Updated: July 20, 2011 2:16AM

DETROIT — If the United Auto Workers union agrees to profit-sharing instead of pay raises from Detroit’s automakers, the companies will have to write bigger checks than they now, the union’s president said Tuesday.

In an interview with The Associated Press, President Bob King said profit-sharing or other flexible methods of compensation will be discussed when the union formally begins contract talks with General Motors Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Ford Motor Co., next week.

Yet King, who has preached cooperation with the companies over confrontation, said that while he wants workers to be fairly compensated, he also wants deals that keep down the companies’ fixed costs so they are competitive with foreign-based automakers.

“Our members deserve a fair share of the upside more than, in my opinion, what the current profit-sharing formula would pay out,” King said. “If we’re willing to take more flexible compensation instead of just putting in fixed costs, we should do better than we would have done” under the current profit-sharing plan, he said.

UAW workers at GM got $4,300 profit-sharing checks this year, while Ford paid out $5,000 and Chrysler paid $750.

The negotiations, the first since Chrysler and GM took government aid and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, will set the wages and benefits of 111,000 autoworkers nationwide. The current four-year contracts with the Detroit Three expire on Sept. 14.

King also told The AP that workers somehow must be protected against inflation. In 2009, they gave up cost-of-living pay raises as all three companies were headed toward financial ruin. Ford managed to stay afloat without government aid and now is prospering. All three companies made money last quarter, when even struggling Chrysler posted a net profit.

The companies say they’re making money in part because of lower labor costs that came from union concessions made in 2007 and 2009, and they will want to keep those costs low. GM CEO Dan Akerson, for instance, has said the company favors profit-sharing over annual pay raises because raises can increase costs and leave the company vulnerable during economic downturns.

The companies may even try to cut the costs, but King said the union won’t agree to more concessions.

“We have said very strongly and very consistently that there’s no justification for further concessions,” he told The AP. “There’s got to be a program that’s viable, that allows our members their fair share of the upside.”

Also as part of the 2009 concessions, the UAW agreed to let the companies pay newly hired workers around $14 per hour, about half the wages of a long-term UAW member. King said the union would like to improve their finances, but he would not say if the union would seek hourly pay raises for the workers.

“I’m focused on income,” King said. “I think in today’s world that’s how you’ve got to think about it.”

King said both sides could reach their goals with creative solutions, and said he’s not thinking about picking a company to target for a strike. Under the deal to get government aid, the UAW cannot strike over wages at GM or Chrysler.

GM, Chrysler and Ford spokesmen declined to comment on King’s statements.

AP

Updated: July 20, 2011 2:14AM

Productivity suffers in the heat, whether you are working outside or indoors, experts say.

It’s brutal to work outdoors during a heat wave, but even workers in air conditioned offices lose their edge.

Office workers’ productivity peaks at 71 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit, said William Fisk, a senior scientist Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In a study published recently in “Indoor Air,” a journal about indoor health and environment, Fisk and two colleagues found that office buildings often have poorly controlled temperatures.

Though productivity loss cannot be measured by each degree that the temperature rises, Fisk’s studies show that office workers’ productivity falls 3 percent when the thermometer hits 79 degrees and drops 10 percent when the indoor temperature reaches 87 degrees.

“People who are stressed by their environmental conditions get fatigued quicker and slow their movements and their metabolism,” he said.

Sandra Guy

Updated: July 20, 2011 5:13AM

WASHINGTON — Declaring “11th hour” urgency” to raise the government’s borrowing limit, President Barack Obama on Tuesday hailed a plan by “Gang of Six” senators from both parties to reduce federal deficits as the kind of balanced approach that could break the economy-threatening deadlock. He said it was time for Congress to rally around such a proposal.

“We don’t have any more time to engage in symbolic gestures, we don’t have any more time to posture. It’s time to get down to the business of actually solving this problem,” the president said.

Obama spoke even as House Republicans pushed toward a vote on separate legislation that would require trillions in spending cuts and agreement on a balanced-budget constitutional amendment in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, which the government says must be raised by Aug. 2 to avoid economic calamity. That House plan, expected to come to a vote Tuesday evening, was unlikely to get through the Senate, and Obama has said he would veto it if it ever arrived at his desk.

Facing the deadline in two weeks, Obama said he would call House Speaker John Boehner after Tuesday’s vote to invite him and other leaders back to the White House for meetings in coming days.

Obama, Boehner and other top leaders met last week for five days straight without reaching agreement, leading to warnings from credit agencies about dire consequences if the U.S. defaults on its obligations for the first time, rendering it unable to pay its bills.

Obama added his own warning Tuesday, saying that while financial markets have shown confidence thus far in Washington, it won’t last much longer if lawmakers fail to act.

But he found cause for optimism in the announcement Tuesday by leaders of a bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators that they’re nearing agreement on a major plan to cut the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the coming decade.

“I think it’s a very significant step,” Obama said, calling it “broadly consistent with the approach I’ve urged.”

The Gang of Six plan calls for an immediate $500 billion “down payment” on cutting the deficit as the starting point toward cuts of more than $4 trillion that would be finalized in a second piece of legislation. It would raise revenues by about $1 trillion over 10 years and cut popular benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid — dealing out political pain to Republicans and Democrats.

That mixture of cuts and new revenue is the “balanced approach” Obama has urged, though it’s rejected by many Republicans because it would require higher taxes for some.

Rep. Dave Camp, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the spending cuts and budget mechanisms in the plan could form the basis of a deal but tax increases would be a big problem for him and fellow GOP lawmakers.

“A trillion dollars is a lot, by any measure,” Camp said of the tax increases in the plan.

While praising the broader plan, Obama said it was still important to have a “Plan B” option being worked on by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as a fallback. The McConnell-Reid plan would give Obama the ability to raise the debt limit by $2.5 trillion in three installments over the next year without a separate vote by lawmakers. Instead, a panel of House and Senate members would be created to recommend cuts in benefit programs, with their work guaranteed a yes-or-no vote in the House or Senate.

While all that was going on behind the scenes, advocates of the legislation to be voted on in the House on Tuesday said it would cut spending by an estimated $111 billion in the next budget year and then by more than an additional $6 trillion over a decade — and require Congress to send a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification — in exchange for raising the debt limit by $2.4 trillion.

With the measure facing a veto threat from the White House, Boehner said he was exploring other alternatives to avoid government default.

“I do think it’s responsible for us to look at what Plan B would look like,” he said at a news conference a few hours before the opening of debate on the legislation backed by conservative lawmakers.

Said Obama: “The problem we have now is, we’re in the 11th hour, and we don’t have a lot more time left.”

On a day of political theater, a group of House Republicans also boarded a bus for a 16-block ride to deliver a letter asking Obama to disclose his own plan for reducing federal deficits.

No administration officials were present to meet the delegation when the bus rolled to a stop outside the White House gates, and lawmakers gave copies of the letter to reporters.

Democrats said it was urgent that the debt ceiling be raised.

In a closed-door meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats listened to an audio of Republican President Ronald Reagan urging lawmakers in 1987 to raise the debt limit. “This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans’ benefits,” he said then.

Nearly a quarter of a century — and numerous trillions of dollars in debt — later, Obama needs acquiescence from the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate to win another debt ceiling increase. So far, efforts to agree on a package of spending cuts — the price demanded by GOP lawmakers for their votes — have proved futile.

Barring action by Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the Treasury will be unable to pay all the government’s bills that come due beginning Aug. 3. Administration officials, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others say the resulting default would inflict serious harm on the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the worst recession in decades.

Reid announced Monday that the Senate would meet each day until the issue was resolved, including weekends.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn

Updated: July 20, 2011 8:46AM

SPRINGFIELD — Bruce Springsteen may have gained 30,000 new fans in Illinois overnight, but don’t count Gov. Pat Quinn as one of them.

In a legal oddity, The Boss’ lyrics were cited in a ruling Tuesday that blocked Quinn from withholding 2-percent pay hikes to unionized workers on the state payroll.

Arbitrator Edwin Benn quoted Springsteen’s obscure 1992 song, “With Every Wish,” to dramatize how multi-year agreements between the state and its public-employee unions would be “dead” if Quinn were to prevail in his pay dispute with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

“Before you choose your wish, you better think first. With every wish, there comes a curse,” Benn quoted Springsteen as singing.

Thirty thousand union workers were to have gotten a 4-percent bump under terms of a four-year deal ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich struck with the union in 2008. But AFSCME and Quinn agreed to alter that deal last year so that half of that total increase would be paid on July 1 while the remaining 2 percent would be deferred until February 1, 2012.

In enacting a Fiscal 2012 budget, Quinn opted against funding the pay raises even though they are required contractually, blaming lawmakers for not appropriating enough funds to cover the increase’s $75 million cost.

“Under the mandatory, clear and simple terms of the negotiated language, the State must pay the 2% wage increase effective July 1, 2011. As a matter of contract, the State has no choice,” Benn said in his opinion.

The binding opinion that the Quinn administration vowed to appeal was met with elation from top union officials.

“Frontline state employees are out there every day doing the real work of state government and the Quinn administration, as their employer, should keep its commitments to them,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said in a prepared statement.

“We have always said what’s at stake here is much more than a pay increase. This is a question of whether the fundamental right of working people to bargain collectively will be upheld in Illinois,” Bayer said.

The Quinn administration expressed its intent to appeal Benn’s decision affecting employees in 14 different state agencies to Cook County Circuit Court..

“Funding these raises would mean that these agencies would not be able to make payroll for the entire year, disrupting core services for the people of Illinois, including children, the elderly and those with special need,” Quinn spokesman Grant Klinzman said. “We will be appealing the arbitrator’s decision. As the arbitrator acknowledged, he was unable to consider Illinois law due to his limited powers,” he said.

LONDON — Global stocks rallied further Wednesday as a raft of positive U.S. earnings reports and signs of progress over raising the U.S. debt ceiling helped offset debt concerns afflicting Europe.

Investor sentiment has been buoyed by better than expected earnings from the likes of Coca-Cola, IBM and Apple, all three considered bellwethers of the U.S. economy. Further earnings from the likes of Ebay, Intel and American Express will be of interest on Wednesday.

However, any optimism over the U.S. economy could well be derailed if Congress and the White House fail to agree on how to raise the debt ceiling. If it isn’t raised by August 2, then the U.S. government could well default on its debts.

On that front, there are signs that progress is being made in raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit to avoid a default, after President Barack Obama backed a bipartisan plan proposed by six senators.

“News that there was progress being made in raising the U.S. debt ceiling, along with some bumper earnings news from tech stocks like Apple, has helped cheer investor sentiment,” said Ben Critchley, a sales trader at IG Index.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.8 percent at 5,837 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.1 percent to 7,201. The CAC-40 in France was 1 percent higher at 3,731.

Wall Street was also poised for further gains at the open — Dow futures rose 0.3 percent to 12,546 while the broader Standard Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.4 percent to 1,326.

As well as monitoring developments over the U.S. debt ceiling, investors will be keeping a close watch on any comments over Europe’s debt crisis, a day ahead of a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

Hopes of a dramatic move were dashed Tuesday after Chancellor Angela Merkel said the summit wouldn’t yield a quick and comprehensive solution. She said there won’t be anything as “spectacular” as a restructuring of Greek debt.

The International Monetary Fund, itself a big contributor to the eurozone’s three bailouts, also ratcheted up the pressure on the eurozone to get a grip on its debt problems.

