Reforms Could Combat Rising Student Loan Defaults

The most recent student loan default rates released by the Department of Education show that sadly, but not surprisingly, default rates rose for the sixth year in a row.

Each default is not an abstraction, but a person experiencing personal distress and real financial hardship. Much of this is needless, because small tweaks to already existing programs could go a long way toward eliminating it, in the Student Loan Ranger's opinion.

The cohort default rates measure the percentage of a school's borrowers who default on their loans over a specified period of time. The two-year rates measure the percentage of borrowers who enter repayment on their federal student loans during a particular federal fiscal year and default prior to the end of the next fiscal year.

The more accurate three-year rates - which Congress mandated as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 - calculate the percentage of defaults prior to the end of the second fiscal year after borrowers enter repayment.

[Get information on student loan repayment options.]

Starting next year, only the three-year rates will be calculated. But in the meantime, the Department of Education is releasing both sets of rates. Both indicate that borrower distress is still rising, with the two-year rate rising from 9.1 percent in fiscal year 2010 to 10 percent in 2011 and the three-year rate rising from 13.4 percent in fiscal year 2009 to 14.7 percent in 2010.

The department's rates also put numbers on the human toll. The three-year default rates indicate that 600,545 borrowers who entered repayment in 2010 defaulted before the end of 2012. That's more than half a million borrowers who are facing some of the consequences of defaulting on federal student loans, including seizure of tax refunds, garnishment of wages and the partial taking - without a court order - of Social Security payments.

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The Student Loan Ranger argues it is imperative that Congress take affirmative steps to end this needless misery. It should begin, as President Barack Obama has requested, by allowing all borrowers to enroll in Pay As You Earn, the new income-driven repayment plan that caps payments at 10 percent of a borrower's income and provides for forgiveness after 20 years.

Congress should then require all federal student loan servicers to personally contact borrowers who are delinquent, in a hardship deferment or in forbearance and offer to enroll them in Pay As You Earn. This should help greatly reduce the number of defaults.

After accomplishing this, Congress can get to work on the more complex job of simplifying student loans.

Of course, the default rate is also a way to ensure institutions of higher education are held to a level of accountability. Starting in 2014, institutions where 30 percent or more of borrowers default for three consecutive years or where the default rate exceeds 40 percent in the most recent three-year period will lose their eligibility for federal financial aid. As the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, 104 institutions are on track for sanctions next year.

[Learn how to take control of your student loan debt.]

This accountability would be lost if at-risk borrowers are enrolling in highly protective income-driven repayment plans like Pay As You Earn and therefore are not defaulting.

However, there are other means of ensuring accountability. The Student Loan Ranger feels the president's plan to tie college financial aid to performance should be pursued with vigor. And the Department of Education's revised gainful employment rules, under which career-oriented programs would lose the ability to receive federal student aid if graduates' debt-to-income and debt-to-discretionary-income ratios are too high, should be extended to all institutions of higher education.

These could increase accountability for institutions while providing much needed protections for millions of suffering borrowers.

Isaac Bowers is a senior program manager in the Communications and Outreach unit, responsible for Equal Justice Works's educational debt relief initiatives. An expert on educational debt relief, Bowers conducts monthly webinars for a wide range of audiences; advises employers, law schools, and professional organizations; and works with Congress and the Department of Education on federal legislation and regulations. Prior to joining Equal Justice Works, he was a fellow at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP in San Francisco. He received his J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reforms-could-combat-rising-student-loan-defaults-151122476.html
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'War' ends, park service Gettysburg ceremony next

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) ? Sweat soaking their wool uniforms, the Union and Confederate soldiers met near the stone wall to exchange handshakes, pleasantries and even a few jokes.

On this warm, sticky Sunday afternoon, both the North and the South went home happy after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Thousands of Civil War buffs recreated the Confederate Army's ill-fated Pickett's Charge to end the first of two massive re-enactments held in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War's pivotal conflict.

