| Contractor loses La. scholarship account data dating back to 1998
BATON ROUGE, La. -- A Boston-based contractor hired to store and safeguard state scholarship and college savings account data lost most of those records _ including bank account numbers and student and parent Social Security numbers _ during a move, officials say. "We certainly don't want to create any panic. But people should be aware and take the necessary steps," said Melanie Amrhein, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance. "This is backup data off of a mainframe that contains sensitive personal information." Special equipment and software and "sophisticated computer skills" would be needed to get the compressed records from the TOPS scholarship program, START Saving Program, and Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to a notice posted on the Internet.
Complex GI Bill makes for a rocky road from combat to college
STARKVILLE, Miss. - By the time he completed his four-year stint in the military three summers ago, Frank Wills had gotten used to taking orders, carrying a rifle and taking pictures of the dead as a combat photographer.
He knew how to be a Marine. He hadn't a clue how a Marine becomes a college student.
Neither, it seemed, did anyone else on campus. Advisers at one school Wills attended gave him incorrect information. Officials at a second offered no help at all. Often, he says, he felt like "the new kid who didn't fit in."
G.I. EDUCATION: Veterans' plans aren't easy to gauge
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, helped turn a college education into a right of middle-class America. It covered the cost for millions of World War II veterans as compensation for having disrupted their lives to serve.
Prominent local couple perish in 2-car crash
Ashley Boudreaux, one of Michael Herring's high school classmates, lost her New Orleans home during Hurricane Katrina. One of her first calls was to her friends, the Herrings."The first thing they asked me was, 'Do you need a house?' " Boudreaux said. "They put us up without hesitation, without flinching, when we were in the depths of hell emotionally. I don't even know what to say about all of this. I'm floored."Cleaning up the crash Pat Houston, who works for ACE Body Shop, spent three hours Thursday night towing away the vehicles and starting the cleanup process. He returned to the crash site Friday to finish."I had trouble getting this one up because it was all twisted," he said, pointing to the east shoulder where the Tahoe came to rest on its side. "This was the worst one I've seen in a long time."When the cars collided, Houston said the engine of the Jeep was ripped from the vehicle and landed on the westbound shoulder across the road from the rest of the vehicle.Houston said he's frequently called to crash sites between that stretch of Gulf Beach Highway and Perdido Key."It's a two-lane highway and people are going too fast to start with," Houston said.
Primaries post most agonizing choices
If it's any consolation, this is the hard part. When it comes time for the general election campaign, voters will be faced with a clear choice on the major issues. The primaries, meanwhile, are forcing us to figure out not just who the candidates are, but who we are as well. On what is now the issue of greatest concern, according to surveys -- the flagging economy -- Democrats and Republicans truly seem to live in different solar systems. All three leading Democratic contenders have set forth elaborate stimulus plans, all three have ideas for rescuing families caught in the subprime mortgage trap, and all three serve up their proposals with great heaping buckets of empathy. Message: They care. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee does the empathy part but then shifts quickly to his weird idea about replacing the income tax with a consumption tax.
Hardware Intel Responds to EU Charges With Demands of Its Own
Intel insists its innocence as it responds to antitrust allegations from the European Union Intel revels in the glory of being the CPU industry leader, at least for the time being. However, like many industry leaders, they have found themselves the primary target of the crosshairs of criticism. Further, as with any company that is dominating the market, allegations of antitrust violations become a serious threat to the company worldwide. AMD said Intel's anti-competitive practices established a monopoly in the microprocessor market. AMD then sued Intel in U.S. courts in June of 2005. The company since mounted a long-standing legal battle that included ads in major newspapers and the a website chastising Intel who it portrays as sinister and monopolistic. AMD received an ally in the form of the European Union. In July 2007, it announced that based on evidence collected in a multi year investigation, including materials found in a June 2005 raid of European Intel offices, it was filing charges against Intel for engaging in anticompetitive practices.
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