“The resilient recovery of the euro area economy stands in marked contrast with the authorities’ struggle to come to grips with the sovereign crisis affecting some member states and casting a shadow over the economic and monetary union project,” the IMF said in a report on Tuesday.

Despite ongoing concerns over Europe’s debts and its handling of the crisis, the euro is faring fairly well. By late morning, it was trading 0.6 percent higher at $1.4236.

“The consensus opinion still remains that the deterioration in investor confidence in eurozone debt will eventually be contained by policy action,” said Lee Hardman, currency economist at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average rose 1.2 percent to close at 10,005.90 and South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.2 percent to end at 2,154.95. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng climbed 0.1 percent to close at 22,003.69.

Mainland Chinese shares spent most of the day fighting to get into positive territory. The Shanghai Composite Index ended the day 0.1 percent lower at 2,794.20.

Oil prices rose above $98 after a report showed U.S. crude supplies dropped more than expected, a sign demand may be improving. Benchmark oil for August delivery was up $1.15 to $98.65 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines is buying at least 460 new planes over the next five years and splitting the order between aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus.

American’s parent, AMR Corp., said Wednesday it will buy 260 planes from Airbus and 200 from Boeing. It will also take options and purchase rights for up to 465 additional planes through 2025.

The airline expects the new, better-mileage planes will save money on fuel and provide more enticing amenities to passengers.

The Borders at 150 N. State — the last one open in the city — faces closure as the company goes to court today for OK to liquidate its assets. | Al Podgorski~Chicago Sun-Times

Updated: July 19, 2011 11:31PM

As Borders seeks to end its 40-year existence by liquidating its 399 stores nationwide — as soon as Friday if the court approves today — shoppers and bookstore fans must rush to redeem their gift cards and to find the best deals, experts say.

Here are the details you should know about navigating the sell-off of the inventory of the nation’s second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, including 13 Borders stores in the Chicago region:

Q. When will sales start?

A. Liquidation sales start Friday and usually take eight to 10 weeks to complete. Stores close as soon as the inventory is sold, so they could close sooner if the merchandise sells quickly.

Q. When will the stores close?

A. The store sites are slated to be sold by the end of September. The first wave of property auctions will take place from the end of August until the beginning of September, followed by a second wave from mid-September until the end of September. Most Chicago stores will be part of the second wave, said Andy Graiser, co-president of DJM Realty, the Melville, N.Y. company in charge of finding bidders for and disposing of the stores.

Q. How good will the bargains be?

A. Opening discounts start at up to 40 percent on all merchandise. The prices at which the discounts are taken are the level that Borders charged prior to its bankruptcy filing. Roughly $700 million of inventory will be on sale.

Q. What about my gift card?

A. Gift cards will be accepted and redeemed throughout the liquidation sales.

Q. What if I don’t have time to redeem my gift card?

A. In June, Chicago law firm Krislov and Associates won a bankruptcy judge’s ruling allowing gift-card holders of defunct Sharper Image stores to file for up to $100 apiece in unredeemed gift cards. No one knows whether such a settlement could happen for another retailer.

Q: What will fill up those empty stores?

A. Bidders who’ve expressed interest in the stores, which range in size from 10,000 to 40,000 square feet, include pet stores, dollar stores, party-supply retailers, specialty grocery stores, such as Trader Joe’s, existing landlords who are soliciting new tenants on their own and municipalities that may be interested in turning the stores into schools or community play centers, Graiser said.

Oak Park officials are courting Apple to open a computer store at the Borders site on Lake and Harlem. Apple expressed an interest in opening a store in Chicago’s Loop, at the Block 37 shopping center across the street from the Borders at 150 N. State. Apple pulled out of the Block 37 property without ever confirming that it was negotiating a lease there.

Q. Will we hear of Borders again?

A. A host of retailers, ranging from Montgomery Ward to Sharper Image to Bombay, have had their names purchased out of bankruptcy and resurrected for new purposes. Michael Stone, CEO of New York brand-licensing agency Beanstalk Group, speculated Tuesday that a buyer could repurpose Borders into a company that would help independent booksellers more easily order inventory from a central repository.

In this July 18, 2011 photo, specialist Neil Gallagher, foreground right, works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lackluster world stocks got a boost Tuesday, July 19, from an early rebound in Europe and the U.S. as debt worries that have shadowed both regions in recent days kept Asian markets largely in check. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Updated: July 19, 2011 8:43PM

NEW YORK — Strong profits and a bipartisan plan to lift the U.S. debt limit drove a stock market rebound Tuesday.

Stock indexes rose after Coca-Cola, IBM and other companies reported better second-quarter earnings. The indexes added to their gains in the afternoon after President Barack Obama backed a proposal by six senators that would cut debt by $3.7 trillion over the next decade and raise the country’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 202.26 points, or 1.6 percent, to close at 12,587.42. That’s the Dow’s largest one-day jump this year.

“It looks like there’s bipartisan support for a robust plan,” said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston. “The stock market had been looking for a reason to have a relief rally. And it looks like they got the start of one today. “

The ongoing deadlock in Washington over raising the country’s borrowing limit and Europe’s debt crisis have been weighing on markets this month. The Dow slid five of the previous seven days.

The SP 500 index rose 21.29 points, or 1.6 percent, to 1,326.73. That’s the broader index’s best day since March 3. The Nasdaq gained 61.41 points, or 2.2 percent, to 2,826.52.

Tuesday’s gains turned the three major indexes positive for the month. The Dow and Nasdaq are now up more than 1 percent in July. The SP 500 is up 0.5 percent.

Information technology stocks led industry groups higher after IBM Corp.’s results beat analysts’ estimates. Corporate software spending held steady during the quarter. IBM’s stock rose 5.7 percent.

The tech gains could continue Wednesday. Apple Inc. reported another surge in earnings after the stock market closed as sales of iPhones and iPads again set records. The stock rose 6 percent to $399.53 in after-hours trading.

Coca-Cola Co.’s income increased 18 percent in the second quarter on stronger sales overseas. The world’s largest beverage maker raised some prices to offset higher ingredient costs. Coca-Cola’s stock was up 3.3 percent.

KeyCorp rose 4.3 percent after the Cleveland-based banking company reported a jump in earnings thanks to a drop in loan losses. The bank reported income of 25 cents a share, up from 3 cents a share a year ago.

Harley-Davidson Inc. rose 8.9 percent, making it the top performing stock in the SP 500 index. The motorcycle maker reported its first increase in U.S. sales since the final quarter of 2006. Sales of its motorcycles, some of which sell for more than $30,000, had languished throughout the economic slump.

A jump in housing construction lifted the stocks of Lennar Corp. and D.R. Horton Inc. The Commerce Department said building of new houses and apartments increased 14.6 percent in June from the previous month. Single-family house construction rose 9.4 percent, the largest increase since June 2009, the month that marked the end of the recession. Much of the monthly increase, however, came from new apartment buildings.

Bank stocks were mixed. Wells Fargo Co.’s profit soared 30 percent to 70 cents per share on stronger results from lending. Uncollected loans dropped for the sixth quarter in a row. The bank’s stock gained 5.6 percent.

Both Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fell after posting disappointing results.

Bank of America lost 90 cents per share. That’s more than analysts polled by data provider FactSet expected. The loss included a $8.5 billion settlement the bank paid to mortgage-bond investors.

Goldman’s earnings more than doubled to $1.85 per share, up from 78 cents a year ago. But a drop in bond trading kept results from hitting the analysts’ estimates of $2.35 per share.

Two weeks are left before the Treasury Department says the government must lift the country’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit or risk defaulting on its obligations.

Most economists say that if the world’s largest economy reneges on its debts, the consequences would be catastrophic. In testimony last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said a default would be a “calamitous outcome” and “create a severe financial shock.”

Bernanke said U.S. government bonds are so widely used in global finance that if faith in them were undermined it would have far-reaching and unexpected consequences.

Four stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was below average at 3.9 billion shares.

The Sun-Times will close its printing plant at 2800 S. Ashland and eliminate about 400 jobs. | Keith Hale~Sun-Times

Updated: July 19, 2011 8:43PM

The Chicago Tribune will begin printing the Chicago Sun-Times and seven of its suburban sister newspapers under an agreement announced Tuesday.

Jeremy Halbreich, chairman of Sun-Times Media LLC, said the deal will save the company more than $10 million a year and allow investment in editorial content and advertising sales. But the agreement is born of grim economic trends in the newspaper business and will cost about 400 workers their jobs.

The affected employees work at the Sun-Times’ printing plant at 2800 S. Ashland, which will be closed. The printing will move to the Tribune’s Freedom Center plant at 777 W. Chicago starting in late September.

“This has been a very, very difficult decision,” Halbreich said. “But in my role, I have got to do things that keep our newspapers in business.”

He said the papers in Sun-Times Media’s ownership will benefit from greater capacity for color printing, which includes the ability to sell more color advertising. With the agreement, the company exits the newspaper printing and distribution business. The Tribune already distributes the Sun-Times and the suburban papers under an agreement dating from 2007.

Halbreich emphasized that Sun-Times Media publications will remain independent.

Most of the 400 workers to be laid off are union members. Halbreich said all are receiving 60 days’ notice of termination in keeping with state law, although some jobs may last a little longer.

Frank Golden, business representative for Teamsters Local 458, one of the unions at the Ashland plant, said the company may be violating federal law by outsourcing work that’s part of a collective bargaining agreement. “The cost savings here don’t benefit anybody but the investors in the paper,” he said.

Golden said the unions will study any option to preserve members’ jobs. Halbreich said the company is confident it has the right to move production.

He also said Tribune will hire up to 100 people to handle the new work and could choose some of the Sun-Times’ workers. A mix of union and non-union staff handles Tribune printing and distribution.

Besides the Sun-Times, which this year won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, the agreement covers the Beacon-News in Aurora,
the Courier-News in Elgin, the Herald-News in Joliet, the Lake County News-Sun, the Post-Tribune in Merrillville, Ind., the SouthtownStar and the Naperville Sun.

The company’s Pioneer Press chain of weeklies will continue to be printed in Milwaukee.

Halbreich said the Tribune plant can handle the work without changing deadlines or delivery schedules for the Sun-Times papers. He said declines in circulation at the Tribune have rendered 30 percent to 40 percent of its presses idle, even though the plant produces local editions of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily.

The Sun-Times opened its $100 million printing center in 1999 and over the years consolidated the suburban papers’ production at that location.

Updated: July 19, 2011 8:33PM

A new law goes into effect Thursday that requires creditors to inform consumers why they were rejected for a loan.

As part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, consumers who are rejected for student loans, automobile loans or credit card applications are entitled to receive a free copy of their credit score and an explanation of why they were turned down. The reasons can range from late payments to maxing out credit cards. Creditors are also supposed to explain where the score, known as FICO, ranks nationally, and outline the factors that brought the score down.

The law does not require insurance agencies or utility and phone companies with special rating systems to report credit scores.

