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Q I was touched by the story of Cory Edwards, who helped get a tagger arrested, but then has to ride the bus to stay warm at night. Any idea how to get money to the right person to help him out? ... How can I help Cory?

Alex Thurber, Rich Herrera and several more

A Cory Edwards is the homeless man who saw a person spraying graffiti on a sign near a bus stop in Santa Clara recently. He followed the tagger on foot and called police, helping them catch the vandal. The city presented him with a $250 reward last week, and a reader has sent a $525 check to help Edwards, saying, "I'd like to keep my donation anonymous and seek no publicity."

Capt. Kevin Kyle of the Santa Clara Police Department sent this to Mr. Anonymous: "I want to thank you for your generosity after reading about Cory in Mr. Richards' column. I had the pleasure of meeting Cory last week and presenting him with the city's graffiti program reward. Cory's getting involved despite his current troubles should be an inspiration to us all. Your kind gesture to him, especially as we approach Thanksgiving, is equally inspirational."

Others who want to help can call Lt. Matt Hogan at 408-615-4865 or email him at mhogan@santaclaraca.gov . Now on to a few others who deserve our thanks.

Tough times may be ahead for border economy

Nov 27, 2011 (El Paso Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --The El Paso border economy, and not just the Mexican peso, may be in for a bumpy ride if the U.S. recession returns and European markets remain shaky, experts say.

The peso fell by 20 percent during the past four months, and it can be expected to reach 17 pesos to the dollar at retail outlets. Last month, some retail outlets in Northern Mexico were trading the currency at 18 pesos to the dollar.

Grupo Banamex reported the interbank exchange rate at 14.14 pesos to the dollar, and the teller rate at 14.25 pesos to the dollar.

Politics, violence and foreign investment trends south of the border will also affect the local economy as well as the peso's strength, experts say.

Record Black Friday sales boosted retailers and helped stocks snap a seven-day losing streak. Kris Kridel of WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9FM has that story, and more top business headlines on Chicago Tonight at 7:00 pm.

Despite recession fears, Black Friday shoppers turned out in droves, increasing spending to record numbers, both in brick and mortar stores and online. According to surveys conducted by the National Retail Federation, holiday shoppers broke records across the board, with more than 226 million shoppers visiting stores and websites over the weekend, up from last year's 212 million.

The average shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, an increase from last year's $365.34. This year, shoppers also shelled out 37.8 percent of their total spending online. All told, total sales reached $52.4 billion.

With stores extending their Black Friday deals into Thursday, 28.7 million people shopped on Thanksgiving Day this year, up from 22.2 million last year. Nearly a quarter of all shoppers started their Black Friday run when the clock struck midnight, taking advantage of shops already open, or staking out a spot before dawn. On Black Friday itself, shoppers broke records once more when 86.3 million turned out or signed in online to take advantage of sales.

This year, the National Retail Federation also asked shoppers how they would use mobile devices to shop; 25.7 percent of those surveyed said they would or did use tablets or smartphones to purchase items, and 37.4 percent will or have compared product and prices using a mobile device.

JEFFERSON CITY A battle looms over how muchlenders can charge for payday loans in Missouri " and it promisesto be an expensive one.

A coalition of religious groups and civic organizations havebegun collecting signatures to get a measure on the state's 2012ballot that would limit the cost of short-term loans. Voters wouldthen have the option of capping annual interest rates on thoseloans " which would include payday and car title loans " at 36percent.

Opposing the measure is a Kansas City-based nonprofit calledMissourians for Responsible Government. Over the course of threemonths, the group has contributed $600,000 to a committee set up tooppose the ballot initiative. Because Missourians for ResponsibleGovernment is a nonprofit, it is not required to disclose wherethat money came from.

Some of the nonprofit's money has gone to the company ofinfluential Republican political consultant Jeff Roe and to two lawfirms involved with a lawsuit challenging the ballotinitiative.

Missourians for Responsible Government was founded by PatrickTuohey, a communications specialist who also runs Market andCommunications Research Inc. and publishes the Missouri Recordblog. Neither Tuohey nor Roe responded to repeated calls and emailsseeking comment. The treasurer of the committee receiving the money" called Missourians for Equal Credit Opportunity " declined tocomment.

