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Inside: Learn how to lower your odds of facing an audit from the Internal Revenue Service. page 16

ALSO INSIDE I-TEAM : Middle School Violence In Broward Rising page 5 - local section

Picking The Perfect Credit Card For You page 17 - consumer section

Need Mortgage Help? Don’t Bet On A Bailout page 24 - real estate section

Health Care Reform’s Impact On Americans page 29 - health section

Studying The Grateful Dead - In Biz School page 35 - entertainment section

South Africa Prepares For World Cup page 39 - sports section

I-TEAM : Experts Want All Car Accelerators Tested page 41 - automotive section

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April 2, 2010

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April 2, 2010

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I-Team: Middle School Violence In Broward Rising callousness,” Sheriff Lamberti said.

Whatever you call it, the math adds up to more violence in Broward County Middle Schools.

“It illustrates a problem that we’ve taught our kids to be anonymous (through texting threats,)” said Lamberti. “This (incident) reflects negatively on all of Broward County.”

Using statewide violence data, the CBS4 ITeam discovered that when it comes to acts of violence against people, (battery or assault) 62% of all incidents in Broward County took place in middle school (835 incidents) not high school (518 incidents) during school year 20082009, the latest school year data where this violence data is available.

In fact, only hours before that news conference with Lamberti on Tuesday, March 23, 2010, another incident occurred involving Broward County middle schools students. This one took place on a school bus on its way to McNicol Middle school in Hollywood, where a 14 year boy punched his 12 year-old former girlfriend in the face sending her to the hospital.

“I think our kids have become desensitized to violence,” said Lamberti at a news conference on Tuesday to respond to the recent attack at Deerfield Beach Middle School.

State Department of Education data shows McNicol Middle School ranked 13th among Middle Schools in Broware County in ‘08-’09 in total number of violent incidents.

Whatever the cause, the data shows that what Florida’s Department of Education calls violence reports in its School Indicators data for year 2008-2009 has gone up.

“We cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” said Sheriff Lamberti. “It’s a community problem. This is a problem that’s national in scope and it’s not just confined to Broward County.”

Reporting Stephen Stock MIAMI (CBS4) —In the wake of the recent violence sweeping across South Florida school campuses, a CBS4 I-Team investigation finds that violence in some South Florida schools is a more serious problem for Middle School students than High School students. It may seem counter-intuitive, but that’s what violence data from the Florida Department of Education shows when it comes to violence cases in Broward County.

This follows a week of disturbing crimes on the grounds of South Florida Middle Schools.

There was the case of an eighth grader beaten up at the dismissal bell at Deerfield Beach Middle School, allegedly by a high school student bent on revenge.

Then on March 23, 2010, showing another girl, punched as she got off the school bus from McNicol Middle School in Hollywood.

CBS4 I-Team investigator Stephen Stock looked into the state education violence numbers and found some surprises.

Yes, there has been an increase in violent incidents at middle schools in South Florida over recent years, especially in Broward County.

The CBS4 I-Team investigation discovered that, at least in Broward County, middle school is statistically more violent than High School.

The act itself, kicking a 15-year-old in the head at a Deerfield Beach Middle School bus stop, an act that almost killed her, drew a stunned response from fellow students, parents, teachers, even from Broward County’s top cop, Sheriff Al Lamberti.

“Somebody coined the topic calling it a ‘new era of senseless violence.’ I call it a culture of

According to the data combining incidents in both Broward County middle and high Schools in Broward County violent acts have gone up.

Again, this counts what Florida’s DOE terms “total violent incidents” and they were up 4.2% from the year before in Broward County. To be fair, the data shows that those numbers were down slightly (2.1%) from the year before that (‘06-’07) meaning there was a slight drop in the number of incidents over a three year time period.

According to the most recent state data the four most violent schools, ranked by total incidents, in Broward County are all middle schools.

Last October, Deerfield Beach Middle school students were involved in a stunning offcampus attack on Michael Brewer. Three teens now stand accused of setting Brewer on fire over an argument about a videogame and a bicycle.

“This is a total coincidence that they (the violent incidents involve students) at the same school,” said Lamberti. “These kids didn’t know each other. These kids in this latest attack had no idea who Michael Brewer was. There is no connection.”

While that may be true, it’s also true that Deerfield Beach Middle ranked number six among all middle schools in Broward County for acts against persons (batteries and assaults) in the most recent data for 2008-2009.

In Miami-Dade County violence is just about flat. State Department of Education data shows there was a very slight increase in overall

violence incidents from year to year in the most recent numbers. The data shows violence is actually down in middle schools. And the number of violent incidents in middle school in Miami-Dade are less than half, only about 42 percent of the total in Miami-Dade. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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JMH Reaches Deals With Unions & Miami-Dade County also forego pay increases for a full year.

The automatic raises will be reinstated in 2011.

The plan with Miami-Dade calls for the Public Health Trust to release a plan in 30 days that will reduce the current budget gap facing the troubled hospital system by $100 million.

MIAMI (CBS4) —Friday, Jackson Health System and the union that represents the hospital employees reached a tentative labor agreement. On the same day, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez released details of an agreement reached Thursday between the county and Jackson Health System that put the system on “management watch.”

The deal with the union calls for employees to contribute five percent of their base wages toward the cost of their group health insurance. Employees will

Still, even if the hospital system is able to reduce costs by $100 million, it would still leave a budget gap of $113.4 million for the next fiscal year, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The new plan will have to reveal “specific implemented actions to assure the Trust is solvent through the remainder of the current fiscal year.”

A secondary plan will have to be issued in 60 days by the Public Health Trust that will reduce the $113.4 million gap to zero.

In addition, the troubled hospital system must release details about the possible future retention of Pricewaterhouse Coper, which is currently working on a

one month contract to help the system sort out its books.

Mayor Alvarez requested weekly meetings between county executives and Jackson Health management to assess the progress of the hospital’s recovery plan.

The county team will include county manager George Burgess and finance director Carter Hammer among others, according to the South Florida Business Journal.

In exchange for the plan laid out by Alvarez, the county will advance Jackson Health around $80 million for sales tax revenue to help keep the financially troubled system afloat through the end of the year. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Good 4 You: South Floridians Help Orphans In India fun will be going on. We have fire breathers and aerialists,” Matthew Meehan of Coral Gables told CBS4’s Jorge Estevez as they wandered the set.

“It is non-stop entertainment. Everywhere you look, there will be something going on.”

The fundraiser, now in its third year, features act after act inspired by the beauty of India, but it is dedicated to the country’s most forgotten population: 80 million orphan children.

Reporting Jorge Estevez ORAL GABLES (CBS4) — Orphans halfway around the world are getting a second chance thanks to a group of South Floridians who have started a brand new non-profit organization. This weekend, they are holding what has been called the most fun fundraiser in South Florida.

With the stage set and last-minute preparations taken care of, a Night in Bollywood is underway.

“This is the stage. This is where all the

“These are homeless kids in the streets.

They have no mother, no father and no living relative. They are fighting stray animals, pigs and dogs for little scraps of rotting food,” said Meehan, who has visited the country more than a dozen times with his friends.

It is a situation that was brought to Meehan’s attention through a friend who heard of Sunil, an Indian man who with his wife housed a few orphans. Meehan and his friends donated money and then were transformed after a trip to India.

“It was tough to see piles of trash rotting and see three of four kids sifting through the garbage looking for anything, a piece of rotting meat or a piece of rotting fruit,” said Meehan.

After that trip, they began Sunil’s Home.

Now with an expanded facility, it houses dozens of orphans. And thanks to the generosity of Meehan and other South Floridians, more orphans will have a second chance at survival.

It takes about $800 a year to take care of an orphan in India. After this weekend’s fundraiser, they hope to raise enough money to house as many as a hundred kids by the end of the year. All of the profits raised go directly to help the children. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Cash, Contracts, and Corruption On Regalado Agenda Reporting Michael Williams MIAMI (CBS4) — Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado did not mince words Friday. A day after Miami commissioners agreed to take $53.6 million in reserves to cover budget deficits and balance the 2009 budget, Regalado vowed to end corruption in the city of Miami and restore the public’s trust.

“The state of the city is bad, but we are working,” Regalado told CBS4’s Michael Williams shortly before his first State of the City address.

“This administration has a zero tolerance policy on corruption, mismanagement and waste of public funds,” the Mayor went on to tell those who filled City Hall for his speech.”

“Nothing but nothing will be swept under the rug to avoid scandals in the media; In fact, I’m inviting our employees to come forward with any information about wrongdoing in our city. The only way to regain the public trust is to shed light on the inner workings of our city whether this is good or bad news.”

Regalado said the city and its leaders had to work to gain back the trust of the people they work for.

“What we do must be out in the open. Bad news or good news, it will be done in the sunshine,” he said.

During his first State of the City address since he was elected mayor in November, Regalado said he hopes to avert a financial emergency – which would trigger a state oversight. The city was forced to do that once before in the early 1990s.

One way of doing that will be to work out new contracts with the city’s unions, and Regalado said the city was nearly ready to make proposals to 3 out of 4.

“These are serious issues, and this administration will not tolerate delays,” he said. “We need union contracts that are fair to the residents, to the taxpayers, and to the employees. The time has come to

stop the finger pointing and fine real solutions and real commitments that will not hinder our city’s progress and growth.”

Regalado said he expected the unions to cooperate in reaching new, less expensive labor agreements, because the need is clear. “The unions will not be enemies.

They are our partners, because only with their aid we can save our city,” he said.

“The city’s success is in everyone’s best interest.”

The city is working to avoid state oversight but the mayor and commission chairman advised staff to start considering it.

The new city manager Carlos Migoya promised to have a plan in place to bring the city reserves back up in 45 days.

Regalado said another key part of the city’s recovery plan is to reduce pension expense, something he said was critical.

“This year, we have a real target. A 15 percent reduction of the city contribution and a long term stabilization of the pension fund,” he said. “If we do not achieve this goal, neither the city nor the employees will have a future.”

To emphasize how big of a problem the city has with its budget and budget fixes, Commissioner Frank Carollo held up a paycheck his office received last week for an employee who hasn’t worked in his office since November. Carollo has just two employees in his office; upon review of his office budget he discovered he has several employees on his payroll.

Miami’s finances are being probed by federal investigators who question the bookkeeping before Regalado became mayor. City commissioners had to pull more than $53 million out of reserve money to balance 2009 finances, and the city is at least $28 million in the red this year.

Regalado blamed his predecessor for the city’s financial woes. “I think the Diaz administration has to take the brunt of the responsibility. We as commissioners were

told everything was okay,” Regalado said.

The one thing Regalado said he would not consider is raising taxes. He pointed out that Miami mixes prosperity with many poor people who must be considered.

“Increasing taxes is not the answer. We do not want to kill the city to save the government,” he said.

He promised city leaders would find a way to fix the financial problems and help restore Miami’s somewhat tarnished image.