Consumers are entitled to a free credit report once a year from each of the credit rating agencies. (To get those, go to www.annualcreditreport.com.) A fee is usually charged for the credit score, however. Only one-third of Americans know their credit score, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ariel Cheung

Private 4-year U.S. colleges, highest tuition:

1. Bates College, Maine $51,300*

2. Connecticut College, Conn. $51,115*

3. Middlebury College, Vt. $50,780*

4. Union College, N.Y., $50,439*

5. Colby College, Maine $50,320*

6. Sarah Lawrence College, N.Y. $41,968

7. Vassar College, N.Y. $41,930

8. George Washington University DC $41,655

9. Columbia University, N.Y. $41,316

10. Kenyon College, Ohio, $40,980

National average $21,324

*Colleges charge comprehensive fee that includes room and board.

Source: collegecost.ed.gov/catc

Updated: July 19, 2011 8:33PM

You can find out which colleges are the most and least expensive using a new tool from the federal government. The College Affordability and Transparency Center ranks colleges nationally based on cost.

You select the type of institution — 4-year or 2-year, public or private, for profit or not-for-profit — and the site, collegecost.ed.gov/catc, ranks all the colleges within those categories by highest or lowest tuition. Colleges can also be ranked by highest or lowest “net price,” which averages the total cost — tuition, books, room and board minus the average amount of financial aid provided to students.

For more in-depth information, there’s College Navigator, a tool on the National Center for Education Statistics website. College Navigator helps you search for American colleges by location, degree level offered, majors offered and type of institution. The program even lets users search for colleges within a certain number of miles from a specific zip code.

The database contains information on every college in the country, public and private. Information provided includes the teacher-to-student ratio, the average cost of tuition for in-state and out of state students, the average cost of room and board, types of financial aid provided, average SAT and ACT scores of accepted students, retention rates, and number of arrests on campus, among other things.

Some of the information is updated through only 2009, but the average tuition cost provided for most schools is current through spring 2011. According to College Navigator statistician Tara Lawley, the information was gathered from the schools themselves. The tuition number was calculated by adding the base tuition to the average amount of fees that a student has to pay.

Productivity suffers in the heat, whether you are working outside or indoors, experts say.

It’s brutal to work outdoors during a heat wave, but even workers in air conditioned offices lose their edge.

Office workers’ productivity peaks at 71 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit, said William Fisk, a senior scientist Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In a study published recently in “Indoor Air,” a journal about indoor health and environment, Fisk and two colleagues found that office buildings often have poorly controlled temperatures.

Though productivity loss cannot be measured by each degree that the temperature rises, Fisk’s studies show that office workers’ productivity falls 3 percent when the thermometer hits 79 degrees and drops 10 percent when the indoor temperature reaches 87 degrees.

“People who are stressed by their environmental conditions get fatigued quicker and slow their movements and their metabolism,” he said.

Sandra Guy

Updated: July 19, 2011 3:54PM

WASHINGTON — Declaring “11th hour” urgency” to raise the government’s borrowing limit, President Barack Obama on Tuesday hailed a plan by “Gang of Six” senators from both parties to reduce federal deficits as the kind of balanced approach that could break the economy-threatening deadlock. He said it was time for Congress to rally around such a proposal.

“We don’t have any more time to engage in symbolic gestures, we don’t have any more time to posture. It’s time to get down to the business of actually solving this problem,” the president said.

Obama spoke even as House Republicans pushed toward a vote on separate legislation that would require trillions in spending cuts and agreement on a balanced-budget constitutional amendment in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling, which the government says must be raised by Aug. 2 to avoid economic calamity. That House plan, expected to come to a vote Tuesday evening, was unlikely to get through the Senate, and Obama has said he would veto it if it ever arrived at his desk.

Facing the deadline in two weeks, Obama said he would call House Speaker John Boehner after Tuesday’s vote to invite him and other leaders back to the White House for meetings in coming days.

Obama, Boehner and other top leaders met last week for five days straight without reaching agreement, leading to warnings from credit agencies about dire consequences if the U.S. defaults on its obligations for the first time, rendering it unable to pay its bills.

Obama added his own warning Tuesday, saying that while financial markets have shown confidence thus far in Washington, it won’t last much longer if lawmakers fail to act.

But he found cause for optimism in the announcement Tuesday by leaders of a bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators that they’re nearing agreement on a major plan to cut the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the coming decade.

“I think it’s a very significant step,” Obama said, calling it “broadly consistent with the approach I’ve urged.”

The Gang of Six plan calls for an immediate $500 billion “down payment” on cutting the deficit as the starting point toward cuts of more than $4 trillion that would be finalized in a second piece of legislation. It would raise revenues by about $1 trillion over 10 years and cut popular benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid — dealing out political pain to Republicans and Democrats.

That mixture of cuts and new revenue is the “balanced approach” Obama has urged, though it’s rejected by many Republicans because it would require higher taxes for some.

Rep. Dave Camp, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the spending cuts and budget mechanisms in the plan could form the basis of a deal but tax increases would be a big problem for him and fellow GOP lawmakers.

“A trillion dollars is a lot, by any measure,” Camp said of the tax increases in the plan.

While praising the broader plan, Obama said it was still important to have a “Plan B” option being worked on by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as a fallback. The McConnell-Reid plan would give Obama the ability to raise the debt limit by $2.5 trillion in three installments over the next year without a separate vote by lawmakers. Instead, a panel of House and Senate members would be created to recommend cuts in benefit programs, with their work guaranteed a yes-or-no vote in the House or Senate.

While all that was going on behind the scenes, advocates of the legislation to be voted on in the House on Tuesday said it would cut spending by an estimated $111 billion in the next budget year and then by more than an additional $6 trillion over a decade — and require Congress to send a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification — in exchange for raising the debt limit by $2.4 trillion.

With the measure facing a veto threat from the White House, Boehner said he was exploring other alternatives to avoid government default.

“I do think it’s responsible for us to look at what Plan B would look like,” he said at a news conference a few hours before the opening of debate on the legislation backed by conservative lawmakers.

Said Obama: “The problem we have now is, we’re in the 11th hour, and we don’t have a lot more time left.”

On a day of political theater, a group of House Republicans also boarded a bus for a 16-block ride to deliver a letter asking Obama to disclose his own plan for reducing federal deficits.

No administration officials were present to meet the delegation when the bus rolled to a stop outside the White House gates, and lawmakers gave copies of the letter to reporters.

Democrats said it was urgent that the debt ceiling be raised.

In a closed-door meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats listened to an audio of Republican President Ronald Reagan urging lawmakers in 1987 to raise the debt limit. “This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans’ benefits,” he said then.

Nearly a quarter of a century — and numerous trillions of dollars in debt — later, Obama needs acquiescence from the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate to win another debt ceiling increase. So far, efforts to agree on a package of spending cuts — the price demanded by GOP lawmakers for their votes — have proved futile.

Barring action by Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the Treasury will be unable to pay all the government’s bills that come due beginning Aug. 3. Administration officials, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others say the resulting default would inflict serious harm on the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the worst recession in decades.

Reid announced Monday that the Senate would meet each day until the issue was resolved, including weekends.

The Spotify music service, a music service that’s part iTunes, part Pandora and part social network, has finally launched in the U.S.

Article Extras

Updated: July 18, 2011 3:48PM

The one sentence pitch for the Spotify music service is an instant grabber: imagine the iTunes Store, except all the music is free. Download and install the Spotify app on your desktop. Listen to any album or song in Spotify’s 15,000,000-track catalogue of commercial music. Assemble tracks into playlists, just as you can with iTunes. Click “play” and the music starts streaming almost instantly.

Share those playlists with your friends. And, just as with iTunes, your friends can listen to all 28 tracks in your Tunes About Food And Trains playlist without having to own any of the songs in it. Oh, wait: that’s totally not like how it happens in iTunes. No, they’d only get song samples until they made all of the necessary purchases. In Spotify World, your friends only need to be fellow Spotify members.

And it’s all free, free, free. You will be forced to endure an ad every now and then. And there’s a cap on how much music you can play in a given month. But you can’t deny that “15,000,000 tracks” is a very large number and “zero dollars per month” is a very low price.

Spotify has spent the past few years being an enormous sensation overseas while being almost completely unknown here in the US, just like Robbie Williams. (Hugely best-selling singer in the UK. See what I mean?)

Despite being the single most ubiquitous music service other than iTunes, it’s taken years for Spotify to enter this country, and for predictable reasons: Spotify wanted to introduce commercial music to a much broader audience and cause performing artists and music publishers to make money from that transaction. Record companies hate it when people try to do that. High in the glass-walled corridors of power, there are some high-level executives who are still stewing that the iTunes Store will ruin their industry and that they’re determine to sever their company’s relationship with Apple just as soon as they’ve sued enough music pirates to allow Digital Compact Cassettes to finally flourish and take over the market.

Well, that’s water behind the bridge. Today, you can hit spotify.com and ask them pretty-please for an invite to use the free service. I had to wait about a week for mine. Or, you can sign up for one of their paid plans and get going right away.

Spotify shouldn’t be thought of as competition for iTunes. After you use Spotify for several days and compare the two services feature for feature, you appreciate that they complement each other quite well.

A user like me (a longtime iTunes user and a lifelong adherent to the idea that music should be something I own and keep in a library and control) quickly notes several shortcomings in Spotify:

Until you sign up for a paid account, Spotify only allows you to listen to 10 hours of music per month, and only via a desktop client app that requires a live internet connection. No WiFi, no tunes. The Spotify app can locate and play music files that are already on your hard drive, but hey, you were able to do that already, right?

When you upgrade to a paid account — five bucks a month — you eliminate the ads and the monthly playback cap. For ten bucks, you can also download tracks for offline playback, and access the entire service from your Android and iOS mobile devices.

The Spotify apps aren’t very sophisticated. The desktop app is a very 1998-style music player. It has superficial similarities to iTunes but lacks its polish and its power features. You can drag tracks and albums into playlists easily enough. But iTunes (or WinAmp, or any serious media manager) does so much more. It takes all of five minutes to define an iTunes Smart Playlist that always contains “three hours of Rock music that I’ve rated three stars or higher, which I haven’t heard in the past three days, which I’ve never skipped over during playback more than three times.” Every time I sync my iPhone, it fills with new, great music automatically.

The playback quality isn’t shockingly great. Spotify’s music always sounds a little flat, at least to my ear. And I don’t mean “off pitch.” I mean that it lacks dimension and “presence” when compared with the same track purchased from either Amazon or iTunes. It didn’t matter if Spotify was streaming the file or playing it off of my hard drive. It didn’t matter that I had the player switched to its high-quality mode. It didn’t matter if the track was from The Who, Cee Lo Green, or (coloratura soprano in reverence) Diana Damrau. WiFi, 3G, phone, desktop, headphones, speakers, car stereo . . . the Spotify track sounded like FM radio compared with the same track purchased from iTunes. Not bad by any measure, but noticeably inferior.

It’s entirely possible that the music streams and files are perfectly wonderful and that the Spotify desktop and mobile apps are just not very good, or that they apply some dopey pop-friendly equalization to the playback. Who knows. All I can say is that if my speakers made every track sound the way that tracks sound via Spotify, I’d buy better speakers. Today.

Some albums and tracks aren’t available in the US. Artists and labels can selectively remove certain content from Spotify if they wish. You can search for that content and Spotify will return a match, but it’ll dryly inform you that (ha-ha!) you can’t play that here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

I present all of these shortcomings for your earnest contemplation. I also urge you to dismiss most of them. They’re only of real importance to someone who wants to declare one particular service a Winner and another a Loser. Instead, we should consider ourselves grateful that we have such a complete set of options before us.

iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify represent a complete, balanced breakfast for people who love music. iTunes is still the best “home base,” offering a muscular music library app and a huge store full of browsable, purchasable content that you can own for keeps. Pandora is still tops for discovering music. It’s not intended to stream music you want. It’s designed to give you music you like but had never heard before, using a few familiar tunes as a jumping-off point. Spotify helps you discover music only in the sense that it makes it easy for you to try out other people’s playlists.

