U.S. evolves on same-sex marriage






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • The president and the nation have shifted perspectives on same-sex marriage

  • Supreme Court ruling on California's same-sex marriage ban a critical test

  • Growing public support for gay marriage give proponents hope for change




Washington (CNN) -- The nation's growing acceptance of same-sex marriage has happened in slow and painstaking moves, eventually building into a momentum that is sweeping even the most unlikely of converts.


Even though he said in 2008 that he could only support civil unions for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama nonetheless enjoyed strong support among the gay community. He disappointed many with his conspicuously subdued first-term response to the same-sex marriage debate.


Last year, after Vice President Joe Biden announced his support, the president then said his position had evolved and he, too, supported same-sex marriage.


So it was no small matter when on Thursday the Obama administration formally expressed its support of same-sex marriage in a court brief weighing in on California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex weddings. The administration's effort was matched by at least 100 high-profile Republicans — some of whom in elections past depended on gay marriage as a wedge issue guaranteed to rally the base — who signed onto a brief supporting gay couples to legally wed.


Obama on same-sex marriage: Everyone is equal


Then there are the polls that show that an increasing number of Americans now support same-sex marriage. These polls show that nearly half of the nation's Catholics and white, mainstream Protestants and more than half of the nation's women, liberals and political moderates all support same-sex marriage.


According to Pew Research Center polling, 48% of Americans support same-sex marriage with 43% opposed. Back in 2001, 57% opposed same-sex marriage while 35% supported it.


In last year's presidential election, same-sex marriage scarcely raised a ripple. That sea change is not lost on the president.


"The same evolution I've gone through is the same evolution the country as a whole has gone through," Obama told reporters on Friday.


Craig Rimmerman, professor of public policy and political science at Hobart and William Smith colleges says there is history at work here and the administration is wise to get on the right side.


"There is no doubt that President Obama's shifting position on Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage more broadly is due to his desire to situate himself on the right side of history with respect to the fight over same-sex marriage," said Rimmerman, author of "From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States."


"I also think that broader changes in public opinion showing greater support for same-sex marriage, especially among young people, but in the country at large as well, has created a cultural context for Obama to alter his views."


For years, Obama had frustrated many in the gay community by not offering full-throated support of same-sex marriage. However, the president's revelation last year that conversations with his daughters and friends led him to change his mind gave many in that community hope.










Last year, the Obama administration criticized a measure in North Carolina that banned same-sex marriage and made civil unions illegal. The president took the same position on a similar Minnesota proposal.


Obama administration officials point to what they see as the administration's biggest accomplishment in the gay rights cause: repealing "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on openly gay and lesbian members serving in the forces.


Then there was the president's inaugural address which placed the gay community's struggle for equality alongside similar civil rights fights by women and African-Americans.


"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well," Obama said in his address after being sworn in.


In offering its support and asserting in the brief that "prejudice may not be the basis for differential treatment under the law," the Obama administration is setting up a high stakes political and constitutional showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over a fast-evolving and contentious issue.


The justices will hear California's Proposition 8 case in March. That case and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.


Beyond the legal wranglings there is a strong social and historic component, one that has helped open the way for the administration to push what could prove to be a social issue that defines Obama's second term legacy, Rimmerman said.


The nation is redefining itself on this issue, as well.


Pew survey: Changing attitudes on gay marriage


The changes are due, in part, to generational shifts. Younger people show a higher level of support than their older peers, according to Pew polling "Millennials are almost twice as likely as the Silent Generation to support same-sex marriage."


"As people have grown up with people having the right to marry the generational momentum has been very, very strong," said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a gay rights organization.


That is not to say that there isn't still opposition.


Pew polling found that most Republicans and conservatives remain opposed to same-sex marriage. In 2001, 21% of Republicans were supportive; in 2012 that number nudged slightly to 25%.


Conservative groups expressed dismay at the administration's same-sex marriage support.


"President Obama, who was against same-sex 'marriage' before he was for it, and his administration, which said the Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional before they said it was unconstitutional, has now flip-flopped again on the issue of same-sex 'marriage,' putting allegiance to extreme liberal social policies ahead of constitutional principle," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement.


