Latest News

Labor Leaders Hold Event To Support Of Arrested Protesters

2013-05-21T23:15:15Z

WASHINGTON -- Labor leaders spoke out Tuesday afternoon in support of foreclosed homeowners protesting outside the Department of Justice, a day after many of the protesters were arrested.

Union leaders lauded the actions of those arrested, and condemned the DOJ and the practices of the largest banks in the country during a press conference. The leaders were flanked by about 25 protesters and foreclosed homeowners, who stood in the same place where men and women were arrested Monday afternoon as they demonstrated against the DOJ. The protesters targeted the department's failure to take legal action against major banks that foreclosed on homes due to potential bank errors or using now-banned practices.

"This is wrong," said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, the largest media and communications labor union in the United States. Cohen was referencing flimsy mortgages sold to potential homeowners before the recession hit in 2008.

"Shame ... on the bankers and shame on the Justice Department that somehow they think these banks are not only too big to fail, but too big to jail," Cohen said.

In addition to the protesters arrested Monday, most of whom were homeowners, many of the protesters that spent the night in tents were arrested Tuesday morning in continued acts of civil disobedience. Police used a stun gun on some.

According to Brian Kettering of the Leadership Center for the Common Good, 25 protesters remained in jail at the time of the press conference, five of whom planned to stay at least another night because they refused to give the police their real names. Instead, they gave the names of the CEOs of some of the United State's largest banks.

Those arrested were charged with obstructing traffic.

A couple whose New Jersey home was foreclosed upon three days after Hurricane Sandy talked about the frustration of dealing with mortgage lenders after having difficulty finding work.

"They didn't want to accept our monies. And that was money that we worked so hard to gather," said Theresa Hamilton, choking back tears. "We're here today to ask the DOJ to help us ... make the banks accountable for what they're doing."

Laura McCleary, of National Nurses United, harped on the DOJ's failure to protect people like the Hamiltons. She also chided the federal government for allowing the top-earning 1 percent of Americans to prosper during the economic recovery while stifling the remaining 99 percent, a trademark of the Occupy movement that inspired the DOJ protests.

"The government has really not done what it should to protect people and hold the banks accountable for fraud, shoddy record keeping, predatory loans, fake loan documents, and the suffering of millions of individuals and families who lost their homes to criminality and soulless profiteering," McCleary said.

Big banks have posted huge financial gains since the recession hit and they were bailed out in 2008. In 2012, banks pulled in their second-highest profits on record -- $141.3 billion.

A call for comment from the DOJ was not returned.

Leveled Schools Lacked Tornado Shelters Due To Haphazard Regulation

2013-05-21T23:12:26Z

The two elementary schools leveled by the deadly tornado that swept through the Oklahoma City area Monday lacked designated safe rooms designed to protect children and teachers, despite state warnings that the absence of such facilities imperils lives.

At least two other schools in Moore -- the epicenter of the disaster -- did have safe rooms. So far no fatalities have been tied to those schools, whose buildings were fortified after a devastating twister hit the area in 1999.

These disparities in structural standards speak to the seeming randomness of who lived and who died in a natural disaster now blamed for taking the lives of at least 24 people, including nine children. Requirements for safe rooms in public schools vary from community to community across the swath of Midwestern and Southern states so accustomed to lethal twisters that it is known as Tornado Alley.

In Oklahoma and in bordering states, land-use regulations are often derided as unnecessary government intrusions. State building codes do not require that schools provide safe rooms, leaving the decision to individual school districts.

State emergency managers in Oklahoma do not track which schools maintain adequate storm shelters -- a fact state authorities highlighted as a worrisome deficiency in their most recent disaster plan submitted to the federal government.

"This presents a substantial life safety and injury risk to children as well as school staff and visitors," reads the 2011 plan, which every state must periodically submit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a condition of eligibility for disaster assistance.

Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that the two schools in Moore that were destroyed Monday did not have safe rooms.

The deaths of at least seven children inside the city's flattened Plaza Towers Elementary School has already prompted calls for greater protection in public schools.

"Why are there not safe rooms in these schools?" asked Moore resident Randall Thurman, whose son goes to another nearby school that is outfitted with a safe room. "I'm really upset talking about that elementary school."

"It's unconscionable that we don't have a place where the parents feel that it's safe for their kids during the day," said Oklahoma state Rep. Joe Dorman (D), who pushed Tuesday for legislative leaders to propose a $500 million bond issue to pay for safe rooms in schools and near homes. "If those kids are going to be there from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., they need to have that sense of security, and the structure needs to be safer. It's a no-brainer."

Since the 1990s, experts have advocated for the increased use of FEMA-approved safe houses and safe rooms -- generally built to withstand winds of up to 250 miles per hour. Some school districts have built gyms that double as safe rooms, whereas others incorporate the designs into other interior rooms.