Spotify allows you full, (nearly) unfettered access to damned-near every track ever recorded, and it’s (potentially) free. That’s valuable just on the face of it. Listen to any album at your slightest whim and if you still seem to be playing it a lot after a week, then maybe that’s your cue to buy the album from iTunes or Amazon or in the still-popular packetized devoted realware format.

But I also like how Spotify makes the Album into a useful concept once again. I rarely listen to entire albums any more. Even when I’ve ripped a CD, I generally cherry-pick its best tracks and drop them into playlists. But hey, each track on every album seemed like a good idea to somebody at some point. When you just play “Come On, Eileen” and fail to avail yourself of the many, many wonderful songs released by Dexy’s Midnight Runners during the band’s storied history, you’re really missing out.

(Accessing Spotify.)

(Searching for Dexys Midnight Runners.)

(Playing “Too Rye Ay,” their one album.)

. . .

Okay, clearly, you’re missing out on absolutely nothing in at specific case. Bad example. But my larger point stands. Spotify is a most welcome and most handy addition to the music landscape.

Updated: July 19, 2011 4:55AM

Sears Holdings Corp. apologized for a reseller’s mistake in posting an iPad 2 tablet for $70 on Sears’ website, and then canceled the orders and refunded the money. The iPad 2 model retails for $499.

The Hoffman Estates-based retailer posted a message on its Facebook page after Saturday’s too-good-to-be-believed offer appeared, apologizing for any inconvenience it caused customers.

Sears also canceled a second mistaken posting from the same reseller, this one for a separate iPad2 model, a 32-gigabyte, Wi-Fi-only version, for $179. It retails for $599.

More than 300 people posted their anger and disappointment in comments on Sears’ Facebook page, but experts say Sears has an out with an outside seller’s mistake.

In this July 18, 2011 photo, specialist Neil Gallagher, foreground right, works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lackluster world stocks got a boost Tuesday, July 19, from an early rebound in Europe and the U.S. as debt worries that have shadowed both regions in recent days kept Asian markets largely in check. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK — Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and other large banks are rolling out their earnings reports, and stock futures are headed higher.

Bank of America Corp. posted a second-quarter loss of 90 cents per share Tuesday morning. That’s a wider loss than analysts expected. But the bank’s shares pushed higher in premarket trading. Part of the loss was a result of Bank of America’s 8.5 billion settlement with mortgage-bond investors.

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 76 points, or 0.6 percent, at 12,404. SP 500 futures are up 8 points or 0.7 percent, at 1,309. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 18 or 0.8 percent, at 2,357.

Europe’s banking troubles and the impasse over lifting the U.S. government’s borrowing limit pummeled the stock market on Monday.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. | AP file

Updated: July 19, 2011 2:09AM

Washington’s impasse over lifting the federal government’s borrowing limit helped drag down stock markets in the U.S. and Europe.

Gold rose for the tenth day in a row, jumping 0.8 percent to $1,602.40 an ounce — another record in dollar terms, but it’s still below the high reached in the early 1980s once inflation is taken into account. Gold has been rising steadily since the start of the month as the countries considered at risk of default expanded beyond Greece to include Italy and the U.S. Traders have been buying gold as an alternative to holding dollars and euros as the debt problems in the U.S. and Europe undermine confidence in both currencies.

Not even a string of better earnings reports could stave off worries about debt on Monday. The stock market also was weighted down by Europe’s banking troubles. The results of stress tests on European banks released last week came under deeper scrutiny. Eight banks failed the test aimed at measuring how well they would hold up under additional financial strain.

The debt limit debate remains at a standstill. The Treasury Department says the limit must be raised by Aug. 2 or the government risks defaulting on its debt. But a deal needs to be reached soon, possibly as early as Friday, to have legislation ready for President Barack Obama to sign by the deadline. Rating agencies warned last week that the impasse puts the country’s triple-A credit rating grade at risk.

House Republicans are preparing to vote Tuesday on their plan that would lift the debt ceiling but also slash spending. The proposal includes a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. President Barack Obama pledged to veto the bill.

The latest delay in reaching a deal is beginning to weigh on markets. The Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq composite index gave up their gains for the month. The Dow fell 94.57 points, 0.8 percent, to 12,385.16. The Nasdaq fell 24.69 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,765.11. The SP 500 index dropped 10.70 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 1,305.44.

Monday’s stock-market sell-off pulled down companies in every industry, especially banks. Even companies reporting strong profits slid lower.

AP

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. | AP file

Updated: July 18, 2011 8:46PM

Washington’s impasse over lifting the federal government’s borrowing limit helped drag down stock markets in the U.S. and Europe.

Gold rose for the tenth day in a row, jumping 0.8 percent to $1,602.40 an ounce — another record in dollar terms, but it’s still below the high reached in the early 1980s once inflation is taken into account. Gold has been rising steadily since the start of the month as the countries considered at risk of default expanded beyond Greece to include Italy and the U.S. Traders have been buying gold as an alternative to holding dollars and euros as the debt problems in the U.S. and Europe undermine confidence in both currencies.

Not even a string of better earnings reports could stave off worries about debt on Monday. The stock market also was weighted down by Europe’s banking troubles. The results of stress tests on European banks released last week came under deeper scrutiny. Eight banks failed the test aimed at measuring how well they would hold up under additional financial strain.

The debt limit debate remains at a standstill. The Treasury Department says the limit must be raised by Aug. 2 or the government risks defaulting on its debt. But a deal needs to be reached soon, possibly as early as Friday, to have legislation ready for President Barack Obama to sign by the deadline. Rating agencies warned last week that the impasse puts the country’s triple-A credit rating grade at risk.

House Republicans are preparing to vote Tuesday on their plan that would lift the debt ceiling but also slash spending. The proposal includes a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. President Barack Obama pledged to veto the bill.

The latest delay in reaching a deal is beginning to weigh on markets. The Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq composite index gave up their gains for the month. The Dow fell 94.57 points, 0.8 percent, to 12,385.16. The Nasdaq fell 24.69 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,765.11. The SP 500 index dropped 10.70 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 1,305.44.

Monday’s stock-market sell-off pulled down companies in every industry, especially banks. Even companies reporting strong profits slid lower.

AP

In this photo provided by NBC News White House Budget Director Jack Lew is interviewed on NBC’s Meet the Press in Washington Sunday, July 17, 2011. Asked about the debt ceiling Lew said, “I think that what is encouraging is that the leaders in Congress seem to have all agreed that we can’t push to a default”. “So I think that there are many conversations going on in order to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. (AP Photo/NBC News, William B. Plowman)

Updated: July 18, 2011 6:30PM

Courting confrontation and compromise alike, House Republicans on Monday shrugged off President Barack Obama’s threat to veto their legislation to cut federal spending by trillions of dollars, even as they negotiated with him over more modest steps to avert a potential government default.

The Republican bill demands deep spending reductions in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit. But Obama will veto it if it reaches his desk, the White House said, asserting the legislation would “lead to severe cuts in Medicare and Social Security” and impose unrealistic limits on education spending.

In response, GOP lawmakers said they would go ahead with plans to pass the bill on Tuesday. “It’s disappointing the White House would reject this commonsense plan to rein in the debt and deficits that are hurting job creation in America,” Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio said.

By contrast, neither the administration nor congressional officials provided substantive details on an unannounced meeting that Obama held Sunday with the two top House Republican leaders, Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Obama said late Monday the two sides were “making progress.”

Barring action by Congress to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit, the Treasury will be unable to pay all the government’s bills that come due beginning on Aug. 3, two weeks from Wednesday. Administration officials, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others say the result could be a default that inflicts serious harm on the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the worst recession in decades.

In a gesture underscoring the significance of the issue, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced the Senate will meet each day until it is resolved, including on weekends.

The two-pronged approach pursued by the House GOP follows the collapse of a weekslong effort to negotiate a sweeping bipartisan plan to cut into future deficits. The endeavor foundered when Obama demanded that tax increases on the wealthy and selected corporations be included alongside cuts in benefit programs, and Republicans refused.

The failure of that effort also reflects the outsized influence exerted by 87 first-term Republicans, many of them elected last fall with tea party backing.

Several Republicans say privately the decision to vote on veto-threatened legislation is paradoxically designed to clear the way for a compromise by giving conservatives a chance to push deep spending cuts through the House and then demonstrating the same measure will die in the Democratic Senate or be vetoed by the president.

As late as last Thursday, Republican leaders held a news conference to tout plans to vote this week on a proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

But the same senior Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting of the rank and file on Friday to say the House would instead vote on an alternative — dubbed by its advocates as “Cut, Cap and Balance.” No date has been set for a vote on the constitutional amendment itself.

Officials said the change in course had been requested by members of the Republican Study Committee, whose members are among the most conservative in Congress.

Supporters of the measure say it would cut $111 billion from government spending in the budget year that begins on Oct 1, and $6 trillion more over the coming decade through a requirement that the budget shrink relative to the overall size of the economy.

Additionally, it would require both houses of Congress to approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution as a condition for an increase in the debt limit.

Both Boehner and Cantor reacted relatively mildly to the White House veto threat.

“As President Obama has not put forth a plan that can garner 218 votes in the House, I’d caution him against so hastily dismissing ‘Cut, Cap and Balance,’” said Cantor.

Other Republicans, by contrast, took a harder line.

“I find it incredibly ironic that President Obama is one of the few Americans who think we don’t need a constitutional amendment ‘to do our jobs.’” Said Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a member of the leadership.

“The point of cutting up the credit cards in order to raise the debt ceiling isn’t to meet his tax-and-spend demands; it’s to force him to stop spending money we don’t have.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made a strong statement of support for the measure.

“Not only is this legislation just the kind of thing Washington needs right now, it may be the only option we have if you want to see the debt limit raised at all,” he said.

“I strongly urge my Democratic friends to join us in supporting it.”

Despite his warning, McConnell and Reid have been deeply involved in writing a fallback measure that is viewed in both houses as promising.

It would allow the president to raise the debt limit by $2.4 trillion in three installments over the next year without a prior vote by lawmakers. Instead, a panel of House and Senate members would be created to recommend cuts in benefit programs, with their work guaranteed a yes-or-no vote in the House or Senate.

Recreating the divide that plagued the earlier negotiations, Democrats want the panel to have the power to recommend higher taxes.

Neither Reid nor McConnell has publicly disclosed the details of the measure, and neither is expected to do so as long as the legislation in the House is pending.

Grand opening of the new Rivers Casino in DesPlaines brought thousands to be part of the history making day. | Al Podgorski~Chicago Sun-Times

Article Extras

Updated: July 18, 2011 7:43PM

With maximum wagers up to $100,000 in baccarat and $25,000 in blackjack, Rivers Casino in Des Plaines made it clear right from the start that it’s giving its all to attract high rollers.

But those with more modest bankrolls will find plenty to do. With a by-invitation grand opening Sunday and a public opening Monday, Rivers rolled out tables with minimum wagers of $5 on games including roulette, Mississippi Stud Poker, Three Card Poker and Texas Hold’em Bonus Poker, and $10 on blackjack, craps and mini-baccarat.