But there are signs of movement even among some high profile Republican leaders


Top Republicans sign brief supporting same-sex marriage


The Republican-penned friend of the court brief, which is designed to influence conservative justices on the high court, includes a number of top officials from the George W. Bush administration, Mitt Romney's former campaign manager and former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.


It is also at odds with the Republican Party's platform, which opposes same-sex marriage and defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.


Still, with White House and high-profile Republican support, legal and legislative victories in a number of states and polls that show an increasing number of Americans support same sex-marriage, proponents feel that the winds of history are with them.


"What we've seen is accelerating and irrefutable momentum as Americans have come to understand who gay people are and why marriage matters," Wolfson said. "We now have a solid national majority and growing support across every demographic. We have leaders across the spectrum, including Republicans, all saying it's time to end marriage discrimination."


CNN's Peter Hamby, Ashley Killough and Bill Mears contributed to this report.






Read More..

Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal






VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.


Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.






Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.


The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.


The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.


One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”


The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.


GREY AREAS


Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”


The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.


Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.


In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”


The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.


“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.


“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”


The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.


“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.


The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.


The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.


The film goes on general release on Thursday.


(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/
Link To Post : Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders






Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.


That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.






“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”


Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.


Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.


The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.


In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.


“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.


And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.


A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.


The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.


With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.


“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.


The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.


“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.


“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”


The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.


Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.


Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.


Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.


“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.


Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.


Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.


As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.


“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”


This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.


View this article on CNNMoney


More From CNNMoney.com


Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance





Title Post: Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/
Link To Post : Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Syria war is everybody's problem




Syrians search for survivors and bodies after the Syrian regime attacked the city of Aleppo with missiles on February 23.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Frida Ghitis: We are standing by as Syria rips itself apart, thinking it's not our problem

  • Beyond the tragedy in human terms, she says, the war damages global stability

  • Ghitis: Syria getting more and more radical, jeopardizing forces of democracy

  • Ghitis: Peace counts on moderates, whom we must back with diplomacy, training arms




Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns


(CNN) -- Last week, a huge explosion rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing more than 50 people and injuring hundreds. The victims of the blast in a busy downtown street were mostly civilians, including schoolchildren. Each side in the Syrian civil war blamed the other.


In the northern city of Aleppo, about 58 people -- 36 of them children -- died in a missile attack last week. Washington condemned the regime of Bashar al-Assad; the world looked at the awful images and moved on.


Syria is ripping itself to pieces. The extent of human suffering is beyond comprehension. That alone should be reason enough to encourage a determined effort to bring this conflict to a quick resolution. But if humanitarian reasons were not enough, the international community -- including the U.S. and its allies -- should weigh the potential implications of allowing this calamity to continue.



Frida Ghitis

Frida Ghitis



We've all heard the argument: It's not our problem. We're not the world's policeman. We would only make it worse.



This is not a plea to send American or European troops to fight in this conflict. Nobody wants that.


But before we allow this mostly hands-off approach to continue, we would do well to consider the potential toll of continuing with a failed policy, one that has focused in vain over the past two years searching for a diplomatic solution.


U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry has just announced that the U.S. will provide an additional $60 million in non-lethal assistance to the opposition. He has hinted that President Obama, after rejecting suggestions from the CIA and previous Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arm Syrian rebels, might be ready to change course. And not a day too soon.


The war is taking longer than anyone expected. The longer it lasts, the more Syria is radicalized and the region is destabilized.


If you think the Syrian war is the concern of Syrians alone, think about other countries that have torn themselves apart over a long time. Consider Lebanon, Afghanistan or Somalia; each with unique circumstances, but with one thing in common: Their wars created enormous suffering at home, and the destructiveness eventually spilled beyond their borders. All of those wars triggered lengthy, costly refugee crises. They all spawned international terrorism and eventually direct international -- including U.S. -- intervention.