Emergency-management experts say the shelters are particularly crucial for buildings with hundreds of potentially captive people inside -- like schools, nursing homes and day-care centers -- and structurally unsound areas such as mobile-home parks.

"Those are vulnerable populations that need protection, and yet many of them are unprotected," said Ernst Kiesling, a professor of civil engineering at Texas Tech University who founded the National Storm Shelter Association to push for a uniform set of construction standards.

Getting the sufficient resources to build such structures has been a challenge. FEMA distributes grant money to states after major disasters to give communities an incentive to rebuild smarter and to avoid costlier disasters in the future. But support is limited, and local school districts still must come up with around a quarter of the costs for storm improvements.

In Oklahoma, districts have a mixed record of requiring tornado upgrades. After more than than 70 tornadoes tore through Oklahoma and parts of Kansas in May 1999 -- one of the costliest such outbreaks in U.S. history -- public schools in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and other cities across the state tapped into FEMA grant money to incorporate safe rooms into new school construction projects.

In Moore, which prior to Monday's storm was struck by tornadoes in 1999 and again in 2003, school board officials applied for FEMA funds to rebuild an elementary school and a high school damaged during the May 1999 storms. Both those buildings incorporated much stronger shelter designs in hallways and interior rooms, and one of the schools -- Kelley Elementary -- is featured as a prominent case study in FEMA's literature on tornado protection.

But the vast majority of older schools across the state, including the devastated Briarwood and Plaza Towers elementary schools in Moore, lack such upgrades.

The problem stems in part from the way the federal government doles out disaster funding. A major pot of money for building storm shelters is set aside in a FEMA program for hazard mitigation, which is designed to lower the costs of future disasters by adding improved building codes and structural designs.

Generally, homeowners or government bodies such as school districts put up 25 percent of the costs, and the federal government pitches in the rest. After the 1999 tornadoes, federal money paid for nearly 10,000 new safe rooms across Oklahoma, mostly for private homeowners.

But the money dries up over time, and there are usually far more applicants than available grants. Federal funding to guard against future disasters is distributed based on the cost of the prior disaster, meaning the money eventually runs out if there haven't been major disasters in an area in recent years.

"I think we've lost the momentum," said Ann Patton, a Tulsa writer and disaster consultant who worked with Project Impact, a group involved in Oklahoma's first push for safe houses.

The state had a lottery system for private homeowners who were interested in building safe rooms. But the rebate programs in Oklahoma City and other towns across the state are currently on hold due to insufficient funding.

The lack of resources also makes it difficult for the state to mandate construction of safe rooms in schools.

"If it were to happen at the state level, there would need to be funding behind it," said Amber England, government affairs director with the Oklahoma chapter of Stand for Children, an education advocacy group.

Alabama is one of the only states that requires new schools to be built with FEMA-approved safe rooms. After a tornado in 2007 killed eight students at the state's Enterprise High School, the legislature passed a requirement that new schools provide safe areas for students.

Leading construction experts have recognized the importance of including safe rooms in schools. An upcoming version of the International Building Code, a model code used to govern construction standards across the world, will recommend that new schools in high-risk tornado areas install safe rooms. But it could take 15 to 20 years for those standards to be adopted widely across the United States.

Experts say this week's tornadoes could offer a wake-up call for improving school safety.

"I will admit that the probability of being hit at a given location by a tornado is relatively small," said Kiesling, the Texas Tech engineering professor. "But that's not very comforting when you hear the sirens go off and you hear the weather warnings. I think the peace of mind is what you're buying, and it's worth a significant investment."

Ben Hallman reported from Moore, Okla., and Chris Kirkham and Joy Resmovits reported from New York.

Arne Duncan Signals Worry Over Student Debt Levels

2013-05-21T22:57:28Z

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Tuesday expressed concern at record student debt levels, signaling growing worry within the Obama administration and perhaps adding momentum to efforts meant to alleviate debt burdens.

At an estimated $1.1 trillion, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student debt has surpassed auto loans and credit cards as the largest source of household debt behind home mortgages. Officials in Washington and some analysts on Wall Street are worried that the amount of borrowings and the relatively high interest rates the loans carry may inhibit economic growth as a growing share of household budgets are devoted to servicing college debt.

"The fact that that debt surpasses a trillion dollars, there's no upside there,” Duncan said during testimony before the House education committee.

It appears to be one of the first times Duncan has so explicitly signaled concern about student debt levels. His warning comes as policymakers at agencies ranging from the Federal Reserve to the Treasury Department and the CFPB have been warning for months about the economic risk associated with spiraling student debt and the negative consequences for household spending, car buying and home purchases.

The collection of regulators entrusted with guarding the financial system known as the Financial Stability Oversight Council warned last month about the possible economic danger of growing student debt levels in its latest annual threat report.

A small contingent of Washington lawmakers in recent years including Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) have introduced proposals designed to ease debt burdens, whether by stimulating refinancings of high-rate loans or increasing the amount of loan modifications for distressed borrowers.