Law degree is an amazing qualification to acquire at both the personal and professional level, but studying for law is a very expensive form of education. Single mothers with their own stress of handling work and home, cannot even think of such ambitions considering the expense of law education. For such instance have been designed the law school grants and financial aid for single mothers, which offers to provide the monetary services for those single mothers who are willing to study for the law course.

Grants for law education are extensively available but we should know the right place to start our research. Firstly, we should find maximum information about financial aids from the university or college we are thinking of pursuing the course. Many of the educational institutions provide scholarships and grants for students of the low-income households so that they can start their education. The other law grants provided to single mothers have been listed below in short:

1) Equal Justice Works fellowship - This award is granted to fifty law students, in varying amounts. The eligible students should meet the criterion for working in undeserved communities.

2) Law Schools Admission Council Research Grants - Law students working on a legal research program are entitled for this scholarship.

3) Elaine Osborne Jacobsen award for Women Working in Health Care Law - This award is granted to a female graduate student allocated as health care advocate or to a female law undergrad. The award prize money is $3,000.

In the recently released third quarter results, Priceline.com reported robust growth across the board while highlighting the expectation of a modest deceleration for the remainder of 2011. Our revised price estimate of $588 for Priceline reflects the continued growth momentum at the hotel bookings business.

The hotel business also drove gross booking growth at competitor Expedia this quarter but accounts for a lower percentage of the stock's value compared to Priceline. While we expect Priceline to continue its winning run with the hotel bookings market share, there are some factors such as foreign exchange volatility and the recent flooding in Thailand that represent a potential downside to our estimate. Below we take a closer look at them and discuss their implications for Priceline's valuation.

See our full analysis for Priceline here

Europe Debt Crisis Can Slow Down Growth Through Adverse FX impact

With international operations contributing almost 78% of the gross bookings, year-to-date, Priceline has significant exposure to foreign currency denominated assets.

A study that generally is quite gloomy about national home values in the next two years predicts a small price increase for the Wilmington area.

Home values are expected to climb 2.6 percent in the Wilmington area over the next year and then 1.9 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to a study by Fiserv, a publicly traded financial analysis company.

Local real estate and economic experts, however, say home prices have fallen by up to a third here since the housing bubble burst. So there is a long way to go to recover from what most say were unrealistic prices in the middle of the last decade.

Additionally, real estate brokers here said a price increase would depend on price point and location.

The Fiserv study predicted what it called a triple dip in national home prices.

Upon deciding on applying for a mortgage loan it is important that you be aware of the housing loan interest rate that you will be required to pay during the term of the loan. There are times when buyers get too excited about the idea of purchasing their own home that they tend to overlook the interest rate incorporated into the loan. They only begin to notice this after a few years of paying their mortgage, and by this time the rates may be too high, especially if the loan has a variable interest rate. If you are faced with such a situation it is best that you call your mortgage provider and have the contract explained to you in detail. If you feel that it is too high, your loan manager may present you with other options such as refinancing in order to be able to save on your mortgage payments.

It is also important that you understand the principles of mortgage rates or interest percentages before you decide to apply for a mortgage loan with a certain bank. A loan manager will present you with four housing loan interest rate packages to choose from: SIBOR, SOR, fixed interest rate, and variable rate. There are many other interest rate packages that may be offered by banks, however, these four are the most popular among property shoppers. The Singapore Interbank Offered Rate (SIBOR) and Swap Offer Rate (SOR) pegged mortgage interest rates both fluctuate according to the changes in the international market. SOR pegged interest rates tend to fluctuate more because it reacts to the ever changing foreign currency exchange rates. For this reason, SIBOR is deemed as more stable as compared to SOR. However, there are instances when SOR pegged mortgage rates can suddenly drop without any warning and can be even lower than SIBOR pegged rates.

A fixed housing loan interest rate is another popular choice by those who are shopping for mortgage loans because it is not affected by economic changes in the world market. Those who choose this mortgage rate package will continue to pay a fixed rate of interest regardless of how the world market is doing for the duration of the mortgage loan.

