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US: Rhode Island's Central Falls Files for Bankruptcy

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© Brian Snyder/ReutersA sign calling Central Falls, Rhode Island a "City of Dreams" marks the town's boundary on Higgingson Avenue.
Central Falls, Rhode Island, one of a handful of U.S. cities and counties facing fiscal collapse in the wake of the economic recession, filed for a rare Chapter 9 bankruptcy on Monday.

The bankruptcy filing, a risky and potentially expensive move that could freeze the city out of the U.S. municipal bond market, marks a symbolic blow as state and local governments struggle to pull themselves out of the recession.

The smallest city in the smallest U.S. state made the filing as it grappled with an $80 million unfunded pension and retiree health benefit liability that is nearly quadruple its annual budget of $17 million.

"This is a wake-up call for other struggling towns," said Eileen Norcross, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. "States should be looking at Rhode Island and saying, 'How can we avoid this?"

Chart Pie

The Weather Channel rides out the storm with its highest numbers ever

flood rescue
© Weather ChannelA rescue during flooding in Missouri was fodder for the Weather Channel's "Storm Stories."
It's been the worst year for extreme weather since Noah had to build an ark - unless you've invested in the Weather Channel.

Tornadoes, droughts, subzero temperatures and heat waves have already brought boffo numbers to the cable outlet, with hurricane season right around the corner.

"It's all about extremes," said meteorologist Stephanie Abrams, who co-hosts a morning show with Al Roker.

Nearly 46 million people followed the network's coverage on TV or online during the freeze that covered a third of the country on Groundhog Day, and nearly 50 million relied on its services when tornadoes devastated Joplin, Missouri.

It wasn't long ago when the Weather Channel didn't go anywhere beyond the coffee room in its Georgia-based studio. When it was launched in 1982, coverage was limited to maps and radar screens, with anchors ticking off temperatures as if they were reading stock market numbers. Today, top personalities hopscotch around the world, trying to get to locations right before storms hit.

Phoenix

Budget cuts mean fewer firefighter to fight California wildfires

California Wildfire
© Unknown
Just north of Highway 180 in Fresno County, a wildfire in mid-June ate through thick grass, burning into oak woodlands and roaring up steep hills.

For firefighters, it appeared to be a routine event. Six engine teams, including five from Cal Fire and one from Fresno County, attacked from two sides. Firefighters carrying heavy, 300-foot hose extensions ascended the rocky terrain. They doubled back for additional hose, stretching their water lines and attempted to circle the fire before it leaped a ridge.

But, under state budget cuts, Cal Fire was battling the blaze with three firefighters per engine instead of the normal four-man crews used in the wildfire season. They couldn't get water around the fire in time. It jumped the ridge and devoured the next canyon.

The incident on what one fire captain called "a standard wildfire" stoked fear over whether staffing cuts are affecting first-strike capabilities of firefighters to stave off severe wildland events.

Nuke

Tepco Says Highest Radiation Detected at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, 10+ Sieverts An Hour

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Dead zone: Earth 2011
(Updates with company comment from second paragraph.)

Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, said it detected the highest radiation to date at the site.

Geiger counters, used to detect radioactivity, registered more than 10 sieverts an hour, the highest reading the devices are able to record, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility, said today. The measurements were taken at the base of the main ventilation stack for reactors No. 1 and No. 2.

The Fukushima plant, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Tokyo, had three reactor meltdowns after the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and backup generators. Radiation leaks displaced 160,000 people and contaminated marine life and agricultural products.

The utility, known as Tepco, tried to vent steam and gas the day after the earthquake as pressure in reactor No. 1 exceeded designed limits. A buildup of hydrogen gas subsequently caused an explosion that blew out part of the reactor building.

Dollar

Bitcoin: A New Kind of Money That's Beyond the Reach of Bankers, Wall St. and Regulators?

bitcoin

The Internet's creative hive mind is charting the future of commerce -- the bitcoin phenomenon shows what online currencies are capable of.

This July a computer developer who goes by the handle Doctor Nefario landed at the Seattle-Tacoma airport from China for a two-month mind-meld with various U.S. developers, which he planned to mostly fund using the increasingly popular decentralized digital currency bitcoin. After explaining to suspicious Customs and Border Protection agents that he had $600 in cash in his possession and another $1,500 to exchange in bitcoin -- plenty for a two-month visit, he insisted -- Nefario, founder of the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange, was promptly sent back to China after agents spent hours trying to wrap their heads around the concept of real money that exists only in virtual reality.