But the events to remember the battle that took place July 1-3, 1863 are far from over. The National Park Service holds its commemoration ceremony Sunday night, followed by a procession to Soldiers National Cemetery. The graves of the Union dead were to be adorned with luminarias.

Up to 10,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died at Gettysburg, considered the war's turning point after federal soldiers rebuffed what had been the northernmost advance of the South.

"This has been unbelievable. The scale of it and the intensity of those men must have gone through," said Union re-enactor William Hincks, 40, of East Hampton, Conn. "It's intense without flying lead."

More than 200,000 visitors were expected to swarm the south-central Pennsylvania town of roughly 7,500 residents over the 10-day milestone anniversary period ending July 7. Organizers said things were going smoothly so far.

A different group is holding a second re-enactment, described by local organizers as even larger in scale, set to begin on Independence Day. Re-enactments are held on private properties, miles from the actual battlefield.

In between, the Park Service hosts most of the spotlight events on the actual anniversary days of battle, including popular battlefield historical tours led by rangers.

"We expect to be ramping up as we head into July 1," said Carl Whitehill, spokesman for the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The re-enactment at the end of the week is expected to be the big, big event."

Yet another opportunity to see Pickett's Charge ? the famous attack named after Gen. George Pickett, the Virginia-born U.S. military officer who went on to become one of the most recognizable names of the Confederate military.

The Confederate commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee decided to use Pickett's men to lead the assault on Union lines on July 3, 1863.

On Sunday, across an open stretch of grass as long as two football fields, Confederate re-enactors gathered in orderly lines and marched on federal counterparts as thousands of spectators snapped pictures and took video.

"I got total, complete chills when I saw the Rebel line approaching," said Jackie Ulloa, 47, of Atlanta, who cheered on a friend taking part in the re-enactment. "It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen."

That Confederate soldier who played "dead" but sneaked an iPhone out of his pocket to snap a picture? Not realistic.

For rookie re-enactor Hincks, Pickett's Charge was a chance to follow in the footsteps of his great, great grandfather, Congressional Medal of Honor winner William Bliss Hincks. Fighting for a unit from Connecticut, Hincks' ancestor grabbed the colors of a Tennessee infantry unit during the "high-water mark" of battle, which was also the northernmost advance by Confederates on Union soil.

In a bit of cooperation unseen during the actual war, the Connecticut group contacted the Confederate re-enactors portraying the Tennessee soldiers to play out the scene again with Hincks grabbing the flag. Kierran Broatch, 30, of Milford, Conn., also raced out with Hincks for the flag ? just like his great, great grandfather, John C. Broatch, did 150 years ago.

A proud Hincks has his great, great grandfather's sabre, too. It's highly unusual for a first-time re-enactor to be granted such a key role.

"It's history, you want to understand your family and your past," Hincks said when asked why took part this week.

Months of preparation later, Sandy Andrews, 55, of Hagerstown, Md., pronounced the scene a smashing success. He heads the group portraying the Tennessee unit.

"It worked to perfection," he said. "To be on the field with two descendants of the original men, you don't get more special than that. On this day, on this field."

___

Follow Genaro Armas at http://twitter.com/GArmasAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/war-ends-park-gettysburg-ceremony-next-203853784.html

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19 firefighters unaccounted for in Ariz. blaze

YARNELL, Ariz. (AP) ? A fire information officer says 19 firefighters are unaccounted for while battling the Yarnell Hill Fire in a central Arizona community.

Mike Reichling told the Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/158NjWp ) that 20 firefighters were involved in a "serious incident."

The newspaper reports that one of the firefighters has been located.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office has notified residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell to evacuate.

Roxie Glover, spokeswoman at Wickenburg Community Hospital, told The Associated Press that the hospital has been told to expect residents with injuries and firefighters.

Earlier Sunday, the fast-moving fire prompted evacuations of 50 homes in the Buckhorn, Model Creek and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix.

In the afternoon, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office expanded the evacuations to include residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell.