For slot players, the 1,050 electronic games include penny and 2-cent machines, though you can’t play just a cent or two at a time. A stop at a 2-cent Vegas Hits machine found that players must wager on all of the game’s 20-paylines, making the minimum bet 40 cents.

How good are the games? A few observations:

Blackjack: On the main casino floor, all games are machine-shuffled, while those in the high-limit room are hand-shuffled. Machine-shuffled games mean you play more hands per hour. Another big difference is that on the main floor, blackjack dealers are required to hit soft 17 — 17s in which Aces are counted as 11, such as Ace-6 or Ace-2-4. In the high-limit room, dealers stand on all 17s, a rule that trims the house edge. If you’re planning to play $25 a hand on up, you’re better off in the high-limit room.

Craps: Players may back pass-line bets with additional “free odds” wagers of up to 100 times their original wager. There is no house edge on free odds, the house edge on a pass bet with 100x odds is only two-hundredths of a percent, making it a very attractive play for high rollers.

Video poker: The best video poker games in the house are the versions of Double Double Bonus Poker (99.0 percent return with expert play) and Deuces Wild (98.9) on machines of dollar denomination on up. Below dollar level, games have lower pay tables and are on multiple-hand games such as Triple Play Poker and Super Times Pay.

Slot machines: Most three-reel games are dollars on up, although there are a few quarter games, including Wheel of Fortune. Following industry trends, a large share of space is devoted to video slots, including penny Jewels of India, and the new 2-cent Dirty Dancing, which with all its paylines has a $1 minimum bet.

In all, it’s a varied, something-for-everyone approach. But the best deals are got those who have the biggest bankrolls.

John Grochowski is a local free-lance writer.

Updated: July 18, 2011 3:48PM

A Treasury Department agency awarded a total of $4.5 million to three Chicago community lenders on Monday to help finance affordable housing, health-care clinics, neighborhood charter schools and local startup companies.

The lenders — non-profits lender IFF, the Chicago Community Loan Fund and the Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan Association — will use the $1.5 million that each received to obtain larger loans from major banks. They then loan the larger amount to projects in needy neighborhoods at lower interest rates than would conventional banks.

For example, IFF will use its grant to borrow another $7.5 million in private capital in order to make below-market loans to non-profit projects. The total is expected to grow into $15 million in investments when other equity and financing are included. One of IFF’s investments is the renovation of a building at 1700 W. 83rd St. that will open this fall as a LEARN charter elementary school.

The Chicago Community Loan Fund helped finance the Dr. Martin Luther King Legacy Apartments — 45 units of affordable rental housing— in North Lawndale, and the savings and loan association helped South Side donut shop Dat Donuts, 8251 S. Cottage Grove Ave., open a second outlet at 1979 W. 111th St.

The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, part of the U.S. Treasury Department, will distribute $201 million nationwide this year — more than quadruple its $42 million allocation four years ago. The fund’s allocation Monday of $142.3 million in total to 155 local financial institutions is expected to create 25,000 jobs.

The fund has received bipartisan Congressional support because Democrats and Republicans “get” the importance of affordable housing, as well as the key role that small-business and community-development projects play in creating jobs, said Fund Director Donna J. Gambrell.

“These organizations have long-held reputations for lending money quickly and efficiently because they have deep roots in their communities, know their customers and understand how to mitigate risk,” Gambrell said.

Gambrell, accompanied by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., toured a business-incubator building at 320 N. Damen Ave. to see results of the financing.

The officials toured the Fulton-Carroll Center, jointly owned by the Industrial Council of Near West Chicago and the Kinzie Industrial Development Corp., a 410,000-square-foot business incubator that got its start 31 years ago with two CDFI grants, and now houses 120 companies. The center showed off consumer-goods companies Passion House Coffee Roasters, a three-month-old roaster that opens itself to the neighborhood for tastings every Wednesday afternoon, and Element Bars, a company that makes protein bars that customers fashion to their liking.

Updated: July 18, 2011 8:45PM

There will be no storybook ending for Borders. The 40-year-old book seller could start liquidating its 399 stores as early as Friday.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based chain, which helped pioneer the big-box bookseller concept, is seeking court approval to liquidate after it failed to receive any bids that would keep it in business. The move adds Borders to the list of retailers that have failed to adapt to changing consumers’ shopping habits and survive the economic downturn, including Circuit City Stores Inc., Blockbuster and Linens ‘N Things.

On Thursday, Borders is expected to ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York at a scheduled hearing to allow it to be sold to liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group. If the judge approves the move, liquidation sales could start as soon as Friday; the company could go out of business by the end of September.

At the Borders on State Street, fans of the big-box book store were saddened by the news.

“I’ve been going to this Borders since it opened,” said Ramon Robinson, 27, of Morgan Park. “I’ve been meeting people here since I was a student at Whitney Young. . . . If you’re getting ready to see a show or have time before a concert, you get off the Red Line and there’s Borders.”

“It’s hard — where do you go for books? The library doesn’t have the novelty and the feeling of freshness and innovative ideas from the new books. I don’t know what I’ll do,” said Robinson. “I suppose I’ll buy a Kindle.”

Borders Group Inc., based in Ann Arbor, Mich., filed for bankruptcy protection in February, and shuttered half of its 30-plus stores in the Chicago area. Borders currently operates about 400 stores, down from its peak in 2003 of 1,249 Borders and Waldenbooks, and has about 11,000 employees.

Borders had been seeking a new white knight bidder after a $215 million bid by private-equity firm Najafi Cos. dissolved late last week. Creditors and lenders argued the chain would be worth more if it liquidated immediately.

Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group will liquidate the chain under terms of the agreement.

Borders said it is could not provide details on how store gift cards will be affected by the liquidation.

Mike Mangan, 68, of Mount Prospect said he came to the Borders on State when he worked in the Loop, and still does when he comes downtown.

“I came for the selection of books, the size of the stock,” said Mike Mangan, 68, Mount Prospect. “…I guess they just can’t compete with online sales — I bought my last 10 books on my Kindle, so I’m part of the problem.”

AP with Staff Reporters Ariel Cheung, Sandra Guy contributing

The top executive at the Chicago Tribune will oversee six other Tribune Co. daily newspapers as part of a reorganization that will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs.

The changes announced Monday will give Chicago Tribune Publisher Tony Hunter responsibility for all Tribune Co. newspapers except the Los Angeles Times. The other newspapers reporting to Hunter are the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, The Sun of Baltimore, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., and Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

With Hunter taking on more duties, Tribune Co. promoted Vince Casanova to president and chief operating officer of Chicago Tribune Media Group. In that role, Casanova will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Chicago Tribune and other holdings in that division.

The Los Angeles Times, the largest of Tribune Co.’s newspapers, still reports to its publisher, Eddy Hartenstein, who was named Tribune Co.’s CEO in May.

The latest reshuffling will help the Tribune Co.’s publishing business reduce the size of its finance and administrative departments.

Some jobs are being eliminated in the overhaul, Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said. He declined to provide specifics. Tribune Co. employs more than 12,000 people at its newspapers, television stations and other media properties.

A steep downturn in newspaper revenue thrust Tribune Co. into federal bankruptcy protection in December 2008. The slump made it more difficult for the company to repay the debt that it took on in an $8.2 billion buyout engineered a year earlier by real estate mogul Sam Zell. Tribune Co. is still trying to come up with a bankruptcy reorganization plan that will satisfy all of its creditors.

In a statement Monday, Hartenstein said the company fared better than management anticipated during the first half of the year as broadcasting revenue came in ahead of projections. But newspaper revenue is still falling, he said, without providing any specific figures.

Revenue is falling at other major newspaper publishers, too. Gannett Co., the largest U.S. publisher, said Monday that revenue in its newspaper division fell by 6 percent, or nearly $112 million, during the first six months of the year compared with a year earlier.

Updated: July 18, 2011 8:45PM

How do you prepare for a financial cataclysm that may not happen?

That’s the question facing investors as an Aug. 2 deadline approaches for Washington to raise the government’s borrowing limit or risk a U.S. default on its debt.

Economists say a default could create a credit crisis similar to what happened after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, causing interest rates to rise and harming the economy. But the reaction in the stock and bond markets has been muted.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 12,479 last week, about where it stood at the start of the month.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note stood at 2.89 percent Monday. It was 3.74 percent in Feburary, when almost no one was talking about the debt limit.

In theory, Treasury bonds should have a higher yield when investors think there’s a greater risk they won’t get their money back, such as in the event of a U.S. government default.

So Wall Street appears to think a deal will be struck in time. But the alarming headlines are causing investors anxiety.

“We’re seeing clients growing nervous as they keep hearing about the deadline,” says Oliver Pursche, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services in Suffern, N.Y. He says investors are asking him whether they need to change to their portfolios.

So what should you do if you’re worried about a default? Here are five things to keep in mind.

———

1. Don’t abandon your long-term plan.

Most investors who had diversified portfolios in 2008 and stuck with them have made up their losses, despite a 57 percent drop in the Standard Poor’s 500 from its peak in October 2007 to the market bottom in March 2009.

Investors who panicked and withdrew their money from the stock market have found it tougher to recover.

“Don’t get waffled around emotionally by all of this short-term noise,” says Michael Farr, chief investment officer of Farr, Miller Washington, an investment firm in Washington, D.C.

———

2. Be wary of bonds.

Conservative investors who sought to avoid the volatility of the stock market and flocked into bonds could get burned.

A default could drive up the cost of government borrowing for years to come and lead to higher interest rates for everyone else. If that happens, bonds would lose value because their prices move in the opposite direction of interest rates.

Even a brief default could be enough to hurt the credit rating of U.S. debt and usher in an era of higher interest rates, cautions Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.

If you want to position yourself for an impasse on the debt ceiling, consider Treasury bills with a maturity of six months or less. Look for those maturing sometime after August. Their short-term nature means their prices are less affected by an increase in interest rates. That’s because investors will receive their principal investment before there are larger changes in the economy. Investors should also steer clear of Treasury notes with a maturity of 10 years or longer because their prices may face steep price declines as interest rates climb. Bank CDs are another option, although the yields are minuscule.

———

3. Remember that rebalancing can be risky.

Adjusting your 401(k) retirement plan to shift money out of the stock market and into cash is always an option for a nervous investors. But you should weigh the repercussions first.

If you pull money out of stocks now, you could miss a “relief rally” if the market climbs after a last-minute debt deal. Even if you’re correct, and move your money before a decline in the market, you’ll need to get the timing right a second time when you shift back into stocks. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself on the sidelines when market momentum shifts.

If you have only a year until retirement or you find yourself fretting over your potential losses, playing it cautious may make sense.

“Pull back a little for peace of mind if you’re really worried,” says Tom Root, associate professor of finance and business at Drake University. “But if you have a long-term plan, stay with it.”

———

4. Check your emergency preparedness.

In a period of uncertainty, it’s important to make sure you have access to cash in case of an emergency. Investors should set aside money for emergencies in an easily accessible account, like a money-market savings account. It’s important not to have this money in an investment account because market volatility could leave you unprotected.

Ideally, a single-earner family should have enough cash set aside to cover six months or more of living expenses. A two-income family should have at least three to six months’ worth, says Justin Sinnott, a financial consultant for Charles Schwab Corp. in Seattle.

