What to do with cars ruined in storms? The National Insurance Crime Bureau has begun compiling lists of cars that were flood damaged, in an effort to prevent those autos from being recycled into the national used-car auction system. It has set up a registry of these vehicles that can be searched by vehicle identification number. You can visit the organization's website and search the registry at nicb.com
Don't dare write us off, New Orleans residents warn
Elected officials and residents from New Orleans' hardest-hit areas on Monday responded with skepticism and, at times, outright hostility to a controversial proposal to eliminate their neighborhoods from post-Katrina rebuilding efforts.
Three Months After Katrina:
More than 100,000 homes and businesses remain uninhabitable. More than three out of four residents live elsewhere. More than 5 million tons of storm debris is still on the ground. The power company is bankrupt. Workers are in short supply. Its pro football team is playing in Baton Rouge, its pro basketball team playing in Oklahoma City, its thoroughbreds racing in Bossier City, La. Its first -- and so far only -- public school reopened Monday. The police force is in disarray. Scientists are recording alarming mold levels. Suburban suicide rates are spiking. Local doctors are operating out of tents. The Catholic Archdiocese is $40 million in the red. The mayoral election scheduled for February is in doubt because of logistical problems.
Hurricane reshapes Mexico's resort scene
Businesses, hotels and even beaches near Cancun are still reeling from Wilma. Most hotels and businesses along the 10-mile waterfront strip are closed, and much of the beach has been stripped of its white powder sand.
USA Today Ex-Powell aide: Bush 'too aloof' on post-war Iraq plans
Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. Wilkerson said that Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."
No more 'holiday' trees at Capitol
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has told federal officials that the lighted, decorated tree on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol -- known in recent years as the "Holiday Tree" -- should be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree," as it was called until the late 1990s.
Mayor Hardberger told me this morning that the San Antonio
one on Alamo Plaza is being called a "Christmas tree"
Copy and paste the line below into the address line of your web browser when you are on the web page that you want to verify (some browsers then want you to hit Return)
javascript:alert("The actual URL of this site has been verified as: " + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname +"/");
It will tell you where that web page really originates.
Here's an example of a not-very-clever phishing site:
http://marscity.ru/~udwarf/cgi-bin/login.htm
Looks kind of official, doesn't it. But the really pro phishing sites also fake the address line. That's when you should use the Javascript code.
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What to do with cars ruined in storms?
No more 'holiday' trees at Capitol