“We will raise the bar in terms of quality of life in our neighborhoods. We will clean the city, in and out. We will make an example of what works,” he said “It will be a beacon for other cities. We will be the Magic City.” (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Miami Hacker Stole Millions, Gets 20 Year Sentence said Gonzalez and two foreign codefendants would drive past retailers with a laptop computer, tapping into those with vulnerable wireless Internet signals. The trio would then install “sniffer programs” that picked off credit and debit card numbers as they moved through a retailer’s computers before trying to sell the numbers overseas, authorities said.

BOSTON (CBS4) — A South Florida computer hacker who was the mastermind behind one of the largest theft of credit and debit card numbers in U.S. history was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he apologized for leading a scheme that cost businesses, banks and insurers nearly $200 million.

Former federal informant Albert Gonzalez pleaded guilty last year to breaking into the computer networks of major retailers including TJMaxx, BJ’s Wholesale, and the restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced Gonzalez to the middle of the 15- to 25-year range spelled out in a plea agreement Gonzalez reached with prosecutors.

Just before he was sentenced, the 28-year-old Gonzalez apologized as his mother, father and sister watched from the front row of the courtroom.

His father wept softly and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.

Gonzalez said he did it not out of greed, but instead “because of my inability to stop my pursuit” and “my (Internet) addiction.”

“I blame nobody but myself,” he said.

He said he did not give much thought to people whose credit and debit card numbers were stolen. “I always thought that they were being made whole by their financial institutions,” he said.

Authorities said Gonzalez amassing $2.8 million he used to buy a Miami condo, a car, Rolex watches and a Tiffany ring for his girlfriend. They

Gonzalez, who was known online as “soupnazi,” was a self-taught computer genius.

He was first arrested for hacking in 2003, but was not charged because he became an informant, helping the Secret Service find other hackers.

But authorities said that over the next five years, he hacked into the computer systems of Fortune 500 companies even while providing assistance to the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann said Gonzalez led a group of professional hackers and identity thieves in three states, Ukraine and Russia. He said the group made money by selling numbers on the black market and by going to ATMs and taking “bundles of money” out of accounts.

Prosecutors estimate the group stole tens of millions of debit and credit card numbers, costing corporations and banks millions when they were forced to cancel accounts, open new accounts, monitor accounts for fraud, beef up their network security and invest in public relations to ensure they wouldn’t lose customers. Authorities found more than 40 million distinct card numbers on two of Gonzalez’s computer servers.

Prosecutors asked for the maximum, 25-year sentence under the plea deal, while Gonzalez’s attorney, Martin Weinberg, asked for the low end of 15 years.

Weinberg said Gonzalez has “gained an understanding of the harm he’s done” during the 22 months he’s spent in jail since his arrest in May

2008, and has “genuine and deep remorse.”

“He recognizes what he did was wrong,” Weinberg said.

Saris sentenced Gonzalez to two 20year terms — to run concurrently — one for a Massachusetts case that included the theft from Framingham-based TJX companies, OfficeMax and other stores, and the other from a New York case that included Dave & Buster’s.

The judge set a separate hearing for June 25 to determine the amount of restitution Gonzalez will be ordered to pay, although the judge acknowledged that Gonzalez will not likely be able to pay the large amount she is expected to order.

Under the plea deals, Gonzalez must forfeit more than $2.7 million of the $2.8 million that authorities say he stole. He also must give up his condo, car, a Tiffany ring that he gave to his girlfriend and Rolex watches he gave to his father and friends. (© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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Fitzroy Salesman: “I Ain’t Going To Prison” to talk the undercover agents into legitimately purchasing and developing Miramar land. The agents posed as contractors, money managers and criminals.

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Kaplan says Salesman never said “no” to a bribe and that he knowing associated with alleged criminals.

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) — Jurors are getting two very different looks at surveillance recordings from the FBI chronicling a two-and-a-half year undercover corruption probe of former Miramar city commissioner Fitzroy Salesman.

Prosecutors called more witnesses on the second day of what is expected to be a two-week trial for fraud and bribery charges.

Salesman faces reportedly accepted more than $3,000 in bribes to use his influence as commissioner to approve construction projects. If convicted, he could face 20 years in prison and as much as $1.5 million in fines.

Opening statements in the trial were made Tuesday; afterward, video and audio recordings were played in public for the first time.

According to Salesman’s court-appointed attorneys, the former commissioner tried

The prosecutor’s first witness was FBI Special Agent Anthony Velazquez. He testified that he introduced himself to Salesman as a criminal figure who dealt in stolen property, claiming he had friends in Europe who wanted to launder $1.5 million.

According to Velazquez, who first met Salesman in the Diamonds strip club in North Miami Beach in March 2005, Salesman suggested his friends launder the money by investing in Miramar real estate.

Velazquez went on to say he introduced Salesman to two other undercover agents; one claimed to be a contractor looking to make a name for himself in South Florida construction.

In the audio and video tapes of meetings and phone calls however, Salesman repeatedly tells Velazquez that he will not do anything illegal. On the trip to meet Velazquez’s “friend,” he pointed out potential investment properties and suggests that the man go into legitimate business.

He went on to say that he “ain’t going to prison” for $10,000 or $20,000.

Salesman was arrested along with two other Broward politicians as part of a federal corruption probe.

One of those arrested, suspended Broward School Board member Beverly Gallagher, pleaded guilty to public corruption charges and will be sentenced on June 2nd. Gallagher was accused of using her official position as a board member to act as a “consultant” for the companies seeking contracts from the district. From approximately November 2007 through June 2009, she reportedly accepted $12,500 in cash, boat trips and restaurant bill payments.

Earlier this month, former Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion was sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in December to money laundering conspiracy.

This is not Salesman’s first court appearance. On the day before Thanksgiving in 2007, Salesman was arrested after he allegedly threatened another shopper with a gun inside a WinnDixie store. A jury acquitted him of the more serious charge of aggravated assault, but did convict him on the misdemeanor charge of improperly displaying a firearm.

He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a year of probation. (© MMX CBS Television Stations. All

Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this report)

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Happy Trails, Adrienne Adrienne’s is humanity. She genuinely cares about the people and stories her staff reports on. She also cares about the people who report those stories.

DORAL (CBS4) —Yo, Adrienne!

The Adrienne Roark era at CBS4 News ends today, March 19th. She’s headed to Dallas and the CBS-owned station there, a great promotion for her, a huge benefit for them, and a huge loss for us.

More than 100 people came to her goingaway party last night. People flew in to be there, but mostly, it was her staff; her newsroom family as she likes to call it. She was hugged so many times she must have ended the night feeling like a tube of toothpaste. She cried. They cried. I tried to avoid both by taking pictures. I’m not a hugger, hate to cry, and the camera provides a great defense against both.

But as I watched the hugs, and the teary laughter, I had some time to think. I’ve been at WFOR, formerly WCIX, for a quarter century this year, and I’ve never seen this response to a boss leaving. They come, and they go. Adrienne is my 8th News Director during that time, but the first to get such a sendoff when they left.

At a surprise celebration earlier that day, she was stunned by the thunderous applause when she entered the newsroom.

Photojournalist Rafael Murciano, who has been here just a few months less than me, hit the nail on the head.

“It was Beatles-like applause,” he said.

Ralph loves the Beatles. It was high praise indeed.

For those of you who just watch the news instead of living it, like we do, you may not understand how important a news director is to what you see on the air. Most of the time, the viewer at home doesn’t know who’s running the show, but the news director sets the tone for what you see.

They build the staff, shape coverage, set the direction, and create a team. The results show up in your living room every evening, and now, on the web every minute.

They all leave a legacy when they depart.

When reporter Ted Scouten and Photojournalist Jim Bernard were in Haiti within a day after that country’s devastating earthquake, I noticed one morning she looked like hell. I asked, and she admitted she hadn’t been able to sleep since the two were in-country. She talked with them at length each night, not only about coverage, but about how they were handling the death, and living the tragedy.

She loved their coverage. She truly hated that they had to literally walk through death to do their job, and that they were in danger.

That’s Adrienne in a nutshell, and one of the many reasons we’ll miss her.

As I said, she’s my 8th news director. All brought something to our newsroom, the news you see, and to me, personally.

Larry Lyle hired me as a reporter in 1985.

We were small, independent WCIX at the time, and I planned to stay here a year before moving on. Larry was gone in a few months (hope it wasn’t me!) but he presided over our move from downtown Miami to what became Doral. A new building meant a new attitude. My first day was our first day in this building. The move helped our news department grow up.

Larry Wallenstein was News Director when CBS bought this television station and changed it forever. From 1 newscast a day, we grew to news at noon, 4, 6, and 11.

Nobody was watching us, yet, but he helped build the framework for our future.

He was here 5 years.

Paul Stueber got the job when Larry left; he’d been Larry’s assistant news director. I loved Paul; he was a pipe-smoking big-J journalist who pushed excellence in reporting. He was also news director when Hurricane Andrew hit. He lost everything he owned, and the station suffered huge damage. He helped us dig out and cover the biggest disaster in US history, and left after 2 years, when Andrew overwhelmed him.

Sue Kawalerski was his assistant and took the reins when he left. She was here when WCIX-6 disappeared and became WFOR4, and the station started building a new identity. We had our growing pains, and management wanted to set a new direction.

It did not include her, and she left after 3 years.

Neil Goldstein had a mandate to re-make the face of our newscast. He fired or demoted experienced journalists, brought in fresh faced but less experienced folk, and tried to brand us “News that Works For You”. It didn’t work for us, or for him. He was gone in 18 months, after ending my on-air career. That sent me in a new direction, and now I manage our online journalism. A door closes, a window opens.

Sue MacInerney helped us develop our first newspaper partnership, the first tentative effort of print and television working together. It didn’t stick, but set the groundwork for our present news partnership with The Miami Herald. A new General Manager helped her decision to leave after 2 years.

He brought in Shannon High, who started her news career as an intern with us. She came back to be the boss, and for some old timers like me, that was a bit weird. But Shannon was a fireball. Aggressive, demanding, and innovative, she engineered the biggest expansion of news in the history of CBS4. Breaking News was king.

News was expanded to WBFS and weekend mornings. At one point, our newscasts were #1 at Noon, 5, 6, and 11.

She helped us win our first Murrow award, and many more after that. She made me a manager, and put me in charge of our website. She also hired Adrienne as Assistant News Director. She was in charge for 7 years, an amazing tenure for a TV news director, and long enough for her managers to decide they wanted a change.

A few months after she hired Adrienne, Shannon departed and is now doing news on a national scale.

Adrienne won the job, and lucky her; she walked right into the national economic meltdown. We were not immune. Within months of taking over, she was forced to let people go, scale back some newscasts, and deal with cutbacks. She had to say goodbye to great staffers, and it hurt every time. She had to convince those who remained to do more work with less. She had to be innovative, scrappy, and resourceful.

She grew the I-Team, supporting investigative journalism even as other media organizations scaled back. She welcomed new technology, including mobile journalists. She has supported web journalism as the future, and helped make our website the #1 television site in South Florida. She embraced social networking as a journalistic tool.

She created this column, an effort for us as journalists to be more transparent.

She let people innovate, and supported

great ideas and good people. She made her managers grow to face the challenge. She cared about the people who worked for her.