“Students shouldn't have to mortgage away their futures when enrolling in college,” Brown said Tuesday. “More debt means that graduates have less career choices and less ability to buy a home, start a business, and contribute to their communities.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) this week will propose legislation that would force Duncan (or a possible successor) to automatically refinance most government loans carrying interest rates above 4 percent into fixed, 4-percent loans. Roughly nine of 10 federally backed loans would be affected, saving nearly 37 million borrowers billions of dollars in annual interest payments.

"I deeply share Secretary Duncan's concerns about the trillion dollars in student loan debt,” Gillibrand said. “Considering that almost $900 billion of this debt is owned by the federal government, we can do something about it. And I believe we should not wait any longer to take action.”

The proposal targets loans funded and owned by the Education Department through the Direct Loan program, as well as government-guaranteed debt owned by the government and the private sector under the Federal Family Education Loan program. The bill calls on the Education Secretary to devise a process that would refinance FFEL loans owned by private lenders and investors.

The Center for American Progress, a policy and advocacy group with deep ties to the Obama administration, estimates that Gillibrand’s proposal in its first year would save borrowers about $14.5 billion off their student loan payments, boosting U.S. economic activity by $21.7 billion.

Gillibrand said her proposal would be a “big step in the right direction.”

“We should all be able to agree that this massive debt is a significant drag on the rest of our economy and it's time that Congress stand up for these graduates and let them refinance these loans,” she added.

Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has introduced a separate proposal to allow some undergraduates the opportunity to borrow from the federal government for the next year at less than 1 percent interest on some of their loans.

“As Secretary Duncan pointed out today, student loan debt is crushing America's young people who are already struggling to make ends meet in a difficult economy. We shouldn't add to the burden students face,” said Lacey Rose, a spokeswoman for Warren.

Washington’s interest in student loan issues has increased as the Education Department is forecast to generate a $51 billion profit this year from lending to college students and their families, a figure higher than the 2012 earnings of Exxon Mobil, the nation’s most profitable company, and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets.

The department is estimated to have recorded roughly $120 billion in profits off lending to students and their families over the last five years, budget documents show.

The Obama administration’s profits are due to the historically high gap between what it costs the U.S. government to borrow and what students and their families pay to borrow from the Education Department. Interest rates are set by Congress. About three-fourths of all federal student loan dollars disbursed this year carry interest rates of either 6.8 or 7.9 percent.

The rates were set in 2007 by a Democratic-controlled Congress and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush, a Republican. Though the rates on a subset of loans have decreased in recent years, overall they have not moved in tandem with borrowing costs across the economy.

During the Tuesday House education committee hearing, Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) lamented the economic effects of growing student debt burdens. After asking Tierney whether he was worried about student debtors being able to purchase homes or similar big-ticket items, Duncan appeared to validate his concerns.

“Trying to buy a home, trying to buy a car, you know, trying to start a life -- we always joke but it’s not really that funny for most families -- trying to get them out of their parents’ house," Tierney said.

Duncan, acknowledging the worries that have been growing in Washington over the last few months, quickly responded: “That’s real, that’s real.”

Should We Rebuild After Natural Disasters?

2013-05-21T22:48:13Z

To rebuild or not to rebuild?

As recovery slowly begins after deadly tornadoes flattened subdivisions in Moore, Okla., and tore through nearby areas, the complex question has come up again for the disaster-prone region that sits within Tornado Alley.

Moore, a 55,000-resident city south of Oklahoma City, is no stranger to destruction. A 1999 tornado that wreaked havoc upon Moore had winds topping 300 miles per hour, and it was slammed by smaller tornadoes in 1998, 2003 and 2010. But each time, like dozens of other American communities prone to natural disaster, it has rebuilt.

Disaster recovery and urban planning experts say the tendency to rebuild American cities that have experienced tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and flooding -- and are likely to see such trauma again -- can be attributed to a mixture of economics, politics, nationalism and spiritual views that often sets the U.S. apart from other nations.

"In the modern age, no major American city has been permanently abandoned after trauma and destruction," said Thomas Campanella, an associate professor of urban planning and design at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"There's a narrative of resilience, this notion of us being challenged and overcoming that to become stronger," said Campanella, who co-edited The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster.

When fires nearly wiped out Boston in 1676 and Chicago in 1871, preachers described them as events sent by God to force residents to create bigger, better cities.

San Francisco today sits where a city was torn to pieces by an earthquake in 1906. In South Florida, Hurricane Andrew wiped out parts of the region in 1992, but signs of damage are nearly invisible today amid the crowded, rebuilt subdivisions. The same goes for the Texas Gulf Coast, which has repeatedly been hit by hurricanes.

Most recently, billions of dollars have been invested in restoring New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, while businesses and homes along the New York and New Jersey shores are continuing to reopen after Hurricane Sandy.

Some of the pressure to rebuild, and not relocate, is financial.