———

5. Watch for buying and selling opportunities.

This is a good time to remember Warren Buffett’s famous advice: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” As more fear creeps into the market with the deadline approaching, it may be a prime time to snap up bargain stocks.

And if steep cuts to government spending are part of an agreement on the debt ceiling, keep in mind the specific industries that could be hurt the most.

Goldman Sachs issued a note to investors last week listing companies that generate at least 20 percent of their revenue from government. Many are in the health care sector, both providers and equipment suppliers, plus defense contractors.

The turbulent market in the last three years has caused many investors to be overly cautious, says Erik Davidson, deputy chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank.

During the debt standoff, he says, investors should look for higher yields. In particular, the stocks of large companies are paying investors an average of 2 percent annually, and high-yield corporate bonds, which are paying an average of 7.26 percent.

———

AP Business Writers Daniel Wagner in Washington and Candice Choi in New York contributed to this report.

FILE – In the June 22, 2011 file photo, traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Global stock markets took a battering Monday, July 18, 2011, as investors fled for the security of other assets amid concerns that Europe’s debt crisis could engulf larger economies and ahead of another round of discussions over the U.S. debt ceiling.(AP Photo/Richard Drew, file)

Updated: July 18, 2011 8:58AM

NEW YORK — Stock futures are falling ahead of a busy week for corporate earnings reports.

Toy maker Hasbro Inc., newspaper chain Gannett Co. Inc. and broker Charles Schwab Corp. report on Monday. Hasbro said net income rose in the second quarter on stronger sales of Transformers action figures and other products.

IBM Corp. reports after the close of trading. More than 100 of the companies in the SP 500 index are set to release second-quarter results this week.

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow futures are down 95 points, or 0.8 percent, at 12,357. SP 500 futures are down 11, or 0.9 percent, at 1,309. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 20 or 0.9 percent, at 2,335.

Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans. | Tom Cruze~Sun-Times Media

Article Extras

Updated: July 18, 2011 1:39AM

The police chief of Country Club Hills, who with her husband earns more than $200,000 courtesy of city taxpayers, apparently is broke.

Thanks to a series of failed business decisions from theaters they ran on Chicago’s South Side and in south suburban Dolton, Regina Evans and her husband, Ronald Evans, the inspector general of the city of 16,000, have declared personal bankruptcy.

By the time Regina Evans, a retired Chicago police lieutenant, was hired in 2009 by Mayor Dwight Welch, she already was deeply in debt. By the time her husband, also a former Chicago cop, joined her on the public payroll in 2010 in a job that tasks him with investigating her and at least one other relative working for the city, the couple had filed for bankruptcy reorganization of their business, The Prime Time Group.

In filings from March, they said owe $4.5 million. They claimed assets of a checking account with $400.

The Evanses had walked away from commercial leases, loans, credit card bills and big mortgages, and faced lawsuits against themselves,their companies and a not-for-profit foundation Regina Evans founded called “We Are Our Brother’s Keeper.” They faced foreclosure on several properties.

Then they literally didn’t show up for numerous lawsuit hearings, resulting in hefty judgments against them. And one of their own attorneys dropped them, telling a Cook County judge he couldn’t get them to answer his correspondence in the case.

Evans did not return multiple phone messages for comment.

Before her hiring as police chief was finalized, department officials conducted a background check on her.

The deputy commander in March 2009 sent to Welch a memo, obtained by Sun-Times Media, saying the search’s results advised against the hire.

Welch denied ever seeing the memo. He called its author disgruntled. And he said he doesn’t bother with his employees’ personal business.

“She’s done a wonderful job and I feel bad she’s had some personal issues,” he said.

Former Deputy Cmdr. David Palmer wrote in March 2009 that information omitted on Evans’ application pertaining to her businesses and debt sent up red flags.

“If you take time to read the investigative reports, it should become obvious that the information in question in the application was deliberately misleading,” he wrote. “Based on the above, I believe if she was to be hired, there will be a very embarrassing moment in the future for the city of Country Club Hills.”

Regal Theater problems

After retiring from the Chicago Police Department, the Evanses decided to restore and run the historic New Regal Theater on 79th Street in Chicago, buying it in 2008 for $2.36 million with the help of $1.9 million in city loan forgiveness. Their company, the Prime Time Group, also received a $200,000 loan from CEDA of Cook County.

CEDA attorney Joel Handler said the couple didn’t pay the loan back or hire any of the people the money was supposed to pay for. And Prime Time got its check up front, then failed to turn in more documents as promised, he said.

“Before she was supposed to get the money, she was supposed to present certain invoices,” he said.

Handler, who’s trying to free his case from the bankruptcy, told a federal judge Evans and Prime Time never intended to repay the money.

“At the time that Evans entered into the loan agreement, she had no intention of repaying CEDA the entire loan balance,” he said in filings.

Later in 2008, Evans hired a consultant to write grants for the Regal operation on behalf of her foundation. She wanted to start a pre-apprentice program, build a parking garage for the theater, and start a boot camp in the south suburbs.

Consultant James Battieste sued her for not paying him $170,000, though he believed he was successful in getting her some of the grant money. He believed two of her grants had been funded, one through the state Department of Economic Opportunity, though the agency couldn’t confirm that Friday.

“Supposedly what should have been possibly an easy business relationship didn’t work out,” he said. “When it came down for pay, she wasn’t able to be found. She had other obligations that were probably pending before me.”

Failed venture in Dolton

Meanwhile, in 2007, the Evans started Premier Entertainment Center, LLC, planning to replace the Jo River Center in Dolton with a nightclub of their own. Jo River had closed in July 2007, in a shambles, after hosting some big-name acts such as Ludacris and R. Kelly, according to a lawsuit filed against its operators.

The Evans rented the space at 300 W. Sibley Blvd., and opened the doors for shows in November 2007. Premier booked big acts such as rapper Lil Wayne and BET comedy show performers, and local events such as step performances and firefighter reunion parties.

But Dolton police records show a glut of calls to the center. Fights broke out. And according to one lawsuit against the center, a Wisconsin woman attending a show in July 2008 said she was hurt during a concert.

“During the event the scene at the Premier Entertainment Center became chaotic, with fights breaking out and individuals robbing members of the audience,” according to the suit.

While applying for her new police job, Regina Evans walked away from the 300 W. Sibley lease. Her last valid rent check cleared in December 2008, court filings show. She left a tax bill, too, according to the resulting lawsuit. Its judgement accounts for more than $1.75 million of her debt; it was entered against her after she didn’t show up in court or respond in any way to her summons.

Evans became the first black female police chief in the south suburbs.

She was young, Alderman Vincent Lockett said, for someone who had retired from Chicago police as a lieutenant. She seemed like a go-getter.

“You must have some type of skills,” he said.

Welch wanted her to replace his retiring chief. Evans came with excellent recommendations, the mayor said, from Chicago and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. Her transportation company had done good work for the Country Club Hills amphitheater, transporting entertainers.

“That’s how we know her,” Welch said. “She would drive the stars around.”

Prime Time was paid $254,385 from Aug. 2, 2006 until Aug. 23, 2008 for its work for the city, according to invoices obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

But when Premier collapsed, Ronald Evans was out of a job and surrounded by lawsuits.

His wife’s boss swooped in with an offer: $89,000 a year to be city inspector general, with the power and mandate to investigate allegations against his own wife and against his brother-in-law, who’s a recent addition to the city payroll. His wife at that time was pulling in a base salary of $115,000.

She now makes$123,821. He got a big raise, too, to $109,281, according to the city.

Lockett said he and other aldermen who approved her hire didn’t know about her financial history. They never saw any background report.

Welch “comes with recommendations ‘She’s well qualified, a retired lieutenant out of Chicago, lots of police background,’ and that’s pretty much it,” he said.

“I hate now that we didn’t get a chance now to review any background or anything on her.”

Rosemary Konz, an owner of You Me, sits on a Town of Cicero board and is the daughter of Town Trustee Lorraine Walsh.

Article Extras

Updated: July 18, 2011 2:58AM

Why did the Town of Cicero buy 250 rubber chickens?

Or more than 200,000 pens, pencils and highlighters since 2005 when Town President Larry Dominick took office?

Or more than 9,500 backscratchers?

Or 6,000 custom balloons with the name and phone number of the Town of Cicero Rodent Control Department — just a portion of the more than 30,000 custom balloons it bought?

Not to mention the 1,200 beach balls with the same rodent information, out of a total of 11,200 beach balls that the town has purchased.

Those are just some of the hundreds of thousands of promotional items — many with Dominick’s name on them — that the Town of Cicero gives away at its many events for seniors, school kids and residents.

“We use them as promotional materials to promote the Town of Cicero,” said town spokesman Ray Hanania. “The public loves the items.” Some of the items go to town children as free school supplies.

The town buys hundreds of thousands of items, without going out to bid for the best price, from a business based in Downers Grove called You Me that is owned by Rosemary Konz, a member of a Town of Cicero board.

Konz also happens to be the daughter of Town Trustee Lorraine Walsh.

Not that you would know that from the statement of economic interest that Konz files with the county as required by law.

Konz files the annual statement because she sits on a town board, advising city officials on town real estate development. But in her filing, Konz does not disclose that You Me does business with the town, even though the form specifically asks about such ties, records show.

Under Dominick’s administration since 2005, Cicero has spent nearly $600,000 on the promotional items, according to town records. Dominick was elected in 2005 in part on a campaign to end nepotism in town.

Hundreds of thousands of the items bear the Town of Cicero’s name on them — often along with Dominick’s.

Some have a replica of Dominick’s signature.

Others tell residents the item comes courtesy of Larry Dominick.

Still others wish a happy holiday — from Larry Dominick.

From You Me, the town has bought everything from brass-lacquered holiday ornaments to lint rollers to pill boxes to hand sanitizers.

The town also has bought “U.S.A.” coffee cups (made in China), rulers, stuffed animals, even ice cream scoops.

About 4,000 ice cream scoops, in fact, with the motto “To get the scoop … Go to www.TheTownofCicero.com, Town President, Larry Dominick,” according to a town invoice reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The 5,000 mouse pads the town bought from You Me has the town’s website on it as well. Plus Dominick’s name.

If residents need to take care of their appearances, the town has got it covered. Dominick’s administration bought more than 4,000 sticks of lip balm and more than 5,000 nail files.

The town also relies on You Me for some lighter material. Cicero purchased the 250 rubber chickens in 2008 from You Me to hand out to children who attended an event the town cosponsored to salute the achievements of local television personality Son of Svengoolie, whose use of rubber chickens in his act is well known.

Hanania, the town spokesman, says many of the items it buys are for children. There is nothing wrong with many of the items having Dominick’s name on them, Hanania argued.

“It is appropriate to list Town President Larry Dominick and the Town of Cicero on all items purchased by the Town of Cicero,” Hanania said.

Dominick appointed Konz to the town’s Housing and Real Estate Board in 2006, the year after he was first elected president.

She gets paid $9,000 a year for her board service and gets free health insurance from the town for herself and her husband. The town has said it pays people to sit on boards to encourage service from town residents. Konz does not live in Cicero, and Dominick has put many family members and political allies on the town boards.

Konz started the company, You Me Inc., along with her husband, in 1998, according to the firm’s website.

Hanania said the company has done business with the Town of Cicero since the same year the company started — well before Dominick got into office, and that Dominick simply kept using a company that had served the village well.