Not fakey-boss care, but real concern. Our pain was hers, a huge load to carry. Of course, our success was hers as well, a great joy.

Personally, I wonder what she could have done here had the economy not imploded just as she started. Oh, did I say this was her first job as news director? All of this could have overwhelmed a newbie boss.

Not Adrienne. She felt the pain of the layoffs, the cutbacks, and the changes of our business. When she spoke to the newsroom after her promotion was announced, she said candidly, “We’ve been through hell.” True dat, but those fires made her stronger, and us as well.

She made lemonade from very sour lemons, and turned very hard times into a challenge to be met. She fought for us, and by extension, for you, our viewers, every day.

She had to be a leader. She is, and that’s why CBS offered the chance to grow, and share her talent in a bigger city. We knew it would happen. It just happened too soon.

So now, we welcome a new news director, my 9th. If Adrienne had to leave, Cesar Aldama is one of the best successors I could think of. His family is in Miami, a large part of his career was here, at WSVN and as managing editor in this very newsroom, and he knows South Florida and what CBS4 is trying to accomplish. He did great things as assistant news director of our CBS station in Philadelphia, and now he brings that talent and experience back home.

His legacy here is just beginning, and we’re excited. You should be too, because we all do this for you.

Tomorrow, Adrienne starts her drive westward to Texas, a new adventure awaiting her in Big-D. We’ll miss her, but what she accomplished here will be a part of us forever. I hope she has a big car, because she takes a lot of “us” --what we are-- with her.

Adios, Adrienne. Hail, Cesar! (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Lowering Your Odds of Facing IRS Audit sure fire way to set off IRS computers.

Filing Late: Not filing returns on time or not filing a particular year will catch up to you.

Instead file a form a Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension for Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns. This must be filed no later than April 15th.

PLEASE NOTE: While this gives you an automatic 4-month extension, until October 15th to file your return, it does not give you an extension to pay any taxes due. Filing a proper extension does not make your return more likely to be selected for audit.

Financial Adviser Ray Martin on Ways to Make Unwelcone Visit to Tax Man Less Likely (CBS) April 15th is less than a month away, which means it’s tax time. And what does everyone fear at this time of the year?

The IRS knocking on their door with a big bad audit. But you can take steps to try to avoid an audit this year -- and every year.

Financial adviser and “Early Show” contributor Ray Martin discusses some of the common mistakes people make that raise red flags to the IRS. Reducing the Chance of an IRS Audit The chances that your tax return will be audited are pretty low. According to the most recent Department of Treasury data, the IRS examined slightly less than one percent of all individual tax returns, which is down from about five percent in the mid1960s. But the chances of an IRS audit can increase substantially, depending on your income level, types of income, amount of deductions, your income earning activities and changes you have made since your last tax return was filed.

An IRS audit, while not on the list of fun things to do, is not something to be feared. If you have kept complete and accurate records of all of your deductions and have reported all of your income, you should be fine. In fact, in about 25 percent of audits, the IRS makes no changes or issues a refund.

But here is the bottom line: no one like an IRS audit and you’d want to know what can trigger an audit so that you can avoid it…right???

Audit Triggers to Avoid Incorrect Data: The most common reason for the IRS flagging individual returns is incorrect reporting of Social Security Numbers for filers and dependants. Incorrect tax return reporting of income and taxes paid from forms W-2 and 1099 also are a

Paying Too Little: If you do not have the money to pay the taxes due, don’t just send in a lesser amount without an explanation.

This will trigger an IRS notice and it could also lead to a more invasive IRS review of your return. Instead, file Form 9465 Installment Agreement Request with your return. You’ll still have to pay interest and possibly a late payment penalty for any taxes not paid by April 15th. However, the IRS will work out a payment plan for up to 60 months at a lower interest rate for the balance that you owe.

Math Errors: These are also high on the list of audit triggers. Using a tax professional or a computer program to prepare your return should help you avoid this problem.

Also, certain combinations, such as not reporting some gains on the sale of a home when business-use-of-home deductions were claimed on past returns will trigger an IRS flag. Also, reporting large amounts of selfemployment income, typically in excess of $100,000, on Schedule C seems to get the IRS’ attention. According to the IRS, often these filers load up on dubious deductions and have fewer records justifying the writeoffs they claim.

And be sure to use the mailing labels and envelopes provided to you by the IRS. This will prevent another common tax filing error: sending your tax return to the wrong IRS processing center.

IRS Audit Checks and Triggers First the IRS runs a check called Document Perfection - Every tax return is checked for errors in math and tax calculations and for clerical errors such as incorrect SSNs and addresses. If a mistake is detected, a notice of the error and a recalculation of the tax due is sent to the tax payer.

Next is the Document Matching Program This compares the information you report with the information suppled by your bank, your employer and others on forms W-2,

1099 and other forms and documents. If you omit an item from your tax return which is picked up by the IRS’ computers, the IRS will send a computer generated notice that includes a recalculation of your tax and the additional interest and penalties you will owe. Typically these notices are sent two to three years after the return in question is filed, so when you receive these, you will need to find your returns and records to verify if the IRS is correct in their assertions. Typically, these omissions are honest mistakes by a taxpayer and, although the IRS maintains their position that they could assess a negligence penalty, the law does not allow them to presume negligence and automatically asses such penalties.

Discriminant Function System (DIF) Basically the DIF is a computer program that assigns a numeric value or score of selected items on tax returns. When the total score of all selected items exceeds a minimum set by the IRS, the IRS computers will single out the return for a possible audit.

The exact items and scoring convention is a more closely guarded secret that the formula of Coca-Cola, but some of the items believed to be on the list include: • Large amounts of income not subject to tax withholding.

• Unusually large amounts of deductions claimed than seem reasonable when compared to your income.

• A large number of dependent exemptions claimed in conflict with reported SSNs, tax withholding allowances, etc.

• Indicating a change of address when not reporting a sale of your residence and not changing your home related deductions.

Finally, the IRS also runs special audit programs such as its Market Segment Specialization Program, or MSSP, where the IRS uses its computers and specially assigned and highly trained agents to scrutinize tax returns that report income from a selected list of business categories, especially those with income from self employment reported on Schedule C, that are categorized in one of several business market segments on an list maintained by the IRS. I’ve Been Audited-Now what do I do?

First of all, DO NOT take a combative attitude; you can probably take care of the problem through mailings. The 2007 figure represents an audit for one of every 97 returns filed. But only one of every 561 returns resulted in a face-to-face audit. The rest were correspondence examinations.

Preliminary 2008 numbers show 1.39 million individual taxpayer audits, but only

310,429 of those were field audits. The rest were again correspondence examinations.

This means that if you get audited, the chances are you will be able to take care of it with written correspondence with the IRS. Most audits start with a letter from the IRS. The most important thing you can do is answer that letter BEFORE the due date. If you agree with the IRS’ assesment of your situation, send back the form with your enclosed payment.

If you think the IRS is wrong, send them correspondence BEFORE the due date, and provide a substantial answer to their question. If this does not take care of the problem, you may be called in for a face to face audit. If that happens, prepare prepare a response and consider the strong possibility that you need to hire a professional to represent you in the audit.

Items and Circumstances that can frequently draw the IRS’ attention include: • Reporting income and taxes withheld on your tax return that does not agree with the information on the Forms W-2 and 1099 that you received - the IRS receives the same information ad their computer systems will check this.

• Total income from self employment, reported on Schedule C, of $100,000 or more. According to one recent study, the IRS has concluded that individuals filing Schedule C are most likely to under report their income and overstate their deductions.

• Claiming deductions that are unusually large in relation to your income. According to a report of IRS inquiries, the IRS selected a taxpayer’s return for audit when the tax payer claimed over $18,000 in unreimbursed business expenses when he reported only $25,000 in gross income.

• Married taxpayers filing separately who both claim the same deductions. Many such taxpayers should split or allocate the deductions that are paid for jointly.

• Taxpayers returns that fall into a series of industries or activities that, based on past IRS audit experience, have a higher incidence of noncompliance. This includes tax returns of auto dealers, taxi and air service operators, attorneys, gas retailers, etc. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Picking the Perfect Credit Card for You Credit Union’s PenFed Promise VISA Card.

The intro APR is 7.5 percent for the first three years, and then the rate varies. If your three years were up right now, it would be 10 percent.

Best Cash Back Card

CBSMoneyWatch.com’s Farnoosh Torabi Tells Who’s Best-Suited for Various Types of Cards, and Best Ones in Each Category (CBS) miles.

Points. Cash back. Low rates. Air

Credit cards offer an array of tempting rewards as their issuers try to get your business.

But what types of cards are the best match for someone with your spending habits? And which cards lead the pack in each category?

CBSMoneyWatch.com correspondent Farnoosh Torabi shared valuable insight, on “Early Show Saturday Edition.”

What to Look for When Choosing a Card If you’re someone with a balance, then cards with rewards are not the way to go. They can cost you more with higher fees, and I think they may also encourage you to spend more money to try to earn the rewards.

However if you’re someone who responsibly pays your cards off each month, then you have more options.

Reward cards are for someone who isn’t carrying a balance, who spends a lot of money, and has good credit. If you fit that description, you should pick a card that best matches your spending habits.

Lowest Rate Cards Low rates are great for people who are carrying a balance. I like the Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards Card: If you want a low introductory rate (I love this, because there’s no transfer fee!), go with Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards. It’s got a zero percent annual percentage rate (APR) until March 2011. After that, it’s 15 percent rate, which is fair because that’s about the national average.

But if you want a steady low rate, head to your local credit union or small, community bank. The one I like is the Pentagon Federal

This is the most popular perk. After all, cash is king. This is best for folks who pay off their balances in full each month. You will need good-to-excellent credit to qualify for most of these offers; otherwise, the interest you pay will likely outweigh any cash-back perks. They’re also becoming harder to find.

I really like the Discover More Card -- it’s my top overall pick. No annual fee, no APR for first six months and five percent cash back in rotating everyday categories we use all the time (such as gas, groceries, airlines, home improvement.) Watch the calendar and go online to see the category that’s chosen.

Then you get one percent back on everything else, which is still great. Plus there’s no annual fee, which is rare for most cash-back cards.

So, essentially, if you spend $1,000 a month, you get $50 cash back, in your pocket! It’s a great card, with very few few strings attached.

Financial Reward Cards I love financial reward cards, because they helps you save a bit more for every dollar you spend. The best one we found was the Fidelity Rewards American Express Card” -definitely a top pick. These cards give you two percent of your purchases into a deposit in an eligible Fidelity account. There’s no annual fee, which is great, and no cap on cash rewards. You can choose cards based on the type of investment you prefer: a brokerage account, a retirement (IRA) or a 529 college plan.

So, essentially, if you spend $1,000 a month on this rewards card, you can earn $240 a year in cash rewards that are automatically invested into a (Fidelity) investment account. Think about that, because $240 at a modest five percent interest rate for 10 years gives you more than $3,000 saved just for using the card.

over $100 a year. So, you need to do the math, consider how frequently you travel and make sure you’ll benefit from the points/fees structure. Remember that you typically need to rack up 25,000 miles to get a free round-trip ticket (figure that’s three round trip tickets east to West Coast).