"A lot of it has to do with the economy and getting people back to work. Places like Moore are attached to metropolitan areas, and there are jobs and businesses to run. And then there is infrastructure. It's tragic to see houses torn apart and people suffering, but in the recovery process you look at the fact that streets are still there, and there is the underground infrastructure still there," said Eugenie Birch, a professor of urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Then there are also FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] regulations, if you get assistance for rebuilding, that only support building in certain kinds of ways in certain places," usually the same place as the disaster, noted Birch.

There's also a desire to return to normal as quickly as possible.

"You would think here is a rebuilding, here is an opportunity to get it right, to rebuild the right way and replace the city, but in fact that opposite usually occurs," said Campanella. "There is an inertia to get back to the way things were the day before. It can work against any visionary, bold planning."

But it doesn't always play out this way. Some communities have not rebuilt or have taken a much slower, more thoughtful route to recovery.

Consider Cordova, Ala. Hit head on by a tornado in 2011, the small town of 2,500 residents only began demolishing its downtown for serious rebuilding last month. Though city officials have blamed the delay on slow-to-come FEMA funds, it has allowed residents to work with urban planners from Auburn University on long-term recovery planning that could produce more resilient designs for destroyed areas.

Some disasters are deemed simply too difficult or expensive to clean up. When the federal government discovered in 1983 that floodwaters had spread dangerous levels of dioxin across Times Beach, Mo., it evicted residents and bought out their property for $32 billion. The former city is now a state park. A similar situation occurred in Gilman, Colo., a small town whose residents were sent packing by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1984 when flooding caused dangerous chemicals to spread from a former coal mine.

But to find bigger cities that have been abandoned after disaster, one has to look outside the U.S. In 2008, an earthquake in Beichuan, China, killed more than 50,000 people. Officials responded by moving residents to a nearby county and declaring that the city would not be rebuilt. Epecuen, a lakeside resort town in Argentina that at its height held 20,000 residents, was abandoned in 1985 after the dam broke and it was flooded. The waters only recently receded.

Jerold Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard, points out the pull between private property rights and societal concerns in disaster recovery. "On one hand, people want to build wherever they have property and land, and that includes rebuilding on the same plot after a disaster," he said. "On the other hand, post-disaster we come to expect and want government assistance," which raises issues of good public policy.

"We are not a society that says, 'You've made your bed, now sleep in it.' We help people," said Kayden. "But we have to find a comfortable medium that allows people to live where they desire while offering protection and building with the future in mind."

Elizabeth Warren Wants To Know If The New Treasury Secretary Will Be As Bad As The Old One

2013-05-21T22:43:50Z

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled Treasury Secretary Jack Lew at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, pressing him for concrete answers on whether the department would continue his predecessor's policy of rejecting steps to break up big banks.

Warren began by speaking about a string of scandals that emerged as a result of the continued existence of "too big to fail banks." Despite this evidence and the fact that many officials have admitted the dangers to the economic system posed by big banks, Warren noted that various members of President Barack Obama's administration have appeared unwilling to prescribe concrete measures to address them. She then pointed specifically to a quote from a Treasury official during former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's tenure that suggested the department had been instrumental in scuttling an earlier bipartisan amendment that would have enacted restrictions on "too big to fail."

"The question I want to ask now is, has Treasury Department's position changed, or are you still opposed to capping the size of the largest financial institutions?" Warren asked.

Lew and Warren then went back and forth over what steps the Treasury Department -- which Lew maintained was intent on "ending too big to fail" -- would actually take to reach that goal. Apparently unsatisfied with Lew's responses to questions about the rapid concentration of wealth within the big banks, Warren rephrased her query.

"How big do the biggest banks have to get before we consider breaking them up?" Warren asked. "They're 30 percent bigger now than they were five years ago. Do they have to double in size, triple in size, quadruple in size before we talk about breaking up the biggest financial institutions?"

Lew went on to maintain that "too big to fail" was an "unacceptable" policy, but suggested that a direct measure to address the issue wasn't necessary yet, in part because certain mechanisms implemented in Dodd-Frank were helping the Treasury Department more effectively regulate big banks.

Watch the entire exchange above.

[H/T Too Big Has Failed]

Portland Light-Therapy Bar Treats Winter Depression While You Get Drunk

2013-05-21T22:28:12Z

We can already see Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein acting out a Portlandia skit here.

Portland, Ore., is getting its very own heliotherapy bar called "Lightbar." The establishment, slated to open June 1, gives customers the opportunity to bathe in fluorescent light while they munch on vegan snacks and drink alcohol.

Lightbar's LED lights are designed to alleviate the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a medical condition that leaves people depressed and sluggish during the winter months, partly because of the lack of sun. In the famously rainy city of Portland, as many as 9 percent of residents suffer from SAD, according to the Portland Mood Disorders Clinic.

Lightbar, which plans to open in hip southeastern Portland, aims to fix that.