The wildfire also forced the closure of parts of state Route 89, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced. The department did not have an estimate of how long the closure would last but advised drivers to use U.S. 93 or Interstate 17 as alternate routes.

The Red Cross has opened a shelter at Yavapai College in Prescott, the sheriff's office said.

The Yarnell Hill Fire now covers nearly 2,000 acres, according to the newspaper.

The fire started Friday but picked up momentum Sunday as the area experienced high temperatures, low humidity and windy conditions.

About two hundred firefighters are now working at the fire, but an additional 130 firefighters and more water- and retardant-dropping helicopters and aircraft are on their way.

In another Arizona fire, a 2-acre blaze that started at a motorcycle salvage yard and spread to a trailer park has destroyed five mobile homes in the Gila County community of Rye, located more than 130 miles east of Yarnell.

Gila County Health and Emergency Services Director Michael O'Driscoll said no one was injured in Rye.

The fire was ignited Saturday night at All Bikes Sales located off Highway 87. It spread to neighboring federal Forest Service land but was fully contained within 12 hours of its start.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Seven adults and two children were staying at a shelter set up for people who were evacuated, the Red Cross said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/firefighters-unaccounted-battling-ariz-blaze-020159739.html

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Pakistani Christian accused of blasphemy in Canada

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? A Christian girl who was accused of burning Islam's holy book in a case that focused international attention on Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws was forced to move to Canada over security concerns, her lawyer said Saturday.

The girl left Pakistan with her parents, three sisters and a brother on March 14, attorney Tahir Naveed Chaudhry said.

A Muslim cleric who lobbied for her release, Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, said she had been facing threats and was moving constantly.

"I am sad that this innocent girl had to leave Pakistan. She had been acquitted by the court, and despite that it was not possible for her to live freely," he said.

Canada's immigration service said privacy concerns prevented them from saying whether she was in the country.

The girl was arrested in August in Islamabad after a Muslim cleric accused her of burning the Quran.

The cleric was later accused of fabricating evidence, and the girl was acquitted.

The case received attention in part because of her young age and questions about her mental abilities. An official medical report at the time put her age at 14 although some of her supporters said she was as young as 11. The medical report also said her mental state did not correspond with her age.

The Associated Press is withholding the girl's name because it does not generally identify underage suspects.

Even though the case against her was thrown out, people accused of blasphemy in Pakistan are often subject to vigilante justice. Mobs have been known to attack and kill people accused of blasphemy, and two prominent politicians who have discussed changes to the blasphemy laws have been killed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-29-Pakistan/id-ac6f94c11e934b4789da423efecaad59

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Reinventing The Games Console Half Way Won't Work - TechCrunch

Editor?s note:?Tadhg Kelly is a veteran game designer, creator of leading game design blog?What Games Are?and creative director of Jawfish Games. You can follow him on Twitter?here.

In some ways you?ve got to feel bad for Microsoft. The company has spent years trying to find ways to expand its Xbox idea. It put together a very interesting camera peripheral that many people bought into, but not too many games. It?s tried, on several occasions, to use the games console as a way to win access into the living room. Yet now it?s at the point of having to roll back many of its big ideas because the market reacted so negatively. The company has run into a hard truth: In the minds of the market ?console? means something specific, and is not inclined to expand its thinking.

In essence what Microsoft wanted to do was similar to what Apple did for phones. Long before iPhones there were many years of terrible feature phones. They had Java games, shambolic web interfaces and data plans that charged per megabyte. They?stuck resolutely to sticky keys and small screens, and at best some of them had styluses that pretended to be able to recognize handwriting.?Apple managed to leapfrog that mess by reinventing how it controlled, how it looked and what it felt like. Mobile phones went from being cellular devices to something else, something with sexy touch-screen effects and whatnot, and that in turn opened the door to many other innovations.

