It’s not exactly a strip search, but if you’re going to fly, get ready to have another part of your body scrutinized.
The Transportation Security Administration will begin randomly swabbing passengers’ hands at airport checkpoints to test them for traces of explosives, CNN reported Wednesday.
The TSA has been swabbing some passengers’ hands since the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 and will expand the program in the next few weeks, CNN reported.
“The point is to make sure that the air environment is a safe environment,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN.
What do you think of this? Will it discourage you more from flying? How far is too far? Or is it just a sign of the times that you’re willing to adjust to?
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter.
Kids are being told about the Great Recession.
Seven out of ten parents with children between the ages of 6 and 16 said their kids know we’ve been in a recession, according to a just released survey by American Express.
“This number suggests that talks about the current economic environment are happening at kitchen tables across the country,” said a news release about the poll’s results.
Despite the tough environment, allowances remain common, the survey of 506 U.S. households found.
Sixty-two percent of parents give their kids an allowance, the release said. The average was $12 per week.
Reasons for giving an allowance vary, according to the survey:
– Almost half of the parents who give one expect the money to be spent, not saved.
– Almost a third of the parents said the main reason for giving an allowance is to reward the child for good grades or household chores.
What happens in your family?
Have you discussed this recession? Why or why not?
What do you do about allowances? …
Continue reading Poll: Parents tell their kids about the recession »
It’s not only jobs that are MIA in this economy. So are companies attending job fairs.
That means firms that run the events also are struggling in another twist on the recession, reports AJC staffer Michael Kanell. They know they will be swamped by the unemployed and must hustle to find hiring companies, sometimes in vain.
“Over the last year and a half, it’s been the roughest I’ve ever seen in my industry,” said Jim Carter, owner of Kennesaw-based Diversity Hiring Expos, which runs career fairs around the Southeast. “The last six months have been pretty brutal.”
Like most companies that run job fairs, Diversity Hiring’s success depends on finding businesses that want to fill positions and will rent space where they can quickly meet hundreds of candidates, Kanell reports.
Three years ago, a Diversity Hiring job fair would typically include up to 40 companies. Now, employer turnout can be half that, Kanell writes.
Carter has seen companies delay payment and even …
It’s often the risk taker in business who provides at least part of the answer to a perplexing problem.
Joel Babbit
So I wanted to see if Joel Babbit, a local ad exec known for his chutzpah, was on the right track with his latest venture.
Could Babbit, in launching an environmental Web site, Mother Nature Network, have developed a business model that works? That would be in sharp contrast to many revenue-challenged news sites.
In a move that will be widely watched by media companies around the world, The New York Times recently announced it will start charging for Web usage next year through a metered system, after an unspecified number of free hits.
But sometimes, the smaller, local business operator may have a better answer. In this case, Babbit, who operates mnn.com out of the 191 Peachtree building downtown, does not think charging readers for content will work.
Instead, the 56-year-old adman is making money by charging advertisers in a different way. Babbit has …
Continue reading Mother Nature Network has new ad strategy for the Web »
President Barack Obama is expected to announce today that the government will guarantee more than $8 billion in loans needed to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades — to be located in Georgia, Associated Press is reporting.
Obama is expected to announce a total of $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to build and operate a pair of reactors to be built in Burke by Southern Co., an administration official said Monday, AP reported.
Federal loan guarantees are seen as essential to spurring construction of new reactors because of the huge expense. Critics say the guarantees are a form of subsidy that will put taxpayers at risk given the industry’s record of cost overruns and loan defaults.
The reactors, to be built by the Atlanta-based energy company, are part of a White House plan the administration hopes will win Republican support at a time when the public is expressing a desire for lawmakers to work together to solve problems, AP wrote.
Also in …
When was the last time you’ve had a raise?
After many workers have gone without a salary increase for two years, some may see a little more money in their paychecks this year, AJC staffer Tammy Joyner writes.
The emphasis should be on the word little.
Joyner writes that the amount of money companies have budgeted for potential pay increases this year is the lowest in 25 years, according to The Conference Board, a global business and research nonprofit in New York.
The board’s latest survey on pay raises shows that salary increases budgeted by U.S. companies this year will be below 3 percent for the first time in more than two decades.
What’s happening at your company?
Are layoffs and other cost-cutting measures still preventing a wage increase? Or is the recession thawing enough for a raise this year?
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter.
There’s good news on the retail front today.
AJC staffer Rachel Tobin Ramos is reporting that Greenbriar Mall in southwest Atlanta has avoided foreclosure.
New foreign investors plan to invest significant capital in the aging shopping center and the movie theater reopens this month, Ramos writes.
The news comes after months of setbacks, including a smash-and-grab robbery in December, closure of the AMC-owned Magic Johnson 12-plex in October and foreclosure notices filed over the last several months.
“We’re pleased by this outcome and we are excited that Greenbriar Mall will be able to continue to serve its community,” said mall co-owner Charlie Hendon with Hendon Properties.
Revolution Cinemas will reopen the former AMC Theater, and Super Beauty Depot will open in the former Circuit City building, Ramos reports. Both tenants are scheduled to open this month, Hendon said.
A foreign investor retired the bank loan on the mall and removed any potential for foreclosure, …
For years, you may have eyed buying into billionaire Warren Buffett’s company, only to resist because of the steep price. Now that’s all changed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that millions of Americans will for the first time own a piece of Buffett, starting today.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., whose multi-thousand-dollar share price made it a thinly traded luxury of wealthy investors, is going mainstream as it joins the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, the WSJ writes.
More than $1 trillion of investor money directly tracks the index. The result is a scramble for Berkshire shares by index funds that, by one estimate, will reach $14 billion of buying, WSJ reports.
Small-time investors, meanwhile, will finally be getting a piece of Buffett just as uncertainty builds about the future of his $178 billion conglomerate, WSJ says.
The 79-year-old Mr. Buffett is entering the twilight of his career, and little is known about his succession plans.
Yet small investors, the WSJ …
The commercial real estate mess is just getting ramped up, as high unemployment continues to clobber demand for space.
AJC staffer Gertha Coffee reports that the industry in metro Atlanta is likely to remain troubled for at least three more years, economists and real estate experts said Thursday during Databank Atlanta’s 2010 Real Estate Symposium.
“The recession is over, but it doesn’t feel that way,” said Georgia economist Roger Tutterow, professor of economics at Mercer University.
Real estate is lagging the economic recovery as record vacancy rates and a drop in rental rates continue, Coffee reports. Significant job recovery is needed to reignite demand, Tutterow said.
“We need to understand that it will be way into 2013 and possibly 2014 before employment gets back to where it was on the national level before 2008 and 2009,” he said.
Also in the AJC:
There’s only one problem with the jobs bill now circulating in Washington — it won’t create many jobs, Associated Press is reporting.
Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece — a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers — would work only on the margins, AP writes.
Tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.
That’s exactly right. So what else should be done? How can we get things moving more quickly? Or does the ballooning deficit prevent bold action?
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter.
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