The uprising against al-Assad started two years ago in the spirit of what was then referred to -- without a hint of irony -- as the Arab Spring. Young Syrians marched, chanting for freedom and democracy. The ideals of equality, rule of law and human rights wafted in the air.


Al-Assad responded to peaceful protests with gunfire. Syrians started dying by the hundreds each day. Gradually the nonviolent protesters started fighting back. Members of the Syrian army started defecting.


The opposition's Free Syrian Army came together. Factions within the Syrian opposition took up arms and the political contest became a brutal civil war. The death toll has climbed to as many as 90,000, according to Kerry. About 2 million people have left their homes, and the killing continues with no end in sight.








In fairness to Washington, Europe and the rest of the international community, there were never easy choices in this war. Opposition leaders bickered, and their clashing views scared away would-be supporters. Western nations rejected the idea of arming the opposition, saying Syria already has too many weapons. They were also concerned about who would control the weaponry, including an existing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, after al-Assad's fall.


These are all legitimate concerns. But inaction is producing the worst possible outcome.


The moderates, whose views most closely align with the West, are losing out to the better-armed Islamists and, especially, to the extremists. Moderates are losing the ideological debate and the battle for the future character of a Syria after al-Assad.


Radical Islamist groups have taken the lead. Young people are losing faith in moderation, lured by disciplined, devout extremists. Reporters on the ground have seen young democracy advocates turn into fervent supporters of dangerous groups such as the Nusra Front, which has scored impressive victories.


The U.S. State Department recently listed the Nusra Front, which has close ties to al Qaeda in Iraq and a strong anti-Western ideology, as a terrorist organization.


Meantime, countries bordering Syria are experiencing repercussions. And these are likely to become more dangerous.


Jordan, an important American ally, is struggling with a flood of refugees, as many as 10,000 each week since the start of the year. The government estimates 380,000 Syrians are in Jordan, a country whose government is under pressure from its own restive population and still dealing with huge refugee populations from other wars.


Turkey is also burdened with hundreds of thousands of refugees and occasional Syrian fire. Israel has warned about chemical weapons transfers from al-Assad to Hezbollah in Lebanon and may have already fired on a Syrian convoy attempting the move.


Lebanon, always perched precariously on the edge of crisis, lives with growing fears that Syria's war will enter its borders. Despite denials, there is evidence that Lebanon's Hezbollah, a close ally of al-Assad and of Iran, has joined the fighting on the side of the Syrian president. The Free Syrian Army has threatened to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon if it doesn't leave Syria.


The possible outcomes in Syria include the emergence of a failed state, stirring unrest throughout the region. If al-Assad wins, Syria will become an even more repressive country.


Al-Assad's survival would fortify Iran and Hezbollah and other anti-Western forces. If the extremists inside the opposition win, Syria could see factional fighting for many years, followed by anti-democratic, anti-Western policies.


The only good outcome is victory for the opposition's moderate forces. They may not be easy to identify with complete certainty. But to the extent that it is possible, these forces need Western support.


They need training, funding, careful arming and strong political and diplomatic backing. The people of Syria should know that support for human rights, democracy and pluralism will lead toward a peaceful, prosperous future.


Democratic nations should not avert their eyes from the killings in Syria which are, after all, a warning to the world.


Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.


Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frida Ghitis.






Read More..

Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal






VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.


Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.






Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.


The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.


The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.


One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”


The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.


GREY AREAS


Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”


The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.


Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.


In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”


The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.


“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.


“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”


The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.


“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.


The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.


The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.


The film goes on general release on Thursday.


(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/
Link To Post : Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Warning about student ‘money mules’












Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.


They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.


The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.


It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.


Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.


“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.


“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”


How it works


Continue reading the main story

It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”



End Quote Kayleigh Rance job-seeker


The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.


Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.


It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.


Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.


“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”


The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.


Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.


Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.


Campaign


The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.


But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.


Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.


Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.


Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.


‘Colossal risk’


Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.


“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.


Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.


The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.


Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.


“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”


BBC News – Business





Title Post: Warning about student ‘money mules’
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/
Link To Post : Warning about student ‘money mules’
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders






Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.


That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.






“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”


Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.


Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.


The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.


In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.