The "European-style bistro" will have 20-foot high, south-facing windows in addition to a wide array of full-spectrum lights, including "LED wall washes," whose color and brightness correspond to the time of day, according to a statement released by the restaurant's owner, Alex Carlson.

Carlson told The Huffington Post in an email that Lightbar will also be serving Vitamin D and b12 supplements "in liquid form" at the bar. And (because this is Portland, after all) the restaurant will serve vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes and will have "light-based art installations" as decoration.

Somewhat ironically, the restaurant will have a full bar, Carlson said. (Did no one tell him alcohol is a depressant?)

LOOK:

(h/t The Oregonian)

More Than 91,000 Litres Of Oil Spilled

2013-05-21T22:22:16Z

JANSEN, Sask. - A freight train jumped the tracks in southeastern Saskatchewan Tuesday and spilled more than 91,000 litres of oil.

The accident happened as the Canadian Pacific Rail (TSX:CP) eastbound train was rolling through an area near the village of Jansen, about 150 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon.

The company said five cars derailed, but only one leaked its contents. A total of 575 barrels hit the ground, said spokesman Ed Greenberg.

"There is one car that was leaking product," Greenberg said. "It has been contained into the area around the car."

Story continues after slideshow

The leaking car was well back in the 64-unit train and remained upright. The other four cars were on their sides.

Excavation equipment was being sent to the site to build a wall of dirt to further contain the spill.

Reeve Bruce Elke with the rural municipality of Jansen was content with the way the situation was being handled, although he noted he was seeding his farmland and had not been to the scene.

"My understanding was that it wasn't that big a spill and everything is going well," Elke said.

Oilspills of any sort have been increasingly under the microscope as debate rages over how best to get Canadian oil to foreign markets.

CP Rail has been increasing crude shipments as production ramps up from the oilsands and pipeline companies struggle to increase capacity quickly. Canadian National Railway (TSX:CNR) moved more than 30,000 carloads of crude to various North American markets last year and believes it can double that business in 2013.

However, in New York earlier this month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested rail was a riskier way to go while stumping for U.S. approval of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

Tuesday's spill marked at least the third involving a CP train in the last few months.

In April, about 20 freight cars, including two that were carrying light sweet crude oil, went off the tracks near White River, Ont., about halfway between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie. While it was initially thought that only 630 litres of oil leaked, the total was revised to about 63,000 litres.

In March, a Canadian Pacifictrain derailed in Minnesota. At the time, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said 76,000 litres leaked onto the still-frozen ground.

In January a Canadian National train collided with a road grader near the community of Paynton in Saskatchewan. Police said at the time that about 1,000 litres of oil leaked from two tankers in that crash.

Greenberg said the train that detailed Tuesday was carrying other products besides oil, but there was no indication they were hazardous.

"It was a mixed freight train, so there were other rail cars with other commodities on it."

Firefighters from Jansen were called in as a precaution.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada was sending an investigator to the site.

After Oklahoma Devastation, Storm Shelter Business Surges

2013-05-21T22:05:26Z

On a typical day, Oklahoma Shelters fields about 50 to 75 phone calls from customers inquiring about having a safe room or underground shelter installed on their property. But after a devastating tornado tore through Moore, Okla., on Monday, around 600 people contacted the company on Tuesday.

Most people are not calling from areas that were directly hit by the tornado, said Jason Avery, a salesman who has been with the company for seven years. Rather, he said, "most are calling from areas that just got missed."

When a tornado like the one on Monday -- which is estimated to have killed 24 people -- hits, companies in the business of installing or producing storm shelters know to expect a surge in the number of clients who are eager to shield their families. But the business of installing storm shelters can be as unpredictable as the weather the products are designed to protect against -- it's difficult to prepare for ups and downs, as circumstances can change remarkably quickly.

On average, Avery said, there's a two-week wait year-round to a get a storm shelter installed. But when a tornado with the magnitude of the one earlier this week hits an area, the wait grows, he said. After a big storm, customers can be looking at 6- to 12-week waits for installation.

"By the time that comes around, we'll be in the heat of the summer, and most of these people will turn around and cancel their orders because they spent their money on other things," Avery said.

Avery said that the numbers can vary, but as many as 20 to 30 percent of the people who schedule installations following a huge tornado can end up canceling, or postponing to the following spring to wait for tax refunds that can help defray the costs.

Safe rooms through Oklahoma Shelters start at $3,750 for a 4-by-6-foot space that's installed within a home. They are windowless constructions with protections in place, like a steel door and metal walls. An underground shelter, on the other hand, is usually made of concrete. Those start at $2,450.

Jeff Olsen, the owner of Missouri Storm Shelters, said the number of phone calls he has received has quadrupled since the tornado struck Moore. Though his showrooms are based in Joplin and Springfield, Olsen sells shelters to customers in 24 different states. About 75 percent of his business comes from people requesting safe rooms, with the rest interested in underground shelters, he said.