That, in essence, was Microsoft?s big idea with Kinect. If the company could redefine control to be much broader than stuffy old joypads, then that opened the door to lots of other avenues. In a sense it was trying to take ?console? into the realm of ?smartconsole? but it had an unwillingness to really go for that. Like Sony and Sega before it, Microsoft has attempted to achieve its vision by expanding the metaphor of what ?console? is supposed to mean rather than defining a new type of product from the ground up. And the market has yet again said no.

Unlike in the computing space where one machine acts as arbiter and translator of all content toward multiple screens, the living room has never really been able to unify. We have several smaller devices that all plug into one big screen. And often they have duplicate functions.?The games console seems like it should solve that. It should be a point of access for content and functionality, roles already filled by computers but in the living room.?So much more could be brought to the living room?if only the audience would get behind that idea. Throw out all your confusing boxes, it seems to say. Bring back some sanity to your life. One box to rule them all and make your life elegant.

Yet no company can really get there. No one company can strike deals with all cable-box makers to essentially cut them out of a key part of their value chain. Nobody is yet able to convince television manufacturers to get behind one standard control method. And since that means there will always be fragmentation,?players really just want consoles to play games. They view consoles as essentially gaming CD players, and preferably cheap ones at that, and steadfastly refuse to buy into the bigger picture.

Their resistance is with good reason:?Transitioning from cheaper many-box to expensive one-box means giving up a lot. It means forfeiting the chance to play games on other systems. It means disconnecting from a pre-existing media service and converting or dumping a lot of material in the process. (Could you ever see iTunes on your Xbox?) The argument has not yet been made strongly enough to the market that the trade-off is worth doing. While smartphones show that dramatic evolution is possible,?a platform holder like Microsoft needs to go much further than it already has if it?s going to change how gamers think.

Several commenters have lamented that Microsoft?s recent reversal on DRM is caused by players being short-sighted, putting immediate value (used games) ahead of long-term potential gains (digital connectedness). To me this reflects a key dissonance.?It?s rare that the market gets educated, and instead much more common that it gets fixated on an idea of what a product category is. It hears ?PC? and it thinks ?powerful desktop computer.? It hears ?console? and it thinks ?shiny games deck.? It sees one sort of trying to act like the other and resists. No no, it says. The device is supposed to be like this.

Even though every PC, smartphone and tablet in the world has a front-facing camera, for example, the market finds something weird about consoles doing likewise because that doesn?t seem to add much to what it believes??shiny games deck? is supposed to be. Even though Nintendo has a great idea for how second screen gaming could work, the market fundamentally regards it askance. A shiny games deck is supposed to be about joypads and such. The tribe only understands ?console? as one thing and is only really interested in features that bolster that vision. All else is viewed with suspicion.

There?s some kind of smart-TV idea trying to be born at Microsoft, an interesting technology which seems just out of reach. There?s something to its Minority-Report-esque idea of swiping, swishing and talking to your television. There?s some notion in the middle of that with tablets and interactions and second screens.?But to get there needs a deep reinvention, and the road toward it does not lead through changing everyone?s minds about the meaning of ?console.? Instead it needs to be a new product, even a whole new category, and its adoption has to go slow.

Rather than adapting a product into something that is complicated, confusing and suspicious, the right approach would be to create something new. One example would be a Kinect standard that could be licensed to television makers and integrated into sets. A standalone camera, irrespective of gaming, that perhaps makes all sorts of remote control tasks easier. And not called ?Xbox? at all. Not called ?console? either.?Or, if the vision mandates that gaming still be involved, a gaming deck that gets beyond the joypad.

Much as the iPhone managed to sell itself by walking away from keypads, arguably the gaming machine that moves beyond ?console? as a product category needs to move beyond the joypad. This is very hard to do. Nintendo almost managed it with Wii before running out of steam and then trying to create a joypad/tablet combo that few people really like.?Kinect tried too, but gestural games are somewhat limited in their scope. Perhaps through SmartGlass or some haptic variant of that in combination with Kinect, Microsoft could get us all into the idea of a new product category like ?smartconsole.?