“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.


And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.


A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.


The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.


With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.


“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.


The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.


“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.


“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”


The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.


Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.


Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.


Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.


“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.


Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.


Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.


As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.


“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”


This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.


View this article on CNNMoney


More From CNNMoney.com


Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance





Title Post: Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/
Link To Post : Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

McIlroy walks off course at Honda Classic


PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Rory McIlroy abruptly walked off the course Friday at the Honda Classic, telling reporters who followed him to his car he's "not in a good place mentally." An hour later, he attributed his withdrawal to a sore wisdom tooth.


It raised serious questions about golf's No. 1 player with the Masters just more than a month away.


McIlroy already was 7-over par through eight holes of the second round when he hit his second shot into the water on the par-5 18th at PGA National. He shook hands with Ernie Els and Mark Wilson and was headed to the parking lot before they even finished the hole.


"There's not really much I can say, guys," McIlroy told three reporters before he drove away. "I'm not in a good place mentally, you know?"


He said there was nothing wrong physically. When asked about his swing, the 23-year-old from Northern Ireland replied, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on."


About an hour after he left, McIlroy released a statement that pinned his withdrawal on dental problems.


"I have been suffering with a sore wisdom tooth, which is due to come out in the near future," McIlroy said. "It began bothering me again last night, so I relieved it with Advil. It was very painful again this morning, and I was simply unable to concentrate. It was really bothering me and had begun to affect my playing partners."


He was seen eating a sandwich on the 18th fairway.


McIlroy apologized to the tournament, saying he had every intention of defending his title at the Honda Classic. He mentioned the wisdom tooth on Twitter and said he was "gutted."


McIlroy, coming off a year in which he won a second major in record fashion, already set himself up for scrutiny when he left Titleist to sign an equipment deal with Nike that was said to be worth upward of $20 million a year.


Nike introduced him with blaring music and a laser show in Abu Dhabi, but it's been all downhill from there.


McIlroy missed the cut in the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship with rounds of 75-75. He took a four-week break, and then was eliminated in the opening round of the Match Play Championship to Shane Lowry in one of the most poorly played matches of the round.


McIlroy played 36 holes with Tiger Woods at The Medalist on Sunday and said Tuesday it was no time to panic.


"Even though my results haven't revealed it, I really felt like I was rounding a corner," McIlroy said. "This is one of my favorite tournaments of the year and I regret having to make the decision to withdraw, but it was one I had to make."


It looked more like McIlroy was sinking than rounding the corner, not difficult to do on a course with so many water hazards. And he found plenty of them.


McIlroy, who opened with a 70, hit two poor chips that led to double bogey on No. 11, and a wild tee shot to the right led to a bogey on the 13th. His round really unraveled on the par-4 16th, when he hit his tee shot to the right and into the water, took a penalty drop, and then came up short of the green and into the water again. He made a 6-foot putt for a triple bogey.


He three-putted from 40 feet, running his first putt about 10 feet by the hole, for a bogey to go 7 over. And then came the approach that found water for the third time of his short day on the 18th.


McIlroy is scheduled to play next week in the Cadillac Championship at Doral, which has no cut, and then the Houston Open. But on the first day of March, he has completed only four rounds of competition.


It was the second straight year one of golf's biggest stars failed to finish a tournament on the Florida swing. Woods withdrew after 11 holes on the final round at Doral last year because of tightness in his Achilles tendon, raising questions about the seriousness of his recurring leg injuries. He won Bay Hill two weeks later.


McIlroy at least drove off from PGA National without a helicopter camera following him.


Read More..

Syria war is everybody's problem






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • NEW: United States will give food and medical aid to rebel fighters for the first time

  • NEW: It's not clear how much that aid is worth, but $60 million will go to opposition council

  • NEW: "Behave as a human being," opposition leader urges Syrian president

  • U.S. officials are considering more nonlethal military aid




Rome (CNN) -- The United States stepped further into Syria's civil war Thursday, promising rebel fighters food and medical supplies -- but not weapons -- for the first time in the nearly two-year conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and laid waste to large portions of the country.