The principles of a variable housing loan rates for interest are a little harder to understand because it varies from bank to bank. You may find banks that offer lower variable interest rates than others, while some charge higher than usual. This is because variable rates of interest depend on a lot of factors, including your credit background, your ability to pay, and your standing as a Singapore citizen. It is important that you thoroughly understand the computation before you agree to the terms so as to avoid paying more than what you can afford.

To get a mortgage rate that is most suitable for your financial situation, make sure that you thoroughly research about the current mortgage rates in the market before you start doing your mortgage loan shopping. Patience and determination are also very important because running in and out of banks to meet with housing loan managers can be a tiring and time consuming task. Everything becomes worthwhile however when you are able to land a housing loan rate package that is right for you.本文出自 Mr.J ....

The Australian dollar has fallen almost half a US cent after the release of weaker than expected Chinese manufacturing figures.

Easy Forex currency dealer Tony Darvall said the Australian dollar was not doing very much on Tuesday morning until the release of Chinese manufacturing data at noon.

China's purchasing managers index for October, a key indicator of manufacturing activity, fell for the first time in three months.

The index dropped to 50.4 in October from 51.2, showing that the expansion of China's manufacturing sector is slowing.

'We just got some weaker than expected Chinese PMI and the market is under a lot of pressure right now,' Mr Darvall said.

The Republican presidential candidates scheduled to debate Wednesday in Michigan agree on at least one thing: They wouldn't have helped bail out the Detroit automakers two years ago.
The issue is a potent one in Michigan, where the auto industry's long slide stuck the industrial state in a decade-long economic slump that pushed the jobless rate to over 14 percent after the financial meltdown hit in late 2008.
After getting government bailouts and going through bankruptcy, General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC are now making money and hiring again, points President Barack Obama made last month during a stop at GM's small-car assembly plant in Orion Township near Pontiac.
But all eight Republicans attending Wednesday's debate at Oakland University in Rochester say they wouldn't have offered government loans to save GM and Chrysler, whose sprawling Auburn Hills headquarters is just a short drive from the university's campus 35 miles north of Detroit.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won Michigan's 2008 GOP presidential primary, explained during Detroit-area campaign stops in June that his opposition to the bailouts wasn't about hurting the auto industry, but about keeping the U.S. taxpayer off the hook.
"Some people believe in bailouts. I believe in the process of the law," said Romney, whose father led American Motors before becoming Michigan governor in the 1960s. "The idea of just writing a check, which is what the auto executives were asking for, was not the right course ... It would have been best had the auto companies gone through the bankruptcy process without having taken $17 billion from government."
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters Monday in a conference call that Michigan voters will remember the Democratic president helped the faltering automakers, protecting middle-class jobs.
"Not only did the president extend the loan and restructuring packages that saved 1.4 million jobs up and down the auto supply chain, but he's made investments in innovative technologies like advanced batteries that are creating jobs and new products to export from Michigan," Messina said.
But Michigan GOP Chairman Bobby Schostak said many Republican voters see the federal bailout as a mistake, even though both GM and Chrysler have repaid most of the money and the government has been able to sell most of its investment in the two companies. He claims the federal government could have offered government loan guarantees and let the automakers go through a traditional bankruptcy.
"Don't become the lender. That's not the place for the federal government," Schostak said.
Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer doesn't buy the argument that the automakers would have survived without the federal funds. He expects voters will be listening closely Wednesday to the 90-minute CNBC-sponsored debate to see what the Republican candidates say about the automakers.
"It seems to me, issue No. 1 is for them to explain, as they hold a debate in the shadow of Chrysler headquarters -- the building that now would be a vacant hulk if they all had their way -- why they opposed the very successful rescue of the domestic auto industry," Brewer said.
Michigan has the nation's third highest unemployment rate at 11.1 percent, well above the national rate of 9 percent. Four years ago, when GOP candidates gathered for a presidential debate in Dearborn, Michigan had the highest unemployment rate among the 50 states -- 7.4 percent.
The candidates want to make a good impression in Michigan, which will hold its GOP presidential primary on Feb. 28, the same day as Arizona. Romney is expected to have an edge in his birth state but it's not a winner-take-all contest, so others could come away with Michigan delegates if they have a strong enough showing.
Many of the leading candidates are gearing up their Michigan campaigns with that in mind, even though Obama won Michigan by 16 points in 2008. The last Republican to win Michigan's presidential contest was then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988.