Top Stories
Christian Organization Drops Use of Parcel Carrier
Family Research Council has announced they’re pulling their
shipping business away from UPS, because the shipping giant has openly
discriminated against the Boy Scouts.
Earlier this year, UPS promised to end donations to the Scouts until
homosexual Scout leaders are welcomed.
Family Research Council says they tried to rectify the situation with
UPS behind the scenes, but were rejected.
Dow Mixed After Fed Chair Talks Fiscal Cliff
It was an up and down day on Wall Street yesterday as some
early gains were wiped out after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that another
stimulus would not be able to offset the effect of the fiscal cliff. That sent the Dow Jones Industrials down
three for the day. Walmart was the
biggest loser, but other blue chips like H-P, DuPont, and G-E all did
well. The NASDAQ ended the day down
eight. The S-and-P 500 was up less than
a point.
Milk Consumption Down
Got milk? Apparently
not. The Wall Street Journal says the
milk industry is in deep trouble, as milk consumption has dropped nearly
30-percent since 1975. They cite several
reasons, including rising prices, bottled water, concern about calories, and
the fact that there are fewer kids.
Holiday Hassles
Are you finding that not everybody you run into this season
has that Christmas spirit? Want to know
why? Staples interviewed their holiday
shoppers and found these are some of the top holiday headaches: 55-percent say traffic or travel delays;
46-percent hate it when the items they want are sold out; Several shoppers
listed waiting in line, whether it’s to buy the gifts, ship the gifts, or buy
stamps to ship the gifts; and interestingly 18-percent say it’s spending time
with family they’d rather not see.
FBI Warns of Facebook Info Theft
The FBI is warning Facebook users to be careful what they
post, and what kind of information they have in their accounts. Ten people have been arrested for their part
in a huge cyber burglary ring, which led to hundreds of millions of dollars
being stolen from the bank accounts of Facebook users. The people arrested were part of the
Butterfly Botnet Cyber Crime Ring, which operated in seven different countries,
and stole about 850-million dollars over the last two years.
Granpa George #43
Former President George W. Bush is going to be a
grandpa. Jenna Bush and her husband
announced this week they’re expecting their first child this spring.
Church Around the World
Telling the Christmas Story in China Can Get You Locked Up
Christmas is the celebration of Christ’s birth. Several Christians in China have now been arrested for
explaining that simple truth. They were
all detained at a local police station this past week but have since been
released, and China Aid says this kind of persecution usually ramps up at this
time of the year.
Faith
Christmas Music Festival Shuts Down After Over 4 Decades
Sad news this week – I don’t know if you or your kids ever
took part in the annual Ichthus Music Festival.
It was the first and the longest running Christian music festival in the
nation – and now it’s going bye-bye. The
Board of Directors at Ichthus Ministries, which runs the festival, announced
this week that they are ceasing operations after forty-two years. They’ve been struggling to make ends meet
since 2006, and say this was the last thing they wanted – but they had no
choice. About 1,000 tickets had already
been sold for next summer’s festival.
You can get refunds at www.IchthusFestival.org/Refund.
Family & Relationships
Grieving in the Holidays
Perhaps one of the reasons the Christmas season is so tough
for some folks is that it’s so long.
There are a lot of opportunities for reminders out there, especially if
you’ve lost someone in the past year.
Sam Hodges with Church Initiative has a few ways to help. He says “Maybe
it’s just a matter of sitting down and talking with somebody about their
memories of the person they’ve lost. That’s one of the things that a lot of
grieving people feel awkward about, is talking about their lost loved one
because they know it makes other people uncomfortable. And so if you can
position yourself to just listen that can really be a blessing to someone who’s
grieving as well. If you know somebody that might benefit from plugging into a
class, www.GriefShare.org has all you
need to know.
Talking to Your Neighbor
Remember the old days when neighbors used to talk more? Those days are now. According to USA Today, a new national study
shows that 76-percent of us trust our neighbors, 65-percent exchange favors,
and nearly half talk to them quite often.
That comes from the Civic Life In America report, which also says that
our interactions with neighbors has increased from less than once a month to
almost every day.
Work
Don’t Take a Holiday from
Job Search
If you’re thinking about finding a new job in 2013, you may
not want to wait for the New Year. While
most job seekers skip the holidays, www.Forbes.com
says companies that want to fill jobs in the first quarter are looking for
qualified people now – and waiting until January may be too little too late.
Iconic Door-to-Door Cosmetics Seller Cuts Back
Avon won’t be calling as
much. They announced yesterday they’re
cutting 1,500 jobs over the next year and will be completely exiting South Korea and Vietnam in order to hone in on
faster growing markets. All of that
comes after an 81-percent decline in third quarter profits.
Finances & Economy
Getting Help With Holiday
Mortgage Struggles
Maybe the holidays have just served as a reminder of all the
financial struggles you’re going through.
If affording your home is one of those struggles, Steve O’Conner with
the Mortgage Bankers Association says the first call you need to make is to
your lender: “If a consumer is struggling with a mortgage payment they should
contact their lender because there are a lot of solutions out there but the
only way the lender can help the borrower is if they begin to engage in
dialogue so the lender can understand the borrower’s circumstances--what’s caused
them to get in trouble in terms of making their payments and try to figure out
what’s the best option going forward to try to get that borrower back on track.
Lenders absolutely want to help the borrowers.” Even with all of the
foreclosures out there, there have been one million more home loan
modifications in the last five years.
All you need to know at www.HopeNow.com.
Health
Promising Discoveries in Lymphoma Treatment
A lab in New York
says they’ve come up with a new drug to help treat one of the more aggressive
forms of lymphoma. It started with the
discovery of an experimental molecule called MI-2, which was found to
inactivate one of the key proteins that cause lymphomas to grow. The next step is to test it out on people
battling a form of lymphoma, and from there it may head to market.
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