Secretary of State John Kerry said the aid would help fighters in the high-stakes effort to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a conflict that has already spawned an enormous humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the fighting.


The ongoing fighting also poses the persistent threat of widening into a destabilizing regional crisis.


"The United States' decision to take further steps now is the result of the continued brutality of a superior armed force propped up by foreign fighters from Iran and Hezbollah, all of which threatens to destroy Syria," Kerry said after meeting opposition leaders in Rome.


Kerry didn't say how much that aid would be worth, but did announce that the United States would separately give $60 million to local groups working with the Syrian National Council to provide political administration and basic services in rebel-controlled areas of Syria.








READ: U.S. weighing nonlethal aid to Syrian opposition


That's on top of $50 million in similar aid the United States has previously pledged to the council, as well as $385 million in humanitarian assistance, Kerry said.


"This funding will allow the opposition to reach out and help the local councils to be able to rebuild in their liberated areas of Syria so that they can provide basic services to people who so often lack access today to medical care, to food, to sanitation," he said.


Islamist Influence


That aid is partly an effort to hem in radical Islamist groups vying for influence in Syria after the fall of al-Assad, a senior State Department official told CNN.


"If the Syrian opposition coalition can't touch, improve and heal the lives of Syrians in those places that have been freed, then extremists will step in and do it," the official said.


Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Syrian National Council, said concerns about Islamist influence had been overstated.


"We stand against every radical belief that aims to target Syria's diverse social and religious fabric," he said.


READ: Inside Syria: Exclusive look at pro-Assad Christian militia


U.S. officials hope the aid will help the coalition show what it can do and encourage al-Assad supporters to "peel away from him" and help end the fighting, the official said.


The opposition council will decide where the money goes, Kerry said.


But the United States will send technical advisers through its partners to the group's Cairo headquarters to make sure it's being used properly, the senior State Department official said.


Additional aid possible


In addition to the decision to give rebel fighters food and medical supplies, President Barack Obama is thinking about training rebels and equipping them with defensive gear such as night vision goggles, body armor and military vehicles, according to sources familiar with the discussions.


The training would help rebels decide how to use their resources, strategize and maybe train a police force to take over after al-Assad's fall, one of the sources said.


READ: Syrian army in Homs is showing strains of war


Kerry did not announce that sort of aid Thursday, but said the United States and other countries backing the rebels would "continue to consult with each other on an urgent basis."


An official who briefed reporters said the opposition has raised a lot of needs in the Rome meetings and the administration will continue to "keep those under review."


"We will do this with vetted individuals, vetted units, so it has to be done carefully and appropriately," the official said.


Humanitarian crisis


The conflict began with demands for political reform after the Arab Spring movement that swept the Middle East and Africa, but descended into a brutal civil war when the al-Assad regime began a brutal crackdown on demonstrators.


At least 60,000 people have died since the fighting began in March 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in early January.


Another 940,000 had fled the country as of Tuesday, while more than one in 10 of Syria's 20 million residents have been forced to move elsewhere inside the country because of the fighting, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.


The situation is nearing crisis proportions, with the dramatic influx of refugees threatening to break the ability of host nations to provide for their needs, Assistant High Commissioner Erika Feller told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday


"The host states, including Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and the North African countries, have been exemplary in their different ways, but we fear the pressure will start to overwhelm their capacities," she told the council, according to a text of her remarks posted on the United Nations website.


Al-Khatib said it's time for the fighting to stop.


"I ask Bashar al-Assad for once, just once, to behave as a human being," he said. "Enough massacres, enough killings. Enough of your bloodshed and enough torture. I urge you to make a rational decision once in your life and end the killings."


READ: Syrian war is everybody's problem


Jill Dougherty reported from Rome, and Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Elise Labott also contributed to this report.






Read More..

Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal






VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.


Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.






Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.


The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.


The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.


One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”


The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.


GREY AREAS


Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”


The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.


Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.


In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”


The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.


“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.


“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”


The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.


“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.


The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.


The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.


The film goes on general release on Thursday.


(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/
Link To Post : Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..