Konz and her mother, Walsh, the town trustee, are active supporters of Dominick. Konz did not return a phone message Friday. Walsh could not be reached.

Hanania said there is no conflict of interest with the town buying items from a company owned by a town board member who is the daughter of a town trustee.

He drew a distinction between town trustees and officials and someone who is paid to be on a town board.

“Simply being related to someone does not ensure you get a contract nor does it mean you will not get a contract,” Hanania said. “I also don’t think that people who are working for the best interests of the town should be punished or excluded from doing business with the town as long as that business is discussed openly and in public at town board meetings.”

You Me has donated more than $6,000 in cash or merchandise to Larry Dominick’s campaigns for town president or to his political allies.

Walsh was accused in a court affidavit filed in a civil case earlier this year of using threats to stir support for Dominick in her role as town trustee.

Former town employee Tony DeLeon in the affidavit wrote that Walsh threatened his son, another Cicero worker, that he could lose his job if he didn’t contribute to Dominick’s campaign.

“Every year, I was told by Town of Cicero Trustee Lorraine Walsh that I should politically and financially support Larry Dominick and his political organization, the Cicero Voters Alliance,” DeLeon wrote in his affidavit.

The fortunes of You Me in Cicero has steadily improved over the years.

In 2001, Konz and her husband filed for bankruptcy.

“The business has yet to turn a profit,” they noted in the filing, referring to You Me.

Konz’s mother, Walsh, is a former ally of convicted Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, and she was appointed to the Cicero Town Board as a trustee in 2002.

From 2002 to 2005, before Dominick took office, Walsh’s daughter’s company took in about $57,000 total.

After Dominick took office through this year so far, You Me did better, getting more than $580,000, town records show.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, listens as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., left, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Updated: July 18, 2011 2:07AM

WASHINGTON — The next step in the weeks-long saga over how to increase the government’s borrowing cap is to let House Tea Party forces try it their way.

A Republican “cut, cap and balance” plan set for a House vote Tuesday would condition a $2.4 trillion increase in the so-called debt limit on an immediate $100 billion-plus cut from next year’s budget and adoption by Congress of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.

“Let’s let the American people decide,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Do they want something commonsense as cutting spending, capping the growth in government and requiring a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution?”

The idea appears to be to allow Tea Party-backed GOP lawmakers to have the run of Congress this week in hopes that they’ll ultimately be able to stomach a plan emerging in the Senate to give President Barack Obama sweeping power to order a $2.5 trillion increase in the debt limit without approval by Congress.

The cut, cap and balance plan, however, is a dead letter with Obama and in the Democratic-controlled Senate — as is a separate effort by Republicans in that chamber to adopt a balanced budget amendment. Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both Houses, including 67 votes in the Senate, where Republicans control just 47.

“No one believes there are 67 votes for any version of that,” said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

Public opinion polls show that voters like the idea of a balanced budget, but the government faces such massive budget gaps — it now borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends — that the cuts required to eliminate the deficit were too draconian for even the GOP-dominated House to endorse balancing the budget anytime soon. The House Republican budget still leaves deficits in the $400 billion range after 10 years.

The immediate issue is allowing the government to continue to borrow to pay its bills — which include a $23 billion batch of Social Security checks set to go out the day after an Aug. 2 deadline to avoid default.

With the deadline just over two weeks away and with a recent round of White House talks failing to generate a breakthrough, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Republican leader in the Senate, has proposed a plan that would allow Obama to automatically win a large enough increase in the debt to keep the government afloat until 2013 unless both House and Senate override him by veto-proof margins.

McConnell’s plan has political advantages but has come under assault from many conservatives eager to take advantage of the current opportunity to use the need to lift the debt ceiling to force deficit cuts now. But Republicans refuse to consider any tax revenue increases demanded by Obama and Democrats to balance any budget package, and Democrats won’t go along with significant cuts to benefits programs like Medicare and Medicaid unless tax increases on the wealthy are a part of the package.

“It’s not fair to ask senior citizens to pay a price, to ask families paying for their college educations, for their children to pay a price, but to leave the most privileged out of the bargain,” said Jacob Lew, the White House budget director, on ABC’s “This Week.” “Everything has to be on the table.”

For now, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is standing behind his tea partiers. But he seems open to the McConnell idea.

“The cut, cap and balance plan that the House will vote on next week is a solid plan for moving forward,” Boehner told reporters Friday. “Let’s get through that vote, and then we’ll make decisions about what will come after.”

AP

Buzz Orr/Staff Photographer Perry Mandera for Glenview 3 up and 3 down.

Updated: July 18, 2011 2:47AM

For 18 years, the city of Chicago has been trying to shut down what’s now known as VIP’s A Gentlemen’s Club, whose politically connected owner, Perry Mandera, boasts that he runs “Chicago’s only full liquor topless bar.”

City Hall’s position is this: The club’s dancers showed too much butt and too much breast.

The club’s take: No, they didn’t — and, besides, it argued, the city ordinance that makes it illegal for a club to sell liquor if it has performers exposing their buttocks or breasts is unconstitutional.

The courts keep rejecting the club’s arguments. Mandera hasn’t won a court ruling in the case in 10 years, going all the way at one point to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to take his appeal.

But VIP’s is still operating and still serving liquor. Even as Mandera has lost one ruling after another, the courts have stayed those rulings, allowing him to keep operating the club while his lawyers keep fighting the city.

Whatever legal bills Mandera may have piled up, the fight clearly has been worth the effort financially, court records show. Mandera has said in court documents that his club takes in $6 million a year with its mix of near nudity and liquor. That’s at least $4 million more than adult-entertainment venues make that don’t have a liquor license, according to Mandera.

The club isn’t just good for him, Mandera, who declines to be interviewed, has argued in court, but is also good for the economy, employing 180 people, including 100 performers. The women are paid to dance on stage, and they can make more money by doing private table dances.

“According to Mandera, the average dancer at the club was making ‘six figures a year’ by the year 2000,” according to a 2006 Illinois Supreme Court ruling. “Mandera reported his own take from the club to be $75,000 a month.”

VIP’s says it pays $480,000 a year in taxes to the city and state.

“They continue to pay taxes — a matter that one would think would be of some concern to the city,” says David A. Epstein, one of Mandera’s lawyers. “Here’s a pretty benign institution, largely serving out-of-town clients — and the city’s been trying to shut it down for [18] years. I don’t get it.”

The club now called VIP’s originally opened as a nightclub in August 1991. James Levin, then the president of Tru-Link Fence, opened what he named the 1531 Club, so named for its address — 1531 N. Kingsbury.

At first, the 1531 Club didn’t offer nude dancing and wasn’t making a profit, according to court records.

So Levin — who would plead guilty in 2006 to taking part in a minority contract fraud scheme involving fence contracts for the Chicago Public Schools — got a $300,000 loan from Mandera, the president of a trucking business called The Custom Companies. Mandera then became a 50 percent owner of Levin’s company, called Pooh Bah Enterprises Inc.

The club still wasn’t turning a profit, so Levin took a second loan from Mandera — this one for $500,000.

They changed the club’s name to Thee Dollhouse and reopened, with semi-nude dancing, on Feb. 10, 1993.

About two weeks later, undercover Chicago cops went to Thee Dollhouse and found that “dancers at times wore thongs that exposed their buttocks and wore latex . . . that exposed portions of their breasts” — the violations that the city has been fighting since then to close the club over.

As the city’s liquor commissioner, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley revoked Pooh Bah’s liquor licenses and tried to close the club.

Pooh Bah ended up going to court, arguing that the city ordinance banning nude and semi-nude dancing at liquor-serving establishments was unconstitutional — and that, even if the courts didn’t buy that argument, the club’s dancers had, in fact, appropriately covered their buttocks and breasts.

In August 1993, Mandera became Pooh Bah’s sole owner, after Levin couldn’t repay the loans, court records show.

And the dancing continued — with the dancers in thongs and wearing latex coverings over their areolas — as Mandera kept fighting in court to keep his club open.

In 1995, Mandera changed the club’s name to Crazy Horse Too under a deal that turned over its management to Frederick Rizzolo, the owner of the Crazy Horse Too strip club in Las Vegas. Rizzolo has since been barred from managing any strip clubs in the United States after pleading guilty to federal tax charges from his Las Vegas club.

In 2001, Mandera won a temporary legal victory, when then-Cook County Circuit Judge Aaron Jaffe ruled the city’s ordinance was unconstitutional — a ruling that was overturned on appeal.

In 2003, Mandera changed the club’s name to VIP’s.

His biggest loss in court came in 2006, when the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the city ordinance.

Now, his lawyers are fighting only to block City Hall from shutting him down. They say the club has changed its ways — with dancers now wearing bikini bottoms rather than thongs and covering the bottom half of their breasts, albeit with a skintight covering of flesh-colored latex — and that giving the club the “death penalty” would be unfair.

City Hall disagrees. Pooh Bah “flouted” the law “for more than a decade and reaped great financial benefits,” the city says in its appellate court brief. “Among other problems, as Pooh Bah no doubt realizes, it could have avoided any violation with minimal expense by putting a bit more clothing on its dancers, as it purportedly started doing in 2006. Alternatively, it could have refrained from the sale of alcohol.”

There has been no indication when the appellate court will rule.

Ultimately, says Epstein, Mandera’s lawyer, “If we lose the case, we might go back to the new administration and see if there’s any way of legalizing the club.”

Updated: July 18, 2011 2:07AM

For the first time in 76 years, paper U.S. Savings Bonds will no longer be sold at banks and credit unions, the Treasury Department reports. Investors who want to buy Savings Bonds after Dec. 31 will need to buy them electronically through TreasuryDirect.gov , a Web-based program offered by Treasury’s Bureau of Public Debt.

The shift from paper to electronic Savings Bonds is expected to save the government $70 million over the next five years.

Gannett News Service

Updated: July 18, 2011 2:08AM

As Netflix hikes its fees for streaming movies and TV shows over the Internet and sending DVDs by mail —as much as 60 percent — there are a growing number of options for watching movies and TV shows online, on DVDs or through cable TV’s on-demand services.

Netflix Inc. is charging $16 combined for streaming and one DVD at a time, a 60 percent increase from $10 under the old package. Smaller fee increases are coming for Netflix more expensive plans, which offer more DVDs. A plan that offers only online streaming remains unchanged at $8 per month.

So what are some other options?

Amazon’s Instant Video. Amazon.com Inc.’s service offers thousands of movies and episodes of TV shows for online rental. Rental prices range from $1 to $5. There is no monthly subscription plan. Customers can stream movies and shows on computers or on TV sets using a compatible, Internet-connected device such as Blu-ray players and set-top boxes from the likes of Sony, Panasonic, TiVo or Logitech.

Apple iTunes. Customers can rent regular or high-definition flicks and watch them on iPhones, iPads, computers or TV sets using Apple TV set-top boxes. Apple lets people rent first-run, high-definition movies the day they come out on DVD for $5 each, though most movies cost $3 or $4. TV shows are generally $1.

Redbox. This unit of Coinstar Inc., has more than 27,000 bright-red DVD kiosks in grocery stores, drugstores and elsewhere around the U.S. Customers can rent DVDs for $1 per night — $1.50 for Blu-ray.

Blockbuster. Blockbuster shifted to per-day pricing — $3 for the first day for just-released films and $2 the first day of other newer movies. Additional days are $1. Blockbuster offers no monthly streaming plan.

