The hardest hit areas were those containing high housing and financial positions.
There were just three of the 52 cities where population numbers of one million or greater that had an increase in net earnings and personal income, the broadest measuring factor of the two.

In each of these three areas the federal government was the contributing factor.  One was Washington D.C. the other two are large military areas in San Antonio, TX and Virginia Beach, VA.  Each case showed the highest gain was from federal government and military workers while private public sectors decreased.

When comparing those numbers domestically across the country, employers of private held companies froze earnings and in many places employee hours and pay were cut.

Two other large metro areas showed an increase in personal incomes, they were Baltimore and Pittsburgh.  However each faced declining net earnings but also had a high rise in government benefits, mainly coming from unemployment benefits.

Nevada, Arizona and Florida had the most areas with the sharpest declines of personal income.  This is also reflected by the huge decline in housing markets in those areas.  Nevada is also suffering from our nation’s number one unemployment rate of 14.2%.

The Midwest states were hit extremely hard with declining jobs in manufacturing during 2009, which created a decrease in income levels from many industrial areas

china flood

Mudslides and flooding waters have affected millions of people all across Asia as rising and rushing waters have brought a reported 127 deaths in parts of northwestern China and numbers may rise.

Roughly 4 million Pakistanis are forced dealing with a shortage of food during the heaviest flooding the country has ever faced.  In Kashmir there are 500 people missing and 132 deaths already reported as rescuers race to search for all unaccounted people.

The highest water level in years in the state media of North Korea have completely demolished many thousand homes and crops.  Horrified citizens have raced for higher grounds or taken to upper levels of apartment buildings in the province of Gansu China.  The area was ravaged by flash flooding, destroying buildings and washing away cars after a debris-block river let loose overnight.

Officials were still searching for an estimated 1,300 missing people from China’s worst flooding in a decade.  This according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The heaviest damaged area was the country seat of Zhouqu which is located in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture province.  Homes were buckled and roads were covered in mud and water more than a yard (meter) high.

There have been complaints from flood victims saying aid did not arrive quick enough or not at all.  As the heavy rains continue down on many parts of the country, the number of people requiring assitance will surely rise.

Among the reported deaths are five foreign tourists whose identities and nationalities are not yet known.  There are an expected 2,000 foreign tourists in the country areas, which draws adventure sports enthusiasts.

Title contract

– PITTSBURGH, PA – In a completely new approach to the way title insurance is delivered, a Pennsylvania title company began offering its services directly to homeowners earlier this year.  Charles Marino, President and CEO of Pennsylvania Title Insurance Company, made a decision to take his business out of the confines of the financial institutions, lenders, mortgage companies, and banks and begin seeking the end user to provide them the opportunity to choose their title company for themselves.  Traditionally, title insurance is not decided upon by the borrower.

Title insurance is protection against loss that could arise from discrepancies and problems pertaining to the title to your property.  Before you purchased your home, the property on which it stands most likely went through several ownership changes.  This means that there have been several opportunities for someone to possibly forge a signature or have unpaid real estate taxes or liens.  Title insurance will cover you for any legal fees and claims that may arise out of such situations.  If you need a mortgage, title insurance is required, and it will protect you up to the amount of the mortgage.

The Pennsylvania title company helps explain some further benefits of a title insurance policy, stating that such policies end on the date of purchase, and extend backwards indefinitely.  In other words, the policy protects you against claims that may arise from past discrepancies.  Once you obtain the policy, you are protected indefinitely for the policy period.  Although the title insurance company will do extensive research back in time to insure that no discrepancies exist with your title, the fact that the land has been bought and sold so many times over history and the fact that even a small problem could cause great complications attest to the policy’s value and benefits.

Marino points out that in our information-rich age, consumers are making a lot of buying decisions themselves.  Men are showing up in jewelry stores to purchase engagement rings with a basic knowledge of gemology; homeowners are calling appliance repairmen while browsing wiring diagrams and parts books online.  Having seen the Pennsylvania title company evolve over recent decades, Marino has the company poised to offer its knowledge and services to an information-hungry client base.