Of these cards my pick is the Capital One Venture Card. With this card, you earn two miles for every dollar spent you can spend points on ANY airline, with no blackout dates, no expiration date, no limits!

Amazing! So it’s wonderful for someone who travels a ton. Although the annual fee is a hefty $59 -- it’s free the first year. That means you need to spend at least $3,000 a year on this card to break even.

That said, rewards can be redeemed for any travel-related expense, such as airline, hotel, cruise line and rental car transaction.

Basically, $15,000 in spending earns you 30,000 points/miles, which can buy a $300 airline ticket on ANY airline (100 points equals a one dollar reward.) So again, it’s a great, great card for frequent travelers.

If someones wants to get rid of all his or her cards and start over with a card that’s safe, cheap and works to earn money for him or her, what would be the just perfect credit card?

Overall, the Discover More card is the best all-around card. You really can’t beat the rewards, and the interest rate is pretty reasonable. Also, when so many families are struggling to get by, having a little extra cash in your pocket as a reward for being responsible is a huge plus. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Cards with Points In general, points cards are not my most favorite category of rewards cards, mainly because, when you go to redeem your points, the stated value of merchandise is frequently inflated, and you have to spend so much before you can redeem your points for stuff you’d want. But they do offer flexibility.

Of this group, I like the Citi Forward Credit Card -- it’s my top pick. There’s no annual fee, and no APR for first seven months, which is always good. The great thing about this card is it rewards you for making purchases, but also for good behavior! You get five points for every dollar spent on dining, books, movies and music, and a point for other purchases. But then you get 100 points each billing period when you pay on time and stay under your credit line, and another 2,500 points when you sign up for paperless statements. So, it’s rewarding you for being green too!

Since this information constantly changes, how can anyone find the best card at any time?

Airline Miles Reward Cards Again, only consider these cards if you don’t intend to carry a balance, since the interest rates tend to be much higher on these types of cards. Whereas the average credit card rate in the country on a traditional, norewards card is about 15 percent, these cards can have 20 percent, 25 percent interest rates. With all miles cards, there’s usually an annual fee, as well, anywhere from $40 to

these sites can help you search for the lowest rate cards, all ith the most up-to-date information. Another tip is to always try to check your local credit union, since their rates are lower than the national average.

Also, try to re-negotiate the rates wof your current cards. It never hurts to check in with the issuers and tell them what your situation is. Perhaps they’ll make you an offer to keep your business; then, the grass wouldn’t necessarily be greener with another card.

Anyone can look up this information online by using banking comparison sites such as BankRate.com or CardRatings.com.” Both of those sites are great at showing you what cards are currently offering, and you can cater the search based on your individual spending habits. So, if you’re a mom who spends a ton on groceries, you can search for the card that gives you more cash rewards, or if you’re a struggling to pay off debt,

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Miami Budget Reserves Nearly Tapped Out prompting the governor and state of Florida to take action. The city is working to avoid that but the mayor and commission chairman advised staff to start considering it.

The new city manager Carlos Migoya promised to have a plan in place to bring the city reserves back up in 45 days.

Reporting David Sutta MIAMI (CBS4) — Thursday morning, Miami commissioners agreed to take $53.6 million in reserves to cover budget deficits from last year. The move drops Miami’s reserves from $94 million down to $39 million; and that’s not the end of it.

Miami mayor Tomas Regalado also announced the current 2010 budget is already $28 million in the red. This means they may be down to $11 million in reserves.

Being that low would likely cause the city to declare a financial emergency,

Meanwhile, commissioners Francis Suarez and Frank Carollo complained about the lack of financial responsibility.

Suarez spoke in disbelief about the fact the city has operated at a deficit for four years and is on track to do the same this year. The city has gone from $140 million in reserves to being wiped out soon.

Suarez said it’s time for this commission to make the tough decisions.

To emphasize how big of a problem the city has with its budget and budget fixes, Carollo held up a paycheck his office received last week for an employee who hasn’t worked in his office since November. Carollo has just two employees in his office; upon review of his office budget he discovered he has several employees on his payroll.

Also, another $3.4 million will come of the the reserves to cover a class action lawsuit settlement. A police campaign to clean up the city included towing and impounding cars used in the commission of crimes; the car owner was hit with a $1,000 fine. Multiple judges ruled that the city did not have the authority to fine the owner when the owner was not the person committing the crime.

The reserve fund could lead into a larger problem for the city. According to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald, ratings agencies that grade municipal bonds could begin to degrade the city’s credit ratings. This in turn will mean projects like the city’s parking sites near Marlins Stadium and the city’s share of the Port of Miami tunnel will be more expensive than original estimates.

CBS4’s Tim Kephart contributed to this report (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Florida Unemployment Rate Hits All-Time High recession.

Florida’s record unemployment rate was nearly three percent higher than the national average of 9.7 percent. The rate is also three percent higher than in February 2009, which was considered to be right in the middle of the Great Recession.

Reporting Tim Kephart TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) — The Great Recession shows no signs of weakening and continues to take a record toll on Florida workers. According to the Agency for Workforce Innovation, Florida’s unemployment rate jumped to 12.2 percent in February. The latest unemployment rate is the highest the state has ever seen, even higher than the rates measured during the 1973-1975

Florida’s unemployment rate passed the national unemployment average in the first quarter of 2008 and hasn’t been below the national average since then.

Locally, Broward County saw an unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, which mean over 105,000 workers were without a job. The number was one-tenth of a percent lower than January’s numbers, but nearly three percent higher than the February 2009 unemployment numbers.

Miami-Dade

County’s

February

unemployment rate checked in at 11.2 percent which translates to more than 141,000 workers being out of a job. The rate rose from January 2010 and was two percent higher than the same period in 2009.

Statewide, Flagler County had the highest unemployment rate at 17 percent, while Liberty County saw the lowest unemployment rate at 7.5 percent. The highest unemployment rates in the state were in Central Florida.

According to the AWI, the areas looking to hire the most workers were farmworkers/laborers, security guards, insurance sales agents, nursery workers, and telemarketers among others. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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One Million Infantino Baby Slings Recalled their babies in.

Now, the CPSC has announced the voluntary recall of one million slings made by Infantino.

The Sling Rider and the Wendy Bellissimo are being pulled because they pose a suffocation risk, Koeppen says.

Feds: The Sling Rider and Wendy Bellissimo Could Pose Suffocation Hazards (CBS) The popularity of baby slings has been on the rise over the past four years.

But, reports “Early Show” Consumer Correspondent Susan Koeppen, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says two slings are considered so dangerous they’re being pulled from the market, and parents are being told to stop using them.

Earlier this month, “The Early Show” broke the news that federal regulators were warning of possible suffocation hazards posed by baby slings -- which parents put around their necks and carry

Asked by Koeppen how quickly a child could suffocate in “one these slings,” CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum responded, “In a matter of minutes.”

Tenenbaum says three children died in Infantino slings last year alone.

“You might have your baby in a sling next to you and not notice that the baby has gone into (a) position (in which he or she) cannot breathe” until it’s too late, Tenenbaum added.

That, notes Koeppen, is exactly what happened to seven-day-old Derrik Fowler during a shopping trip with his mother, Lisa Cochran.

She’d been carrying her newborn in a sling made by Infantino. “By the time I got to the car and pulled him out of the sling to put him in his car seat, he was no longer of normal color,” Cochran recalls.

Infants younger than four months are at greatest risk in slings, Koeppen points out, because their weak neck muscles mean they have no head control. An infant can curl into a “C”-shape, with the chin falling into the chest -- restricting the baby’s airway.

There are no federal or voluntary safety standards for infant slings.

In a statement, Infantino says, “Safety is our No. 1 concern,” adding it “has also been working closely with the CPSC and other agencies … to develop safety standards for baby slings.”

But, observes Koeppen, that’s of little consolation to mothers such as Cochran, who says, “As a first-time mom, I had no clue I could walk into a store and pick something off the shelf that wasn’t safe.”

type of baby carrier. There’s also an activity gym that you can receive for free.”

As for baby slings not included in the recall, Koeppen repeated parent sholdn’t use them if their infant is less than four months old.

The CPSC, Koeppen says, is also looking at all baby slings, investigating them -the ones that are on the market currently - and will be working toward mandatory federal safety standards. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Consumers are being advised to stop using the recalled Infantino baby slings immediately and contact the company for a free replacement product.

To get it, take the tags off your recalled sling and send the tags to Infantiono, Koeppen says, adding, “There are three different products that you could get in return. You have a choice. There is a shopping cart carrier. There is a different

Sexting Bill Progressing Through Florida House (HB1335) that would relax the penalties for minors who engage in “sexting.” The term refers to an increasingly common practice among teens that involves sending nude or suggestive pictures of themselves by cell phone or email.

Feds: The Sling Rider and Wendy Bellissimo Could Pose Suffocation Hazards TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) — Florida House members on the public safety committee unanimously approved a bill

The bill creates the offense of “sexting” and specifies that a minor is guilty of sexting if he/she “uses a computer, or any other device capable of electronic data transmission or distribution, to transmit or distribute to another person any photograph of him/herself which depicts nudity and is harmful to minors; or posses a photo or video that was transmitted or distributed by another minor.”

If a minor is guilty of sexting, a first

offense would receive a sentence of 8 hours of community service and a $25 fine. A second offense becomes a misdemeanor with a punishment of up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. A third violation is a first degree misdemeanor with up to a year in jail and a fine up to $1,000. Finally, a fourth offense or more becomes a third degree felony with a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The law was inspired by the case of 18year-old Phillip Alpert. He was charged with distributing child pornography when he sent nude pictures of his 16-year-old girlfriend to her friends and family after the two had an argument. He was sentenced to four years probation and

required to register as a sex offender.

According to a survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy, 20 percent of teens have sent a nude or semi-nude photo or video of themselves, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

If the bill makes it through the House and Senate, it would become law on October 1, 2010. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Need Mortgage Help? Don’t Bet on a Bailout Government money will help many homeowners. But legal, logistical and financial obstacles may make it harder for banks to extend mortgage relief to the masses.

Banks will Likely Resist New Administration Plan to Aid Struggling Homeowners (CBS/ AP) The nation’s banks suddenly find themselves under pressure to throw greater lifelines to their most troubled mortgage borrowers. But don’t expect every struggling borrower to get a bailout.

Bank of America has already announced that it would forgive some of the principal for homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth. And the Obama administration will announce Friday a plan that will expand the administration’s $75 billion foreclosure relief effort by reducing the amount other struggling borrowers owe.

For people out of a job, the new plan pays lenders to reduce mortgage payments to as much as 31 percent of the borrower’s income - including unemployment insurance - for up to six months, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante.

The changes “will better assist responsible homeowners who have been affected by the economic crisis through no fault of their own,” an administration official said.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s, said he thinks the administration’s latest effort to aid struggling homeowners is much improved, but warned that the new plan is open to corruption.

“There are going to be people who take advantage of this,” Zandi told CBS’ “The Early Show”.

