Prince William’s wife Catherine is expecting a baby and is in hospital suffering severe morning sickness, St James’s Palace announced on Monday. The royal family are “delighted” by the news of the baby, who would be the third in line to the British throne currently occupied…
Jim Washburn Fired: Philadelphia Eagles Let Go Of Defensive Line Coach
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The foundering Philadelphia Eagles fired defensive line coach Jim Washburn Monday, as they try to fix a broken pass defense amid an eight-game losing streak.
Eagles coach Andy Reid on Monday announced former defensive line coach Tommy Brasher will replace Washburn, as the team begins preparations for Sunday’s date vs. Tampa Bay (6-6).
The Eagles (3-9) hired Washburn before last season, expecting his wide-nine defensive line alignment to produce plenty of pressure on opposing quarterbacks. The scheme helped the Eagles tie for the league lead with 50 sacks last season but has resulted in only 20 so far this year.
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Jennifer Lopez & Indonesia: Singer Appears More Modest At Concert In Highly Muslim Country
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Jennifer Lopez wowed thousands of fans in Indonesia, but they didn’t see as much of her as concertgoers in other countries – the American pop star toned down both her sexy outfits and her dance moves during her show in the world’s most populous Muslim country, promoters said Saturday.Lopez’s “Dance Again World Tour” was performed in the country’s capital, Jakarta, on Friday in line with promises Lopez made to make her show more appropriate for the audience, said Chairi Ibrahim from Dyandra Entertainment, the concert promoter.Read More…
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Wal-Mart and McDonald’s: What’s wrong with U.S. employment
What does the drama in Washington over the “fiscal cliff” have to do with strikes and work stoppages among America’s lowest-paid workers at Walmart, McDonald’s, Burger King, and Domino’s Pizza?Everything.Jobs are slowly returning to America, but most of them pay lousy wages and low if non-existent benefits. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that seven out of 10 growth occupations over the next decade will be low-wage — like serving customers at big-box retailers and fast-food chains. That’s why the median wage keeps dropping, especially for the 80 percent of the workforce that’s paid by the hour.It’s also part of the reason why the percent of Americans living below the poverty line has been increasing even as the economy has started to recover — from 12.3 percent in 2006 to 15 percent in 2011. More than 46 million Americans now live below the poverty line.Many of them have jobs. The problem is these jobs just don’t pay enough to lift their families out of poverty.So, encouraged by the economic recovery and perhaps also by the election returns, low-wage workers have started to organize.Continue Reading… … Read More
It Has Come to This: A Fitness Tracker for Your Dog
A Japanese company has created a line of body monitoring fitness trackers for dogs. The device, made by Fujitsu, attaches to your dog’s collar. It contains three accelerometers and records data every 10 minutes, tracking info like the number of steps Fido takes and his stress level (based on how much he shakes). … Read More
Troy To Get On The High Speed Train With New Mass Transit Center
High-speed rail came a step closer to properly connecting Metro Detroit and Chicago today, as well as a did regional mass transit, with the groundbreaking of a new $6.2 million dollar multi-modal transit facility in Troy.The center, located behind the shops at Coolidge and Maple roads near the Troy/Birmingham border, utilizes the existing rail line and is part of a comprehensive plan to bring “the fastest high speed rail outside of the northeast corridor” (in the words of Congressman Gary Peters) to a line that runs from Pontiac through Troy, Royal Oak, Detroit and all the way to Chicago. It also will connect with SMART (suburban bus) lines as well as taxis and automobiles.Read More…
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1.3 million Russians on minimum wage, far below poverty line
(RIA Novosti / Aleksandr Kondratuk)Over a million Russians get a monthly wage of $148, most of them from the public sector, well below the $220 poverty line.
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650,000 Russians out of 1.3 million living on the minimum wage work in the public sector, according to the country’s Public Health and Social Development Ministry. The minimum wage is the lowest monthly wage employers may legally pay workers. It will be increased next year by 13% to 170 dollars a month, less than the minimum cost of living. According to the Russian statistics agency Rosstat 12.5% of Russians live below the poverty line. The minimum wage in Russia is much lower than in developed countries, the auditor FBK reports. According to its rating, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium top the list with a minimum wage of over $1500 a month. Last in line is Kyrgyzstan where minimum wage is the equivalent of $24 a month. “In Russia, the minimum wage does not guarantee a decent standard of living for low-paid workers,” Anna Bolsheva from the Global Labour University told Expert magazine. According to the Center for Labor Studies there are almost no private companies that pay salaries at the level of the minimum wage. “95% of cases are municipal enterprises related to education, science, health, etc.,” Anna Lukyanova from the Center for Labor Studies says. The European standard for the minimum wage equates to earnings which are at least 60% of the average salary in the country, experts say. On the basis of these calculations, the minimum wage in the Russian Federation should be $515 a month. … Read More