For more information, visit http://www.pennsylvaniatitleinsurancecompany.com

mens watch

– Men’s Designer Watches Store, a designer watch review website, based out of

California, has announced that they are featuring on their website ,the TAG Heuer brand of designer watches this month. This new  designer watch review site will feature

information on the TAG Heuer designer watch collection. This website can be found at  http://mensdesignerwatchesstore.com

“The goal of this website is to give interested customers the convenience of being able to find the information they want about these outstanding watches put out by TAG Heuer ,” said Bud Brown, website creator. “These watches are becoming so popular now that we have decided to setup this review website ,that is an affiliate site.”

They also wanted to point out that his company is in no way a part of the TAG Heuer Watch Company. It was added that this is strictly a review site setup to refer potential, interested customers to this product.

The website plans to feature each particular item in the unique TAG Heuer Watch Collection.  TAG Heuer traces its roots to the small Swiss village of St-Imier where, in 1860, a watchmaker named Edouard Heuer opened his first shop. His vision was to create remarkable timepieces that pushed the envelope of innovation and precision. The company’s reputation grew, and Heuer’s first patent for a chronograph mechanism in 1882 was followed by a long list of achievements: the first stopwatch accurate to 1/100 of a second, the first dashboard stopwatch for race cars, the first miniature electronic timekeeping device accurate to 1/1000th of a second, and the first automatic movement with a micro rotor, to name just a few.

Over the years, Heuer’s reputation for gold-standard precision earned the company the privilege of providing official timing services for a number of world-class competitive sporting events, including the Olympic Games, the FIS Ski World Cup, and the FIA Formula 1 World Championships.

It was also pointed out that TAG Heuer watches can be shipped for free, which can be another reason for shopping online for your men’s designer watch.

college football rankings

The 2010 College Football season will open with Alabama sitting ranked in the number one position of the USA Today Coaches Poll. Alabama defends it number one ranking finish in 2009 after beating Texas in the NCAA National Championship game.

The final poll results had the Crimson Tide getting 55 first-place votes out the possible 59 votes available from the American Football Coaches Association panel.

The four remaining first-place votes went to the number 2 ranking team Ohio State Buckeyes. The first-place votes push the Buckeyes ahead in the rankings of Florida at No. 3 and No. 4 Texas.

There are some interesting notes for this years rankings and opening games. No. 5 ranked Boise State will open the 2010 season playing the No. 6 team Virgina Tech.

With TCU getting the No. 7 ranking and the No. 5 ranked Boise State, they hold the highest preseason rankings for conference schools who do not recieve automatic bids to the BCS games. The first time ever since the Bowl Championship Series system was put into place in 1998. Prior to this years poll, no such school had opened the season ranked higher than 16th.

The Crimson Tide face a tough schedule even with the returning running back Heisman Trophey winner Mark Ingram. Alabama is scheduled to play Penn State ranked No. 14, Arkansas ranked No. 19 and the No. 4 Florida Gators all within the first five weeks.

It should be noted that Southern California is ineligible for the poll due to the banning from bowl games this season from NCAA sanctions.

Then Boston Celtics, the Eastern Conference Champions have added Shaquille O’Neal to their roster.  O’Neal who played last season along with LaBron James in Cleveland, signed with Boston on Wednesday.

The Celtics who have one NBA Championship and took the Los Angeles Lakers to a game 7 last season playing with the Big Three.  Those three big star names are Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.  Now with the addition of O’Neal it may be time to think in terms of the Big Four.

The signing of O’Neal was prompted by the injury suffered by center Kendrick Perkins during the 2010 Finals with the Lakers.  Perkins is now recovering from knee surgery that may sideline him for the 2010-2011 season until February.

The deal for the free agent center, 7-foot-1, 325 pound Shaquille O’Neal is believed to be worth $3 million for 2 years according to a source with close knowledge of the negotiations.

