Peanut Butter News

Full Story at msnbc.com

Kansas City, Mo., plans to close nearly half its public schools by fall. Illinois’ governor wants to raise state income taxes by 1 percent to continue funding schools and prevent the layoffs of thousands of teachers. Hawaii, President Barack Obama’s home state, has whacked 17 days from the school year and says it’s not done with educational cost-cutting.

From Maine to Wisconsin, Florida to California, school districts across the country are taking drastic measures to deal with school budget cuts made severe by the recession and its aftermath. Msnbc.com asked readers how their school district is coping, and one clear lesson emerged — cuts in education make no one happy.

Full Story at CNN.com

CNN) — Some people who didn’t file a federal tax return for 2006 have more than 1 billion reasons to reconsider, but they need to do it fast, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS says it has more than $1.3 billion in refunds for 1.4 million people who didn’t file a 2006 return. But to collect the cash, they will have to file for that year by April 15.

Otherwise, the money will become the property of the U.S. Treasury, as happens with all tax refunds that aren’t claimed within three years.

The IRS estimates the median unclaimed refund for 2006 nonfilers is $604. California is the state with the most nonfilers who qualify for refunds from that year (159,700), with Texas (109,600) and Florida (101,700) right behind.

Full Story at  msnbc.com

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a small dent in Chile’s growing needs following a massive earthquake, handing over 25 satellite phones while promising more Tuesday in the country’s capital.

Full Story atnews.Yahoo.com

AUSTIN, Texas – A software engineer who crashed his plane into a Texas office building containing nearly 200 Internal Revenue Service employees, killing himself and at least one worker, apparently left behind an irate anti-government manifesto but offered little other hint of his intentions before the attack.

The Red Cross said the wife of A. Joseph Stack III planned to contact media and answer questions Friday, a day after law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said her husband apparently set fire to their house and posted his rambling screed on the Web before launching his suicide attack.

Full Story at msnbc.com

ALBANY, N.Y. – No nuptials at Niagara Falls? Jones Beach off limits on a 90-degree day? The “Grand Canyon of the East” devoid of campers?

New York’s state parks system, the nation’s oldest, is facing another round of funding cuts that is likely to result in the first budget-related closures in the system’s 125-year history. State officials say even popular parks at Niagara Falls and Jones Beach, with attendance figures in the millions, could be closed, along with such destinations as Letchworth, a popular hiking and camping spot ringing the rugged Genesee Gorge south of Rochester.

Full Story at ABCNews.go.com

Appearing on “Good Morning America” today Feinberg also responded to a senior Republican congressman who claimed that AIG has “taxpayers over a barrel.”

In a statement released Tuesday night Sen. Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said “the Obama administration has been outmaneuvered. And the closed-door negotiations just add to the skepticism that the taxpayers will ever get the upper hand.”

Feinberg insisted he had not been “outmaneuvered” by the insurance giant.

Full Story at msnbc.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Prayers of thanksgiving and cries for help rose from Haiti’s huddled homeless Sunday, the sixth day of an epic humanitarian crisis that was straining the world’s ability to respond and igniting flare-ups of violence amid the rubble of Port-au-Prince.

Haitian police struggled to scatter hundreds of stone-throwing looters in the city’s Vieux Marche, or Old Market. Elsewhere downtown, amid the smoke from bonfires burning uncollected bodies, gunfire rang out and bands of machete-wielding young men roamed the streets, faces hidden by bandanas.

Full Story at msnbc.com

JEMEZ PUEBLO, N.M. – A poverty-stricken Indian tribe that holds the sun and nature’s other gifts sacred sees a brighter future for itself in solar power.

The 3,000 members of the Jemez Pueblo are on the verge of building the nation’s first utility-scale solar plant on tribal land, a project that could bring in millions of dollars.

Experts say tapping into the sun, wind and geothermal energy on Indian land could generate the kind of wealth many tribes have seen from slot machines and blackjack tables.

Full Story at msnbc.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – American International Group Inc. has lost a top executive due to the government’s limits on executive pay.

AIG said Wednesday that vice chairman and general counsel Anastasia Kelly has resigned, effective immediately.

Kelly left because of the reduction in her base salary that was mandated by the government’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, AIG said.

Full Story atCNN.com

Boston, Massachusetts (CNN) — A white van sits at a warehouse loading dock in Boston. Buckled in the front passenger seat is Eeyore, the donkey friend of Winnie the Pooh.

“This is the back seat driver,” says one of several volunteers removing the stuffed animal and other donated children’s items for the local Toys for Tots campaign.

The U.S. Marine Corps Reserve program, which began 62 years ago in Los Angeles, California, now gives Christmas presents to underprivileged children in nearly 700 cities and towns across the country.

Full Story at CNN.com

(CNN) — The past 12 months have been a banner year for cyber crime. And that could be bad news for the future of e-commerce.

“At current trends, in three or four years people will start to think twice about transacting on the Web, individuals and businesses,” said Michael Fraser, director of the communications law centre at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The way it’s trending now, the Web could be so full of rubbish that people won’t trust it,” Fraser said. “That could destroy the potential of the whole knowledge economy, which so many developed economies are counting on for the competitive advantage.”

Full Story at CNN.com

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) — The next time a married man or woman glances your way, you might think twice before acting on impulse and frolicking between satin sheets. The scorned spouse could sue you.

Yes, you read that right. You, the paramour, can get hit with a lawsuit that could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They’re known as “alienation of affection” suits, when an “outsider” interferes in a marriage. The suits are allowed in seven states: Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

The law allowing such legal action dates back to antiquated times when a wife was considered the property of a husband. A broken-hearted hubby could go after his wife’s lover — not with a gun, but with the law.