Herbert Allison, an assistant Treasury secretary, cautioned Thursday that an extension of government aid is, “not going to mean that all underwater mortgages are suddenly in the program.”

A mortgage is underwater when it exceeds the value of the property it is tied to.

Bank of America Corp. said Wednesday it agreed to forgive a portion of the mortgage balances for some of its most troubled borrowers. The homeowners must have missed at least two months of mortgage payments and owe at least 20 percent more than their home is currently worth. Bank of America estimates that about 45,000 customers will qualify for the relief.

Read More on the Mortgage Crisis: Watchdog: Mortgage Aid Plan “Meaningless” Foreclosure Threat Drives Some to Suicide Future Uncertain for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The details of the government’s Friday announcement were not immediately known. But its plan may be limited because of the amount of funds available and the complex structure of the mortgage business.

A big problem is that most of the troubled mortgages aren’t owned by the banks themselves. They were sliced and diced into securities during the housing boom and sold to investors. In order to reduce principal payments on those mortgages, banks often must get permission from the investors who holds the securities - who may not be willing to take less.

Bank of America and other banks can write down principal on mortgages that they’re authorized to control. But for mortgages held by outside investors, they “really don’t have the power to overcome

those legal obligations to the buyers of those securities,” banking analyst Nancy Bush said. “Their hands are tied.”

you’re having tough times, do you go back to the till and ask to restructure your loan?” she said.

Making things more complicated are second mortgages, or so-called “piggyback loans.” Many lenders made such mortgages during the boom years, allowing consumers to make a small or no downpayment. Worrying that they won’t be repaid, lenders who extended second mortgages have been using their veto power to block borrowers’ efforts to modify their primary mortgages.

Bank of America’s agreement to reduce some mortgage payments was the newest part of a deal reached 18 months ago with state attorneys general to settle charges over high-risk loans made by Countrywide Financial Corp. before Bank of America acquired the mortgage lender in mid-2008.

Bank of America spokesman Rick Simon said “a good portion” of the bank’s private investors have authorized it to modify the mortgages. He said, however, the principal reduction process gets more complicated when dealing with second mortgages owned by outside investors.

But part of the government’s relief program, which modifies second mortgages, could eliminate that hurdle.

Citigroup Inc. on Thursday became the fourth large lender to commit to the program, part of the Obama administration’s $75 billion loan modification plan. Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. already participate.

Another positive sign: Investors who are increasingly in limbo as borrowers go underwater want some relief too, even if that means they make less money on the loans, said Jesse Litvak, a mortgage-bond trader at Jefferies & Co in New York.

“People are starting to come to the conclusion that they would like some closure to the matter, rather than having this thing just get kicked down the road,” Litvak said.

Even if the government makes it easier for banks to agree to reduce principal payments, they may be reluctant to embrace the idea. A big concern is the precedent it would set, Bush said. Banks run the risk of being pressured into making concessions on other types of loans.

“If you’re a commercial borrower and

The government has multiple programs to try to alleviate problems in the housing market, including incentives for first-time home buyers and the mortgage modification program, known as the Home Affordable Mortgage Program.

Citi, based in New York, already participates in the primary mortgage program. Banks can offer mortgage modifications which help reduce payments for customers to more manageable levels through HAMP. There are separate parts of the program for borrowers to modify primary mortgages and second mortgages, such as home equity loans or lines of credit.

Citi said it has worked with more than 825,000 borrowers to modify all types of mortgages since 2007 in an effort to avoid foreclosure.

Other banks have also been working with homeowners to reduce payments. Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday it has modified more than 52,000 adjustablerate mortgages that it inherited through its acquisition of Wachovia Corp. in late 2008. As of the fourth quarter, the bank also had reduced the principal on those mortgages by more than $2.6 billion.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. declined to comment on whether it planned a similar program. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Economists Eye Spring Boost in Home Sales

Approaching Expiration of Homebuyer Tax Credit Plus Low Prices and Interest Rates Mean It’s a Good Time to Buy (CBS) The White House says the new mortgage relief plan announced late last week will help homeowners struggling to refinance even if they owe the bank more than the house is worth. Meanwhile, a homebuying incentive already in place may soon start paying off, as CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports.

Steve and Patricia Kuczek are on the fence...

“What we’re looking at, with the tax credit, if this is the time, we should either remodel or go out and look for and buy something new,” Steve Kuczek said.

homeowners - will hit a deadline on April 30.

homeowners are behind and 11 million owe more than their home is worth.

“With the added incentive of the homebuyer tax credit there could be some surging activity as the tax credit deadline approaches,” said Lawrence Yun chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

“There is a looming shadow inventory,” Yun said. “The foreclosure rate for 2010 could be just as high as in 2009, which was the highest ever.”

Mortgage rates, which the government has helped keep steady at a low 5 percent, are expected to rise to 5.5 or 6 percent by years end - another reason to buy sooner rather than later.

“The market right now, if you’re looking to buy, looks great,” said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist at the Mortgage bankers Association. “Prices are at or near the bottom of what we’re going to see, interest rates are only going up at this point; it’s a time to move if you’ve got that option.”

But despite all that, and bottoming prices, a rebound in homes sales still depends on the willingness of people like Patricia Kuczek.

For homebuyers in good financial shape, this could be the best spring in years.

“It’s scary,” she said. “Because of the economic situation, you don’t want to pour all your life savings into a house when you maybe should be holding onto your savings who knows what the future’s going to bring.”

The federal tax credit - up to $8,000 for first-timers, and up to $6,500 for current

Also scary is the threat of the next wave of foreclosures. Another 8 million

But this year it seems buyers are bidding on foreclosed properties For the Kuczeks, there are lots of deals to choose from.

“I think it is an opportunity,” Patricia Kuczek said. “Yes, I think it is.”

But it’s still a giant step. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be

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Which States Will Gain Power After Census? it’s lopsided growth.

While the Northeast grew only 3 percent and the Midwest just 4 percent, the South and West each registered a 13 percent growth rate over the decade. In raw population figures, the South has been the biggest gainer so far with 13 million people added. The growth has been spurred in large part by the Texas, which added four million people and grew at a whopping 19 percent, and Florida, whose population increased by 2.5 million.

(CBS) In our “Where America Stands” series, CBS News is looking at a broad spectrum of issues facing the country in the new decade. This is a look at the census and the upcoming battle over redistricting by Anthony Salvanto and Mark Gersh.

The 2010 census forms are arriving in America’s mailboxes. When the results are in they will show that America remains a nation on the move. People are flowing westward and southward over the last ten years as they have for generations.

For most of the past decade, the allure of space, affordable housing and economic opportunity - not to mention warmer weather - has brought people to the West and South, often at the expense of their northern and midwestern counterparts.

Though that movement slowed with the recent recession and housing bust, changes undergone since 2000 are still poised to alter the county’s political landscape and touch off some heated battles. The next round of redistricting following the census will re-allocate congressional districts and electoral votes among the states.

Once again the South and West will gain some political clout while some districts in the north will vanish, taking influence along with them. If geography is indeed destiny, then America’s future will be increasingly determined by the Sun Belt.

PART I: THE CHANGING MAP Before tackling the political implications, let’s take a look at the overall picture of population movements. The population of the U.S. has grown by around 9 percent since 2000, according to the most recent estimates released before the census. But

(US Census Bureau)

While California led the West in raw population growth, the West’s percentage growth has been spearheaded by Nevada and Arizona, which grew at an incredible 32 percent and 29 percent respectively.

The bulk of that change, of course, occurred before the housing bust, at a time when real estate values soared and land was being developed at a breakneck pace.

The demographic changes are not limited to state of state to state migration, however. The relative youth of people in the Sun Belt could contribute to more long-term growth in the years ahead.

As Dr. Howard Hogan, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Associate Director for Demographic Programs notes, the Pacific region is a little younger than the U.S. as a whole. Hogan suggested that in the long term, the growth trend in the west could be bolstered by more births as younger people begin to start families.

Immigration adds to this trend: the Western states have drawn a comparatively large portion and immigrants are often young people.

Recent immigrants, those entering between 2000 and 2006, tended to be in their 20’s. This is all set against the backdrop of an aging national populace.

Dr. Hogan shows that the number of Americans aged 65 to 74 years is expected to double from 20 million today to nearly 40 million, by 2030. On the other hand, the number of middle-aged people, 45 to 64, is flattening out and will stay around its current level of 80 million during that time frame.

The regional differences might have been greater still but for the recession slowdown toward the end of the decade.

In past recessions, domestic migration continued unabated: job losses in the industrial Midwest fuelled rapid population gains in the Sun Belt. But the 2008-09 unraveling, because it was fueled by the housing bust concentrated in the West and South, forced unemployed workers to stay at home even in states with high rates of unemployment.

on the list of states with a net of inmovers.

PART II: WHAT IT MEANS, AND THE SHIFTING INFLUENCE IN THE HOUSE AND ELECTORAL COLLEGE The House of Representatives allocates representatives to each state according to the size of its population. The growth of southern and western states, therefore, has given rise to their political power over the years and will continue to do so.

For instance the population loss in Michigan, which was suffering from the nation’s highest unemployment, actually declined between 2008 and 2009. The U.S. Census Bureau recently showed that boom states of Florida and Nevada experienced negative net migration domestic migration between 2008 and 2009. - Though these dynamics did not negate the decade’s overall gains, they did curtail the relative growth.

Western states have steadily grabbed a greater share of the nation’s 435 House seats after each census; their allotment has nearly doubled since World War II. The West grew from 11 percent of seats following the 1940 census to 23 percent after 2000’s adjustment. In that same period, the Northeast and Midwest each shrank a quarter of their sizes, from 29 percent to 21 percent, and 32 percent to 24 percent, respectively.

Within the west, there’s a shifting balance of power as California loses relative influence to other western states. Since it joined the Union in 1850, and after each subsequent census, the Golden State has attracted enough new people to gain at least one Congressional seat.

These trends are likely to continue, based on our analysis of the most recent population estimates from the Census bureau in advance of the 2010 count.

It has grabbed the lion’s share of all the House districts awarded to the western U.S. over these last generations. But for the first time in its history it may not gain another seat this year, as a result of the sluggish growth and a drain of residents.

(It appears to have lost fewer people toward the end of the decade, though, which may save it from an unprecedented loss of a seat.)

Out-migration from California did not entirely begin with the recent recession.

Among the largest state-to-state migration flows from 1995 to 2000 (even before the most recent census) were the hundreds of thousands of Californians leaving for Arizona, Texas, Nevada and Colorado.

California’s numbers that dominated the national in-state migration trends for the period. And more recently, a Pew Research study from 2008 identified what it called “magnet” and “sticky” states for 2005-2007 and also showed that California had more people moving out than in while Arizona and Colorado were

The total number of House seats is capped by law at 435, and each state starts with one. The apportionment formula used to allocate seats essentially deals them out to states one at a time, until the remaining 385 are gone. With each available seat, the formula prioritizes states based on factors such as population and relative quantity of seats.

So as states grow and earn seats, they effectively draw them away from those who’ve lost population, and perhaps also from states which have grown, but done so more slowly.