The Celtics are adding a 15-year All Star and previous NBA Champion to a team needing size at the center position while Perkins recovers.  With the resigning of Allen, the Celtics now position themselves for another run at the NBA Championship.  The Celtics will be counting on the aging Allen, Garnett and O’Neal for one last run at adding another Championship banner to the Boston Garden rafters.

The increase of reported whooping cough cases over 2009 are also being reported in South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and upper New York state.  The number of whooping cough cases have increased public concern the disease will continue spreading, according to epidemiologist Jennifer Lian, who works with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Whooping cough, medically known as pertussis. gets its name from the wheezing sound commonly called “whoop” by those infected as they try breathing during a coughing attack.

According to Liang, “Pertussis is a cyclic disease, and we do see peaks every three to five years”.  “The last peak was 2005,when we had 25,000 reported cases nationally, and we may be on the upswing of another cycle.”

How much public concern or worry should exist?  Whooping cough can cause adults to incur a barking cough that may last weeks, however it is very rare to be life-threatening and treatment is through antibiotics.

The greatest concern is for infants too young for immunization.  Whooping couch could result in death.  California reported the death of a baby last week, bringing the current number to seven deaths.  California is calling this the greatest outbreak in 50 years.

The CDC says with infant pertussis, hospitalization will result in about two-thirds of the cases.  With children about one in 10 result in pneumonia from the infection, and one in 250 may result in encephalopathy, a disease affecting the brain.

Late summer, into early fall is the whooping cough peak season time.  Symptoms of the disease are those much similar to the common cold.  Watch for congestion, runny nose and mild fever. Then progressing to a dry, hacking cough, usually with prolonged violent attacks of coughing which may induce vomiting.

More information
The CDC has more on the pertussis vaccine visit: 
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/

Stocked crude oil for the week took a fall of 1.4 million barrels ending last week, caused by slipping imports and brief production interruptions from the Mexican Gulf from Tropical Storm Bonnie.

The U.S. September crude oil futures jumped $1.21 settling at $82.55.  It marked the first time U.S. crude was trading above $82 since May 5th.  ICE Brent in London saw an increase of $1.86 to top out at $82.68.  Overall, volume was lighter where the U.S. NYMEX numbers show future trading reaching slightly over 475,000 lots.  That falls short of the 30-day average numbers of about 535,000 lots.

Futures for North Sea Brent rose higher than U.S. which has not occurred since mid June, mainly due to summer maintenance planning to reduce supplies coming out of the Norwegian and British oil fields.  Traders said the Forties North Sea crude blend, which typically sets the price level of dated Brent, drew no bids or offers Tuesday because of tighter supplies.  It had been months since this last occurred.

The dollar was also am investing focal point this week, after falling to multimonth lows against the euro.  Signs investors are beginning to fear Asia and Europe may outpace the U.S. in a recovering economy.

Reports are for a planned tour to take place in Standish during the week of August 16 with Federal prison officials. During the visit of the prison meetings are expected to take place with local officials.

The Standish state prison is located approximately 145 miles of Detroit and due to buget cuts required by the state, the prison was forced to close last year. The facility has a capacity limit for about 600 prison inmates.

Early there was hope for consideration as a holding facility for 229 al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighter suspects that are currently being held in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention camp location.

Now there is hope the Michigan prison site may possibly be a solution to help reduce the federdal prison overcrowding problem.

U.S. Bureau of Prison officials had taken a tour of the Standish prison once before. Spokeswoman Traci Billingsley with the Bureau of Prisons said Monday there is no timeframe for establishing a final decision on anything yet.

“We are in the exploratory phase right now” she said.

The word of another visit does give some hope that a possible agreement may become possible at a future date

Among the endorsers are the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, Democracy for America’s Palm Beach County affiliate, and the United Haitian American Democratic Club.

Kaye, a District 86 resident for over five years, is contesting the primary against Lori Berman. Berman was originally running in the neighboring District 87 race where she lives, but switched for reasons yet to be understood. As no other candidates from other party affiliations qualified for the ballot, the August 24th Democratic primary is open to all District 86 voters regardless of party affiliation.

Florida State House District 86 includes parts of Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach.

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