Eight times a year the Federal Reserve releases "beige book" reports about how the economy is doing. Named for the traditional color of their covers and based on reports from the central bank's 12 districts, they're largely anecdotal and full of generalizations about what businesses leaders and others are saying about current conditions.
Many of the protesters occupying Wall Street and other places say they are are upset about the rising price of going to college. Tuition and other costs have been going up faster than inflation and family incomes can't keep up. Despite public outrage about the problem, there's little sign these costs will drop anytime soon.
For as long as there's been an IQ test, there's been controversy over what it measures. Do IQ scores capture a person's intellectual capacity, which supposedly remains stable over time? Or is the Intelligent Quotient exam really an achievement test — similar to the S.A.T. — that's subject to fluctuations in scores?
The findings of a new study add evidence to the latter theory: IQ seems to be a gauge of acquired knowledge that progresses in fits and starts.
Originally published on Wed October 19, 2011 1:04 pm
USA Today parses through New York Federal Reserve's latest report (pdf) on Household Debt and Credit and finds that for the first time, this year the amount of student loans will surpass the $100 billion mark and the outstanding balance will exceed $1 trillion.
"The United States will hold a fresh round of talks with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program next week and appoint a new full-time envoy as its seeks to deepen its engagement with the reclusive regime," U.S. officials and a Washington-based foreign diplomat tell The Associated Press.
For the past week, the rain across Central America has been relentless. The AFP reports that some places have received 47 inches over the course of a week.
The floods have killed nearly 100 people and displaced 700,000. The AFP has more:
The unusually heavy rainfall came as the region was pounded from one weather system from the Pacific and another from the Caribbean.
Colin Laws mans an Internet live-stream station in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street. He says he was inspired in part to join the protests by Hero Vincent, another member of the group's Livestream team.
Credit Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images
Occupy Wall Street volunteers man a communication station in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street on Oct. 11. The media team monitors Twitter and Facebook and oversees the group's Livestream feed.
Not only are protesters occupying lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, they're also occupying Twitter and other social media sites like Livestream, where visitors to the site can watch live footage from the protests.
With all the time he's had to prepare since 2008 when he last ran for president, you might have thought Mitt Romney would have come up with a more persuasive and sympathetic defense to the charge that illegal immigrants once worked on his Massachusetts property.
And with all the news coverage that issue got during the 2008 presidential campaign, including being raised in GOP debates, you might have also thought that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would have resorted to the story sooner to put Romney on the defensive and counter Romney's immigration attacks on him.