All the states we can currently estimate to gain seats, having gained population relative to others over the decade, lie in the South or West, including big gainer Texas and Arizona. All those slated to lose seats are in the Northeast or Midwest. (Though it’s still possible California could lose a seat too.) continued NEWS POWERED BY

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Which States Will Gain Power After Census? continued

Presently, Ohio is the only state we can project to possibly lose more than one seat. Despite the highest unemployment rate in the nation, Michigan still stands to lose only one seat. Although population growth has been reinvigorated in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, the state is still expected to lose one seat.

Meanwhile, the big winner after 2010 looks to be Texas, which has continually gained seats since World War II, including a steady 3-seat pickup each census since 1970. Texas could grab another three this time, with an outside possibility of gaining a 4th seat.

The number will remain uncertain until the final 2010 census is complete; our projections are based on the current population estimates.

Electoral votes are shifted, too. Unlike the House, where district lines could determine which party gains advantage from a new apportionment, the presidential maps’ winner-take-all formulas go directly to the totals. This means new electoral math, and perhaps a revised list of battlegrounds.

Voting differences by region are wellknown even to casual political watchers: the Northeast is now solidly Democrat and often liberal (in fact, there are no GOP House members in New England at all) while the deep South and much of the Midwest remain strong Republican territory.

In the 2008 election, taking the groups of states in each region together, the East and Western states voted almost 60 percent for Obama. The South, meanwhile, went for McCain 54 percent to 45 percent.

The Democrats certainly seem to face a disadvantage due to the loss of electoral votes and congressional seats in MidAtlantic and industrial belt states, where they’ve done very well at the presidential and congressional levels.

These added electoral votes will create important new battlegrounds, while diminishing the significance of traditional

swing states like Ohio or Pennsylvania.

Republican strongholds may suffer a bit as rural America continues to exhibit declines, with Nebraska and Kentucky likely to lose electoral votes (and, on the congressional level, if Iowa loses a seat.)

Barack Obama, who won 365 electoral votes in 2008, may have only won 360 or 359 if the projected 2010 reapportionments were in place during the 2008 election.

But note that states that McCain won easily, like Texas, Utah, Arizona and Georgia, are in a position to gain. States that stumped for Mr. Obama, on the other hand, stand to get fewer aggregate gains.

Mr. Obama won many of these states by a small m a r g i n , meaning that they remain toss-up states and will be increasingly important battlegrounds in the near term.

The expected changes allow us to consider h o w presidential electoral math might play out in years to come. With fewer votes coming out of many reliably Democratic states, old and newer battlegrounds can expect more clout in close races. Suppose, for example, in 2012 that Florida (assuming then 28 electoral votes - one new), North Carolina (assume 16 EV, one new), Virginia (13 EV), and Indiana (11 EV) were to swing back into the GOP column, as they were for most of the last 50 years. That would cut President Obama’s electoral total based on 2008 wins to 292.

Republican wins in two other potential toss-up states, Iowa (at 6) and Colorado (9) - both carried by President Bush in 2004 - would leave either Ohio (assume 18 EVs) to decide the race, or else, make New Hampshire (4 EV) and New Mexico (5 EV) decisive. Republicans have won both these states in recent years. The

latter case wouldn’t be decisive under the old apportionment.

But how each of the states themselves will change as a result of demographic change remains an open question. We need not look further than 2008’s election for illustration. The last ten years have shifted some previously one-party states into the battleground column. Last year’s presidential race was a good example of this trend. States like North Carolina and Colorado became swing states not simply due to partisan re-alignment or young voters coming of age. Population shifts and state to state migration flows altered the makeup of the populace and the voter rolls.

When Barack Obama swung those places from red to blue in 2008, he was famously helped by registering thousands of new voters, especially in a r e a s favorable to Democrats.

We’ve seen this internally in high-growth states like Colorado and Nevada, as well as Virginia and elsewhere, where the booms have been centered around urban areas and their suburbs. These states have drawn both higher-income professionals who’ve been trending Democratic over the decade, and suburbanites who often become an influential bloc of swing voters.

Within the states, plenty of battles will be fought over the shape of new districts and what remains of existing ones. In a nation continually growing and one the move, and geography determines representation to such a great extent, these population changes are of central importance not only in our communities but in our governance. They remind us how the patterns of the last decade can influence the next.

Anthony Salvanto is CBS News Elections Director. Mark Gersh is Washington Director, National Committee for an Effective Congress, and a CBS News Consultant. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Health Care Reform’s Impact On Americans Medicaid, and can’t be covered by an employer. Those individuals and families will receive premium credits; there is a cap for how much they would have to contribute o their premiums on a sliding scale.

The new law closes what was known as the Medicare prescription drug, “donut hole,” by 2020. Currently, Medicare patients fall into the donut hole after a total of $2,700 is spent on drugs. Drug coverage doesn’t begin again until after $6,154 is spent.

Reporting Tim Kephart MIAMI (CBS4) — For the past year, Democrats and Republicans have sparred over the health care reform proposal.

Sunday night, President Obama and the Democrats won the battle in Congress and passed health care reform. Both sides have launched massive campaigns claiming the bill either is the greatest bill passed in 100 years, or the coming of the apocalypse.

The question for most Americans is “how does it affect me?” Here’s a brief look at how the bill works and how you may or may not be affected.

Starting September 21, insurance companies could no longer deny children coverage based on a preexisting condition. Beginning in 2014, insurance companies can’t deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions and would have to stop practices such as setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. And, insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent’s insurance plans through age 26.

Roughly 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured would now have access to health insurance coverage. The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through statebased exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level, currently $22,050 for a family of four.

Separate exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage in 2014. Funding would be made available to states to establish exchanges by January 1, 2014.

Individuals and families who are eligible for government subsidies to help pay for insurance can’t be eligible for Medicare,

Starting this year, Medicare recipients who fall in the hole will get a $250, in 2011 they will get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs and by 2020, the donut hole will be closed and 75 percent of drugs costs will be covered. The bill also includes Medicare cuts totaling $50 billion per year over the next decade.

Under the bill, Medicaid would be expanded to include 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is roughly $29,000 for a family of four. States will be required to expand Medicaid to include childless adults by 2014 that are at or below the poverty level; and the federal government pays 100 percent of costs for covering the newly eligible individuals through 2016.

Individuals would be forced to buy health insurance or face a $695 annual fine.

Employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance or pay a fine of $2,000 per worker each year if any worker receives federal subsidies to purchase insurance. There are exceptions for people with low-incomes.

American Indians will not have to buy insurance and those with religious objections or a financial hardship can also avoid the requirement. Plus, if you would pay more than 8 percent of your income for the cheapest available plan, there would be no penalty. Finally, those who are exempt or under 30 can buy policies only covering catastrophic medical costs.

Illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for Medicaid and they will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the exchanges, even if they pay completely with their own money.

On the issue of abortion, individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments. The private funds paid for abortion would have to be kept in a separate account from

federal and taxpayer funds. No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage and states could pass legislation to opt out of abortion coverage through the exchange.

In addition, President Obama will issue an executive order that states no federal funds can be used to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or for the health of the mother.

Medicare would start paying for annual checkups and deductibles. Also, copayments for many preventive services and screenings will be eliminated.

The bill would be paid for by adding a Medicare payroll tax on investment income in 2012. The Medicare payroll tax will be expanded to include unearned income. The tax will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year, or $200,000 for individuals.

Beginning in 2018, insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on highend insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families. Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the

total

cost of a family plan. Finally, a 10 percent excise tax would be enacted on indoor tanning services.

In hopes of saving money, the legislation allows Medicare to test payment systems that would promote better coordination and efficiency of care while maintaining or improving the quality of care.

Lawmakers hope the changes would avoid duplicating services and provide better coordination for people with chronic conditions.

It also establishes an independent payment advisory board that will make recommendations on how to save money in Medicare and extend the solvency of the program. Additional funds would also be provided to fight Medicare fraud.

Sources: CBS News, New York Times, Washington Post, House.gov (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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New Stem Cell Breakthroughs

Dr. Jon LaPook Looks At Advances In Stem Cell Research (CBS) Camouflaged in the politics, controversy, and hype surrounding stem cells have been two stunning and unexpected dividends: the ability to study diseases in a petrie dish and a new way to think about cancer. This is separate from the most well-publicized stem cell story: the potential of embryonic stem cells to morph into any cell in the body and replace injured or defective cells - for example in diabetes, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injury.

Human embryonic stem cells (HES cells) are collected from unused embryos created by in-vitro fertilization. About two years ago, scientists figured out a

way to turn ordinary skin cells into stem cells. This was a huge deal. These cells called “induced pluripotents stem cells” (IPS cells) - are not identical to HES cells and may not be quite as nimble in morphing into other cells. But they are electrifying the field because diseases can now be studied outside the body - in a petrie dish. For example, researchers have taken skin from patients with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), turned them into stem cells, then turned the stem cells into the kind of nerve cells (motor neurons) damaged in the disease. Now - for the first time - they can study living nerves from somebody with ALS and see how they differ from normal nerves. This work is going full steam ahead right now - for instance, in a cooperative effort between Harvard and Columbia, orchestrated and supported by Project ALS. Aside from HES and IPS cells, there are “adult stem cells.” They are normally present throughout our bodies and help us replace cells that are damaged. They’ve been found in many organs, including breast, colon, and blood (in fact, it’s the adult stem cells in bone marrow that are the basis for bone marrow transplants). In recent years, researchers have discovered that these normal stem cells can produce cancer stem cells that then create cancers - for example, breast cancer, colon cancer,

and leukemia. One reason why this discovery is so important is that it may help explain why cancers recur despite chemotherapy. After producing “regular” cancer cells, cancer stem cells can stop dividing and become dormant - thereby escaping chemotherapy, which usually works by destroying cancer cells only as they divide. The “regular” cancer cells which are still dividing - may be destroyed by the chemotherapy. But the dormant cancer stem cell may be able to play possum for years, then awaken, start dividing again, and cause a recurrence.

Supported by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Catriona Jaimeson and her team at UC San Diego are testing a drug that targets the cancer stem cell responsible for a kind of leukemia. The drug was developed by TargeGen and is now being studied in a clinical trial. When I recently visited Dr. Jaimeson, she introduced me to a patient who had been on the brink of developing leukemia and is now living a normal life after taking the experimental drug. The hope is to discover ways of identifying and targeting cancer stem cells in a

variety of cancers.

Even if everything goes right, therapies based on all this newly discovered stem cell biology won’t be widely available for years. But patients are desperate for solutions now. And their best hope is for us to support basic scientific research.

You never know where research will lead, what astounding, unpredictable discovery will emerge that changes the way we think.

Finally, here’s an update on the quest to replace damaged body parts using stem cells. Later this year, Dr. Hans Keirstead of UC Irvine, working with Geron Corporation, plans to begin the first FDAapproved trial of human embryonic stem cells to treat paralyzed patients within two weeks of injury. It starts. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spread of HIV Infections Increases Worldwide homosexuality.

Michael Sidibe, who heads the United Nations AIDS Agency, said that the number of countries involved with making these practices illegal “is unacceptable” and hopes that a proposed Ugandan law enforcing the death penalty on homosexuals will not be approved.