Olsen noted that the tornado that devastated Joplin in 2010 prompted above-average business for two years. But prior to this week, 2013 had been a terrible year for the industry.

"Three weeks ago, we had snow here. We wound up laying off two employees because it was so slow," he said.

Within 24 hours of this most recent tornado in Oklahoma, Olsen found himself with a showroom full of customers, a phone ringing off the hook and not enough staff.

"It’s a tough business because people procrastinate. We've been doing this for 10 years, and we can't figure out how to get people motivated in the off season," Olsen said. "You can't have a million dollars in inventory sitting around hoping a storm will hit. We advertise heavily in the winter and spring ... You can just about stand on your head in the middle of the street and it wont do anything."

Laura Rhodd is one of the owners of Hausner's, a company based in Oklahoma that makes storm shelters and has been in her family since 1954. Hausner's produces about 150 storm shelters a week, but Rhodd estimated they might make a third more this season because of this week's events.

After a massive tornado struck central Oklahoma in 1999, Rhodd said she was consistently busy for two years straight.

"Back then we were the only player, the only big player," Rhodd said. "We'll work six to nine months off of this. You never can tell."

Rhodd said that people's interest in storm protection has been influenced in part by the 24-hour news coverage of tornado devastation. But an increase in dangerous weather events has also forced the industry to expand, she said.

"It has just steadily grown, because the weather has gotten worse," Rhodd said.

Apple's Boosting Its Offshore Profits Faster Than Anyone Else

2013-05-21T21:50:01Z

In 2012, Apple added more to its offshore profit holdings than any other company, according to a March report by Citizens for Tax Justice.

The company's method of holding profits overseas isn't new -- and it's not necessarily illegal -- but it was the focus of a Senate hearing on Tuesday in which Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company's tax strategies, which allowed Apple to pay a 2 percent tax on $74 billion in profits.

Apple of course isn't the only company doing this. The tech giant, along with some of America's largest companies, held at least $1.9 trillion in assets abroad, according to Bloomberg. General Electric, which held $108 billion overseas in 2012, topped Bloomberg's list of U.S. companies with the most cash held offshore.

The Huffington Post's request for comment from Apple was not immediately returned.

Check out which companies added the most to their overseas profit holdings last year, according to a March report by Citizens for Tax Justice:

World Nutella Day Has Been Saved!!!

2013-05-21T21:39:27Z

Rejoice, one and all! After facing an immediate shut-down, World Nutella Day has been saved.

The chocolate hazelnut spread's producer, Ferrero, has dropped a cease-and-desist letter it sent to the holiday's founder, Sara Rosso, asking that she stop using the Nutella name.

Rosso spoke to The Huffington Post on Tuesday afternoon about the good news. "They reached out to me yesterday," she said. "They appreciate me as a fan, and the site will continue to live on moving forward."

Rosso pointed to the Italian news site Corriere della Sera, which published a statement from Ferrero confirming the move, and HuffPost translated:

“A positive contact between Ferrero and Sara Rosso, owner of the non-official fan page called World Nutella Day, closed the case. Ferrero wishes to express its sincere gratitude to Sara Rosso for her passion for Nutella, a gratitude it extends to all the fans of the Nutella World Day.”
The problem originally emerged from a “routine procedure in defense of trademarks, activated following improper use of the Nutella trademark within the fan page,” explains the company. But once the solution was found, “we immediately interrupted any time of action. Ferrero considers itself lucky to have such a devoted and loyal fan as Sara Rosso.”

Rosso said she was still unclear what a "routine procedure in defense of trademarks" means, but that the company chalked up the cease-and-desist letter to a misunderstanding. A Ferrero representative declined to explain further.

Rosso will continue to run the holiday's website and social media pages, but per an agreement with Ferrero, will make clearer that World Nutella Day is not officially run by the company. Her website already features a short disclaimer that reads, "www.nutelladay.com does not represent official views or opinions of Ferrero, S.p.A."

Rosso said that she never profited from World Nutella Day, nor will she in the future.

Although she acknowledged that the incident had the best possible conclusion -- and that she still loves Nutella -- Rosso seemed short of exuberant. "I just kind of wished it hadn't happened to begin with," she said. "But I'm pleased with how they spoke to me, and they seemed gracious and respectful."

Jamie Dimon Win Sends A Dangerous Message To Wall Street

2013-05-21T21:02:14Z

JPMorgan Chase shareholders have signed a billion-year contract to join the Cult Of Jamie Dimon. For better or worse.

With their overwhelming vote on Tuesday to let Dimon keep both his chairman and CEO titles at the biggest U.S. bank, shareholders proved themselves vulnerable to incessant warnings from the bank, Dimon's fellow CEOs and board members, and the financial media that Dimon is indispensable, that no other human being on the planet could possibly lead JPMorgan.

This is a dangerous message to send, to Dimon and the rest of Wall Street.

