reined in school construction spending.

Now to get state funds for a new school, districts must choose among three designs costing $49 million to $64 million. “We had to bring some sense to this process,” Cahill said.

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My Take:  In an age when everything from online defensive driving courses to Oaklahoma dog training certificates can be obtained via the internet, you have to wonder why so much money needs to poured into brick and mortar buildings for our kids’ education anymore.  I’m not saying algebra and English comp. are on the same level as safety courses for driving or how to work with personal protection dogs, but when kids are using iPhones and min-laptops to communicate about 90% of the time, you have to question the need for more buildings, let alone expensive ones.  What about cheaper schools with online access options for advanced and well-performing students as a way to eliminate overcrowding, save money, and embrace online educational technology?

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SOURCE:  Associated Press

Unemployment insurance applications for first-timers reached the half-million mark recently, the first time since November, a sign that employers are slashing jobs once more as the economy limps.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the fourth increase in the past five weeks. Wall Street economists forecast that claims would drop.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose by 8,000 to 482,500, the highest since December. There were no special factors that distorted the numbers, a Labor Department analyst said.

The increase suggests the economy is creating even fewer jobs than in the first half of this year, when private employers added an average of about 100,000 jobs per month. That’s barely enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The jobless rate has been stuck at 9.5 percent for two months.

Stock futures fell on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average futures had risen more than 50 points before the report was released. They dropped quickly and were down as much as 20 points afterward.

Jobless claims declined steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009 as the economy recovered from the worst downturn since the 1930s. After flattening out earlier this year claims have begun to grow again.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits fell by 13,000 to 4.5 million, the department said. The continuing claims data lags initial claims by one week.
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MY TAKE:  I’m not surprised to hear the numbers of jobless claims is rising.  I’ve been on unemployment since 2008 and the prospects for work are grim.  Employers ranging from manufacturers of infant hair bows and wall padding, to the highest priced Dallas TX criminal defense attorney are all freezing hiring plans in an effort to ride out the double dipper.

The wholesale baby headbands company, the Dallas TX DWI attorney, and even the guys who make those signs you see on stadium poll pads are all cutting jobs to save their bottom lines, and who can blame them? If they go out of business they, too, would wind up in the back of the jobless claims application line.

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SOURCE:  Associated Press

JetBlue’s All-You-Can-Jet pass is back, making it possible again to travel to an unlimited number of cities over a one-month period.

The pass is valid for flights between Sept. 7 and Oct. 6, the company said Tuesday. There are two price tiers: an unlimited pass for $699 or a $499 pass that excludes travel on Fridays and Sundays.

Last year, the first time the passes were offered, they cost $599 and sold out quickly.

The promotion also brought the 10-year-old airline a lot of publicity, as customers documented their travels on Facebook and Twitter. People used the pass for tours of everything from the nation’s sports stadiums and music meccas to 30-day job searches.

The wildly popular promotion is rolling out a week later than last year. Last week, JetBlue Airways was wrestling with the national attention focused on Steven Slater, the now-infamous JetBlue flight attendant, who cursed out a passenger over a plane’s intercom and made a quick exit down the emergency slide with beer in hand.

The passes are being issued during a traditionally sluggish travel period wedged between the summer vacation and winter holiday seasons, when airlines are keen on filling seats that would otherwise be empty.

The limited number of tickets, which can be booked online through Friday, sold out much faster than expected last year.

All travel must be booked between Monday and Oct. 3. Passengers must book flights within three days of departure, or pay a $50 booking fee. There’s also a $50 fee for changes or cancellations within three days of travel.

Despite fees and a higher price, this year’s pass is a better deal than the first time around, said George Hobica, founder of AirfareWatchdog.com.

Because fares are much higher this year, a single flight across the country is $100 more in some cases, he said. Hobica thinks JetBlue will draw even more crowds this year because of the $499 option.

Of course, this doesn’t mean an end to airport cargo rules.  And, you’ll still find yourself subjected to all of the post-911 airport security rules that make for long lines and anxious customers at virtually every airline terminal in the world.  But, the perk may just make moving around the country interviewing for those vp jobs a little less expensive.

Travelers must join JetBlue’s frequent flier program, TrueBlue, to participate. All participants earn a standard amount of frequent flier miles for buying the passes — 4,200 points for the purchase of the unlimited pass, or 3,000 points for the pass that’s valid five days a week. One-way flight awards start at 5,000 points.

The airline serves 61 cities with 650 daily flights.

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MY TAKE: I don’t know of anyone, save the guys out there on that executive search for new employment who could travel enough places, let alone afford the costs of the flights, to make this perk a worthy venture. With online casino gambling and everything else being handled via the Internet, is it really a realistic thing to believe people still need to hop on planes so often?  I think this may be just a JetBlue PR trick to get us to take our eye off the ball that is/was the angry flight attendant who quit his job in an angry huff a while back before exiting the plane via the emergency shoot.

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