Submitted by Kryptik 117 days agoCette jeune femme s’appelle Ciliane. Elle est un zombie qui appartenait à Ti Boss, un bocor de Port-Margot. Décédé récemment, ce dernier laisse comme héritage plus de 1000 zombies, c’est-à-dire des personnes qui après leur décès ont été récupérées par des magiciens du vodou pour servir comme esclaves dans les plantations agricoles.1 Comments - Topic: Haiti News
Submitted by Ruberm 84 days agoColleges are moving to eliminate -- or at least ease -- student debt as pressure builds in Washington for them to spend more from their endowments to help families afford the rising cost of school. This month, Williams College announced that it will eliminate loans from all financial-aid packages beginning next school year and replace them with grants. Amherst College recently announced a similar initiative. And Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., began this fall replacing loans with grants and student employment. Other schools are stopping short of getting rid of loans entirely, but are still finding new ways to minimize debt, at least for some students. Colby College, a private college in Waterville, Maine, announced this month that it will eliminate loans for Maine residents starting next fall. Beginning with next year's freshmen, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., will eliminate loans for its neediest undergraduates and reduce debt by an average of 35% for all other students on aid. And this year, Emory University in Atlanta announced its "Emory Advantage" program, which eliminates loans for undergraduate students whose families earn less than $50,000 a year, while capping total loan volume at $15,000 over four years for families with income of up to $100,000. Jessica Mestre, a sophomore at Amherst College who works as a photographer in the school's public-affairs office, expects to graduate in 2010 with only $3,500 in debt, thanks in large part to the new no-loan initiative. "I don't know my major or my career plans yet, but this relieves the pressure," says the 19-year-old. The moves to ease many students' debt burdens come in the wake of big elite schools' programs to make college more affordable for low- and middle-income families of undergraduates. Harvard University last year expanded its low-income program, begun in 2004, to include families that earn up to $80,000. Starting this academic year, Columbia University is replacing loans with grant money for students whose families earn less than $50,000 a year. And Stanford University this year is expanding its low-income program to offer an additional $5 million in funds for families with incomes from about $60,000 to $135,000, aimed at reducing the parent contribution and what students must borrow. In determining financial aid, schools typically assess family income and assets to come up with an "expected family contribution." They subtract that expected contribution from the total cost of attendance -- tuition, fees, room and board and other expenses -- to come up with a determination of "need." Then the school offers a financial-aid package -- which may comprise loans, grants and a student job -- to meet that need. Schools like Amherst in Amherst, Mass., and Williams, in Williamstown, Mass., are offering grants to replace what the need-based loan would ordinarily be. To be sure, a family could still take out loans to lower their expected contribution. Some federal loans, such as certain Stafford loans or the PLUS loan for parents and graduate students, don't require applicants to show need. But for these schools, loans are no longer part of the financial-aid package offered to families. To finance the new aid initiatives, some schools, such as Williams and Stanford, are reaching into their endowments. But plenty are hoping not to have to dig too deep: Wesleyan is curtailing nonacademic spending, cutting back on certain administrative positions, and raising new funds. Davidson is planning to raise $70 million from alumni and other benefactors. Colby received a sizable donation that allowed it to kick off the initiative, and plans on raising additional funds before having to reach into its endowment. The moves come as members of Congress -- from both sides of the aisle -- are prodding schools to spend more of their endowments. Many colleges have seen enormous growth in recent years in their endowments, which are donated funds that colleges invest and use the proceeds to support the school's mission. Surveys of hundreds of schools by the National Association of College and University Business Officers show that the percentage of schools with endowments valued at over $1 billion has doubled since 1996, to 8%. In legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, which addresses college-financing issues, Rep. John Tierney (D., Mass.) included a section that would direct the secretary of education to conduct a study into the amounts and uses of college endowments. "At a time when the cost of college continues to rise at an alarming rate, are wealthy colleges just hoarding, or is enough of their growing endowment meeting the public policy of fostering education and helping students?" asks Mr. Tierney. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, suggests that Congress should consider a minimum payout requirement for college and university endowments to help lower the cost of college for students and their parents. Amherst College, for instance, spent 4.6% of its $1.34 billion endowment in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006. That is the average that colleges spent that year, according to a study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Still, Amherst's endowment rose 15.8% in market value in that year compared with the previous year. To pay for its new initiative, Amherst says it will dig into reserves from its endowment and other sources in the short term. In future years, it anticipates alumni fund raising to cover the program. "While the endowment has done well in recent years, we've also had years of zero or negative return," says Amherst President Anthony Marx. "We do have an obligation to continue in perpetuity, and there will be up years and down years." Some outside experts think that schools can afford to pony up more, particularly as tuitions continue to increase faster than the typical rate of inflation. "The federal government should require colleges and universities to report their payouts annually, and I would hope that would generate public pressure for them to spend more," says Lynne Munson, adjunct research fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, who testified before the Senate Finance Committee at a September hearing on college endowments. "If that doesn't happen, then I do think Congress should seriously consider a mandatory annual payout requirement," she says. Ms. Munson and others point out that private foundations are generally required to spend at least 5% of their endowments each year, but other nonprofits defined under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code -- which would include colleges and universities -- don't face such a requirement. The escalating amount of student debt may have implications for the future work force. Researchers at Princeton University this year released a study looking at the career choices of graduates from "Anon U" -- a school that is widely believed to be Princeton itself. The school was the first major university to replace loans with grant money that didn't have to be repaid, starting with academic year 2001-02. Princeton researchers tracked the career choices of aid recipients before and after the implementation of the policy. They found that once debt was eliminated, students were likelier to enter lower-paid professions, such as those in the nonprofit, education and government fields. "As a society, we have benefited enormously from people being able to follow the career trajectories that gets their blood moving," says Bob Shireman, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a public-policy research center in Berkeley, Calif. "Sometimes that is public-service work, but it can also be taking on a start-up, inventing something, or graduate school. That involves risk that you can't take when you have a lot of student debt hanging over your head."0 Comments - Topic: General
Submitted by Chief 131 days ago2008 Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI The Hummer H2 might be an obvious target for environmentalists, but unless it’s caked in mud, the hulking sport utility vehicle isn’t the filthiest ride on the road. That distinction goes to another SUV: the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI. The Hummer H2 does make the fifth spot on our list of top 10 worst polluters, thanks to its overall heft and gas-guzzling V8 engine, but what pushes Volkswagen’s Touareg V10 TDI to the very top of the ranking is its large turbo-diesel engine. It dumps so much exhaust into the atmosphere that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives this midsize SUV its lowest air pollution score of 1.0 Comments - Topic: General
Submitted by Kryptik 174 days agoSouth Florida and Miami-Dade County have been know to the entire world as a place that is ruled by corruption among its elected officials and its ‘outstanding’ citizens, who utilize taxpayer money to fill their own pockets. When you travel outside of South Florida and others ask where you’re from, if you admit you’re from Miami you get the cynical response, "Oh, you live in that county that’s ruled by the corrupt politicians." That’s the way people see South Florida and Miami-Dade County, and their view is enhanced by the knowledge that the Cuban political machine monopolizes the entire job market for fellow Cubans.0 Comments - Topic: General