"JPMorgan should be a machine, not the expression of one man's individual genius," said Bart Naylor, financial policy advocate at the nonprofit group Public Citizen.

The shareholders trying to take away Dimon's chairmanship weren't trying to take the job of running JPMorgan away from him. They just wanted to give the board's oversight function to somebody else -- they didn't want Dimon being his own boss, in other words. But even this minor tweak to Dimon's job function would have been such an outrageous affront to Dimon's royal personage that he might have taken his indispensable skills away from the bank forever, causing the stock price to collapse, or so the bank reportedly warned shareholders in private.

"If you voted for Dimon to lose chairmanship, you voted for a lower stock," CNBC shouty man Jim Cramer tweeted on Tuesday morning before the final tally. "Who in heck would every [sic] do that."

Cramer joined Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg and many more VIPs in singing Dimon's praises and warning of the woe that would befall shareholders if they chased him back to Mount Olympus. The media played along, helping the bank successfully carry out what New York's Kevin Roose described as something "more like a presidential campaign than a normal lobbying effort" to help Dimon keep both of his jobs.

Virtually ignored in the debate about Dimon's indispensable leadership was the fact that Dimon and his compliant board have left JPMorgan -- again, the biggest bank in the United States, with more than $2 trillion in assets -- without a potential successor should Dimon ever get hit by a bus, God forbid, or take his talents to the Federal Reserve.

"It highlights the failure of this board to act as a check on Mr. Dimon and to fulfill their most fundamental duty to the bank: ensuring that there is someone capable to run the bank if the current CEO isn’t there for whatever reason,” Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a nonprofit group advocating for financial reform, said in an emailed statement.

Splitting the chairman and CEO roles is not necessarily the secret of sound corporate governance or stock performance -- as former Enron shareholders could tell you, if you could get them to stop weeping long enough. But if you could have independent oversight of corporate management, then why wouldn't you? Aside from stroking the ego of corporate management, that is?

Dimon's many defenders note that he steered the bank safely through the financial crisis, opened up to shareholders about the bank's $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss, and guided the bank to record profits despite that loss. But then, he also let the bank get itself into those London Whale trades in the first place, taking unnecessary risks to keep boosting profits. He has been at the helm as the bank has wandered into one regulatory rat's nest after another and as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency cut its rating of the bank's management to "needs improvement."

Splitting the CEO and chairman roles shouldn't necessarily have been some kind of punishment for these failings. It's just good governance. And it is certainly not the end of the world that Dimon has held onto both of his jobs. But the manner in which Dimon won, terrorizing shareholders into believing that catastrophe will follow his departure, is a dangerous precedent.

The hubris of JPMorgan's management was already on full display in the recent Senate report on the bank's London Whale losses. Dimon & Co. ignored warnings about the risks they were taking and defied regulators and media prying into their business.

Rather than humbling Dimon, JPMorgan shareholders have declared, loudly, that Dimon alone should hold their fate in his hands. They had better hope it doesn't go to his head.

Gap CEO Defends Decision Not To Sign Bangladesh Accord

2013-05-21T21:00:47Z

May 21 (Reuters) - Gap Inc's chairman and CEO said on Tuesday the U.S. retailer was ready to sign a global accord designed to prevent another deadly disaster in Bangladesh's garment industry, provided there were some "very minor accommodations."

A series of incidents at factories has focused attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry while creating a trans-Altantic divide between U.S. and European retailers over ways to resolve these issues.

Some U.S. retailers, including the owner of the Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy chains, had said they would not join the European pact without changes to the way conflicts are resolved in the courts.

IndustriALL, a union organization based in Europe which helped create the pact, had said the agreement could not be amended to address concerns of U.S. companies.

Speaking at the company's annual general meeting on Tuesday, Gap Inc CEO Glenn Murphy said the company was still in discussions over the agreement proposed by European labor groups. Under this pact, retailers would be subject to a binding arbitration that would be enforceable in the courts of the country where a company is domiciled.

Murphy did not mention specific changes sought by Gap Inc.

"We've not given up that a global accord of some kind can be worked out," he said, but added that the proposal at present did not "make sense" for the company.

Binding arbitrations typically restrict the ability of parties to appeal any decision in court, which makes U.S. retailers nervous about possible consequences of arbitration.

Many European retailers, including the world's two biggest fashion retailers - Inditex SA and Hennes & Mauritz - had signed on, along with almost 30 other companies. retailers. Among U.S. retailers, only PVH Corp and Abercrombie & Fitch Co are on board.

WATCH: Bill Maher's New Rule For LinkedIn

2013-05-21T20:23:11Z

Now that LinkedIn has banned prostitutes and escorts from using the social networking site, Bill Maher thinks they might want to revise their slogan.

Watch an exclusive "New Rule" from Maher above. "Real Time" airs Fridays at 10:00 p.m. EST on HBO.