"Avoid any mention of bitcoin," Nefario advised in a blog post recounting the tragicomic affair. "They don't like it at all."

Good luck with that. Founded in 2009 from a self-published 2008 white paper by developer Satoshi Nakamoto, whose actual identity still remains a mystery, bitcoin's peer-to-peer virtual currency has gone viral, from WikiLeaks to Google and beyond. It's a fascinating experiment in economic evolution, where goods and services can be exchanged using an opensourced mobile currency mostly outside the reach of regulators, speculators and central bankers. There are over six million in existence, pegged between $14-$17 per unit -- although their actual price can fluctuate wildly in a given day -- with a tentative cap of 21 million. Bitcoins are stored in a digital wallet, and can be used in any country to barter with a massive and growing list of sites that accept them.

Megaphone

US: Dem Congressman-Debt Deal A "Satan Sandwich"

"I am concerned about this because we don't know the details. And until we see the details, we're going to be extremely non-committed but on the surface it looks like a Satan sandwich," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri) said on MSNBC.


Wall Street

HSBC To Axe 30,000 Jobs All Over The World Despite a Multi-Billion Pound Profit

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Chief executive Stuart Gulliver said HSBC will stop retail banking in 20 countries


High street bank HSBC is to axe tens of thousands of jobs worldwide despite unveiling a multi-billion pound profit for the six months to June 30.

As exclusively revealed by Sky City editor Mark Kleinman, the bank will axe a total of 30,000 jobs over the next two years to save $3.5bn.

It has already shed 5,000 jobs and will axe another 25,000 by the end of 2013. It is understood most will be overseas.

Life Preserver

Libyan migrant boat arrives in Italy with 25 dead

Lampedusa island
© STR, AFP/Getty ImagesPicture taken 10 March 2004 shows an aerial view of Italy's Lampedusa island. Italian coast guards found 25 dead bodies in the hold of a refugee boat with 271 people crammed on board that arrived on the southern island of Lampedusa on Monday, local port authorities said. Thousands of migrants try to enter Italy and other EU nations each year via the Italian island.

Twenty-five men were apparently asphyxiated by motor fumes and died in a small boat crammed full of African migrants which arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Monday, port authorities said.

The boat arrived after a three-day voyage from Libya carrying 296 people from sub-Saharan Africa, including 36 women and 21 children, the latest in a wave of arrivals since a western alliance began a military campaign to oust Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi earlier this year.

"Twenty-five bodies were found on board a boat from Libya; the others appear to be fine, they are now undergoing checks," said Antonio Morana, the commanding officer at Lampedusa port.

X

Mexico drug boss admits ordering 1,500 murders

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© RIA NovostiMexico
A key drug cartel figure arrested last week in Mexico acknowledged ordering about 1,500 killings, U.S. media reported on Monday.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in his Twitter microblog the detention of 33-year-old former police Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez was "the biggest blow" to organized crime in Ciudad Juarez, one of the world's most dangerous cities. The city, on the border with the U.S, has witnessed more than 3,000 murders last year, most of them linked to drug cartels.

The Mexican government, which declared fighting drug crimes in the country its top priority, placed a bounty of some $1.2 million on Hernandez's head.

Stormtrooper

US, New York: New TSA 'Theft' Leaves Teen's Bag $100 Lighter

TSA
© unknown
An allegedly sticky-fingered screener for the Transportation Security Administration is being investigated after $100 went missing from a 16-year-old honor student's gym bag before he boarded a July 21 flight at JFK Airport, The Post has learned.

Rodeen Dunn, the mother of the Brooklyn student, Chris Dunn, called the alleged theft of his cash -- a gift from his grandma -- "disgusting and a violation of my son's trust."

The incident occurred shortly after 5:15 a.m., after Chris went through screening to board a JetBlue flight to Los Angeles.

A Port Authority police source said surveillance video shows a female TSA screener spending six minutes with Chris' bag. At one point, the worker can be seen tossing away a piece of paper, the source said.