NEW YORK (CBS4) — The worldwide spread of HIV infections among homosexuals, prostitutes and drug users is a vicious cycle – in the latter laws criminalize their practices and most are reluctant to seek medical help because of it. The end result is an untamed increase of infection that has been sending the total number of people infected with HIV skyrocketing.

Worldwide, 85 countries have laws that prohibit any of those practices, seven of which enforce the death penalty on

UNAIDS is strengthening its outreach but Sibide said that harsh laws are ruining their chances of having at-risk groups seek out their help.

Countries such as Kenya, China and Malawi which uphold laws against homosexuality have had a 33 percent increase in the spread of HIV infection among gay men. This number is in drastic contrast from countries in the Caribbean that don’t enforce these laws; their infection rate among homosexual males only about 3 to 6 percent.

Although the United States has not had restraining laws on homosexuality, 50 percent of new HIV infections have

developed among gays, the majority of which are in the 19-25 year old age range.

Sibide stated that in the U.S., “it seems like we have come full circle.”

“After almost no cases a few years ago,” he said. “We are seeing again this new peak among people who are not having access to all the information, the protection that is needed.”

He blamed the infection increase in part on the fact that the right messages regarding AIDS prevention are not being correctly delivered.

have access to treatment.

As a reaction to the growing issue, he hopes for a “prevention revolution” and campaigns to bring awareness on the subject. (© MMX CBS Television Stations. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald contributed material for this report) NEWS POWERED BY

Sibide said the issue also appears in Europe and Africa where 70 percent of new infections among drug users have come up. Because their actions are unlawful there, those who are infected choose to hide themselves instead of looking for medical attention.

Drug users around the world who are HIV positive total up to about 3 million and Sibide said that only 4 percent actually

Calorie Disclosure At Chains To Become Mandatory diners add them up.

One woman had a Filet-0-Fish -- 380 calories. Add a large order of fries (500 calories) and a McSnack wrap, and it put her over 1,200 calories for lunch alone.

That gave her something to chew on. It’s a taste of what’s to come.

McDonalds, Au Bon Pain, Corner Bakery -- any restaurant chain with more than 20 locations will have to post calorie contents right there on the menu board.

New Health Care Reform Legislation Includes Obscure Measure To Help Guide Consumers CHICAGO (CBS) — You may see one change from the health care reform nearly every time you eat out. Buried in the massive bill is a measure requiring many restaurant chains to post calorie counts on the menu.

You know your favorites, but do you know the calories?

CBS station WBBM-TV helped some

Erin McCarthy is a registered dietician and says people just don’t realize how quickly those calories add up. What’s most surprising?

“The juices -- the pop, the beverages, maybe a lot of the sauces and condiments that add extra calories,” she says.

“They’re really adding a couple extra hundred calories that make a big difference throughout their day.”

Eloise Reimer says her portion size made the difference.

“I had a bowl of soup, the corn chowder, it was like a bath tub, really,” she said.

She had a roll, too.

Tellez looked at information on the Internet and told her the soup alone was 420 calories.

Reimer’s daughter, Alexa Dunn, said the coming requirement is a good idea.

“I think a lot of people do care.

Nowadays people are more concerned about their weight, exercise and cholesterol,” she said.

Tellez asked the woman who ate the 1,200-calorie McDonalds lunch whether having the calories posted would have made a difference.

“I think so,” she said.

Most chains already have menu information available on request or online. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a big reason for that.

They’re the people who’ve been revealing the nutritional value of all types of restaurant food for years. They call this a huge victory for consumers that will help reduce obesity and diet-related disease. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Studying the Grateful Dead - in Biz School Southeastern University’s Wayne Huizenga School of Business - keeps an uncommonly close eye on the band even for deadheads. He teaches in his business courses about what he learned from all those years on the road following the band.

Lessons from a Band that Played for 30 Years, Sold Out Every Show and Embraced Social Networking Long Before the Internet

By Jim Axelrod (CBS) The Grateful Dead was one of rock and roll’s most enduring acts making records and touring constantly for 30 years, until 1995, when lead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia died. With its roots in the 1960’s counter-culture, the Dead improbably became America’s most lucrative touring act. Now, the band’s success is even being studied - in business schools, as CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.

In many ways, Barry Barnes is a typical “deadhead,” as the most loyal fans of the Grateful Dead have long been known.

“I saw them 194 times over 21 years,” Barnes said. “My best friends today - still 15 years after the band ended - are deadheads.”

But Barnes - a professor at Nova

“Be true to your vision. Know exactly what you really love and you’re passionate about. Stick to that,” he said.

“If you do what you love, the money will follow.”

The Grateful Dead is a textbook example of the passion-based pay-off. At their peak, the band drew nearly 2 million fans to their shows every year. Fans report seeing them 150 times or more. And the Dead has had no problem selling $50 million worth of merchandise.

Long before the Internet changed media and marketing, the Dead pioneered an approach that we’d recognize today as “social networking.”

“They were reaching out in a way that went beyond the usual sort of Beatlesmania fan club and really connecting to the fans,” said Nina Nazionale, curator at the New York Historical Society, which just opened n exhibit on the Dead.

On the back of one 1971 album, the band asked their fans who they were.

“It says, ‘Tell us where you are, and we’ll keep you informed,’” Nazionale said, reading from the album cover. “That was the beginning of their mailing list, which by the mid-90s had a half-a-million

people on it.”

The Dead kept their fans in the loop with a newsletter and by selling their own tickets. Every concert sold out.

Fans sent in money orders in colorful envelopes hoping to stick out and get tickets for a concert experience like no other.

The Dead’s trademark improvisation guaranteed no two shows were ever exactly alike.

Memorabilia from the Grateful Dead’s archives is now on display at the Historical Society - part of what will become a permanent archive at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Barnes says lots of companies could learn from the way the Grateful Dead took care of business.

“If you really want to engage your employees, and you really want to be

creative and innovative and respond in the moment to the situation at hand, then strategic improvisation and the Grateful Dead have important lessons for the 21st century,” he said.

Two members of the Dead, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, plan to tour together this summer with their new band, Furthur. The exhibit at the New York Historical Society is open until July. © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Joy Behar: Left Front Center too. I think that people who are liberal are more open-minded. That’s all. I just believe that.

“You know, you can argue with that all you want - you can say, ‘Oh, conservative people are open-minded,’ and I don’t agree with that. I don’t.”

While Behar is the first to admit she’s a comic and not a legitimate journalist, in 2008 as then-presidential candidate John McCain discovered when he appeared on “The View,” Behar wasn’t shy about asking him some tough questions: The Comedian and Talk Show Host Is Unabashed About Voicing Her Opinion as a Self-Described “Fundit” (CBS) From her perch on “The View,” where she voices her opinions about everything - politics, fashion and, yes, infidelity - one thing is clear: Joy Behar likes to talk.

“I love a conversation,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything more great and more fabulous than a conversation. So if I can just keep having conversations and getting paid to do them, I’m a happy woman.”

And, at age 67, Behar is really happy. She’s added an evening roost, a talk show all her own, on the cable news channel HLN. So on Monday through Friday, from late morning to prime time, Behar is talking . . . and talking . . .

“I am busy. I’m busy. I like to be busy,” she said. “What else is there to do in life but be busy?”

She’s even come up with a new term for herself: “I’m a fundit,” Behar said. “Bill Maher is a fundit. Lewis Black is a fundit. People who have a tremendous interest in politics and social issues, and use it in the stand-up, also.”

But being a “fundit” doesn’t mean it’s all fun and games. Her unabashed liberal opinions often lead to some heated debates with her “View” co-hosts, especially with the politically conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Where did her liberal streak come from?

“It comes from being smart!” she laughed.

“What would Elisabeth say to that?” asked Mitchell.

“Listen, I have my prejudices, you know,

“So I said to him, ‘You know those are lies, John. Why do you say you approve them?’

Well, apparently, the “L” word had not been used before. And, you know, if I wasn’t on Medicare, I would say it was out of the mouths of babes!” she laughed.

The “McCain vs. Behar” exchange made news, catching the attention of New York Times columnist Frank Rich: “Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word ‘lies’ to his face. The McCains are so used to deference from ‘the filter’ that Cindy McCain later complained that ‘The View’ picked ‘our bones clean.’ In our news culture, Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.” (NY Times, 9/21/08) “I don’t consider myself a legitimate journalist, by any means. I’m a comic,” Behar said.

Nonetheless, although she called the column’s comparison to Edward R. Murrow “a bit much,” she admitted that she has it framed. “Well, listen, you don’t called Edward R. Murrow every day!”

Behar believes her political perspective comes from her Italian-American family.

“There was one in-law who loved Mussolini,” she laughed, “but, you know, we thought he was an idiot. I make fun of him in my act, in my show. But no, they were very open minded. I never heard racist talk, homophobic talk, nothing like that. It was a very unusual family, I guess.”

The only child of Rose, a sewing machine operator, and Louis, a truck driver, Josephine Victoria Occhiuto was raised in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

Touring the old neighborhood with Behar, Mitchell asked if it brought back memories from back in the day.

“‘Memories ….’ “ she sang, ‘like the mozzarella of my mind . . . ‘” “What about this neighborhood made you who you are? What’s the one thing you took out of this neighborhood?”

“Well, you can feel the grit, can’t you? You feel the grit of it. It’s like a real New York experience,” she said.

And those gritty New York experiences laid the groundwork for Behar’s comic sensibility, with some encouragement from her relatives.

“I’d be at a wake as a kid, like a little five year old kid, and I would just sit there and listen to the conversations,” Behar recalled.

“And they sounded absurd to me as a little kid. They’d be like, ‘He looks good.’ No, he doesn’t look good, I’d think to myself.

What are they saying? One time somebody said, ‘He looks just like himself.’ And I thought,Well, who should he look like?

“And I’d start making fun of everybody at the wake and what they were saying, and the way so-and-so acted at the casket, and I’d have them all laughing.”

“Oh my gosh, they were okay with that?”

Mitchell asked.

“Yeah! Now some families might not have been okay with that. They might have said, ‘That’s so disrespectful. You shouldn’t do that.’ But not mine! They were perfectly happy to go along with the gallows humor of it.”

Behar flirted with the idea of becoming an actress, but after college graduation, she got married, became a mother, and tried her hand at many different jobs.

“I used to teach English to high school dropouts in a tough, tough neighborhood kind of kids who go to jail because they set fire to their parents. Then they would send them to me to teach them the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom.’

“Did you like it?”

“Sometimes I did. Sometimes. I like teaching the dropouts. The ones I just made fun of? They were my best students. I love them.”

But at age 40, after divorcing her husband of 16 years, Behar came to a realization . . .

“I thought, ‘Uh oh. Now you’ve tried everything, and nothing is working for you.’

And so I tried to do stand-up at that point, ‘cause I knew I was meant to do it. I just didn’t have the guts to do it before that.”

“People people think I’m Jewish. I’m Italian. I got a call the other day, ‘Happy Hannukah.’ I said, ‘Mom, I’m not Jewish!”