Study Reveals Troubling News About Cancer Treatments In California

2013-05-21T20:16:10Z

Tracy has agricultural roots and affordable homes, but a new study reveals a less obvious distinction for this Central Valley city: Doctors use internal radiation to treat men for prostate cancer at the highest rate in California, more than four times the state average.

By comparison, men living just 60 miles away near Stanford University are much less likely to undergo the procedure known as brachytherapy, or radiation seeds -- only about half as often as the state average.

Geographic differences also exist in treatments for early-stage breast cancer, the study found. Livermore women are 92 percent more likely than the state average to have a lumpectomy without radiation. But across the bay in San Mateo, women are much more likely to have a lumpectomy with radiation.

These and other sharp variations in treatments, based on where patients live, are detailed in a study released Tuesday by the California HealthCare Foundation.

The huge differences indicate that doctors often determine which treatments will be used -- more than patients or even medical science, researchers say.

In a small community such as Tracy, one doctor or medical group that promotes brachytherapy can have a big impact on the care residents receive, said Maribeth Shannon, director of the market and policy monitor program for the foundation, a nonprofit group in Oakland that seeks to improve health care for the state's residents.

"You've got to wonder if all the (Tracy) men realize what their options are," she said.

If patients played a bigger role in the decision-making, there would be less difference from one community to the next, Shannon said.

"Physicians, for whatever reason, get comfortable with a particular treatment," she said. "There's not as much true shared decision-making as there should be."

Earlier studies have used Medicare records and found similar variations in treatment based on where people live. This latest study also included data from commercial plans, Medi-Cal and the uninsured from 2005 to 2010.

An interactive map with statistics on a host of different conditions can be viewed at www.chcf.org/variations.

The researchers hope doctors and community members will use the information to re-examine how they do things if they are far from the norm, Shannon said.

Medical experts disagree about how often men should undergo PSA screening tests for prostate cancer and how they should be treated if cancer is diagnosed. Some believe that if the cancer is small and slow-growing, patients should simply be closely monitored. Others favor more aggressive treatments.

"There's no strong evidence to suggest one (treatment) is better than the other," said Dr. Benjamin Chung, an assistant professor of urology at Stanford University.

Oncologists at Stanford tend to use external beam radiation more than brachytherapy to kill cancer cells, Chung said. This often involves the use of expensive equipment to target the tumor while attempting to minimize damage to surrounding tissues.

Men need to be well-informed about their options and the possible side-effects, and doctors need more research on the outcomes of various treatments, said Dr. Matthew Cooperberg, an assistant professor in the departments of urology and epidemiology and biostatistics at UC San Francisco.

"There are very different financial incentives for one treatment over another," noted Cooperberg, who served on the advisory committee for the study.

George Swartz, who heads USTOO, a support group for men who have prostate cancer that meets in San Ramon, said he opted for brachytherapy when he was diagnosed 13 years ago after his physician explained the options. But he added that too often, doctors simply recommend a treatment without finding out what the patient desires.

"Physicians behave in a way that's very paternalistic," Swartz said.

Even though she does not have breast cancer, actress Angelina Jolie drew attention to breast cancer options last week when she opted for a double mastectomy after learning she has a genetic mutation that increases her risk.

The study found varying rates of mastectomies for early-stage breast cancer from one community to the next. Women in the Vacaville area were more likely to have a single mastectomy than the average California woman, while women in San Ramon were more likely to have a double mastectomy than the average.

Shannon noted that doctors may recommend treatments based on what was popular at the time they received their medical training. She suggested that physicians provide patients with decision-making tools to help them weigh the medical evidence and the trade-offs involved in each choice.

Patients then need to do their part. "Engage -- tell the doctor what you think," she said.

Sandy Kleffman covers health. Contact her at 510-293-2478. Follow her at Twitter.com/skleffman. ___

Visit the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) at www.contracostatimes.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services

LOOK: The Deadliest States For Tornadoes

2013-05-21T20:16:00Z

Recent extreme weather events seem to reach into unlikely corners of the U.S., but the massive tornado that devastated Moore, Okla., on Monday tore right through the edge of a region so often battered by deadly twisters that it is known as Tornado Alley.

This part of the Southeast, which roughly covers the Plains states from South Dakota to Texas, allows Arctic air to funnel down alongside the Rocky Mountains into the plains, where it collides with warm air from the Gulf of Mexico, according to NBC News. But as the map below shows, some of the deadliest tornadoes have hit far east and south of Tornado Alley, which may be in part due to higher population density in some of these areas than in rural plains regions. After a rash of tornadoes killed more than 300 people in the Southern and Eastern U.S. in 2011, researchers questioned Tornado Alley's traditional boundaries.

Data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that severe tornadoes extend far beyond the plains, from the Midwest to the Deep South, according to a 2012 report from the research firm CoreLogic. Most of the Eastern half of the country is susceptible to tornado damage, with significant parts of 15 states facing extreme tornado risk.

Infographic by Jan Diehm for The Huffington Post.