| Bill makes freezing your credit free
S.C. at forefront of the battle against identity theft By Seanna Adcox - The Associated Press COLUMBIA --S.C. residents could put a free block on their credit reports to help protect themselves from identity theft under a proposal on the verge of clearing the General Assembly. The legislation allows residents, at no cost, to freeze their credit - blocking any new loan or credit card from being approved - and temporarily unfreeze it when they want to open new accounts. "If you can cut off a new account before it's opened, that ends the headache for you," said Gail Hillebrand, an attorney for the Consumers Union. "Prevention is the best security." Indiana is the only other state that requires the credit blocking service to be free.
Treasury’s five-year Rock loan
Some will see it as a taxpayer subsidy to a bank which got itself into a mess and was unable to raise money in a conventional way. However shareholders are likely to view it as a potentially crippling burden on the company which – if the Treasury wanted it back – could wipe out the value of Northern Rock's shares. Update 08:00 Northern Rock's shareholders have had a huge dose of bad news this morning. The company says that the preliminary bids for the business all value it at significantly less than the current market value. And the Treasury has said that neither bidders or the company should assume that the £24bn of loans made to it by the Bank of England will be kept in place after February. The Treasury has also warned that the support it has provided to the Rock represents state aid under EU rules and may therefore turn out to be illegal.
Strategic issues exposed
Under the terms of this treaty, in accordance with which Egypt regained sovereignty over Sinai, Egypt is not allowed to post more than 750 soldiers along its border with Palestine and Israel. As Mohamed Hassanein Heikal pointed out in a recent interview on Al-Jazeera, Egypt's sovereignty over the peninsula is incomplete. But more practically, as Haaretz of 25 January observed, "a few hundred Egyptian policemen had little chance of preventing thousands from crossing over, even by using force as they tried to do." It is curiously ironic that Tel Aviv insists that Egypt control its border with Gaza yet continues to reject Egyptian demands to amend the treaty to permit for a larger security force along the border. Western military experts have estimated that Egypt would need to station at least 3,000 troops in Arish and Rafah, along with appropriate air, naval and artillery support, in order to adequately protect the border.
Corrections and clarifications
An item Thursday in the Regional News Watch about a brawl at Bradley Technology and Trade High School incorrectly stated that the school's safety aides were away at training at the time. The Milwaukee police officers assigned to Bradley Tech as school resource officers were at training. *** Because of an editing error, an article in some editions Thursday about potholes misspelled the surname of a Milwaukee alderman. His name is Jim Bohl, not Buhl. 2/14/08 An article Wednesday about proposed legislation seeking $900,000 in emergency funds to save 21 assistant district attorney positions across Wisconsin misstated the impact the additional funding would have on the state budget deficit. It would increase the deficit to about $401 million, not about $500 million.
J.D. Power and Associates Reports: While Small Businesses are ...
Power and Associates Reports: While Small Businesses are Particularly Profitable, Banks Struggle to Satisfy These Customers Commerce Bancorp Ranks Highest in Small Business Owner Satisfaction WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Banks struggle to satisfy small business customers, as these customers tend to be more difficult to please compared with the average retail banking customer, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Small Business Banking Study(SM) released today. Now in its second year, the study measures small business customer satisfaction with the overall banking experience based on seven factors. In order of importance, they are: transaction methods (32%); relationship with representative (19%); products (15%); fees (10%); statements (9%); convenience (9%); and problem resolution (7%).
Sullivan's proposal would offer a safe ride home
Ashanti Hamilton is seeing his name associated with negative headlines, especially in light of a Journal Sentinel report rehashing previous personal troubles and that the first-term alderman is facing foreclosure on one of his homes. The week started with Hamilton's opponent, C. Orlando Owens, getting police to issue a disorderly conduct ticket to the alderman. Disorderly conduct tickets aren't usually the stuff intrepid police beat reporters pick up on in a normal day. And Hamilton wasn't even arrested. Owens has behind-the-scenes backing of none other than Jerell Jones, Milwaukee's minority media mogul and the mastermind behind the Gary George recall. Jones was also one of the key forces supporting Ald. Michael McGee Jr. until his self-inflicted demise. A Journal Sentinel report Thursday highlighted Hamilton's foreclosure, but knowing how the paper does business, it certainly didn't dig up the story on its own and was likely fed the info by Hamilton's opponents.
RISPCA president warns pet owners to take care of their furry friends ...
If it's too cold for you to be outside, it's too cold for most domestic pets, one adage says. Conversely, with adequate precautions, Dr. Finocchio said there is another side of the cold weather coin. "I have a black lab, eight years of age, who prefers to be outside, rolling in the snow," Dr. Finnochio said. "I see nothing wrong with an animal who has evolved as a cold weather dog, in a nice yard, cordoned off, with an igloo or dog house not touching the ground (he recommends four inches of space between the ground and the structure), with insulation if possible, being outside. It all boils down to common sense and knowledge," he said, also noting that dogs kept outside in the winter need to be given approximately 25 percent more food to convert into fuel for warmth.
No LTCM
Debt issuance picked up. Investment grade issuance included Citigroup $2.5bn, McDonald's $2.25bn, Computer Sciences $1.7bn, Honeywell $1.5bn, Pacific G&E $1.1bn, Fifth Third Bank $1.0bn, Biogen $1.0bn, Archer Daniels $700 million, Avon Products $500 million, Clorox $500 million, Peco Energy $500 million, Whirlpool $500 million, Hartford Financial $500 million, and UST $300 million. Junk issuance included Rock-Tenn $200 million. Convert issuance included National Retail Properties $220 million. International dollar bond issuance included KFW $3.0bn. German 10-year bund yields declined 11 bps to 3.89%, while the DAX equities index fell 0.9% (down 16.4% y-t-d). Japanese "JGB" yields sank 9.5 bps to 1.355%. The Nikkei 225 rallied 0.8% (down 11.1% y-t-d and 22.7% y-o-y).
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