“You know, she did pretty well pretty fast,” said daughter Eve, who was 11 when her mother went from schoolteacher to standup.

“I think once she made the decision, she said, ‘This is it. I’m going for it.’”

And in 1997, when Barbara Walters was looking for co-hosts for a new show called “The View,” it was Behar’s sense of humor that caught her eye.

“It’s very difficult, especially for female comedians,” Walters told Mitchell. “It’s very hard to make a place for yourself. And Joy was relatively late in doing that. I think the talent was there. And I think the opportunity to do a program like ‘The View’ changed her life.”

“Did you have any idea that it would be on this long, that it would have this type of longevity?” asked Mitchell.

“No. Do you know what they say? The show must go off!” she laughed. “And ‘The View’ stayed on.”

And one of the on-going topics on ‘The View’ is whether marriage is on the horizon for Behar and Steve Janowitz, a retired teacher, whom she refers to as her “spousal equivalent.” They’ve been together for 27 years.

“He’s a little younger than me. I got him just when he was, like, young enough to enjoy an older woman. A cougar! And now we’re just going into our dotage together, I guess. But he and I, we might, we might, I can’t say for sure.”

What Joy Behar can say for sure is that on her journey from Brooklyn to stand up to television host, she’s saved the best for last.

“Life begins at 60,” Mitchell said.

“It really began at 40 for me, in many ways,” Behar said. “It was, like, everything opened up to me. I completed my analysis.

And I started to blossom in a certain way.

And it’s been fun ever since.” © MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The Adtimes Newspaper - SPORTS

South Africa Prepares for World Cup World Cup teams and fans, and the killing, like a bold robbery earlier in February, brought the international spotlight onto what some fear may be a dangerous place to host the world’s largest sporting event.

Global Post: As Johannesburg Makes Finishing Touches, FIFA Slashes Ticket Prices After Airfares, Crime Scare Off Visitors (GlobalPost) By Jeffrey Barbee, Special to GlobalPost South Africans are getting World Cup fever in anticipation of the huge soccer tournament to be held here in June.

The World Cup is less than 80 days away, and for Soweto resident Bongane Mbwesa, it is a dream come true.

“I got my tickets to the opening match here in Johannesburg, I ordered them and put my name in for the ticket draw. They are cheap seats, but now, like the TV commercial, I can say, I was there.”

He might have held out. Bongane is one of many South Africans who are poised to benefit from the drastic drop in ticket prices and greater availability of tickets in South Africa. The South African press is full of reports that the World Cup organizer, FIFA, is slashing prices of some of the tickets after demand has been lower than expected, and particularly international demand.

One glaring question, especially for foreign visitors, is South Africa’s security.

The country has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime.

Assurances that South African police are gearing up to provide good security were not helped by the news in February of a high profile murder of a marketing manager of the Sun City mega-resort complex. The massive casino complex two hours from Johannesburg will host

The stadiums, new roads and other infrastructure projects are all projected to be finished by kick off on June 11, and the Gautrain, a high-speed rail link between Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo airport and the upscale suburb of Sandton, is currently being tested.

According to project developers Bombela, it will hopefully be ready to ferry thousands of tourists to Sandton’s posh hotels. But are there still beds at the inn?

Hotels are filling up, but surprisingly they are not full yet. The Cape Times reports that flagship hotels like the Cape Grace still have availability, with about 90 percent of their rooms taken. In the middle of the market, it is still possible to book a Holiday Inn, but dates are filling up fast.

(Global Post/Jeffrey Barbee) Calls to Johannesburg hotels, from Soweto to Sandton and near the airport, showed only a few rooms available. Staff say that although at first sales and reservations were not as robust as hoped, in the last month there has been a huge upsurge in interest, particularly from other African countries and the Far East.

Left: Soweto resident Bongane Mbwesa, who bought his 2010 World Cup football championship tickets at full price (approximately $110), reads ness that FIFA has slashed those ticket prices to about $20. He is still pleased prices have come down, as it means more South Africans will be able to attend the games.)

FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke admitted to a British newspaper that the numbers of visitors for the World Cup had been lower than projected, and ticket prices, available only for South African residents, have been cut from $110 to about $20. This is putting great seats in the hands of locals, who have loudly denounced the previous ticket prices as being out of touch with the financial

constraints of most football-loving South Africans.

According to Valcke, it is the current worldwide financial crisis that has meant more expensive seats need to be devalued.

FIFA blames airlines, hotels and other related industries for raising prices and scaring away tourists.

That flight costs have been increased during the World Cup is undeniable.

Round trip flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town this month cost about $280, but during the World Cup the median fare is more than three times that amount. International flights into South Africa are running at about double their usual price, and will probably keep increasing as the World Cup draws closer.

Americans wishing to see the games in person can still book a trip on South African Airways’ Web site for about $3,300, but very few economy class seats are available, particularly on the direct flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport.

Whether it is security concerns or prices that have kept the expected visitor numbers down, there is little to suggest that the event will be a failure.

Bongane believes that for the majority of lower income South Africans, the chance to see the World Cup may be the biggest event of their lives. He explains in a quiet voice while reading the news that prices had dropped, “This is a good thing, even if I bought my tickets at the higher price.

Africans love soccer, and this means more of us will be able to see it. It’s the World Cup.” He shakes his head, as if he just can’t quite believe it is happening here. “I mean, we will be there, with our families, with our friends, it’s like a dream come true.”

By Jeffrey Barbee of GlobalPost Copyright 2010 GlobalPost

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I-Team: Experts Want All Car Accelerators Tested Highway Traffic Safety Administration for more testing of accelerators on autos.

“30 years of empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to sudden acceleration being caused by electronic system faults, undetectable by inspection or testing,” said electronic expert Keith Armstrong.

The CBS4 I-Team has been reporting on these concerns brought forth by experts in recent weeks.

Reporting Stephen Stock MIAMI (CBS4) —A group of scientists in Washington is saying that Toyota’s recent recall fix to gas pedals won’t work, and furthermore they’re asking for cars from all manufacturers to be tested for accelerators that stick.

Led by three electronics engineers from Great Britain, an activist group calling itself Toyotatruth.com, is calling attention to the matter in a press conference in Washington D.C. and they’re asking that more funding be given to the National

The group also asserted that automakers, including Toyota, have not done enough to prevent the problem of sticking pedals.

“Many electronic throttles are not safe enough,” said Armstrong. “It’s easier for the people to blame drivers, floor mats, sticky pedals, whatever diverts attention away from the electronics.”

Toyota and other car manufacturers insist that they have solved the problem and shielded their electronics from

interference. The problem they point to lies in electromagnetic interference affecting the electronics that control almost all accelerators in modern cars.

“I can assure you as of this very moment, that every auto manufacturer in the world is looking at their electronics; they’re watching all these little things that are going on, the complaints into Congress, and NHTSA and everybody else and they’re saying, ‘Well I guess we have to invest a little here to make our systems redundant and clean up our electronics,’” said Joan Claybrook, former NHTSA Administrator.

The CBS4 I-Team will continue to bring you the latest in this matter in weeks to come. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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Horoscopes provided by www.astrology-online.com

THE ADTIMES

NEWSPAPER NEWS POWERED BY

Aries

Taurus

(Mar. 21-Apr. 20)

(Apr. 21-May 21)

Rewards, gifts, or money from investments or taxes can be expected. Stress coupled with diet will add to stomach problems. Try not to overspend on luxury items. Sudden trips may take you by surprise; try to include your mate, mixing business with pleasure. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Wednesday.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Pleasure trips will be favorable and bring about possible romance. Arguments with relatives may lead to a split in the family. Don’t hesitate to present your unique ideas. You’re intuitive this month; however, this attribute could get you in trouble if you tactlessly say what you think. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.

You may be thinking of starting your own business. Stretch the truth, and you may get blamed for something you didn’t do.

Extravagance will be a problem. You may want to get involved in financial investments presented to you. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Tuesday.

PUBLISHER Tony Gambirazio ART DIRECTOR Tammy Kukic DIRECTOR OF SALES Cesar Rodriguez ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Oscar Alvarado Ines Collado Cleo Saenz INSIDE SALES Ileana Patuto Sarah White OFFICE MANAGER Montserrat Surroca

Cancer

Leo

(June 22-July 22)

(July 23-Aug. 23)

You will meet exciting new people through interest groups or functions that you attend with your children.

Plan a day of enjoyment with them. Opportunities for romance may develop through dealing with groups that have a purpose.You will have difficulties spreading yourself between your work and your home. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Monday.

Virgo (Aug. 24-Sept. 22)

Try to iron out any friction over money with your mate or conflicts could prevail. Don’t overspend or give too freely to others. Don’t overreact if your partner has a poor attitude.

Complete those hobbies you started a long time ago. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Sunday.

Libra

Scorpio

(Sept. 23-Oct. 23)

(Oct. 24-Nov. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 21)

Don’t make any rash decisions that may affect friendships. You are ready to blow up and your stress level has gone into over drive. You will get along well in social situations. Your desire for excitement and adventure may be expensive. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Friday.

Spend time getting to know each other. Real estate investments will payoff. Your need to put great detail into everything you do may cause you to miss the overall picture. You must consider yourself for a change. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Friday.

Arguments could prevail. If they don’t like the plan, suggest that they con tribute a little.

Opportunities for romance will develop through activities with large groups. You can make money, but try not to let it slip through your fingers. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Monday.

Do not confront situations unless you are sure you have a good understanding of the dilemma. New methods and innovative technology will make your job far easier than you anticipated. You will enjoy events that lean toward theater, art, or music this month. Your ability to dazzle others with your unique and innovative ideas will attract attention.Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Sunday.

FRANCHISING Tony Gambirazio

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Capricorn

Aquarius

(Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

(Jan. 21-Feb. 18)

You may find that your mate is well aware of the circumstances. Love could develop at social events that are work relate. Opportunities to get together with friends will be enlightening and entertaining. Make sure you concentrate if operating machinery or vehicles.

Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Friday.

1 7 8 2 9 5 6 3 4

(Feb. 19-Mar. 20)

Secret affairs may be brought out in the open. Get back into a routine that promises a better looking, more aware individual. You may find that purchases or entertainment could be expensive.You need to mingle with people who can spark enthusiasm and confidence in you.Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Tuesday.

You can’t make things better if you don’t know what to fix. Involve yourself in group endeavors. You are best to work behind the scenes on projects that require detail or precision. A residential move may be in order. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3x3 box Iin black borders) contains every digit 1 to 9.

March 5th Solution

6 4 5 3 7 8 9 2 1

Pisces

3 2 9 1 4 6 5 8 7

9 6 7 5 8 1 2 4 3

8 3 4 7 2 9 1 6 5

5 1 2 4 6 3 7 9 8

4 5 1 6 3 2 8 7 9

7 8 6 9 5 4 3 1 2

2 9 3 8 1 7 4 5 6

8

7

9 7 4 6

6 5 8 8 2

1 8 4 2 3 2 5

Look For Our Next Edition: APRIL 16, 2010

6 9 5

2 7 1 3

4

Sudoku provided by www.puzzles.about.com

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