Or maybe the reason that this product struggles to come to life is simply that there is no place for it. There isn?t anything fundamentally wrong with the games console as a device.?If you like to shoot stuff, jump on platforms, race, and play sports or roleplaying games, the console form factor that we have right now does that. All of the sector?s problems are about how it runs as a business rather than a form factor (which is why microconsoles are a big deal, as they primarily innovate on the business).?Much like the computer or the car, the form factor for doing all those things has not significantly changed in 30 years ? and there?s precious little need for them to.

Blaming the market is all well and good, but there?s no reason for it to change its idea about what a games console is.?And that?s a hard truth. That?s the sort of truth that makes games executives depressed. That?s the kind of truth that, after years of working on grand visions game makers often realize (and become bitter about) that they have to lower themselves back down into the muck. Rather than change the fundamentals the market consistently tells game makers to lean in. Make it bigger. Make it better. Make it play well. Make it feel right. Make it cool. Make it, you know, a great game. That?s all the gaming market cares about, and as yet no one?s made a compelling case for it to think differently.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/23/reinventing-the-console/

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Eat Away Your Carbon Footprint With This Eco-Friendly Edible Spoon

The idea of an edible utensil isn't exactly new, but nothing's been quite as convenient (and non-sticky) as Triangle Tree's brilliant if not entirely appetizing-appearing Eco-Spoon. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/H6G_RJ5KnkQ/eat-away-your-carbon-footprint-with-this-eco+friendly-edible-spoon

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Kebede wins London Marathon amid tight security

LONDON (AP) ? Tsegaye Kebede claimed a second London Marathon title on Sunday, cheered through the streets by thousands of spectators reassured by enhanced security at the first major race since the twin bombings at the Boston event.

A race that started with tributes to the Boston victims with a moment of silence ended with a thrilling conclusion under clear blue skies.

With a black ribbon pinned to his chest, Kebede chased down Emmanuel Mutai in the closing stages, and overtook the tiring Kenyan to cross the line first in front of Buckingham Palace.

Kebede clocked 2 hours, 6 minutes and 15 seconds to emulate his 2010 triumph in London, while compatriot Ayele Abshero was third.

The victory in the British capital came after Kebede was denied a shot at glory here at the Olympics last year after being overlooked by Ethiopian selectors.

The women's race saw Olympic silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo go one better in the annual London race.

The Kenyan cruised over the line in 2:20:15 seconds, the fastest time this year, ahead of compatriot Edna Kiplagat, while Yukiko Akaba of Japan was third.

"Today I'm very, very happy, I couldn't believe I could be the winner," Jeptoo told the BBC. "It is a very tough race because everybody who comes here is really prepared."

It was a miserable day for Olympic champion Tiki Gelana, who finished 16th after seeing her hopes thwarted by a collision about a third of the way in.

The Ethiopian collided with Canadian wheelchair racer Josh Cassidy as she went to get a drink.

"Every year we come to overtake the women, there's 10 chairs going at 20 mph and the poor women are scrambling to find their feet," said Cassidy, who finished 20th. "I have a brand new $2,000 pair of wheels that are damaged, who's going to pay for them? Things have to change."

It was the one blot on a day marked by the defiance of athletes and spectators in the bright London sunshine in a difficult week for the athletics community.

The specter of the bombings near to the Boston Marathon finish line, which killed three people and injured more than 180, loomed in London.

And it was apt that Tatyana McFadden, who won the wheelchair race in Boston just before the explosions, shrugged off security concerns in London to win her second title in a week.

London organizers pledged to donate 2 pounds ($3) for every finisher to The One Fund Boston set up to raise money for the bomb victims.

Before a minute's silence at the start of the marathon, event commentator Geoff Wightman urged athletes to "remember our friends and colleagues for whom a day of joy turned into a day of sadness."

Prince Harry mingled with the crowds and said he had never thought about canceling his visit following the bombings.

"It's fantastic, typically British," he said. "People are saying they haven't seen crowds like this for eight years around the route. It's remarkable to see."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kebede-wins-london-marathon-amid-tight-security-112244397--spt.html

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