| Philly Road Warrior: On some routes, flying costs are starting to take ...
Competition from low-cost carriers, the 2000-2001 recession and older airlines' labor-cost cuts have pushed down prices. Service became a bigger issue for most of you. But interest in ticket prices may go up again, considering what two major carriers have done in the last couple of months on the Philadelphia-to-Boston route. As noted in comments on the Road Warrior blog, the round-trip cost to fly nonstop on US Airways or Delta Air Lines between PHL and Boston's Logan Airport is roughly $1,000. Early last fall, the same round-trip flights usually ranged from $200 to $300. One Road Warrior blogger suggested he could hire a cab to drive him to Boston and back for a thousand bucks. (Check out the comments at http://go.philly.com/roadwarrior.) The reason: AirTran Airways left the route in November, and the remaining so-called legacy airlines quickly jacked up the fares.
HSBC Warns on U.S. as Profits Rise 10%
Banking giant HSBC warned today that the turnaround of its US business may take until the end of 2009, as it unveiled a $17.2 billion (£8.7 billion) hit from bad debt and loan provisions. The group said write-downs relating to defaults last year soared by 63 per cent from 2006 -- more than City expectations -- as the fallout from the slowing US housing market crisis deepened. But the company, which is the UK's biggest banking group, still managed to post a 10-per-cent increase in pre-tax profits to 24.2 billion US dollars (£12.2 billion). The figure was in line with market estimates. The US housing crisis, which has seen record default rates and repossessions as high-risk or sub-prime borrowers struggle to meet loan repayments, saw write offs at HSBC's US consumer banking business jump 80 per cent to 11.7 billion US dollars last year (£5.9 billion).
Update: Teenager stabbed to death in fight
The police are chronically under resourced in the area. Even the chair of the local Glyndon SNT says so. How many more young people will have to die before the police, and the local community for that matter get a handle on the knife and gun culture, so prevalent in the area? .
Clemens hit hard on Capitol Hill
Rep. Dan Burton doesn't care for steroids snitch Brian McNamee, not one bit.
"This is disgusting," he barked at McNamee during today's congressional hearing on steroid and HGH abuse in baseball. "We have heard lie after lie after lie after tie.
"I know one thing I don't believe," he growled. "That is you."
It was pretty easy to pick out who sought Roger Clemens' autograph when he recently worked the halls of Congress, schmoozing lawmakers. Some of the representatives fawned over the living legend.
Others stalled the proceedings with clueless observations, idiotic questions and grandstand preaching.
Unfortunately for Clemens, though, much of Wednesday's hearing went against him. The House committee presented substantial evidence supporting McNamee's claims.
Britons Face Billion-Pound Interest Payback
One in four people is struggling with their debts as Britons collectively face a 93bn annual bill for interest. At the same time, around three million people have taken out a debt consolidation loan to try to get on top of their borrowings. Borrowing through credit cards, loans, overdrafts and mortgages has hit almost 1.4 trillion, according to comparison website uSwitch.com. An estimated 9.5m people had "maxed out" on one form of credit during the past six months, while 38% have had a credit card application rejected, the group claims. But nearly two-thirds of these failed to close down their existing credit facilities, and instead went on to rack up a further 2,300 of debt on average. Overall, the research found that the average household has now amassed unsecured debts of 4,281.
'Social business' the next big idea
Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for popularizing microcredit, loans as small as $5 that help people -- almost all women -- start businesses and escape poverty.
Now, Yunus, whose Grameen Bank has lent more than $6 billion to nearly 8 million people in his native Bangladesh alone, is putting forward a new idea: "social business." In his new book, "The End of Poverty," he argues that instead of measuring financial profits, social businesses would measure success by their positive social impact and, ultimately, help wipe out poverty.
In an interview with the Tribune, Yunus put forward his ideas. An edited transcript follows.
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McCain's Cheap Dates?
I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas." Has Rove accidentally ripped the mask off the vicious social inegalitarianism of Bush's immigration plan, as Mark Krikorian argues, or does a more benign interpretation of his comments save him? It's not like he hasn't said this sort of thing before, apparently. Indeed, his June, 2006 version makes the probable context of last week's remark quite clear--and Rove's not simply "saying that every parent wants their child to have a high-skilled, high-wage job," as the White House's damage control suggests. Here's the 2006 pitch: "Now frankly," Rove said during a riff on the temporary worker part of President Bush's immigration reform plan, "I don't want my kid digging ditches. I don't want my kid slinging tar.
Zoo denies locking out Bob Irwin
Bob is welcome anytime in the zoo, that's never been a point of contention. "It's not a rift. Bob has decided to go his different way.'' Mr Mannion said Mr Irwin had bought a property near Kingaroy in southeast Queensland to continue his conservation efforts but had already handed control of the zoo to Steve and Terri Irwin in 1992. "We're a big strong family and that will never change,'' Mr Mannion said. Share this article What is this? .
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