Cable. Of course, you need monthly cable service. The average cost of Comcast Inc.’s basic package is about $60 for TV service, about 100 digital channels, music channels, video on demand and XfinityTV.com. Most cable companies charge $5 for a new movie release and $2 for older movies. Being a subscriber also gives you access to its offerings online and on the iPad and iPhone.

Hulu and Hulu Plus. Besides a free option, Hulu Plus subscribers can pay $8 per month for more content, high-definition viewing and access on the iPad and newer-model iPhones, as well as video game consoles and high-end TV sets from Samsung, Sony or others.

AP

Richard Cordray, former Ohio attorney general, will head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Elizabeth Warren was slated to run the agency but the Obama administration felt that Senate oppositon to her confirmation was too great. | AP

Updated: July 18, 2011 1:10AM

You remember the old expression about “locking the barn door after the horse is out”? Well, that’s what’s happening in Washington this week. After many months of delay, the president is set to name a chief for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, just in time to meet the July 21 kickoff planned for the new agency.

But the new head of the bureau will not be Elizabeth Warren, former Harvard Law professor and noted consumer advocate, who has been organizing the startup of the agency. She generated too much antagonism from the banking industry, which was fearful that she would take too much regulatory power away from existing agencies such as the SEC and FDIC.

Instead the new head of the CFPB will be former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who has been working along with Warren at the fledgling agency in recent months. Cordray faces a tough fight in Congress, but is likely to be approved by the required 60-member margin in the Senate.

The new agency was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to deal with gaping holes in regulatory authority that created the sub-prime mortgage mess. The bureau is expected to have broad authority to establish regulations and send investigators into financial services firms ranging from investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs to credit card issuers and commercial banks, as well as payday loan companies.

The great concern on the “Street” is that the agency places a great amount of power in the hands of one person who is nominated to the job by the president. Most other watchdog agencies, such as the SEC and CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) are managed by a “board” that reflects political diversity, and thus responds to constituents in the financial services industry and in Congress.

On the other hand, many consumer advocates have been concerned that the powers of this new agency would be diluted by political influence. They are certain that an aggressive watchdog agency could eliminate abuses such as those that encouraged homeowners to take out home equity loans and take on mortgages with no down payments.

Regulating human nature

The real issue revolves around whether any regulator can stay ahead of the profit-motivated marketplace. It’s hard to persuade people to act against their own human nature. Surely, I wrote many columns warning against those types of loans. But it’s difficult to legislate against human greed — either on the part of the financial institutions seeking profits, or the individuals who figure they can get a little bit of something for nothing.

There are two strongly motivating forces at work in many financial transactions. The first is the unwillingness to examine closely anything that seems “too good to be true.” The second is the power of the crowd to overcome a realistic assessment of the situation. Whether it was the rush to take on unaffordable mortgages, or to accept all those credit card offers, or to buy “dot-com” stocks with no earnings, there’s a herd mentality that takes over when “everyone is doing it.

I’m not sure that any protection agency can stand against that kind of mentality. Even Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman, admits he got caught up in it.

Protect against products?

It’s notable that many of the financial products that were abused were not illegal. In fact, they were offered under the watchful eye of the FDIC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Attorney’s General of many states. It wasn’t until useful financial products were pushed to extremes of irrationality that the trouble began.

What should the new CFPB protect us against? For instance, what do you think about payday loans? Yes, they can lead to danger — but are they less dangerous, or expensive, than loan sharks used to be? Should they be outlawed? What would take their place for desperate borrowers?

Or what about the lottery? Should the new CFPB outlaw lotteries because statistics show that those who can least afford the few dollars they spend to buy a dream for a few days are the ones who play most consistently?

More states are legalizing gambling. Should the CFPB look into the very real possibility that the spread of legalized gambling could be devastating to consumers’ financial discipline? Or is it just a matter of posting the odds more visibly?

Or to go back to more traditional products, is there a time when the CFPB should step in and limit the number of credit cards a consumer can carry — in the name of protection against excessive debt?

Should there be a 20 percent down payment requirement for a mortgage— or a rule that the monthly payment could consume no more than 40 percent of a homebuyer’s income? That would certainly protect against excesses.

Can one consumer watchdog agency spot the trouble in advance — and more importantly issue the regulations that will stop the stampede in time? I truly hope so, for as PT Barnum is reputed to have said in describing human nature: “There’s a sucker born every day.”

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a big job ahead of it. And that’s The Savage Truth.

Terry Savage is a registered investment adviser.

Joanne Mackey

Updated: July 17, 2011 2:25AM

Joanne Mackey was the kind of grandmother who not only arranged for Santa to drop by her condo for a Christmas visit, but Mrs. Claus, too.

She was the central clearinghouse for all the family news. Her four adult children called her every day, and then she’d pass along their dispatches to the others. Mrs. Mackey made sure they knew about each baby’s new tooth or a terrific report card or a good ballgame.

She was the kind of wife who spent an hour a day talking with her husband — really talking. When the kids were young, every night after the 10 o’clock news, she and her husband Dick would recap their day. They’d discuss the children, and how their classes and baseball teams were going, and whether they were happy.

Even as her health declined, she was still the mom-manager, tying up loose ends to make things easier for her kids.

For her wake, she told them, “You’ve got to get the big room at Cooney’s” funeral home.

For her funeral, she asked for singer Catherine O’Connell to croon a lullaby of a hymn, “Our Lady of Knock,” about the Blessed Mother’s Fatima-like appearance in Ireland.

Mrs. Mackey, the fulcrum at the center of her family, died of cancer Friday at her Park Ridge home. She was 73.

She grew up on the South Side and attended Lourdes High School. Her father, a native of Ballysheedy in County Limerick, Ireland, was influential in the stationary engineers’ union, said her daughter, Colleen Wilcox, and when Joanne finished high school, “Her father said ‘Go downtown and you have a job.’ ” She was hired at the Cook County Zoning Board of Appeals.

When she finished high school, the family moved to the Portage Park neighborhood. She met her husband-to-be at the old Holiday Ballroom.

“Who are you going home with tonight, besides me?” he asked.

“The smartest thing I ever did,” he always said, “was marry your mom.”

They raised their family in St. Robert Bellarmine’s parish. A stay-at-home mom, Mrs. Mackey volunteered for the school board. She was the kind of parent that Catholic educators cherish: “If you called and said [one of the kids] has to improve something, she’d be on his case,” said her friend, Sister Bridget Murphy, former principal at the school.

“There were no cell phones, but they always kept track of us,” said her son Daniel. “They took the time to really know our friends.”

“Mom and dad spent a lot of our younger years up at Dunham Park” near Lawrence and Narragansett, Colleen said. “All of us were big softball and baseball players. Dad loved to coach and my mom was there to cheer us.”

At St. Patrick’s Day, Mrs. Mackey would make 15 loaves of Irish soda bread and give them away to friends. “She’d bring Harrington’s corned beef to work for St. Patrick’s Day,” Dan said.

She also helped keep an estimated 70 North and South Side cousins in touch with each other. A decade ago they traveled to Ireland for a Sheahan family reunion.

Once the kids were grown, Mrs. Mackey went to work for the sheriff’s office, then headed by her cousin, Michael Sheahan. She did community outreach, including teaching seniors how to protect themselves from consumer scams, and safeguarding their medication and emergency information, her daughter said.

“She was very gregarious and a person who could get along with anyone,” Sheahan said.

“I can’t recall her ever not smiling,” said Sheriff Thomas J. Dart, “just really one of the most gracious people I’ve ever met.”

She had a white French poodle named Pepe. “That dog followed her around and would sit perched on the table at the picture window until she came home from work,” Daniel said. After her husband died, Mrs. Mackey moved into a condo building that housed a number of widows. “They all looked out for each other,” said her son Michael, an investor in the Chicago Sun-Times.

She loved nothing better than taking her grandchildren out for pancakes, or for trips to the Choo-Choo Restaurant.

And she always kept Dove ice cream bars in the freezer to share with them.

Other survivors include her son, Richard; her sister, Kathleen Ryan; her brother, Jim, and eight grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Cooney’s Funeral Home, 625 Busse Hwy., Park Ridge. A funeral mass will be at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Paul of the Cross Church, 320 S. Washington, Park Ridge. Burial is to follow at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Hillside.

THE FIXER HAS SAVED YOU

$1,169,482

Updated: July 16, 2011 10:38PM

Dear Fixer: I have some additional information regarding safe, secure and private disposal of unwanted medications, which might be helpful for the reader in Crestwood who wrote to you. The Lockport Police Department has a drop box in their lobby that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I think these boxes are in other communities as well.

It’s free, and the drugs are disposed of properly to help keep them out of our water supply and waste system.

Susan-Marie Brown, Lockport

Dear Susan: That’s a great tip, and thanks to the police in your area for being proactive. Read on for more . . .

Dear Fixer: I return unused prescription meds to the doctors who prescribed them. They have biohazard waste dispensers and have always been happy to accept them.

Janet Fendrych, Chicago

Dear Fixer: Your column about disposing of medications made me wonder: Where did the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration dispose of the 376,000-plus pounds of drugs they collected at their last event?

Janet Sullivan, Riverdale

Dear Janet: Good question. A DEA spokeswoman told The Fixer that once collected, the drugs are taken to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified incineration plant and destroyed. The DEA is planning its next nationwide collection on Oct. 29. It’s still in the planning stages, but if you go to dea.gov and click on “Got Drugs?” at the beginning of October, you’ll be able to enter your ZIP code and find drop-off sites in your community.

End phone bill ‘cramming’

The annoying practice of “cramming” — in which unsavory businesses use your phone account to bill you for bogus third-party services like premium voicemail and hotlines — got a lot of attention last week, with some consumer advocates calling for a national ban.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan joined the fight, testifying before the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee after her office received complaints from consumers surprised to find mystery charges on their phone bills.

Phone bill cramming can occur when a consumer goes online and innocently clicks on a free trial, coupon, recipe or prize, or agrees to a free trial over the phone. It also can happen when a consumer fills out a sweepstakes entry.

The consumer provides a phone number in the process, but doesn’t realize he is going to be billed for a third-party phone service.

The charges can be relatively small, but because they’re so widespread the companies make a lot of money — about $2 billion a year, by one government estimate.

How to stop it? Check your phone bill for unusual line items attributed to a company other than your phone service provider. If you didn’t order something, call your phone company and ask them to remove it from your account. If that doesn’t work, contact the FCC at fcc.gov or (888) CALL-FCC.

Costly Lesson

A consumer’s tale of woe

Back when The Fixer was a beginning reporter saddled with student loans, staying in a fancy hotel while traveling was out of the question. The hotels we stayed in usually had numbers in their name — like 6 and 8.

And at least in those days, those less-fancy hotels were actually pretty good.

Today’s tale of woe is about what happens when a consumer’s expectations doesn’t match the business’.

M.B., a reader in Orland Park, used an online bidding website to name her price for a hotel in southern Wisconsin over the Memorial Day weekend. Despite numerous tries, none of her bids was accepted, so she widened her geographic area and lowered her minimum rating for a room.

Bingo! She got a room! The bad news is it was in a hotel that she felt was decidedly down-market.

“They accepted my $55 price, but what I got was a hotel at a truck stop,” M.B. wrote The Fixer.

M.B. complained to the bidding website and disputed the charge with her credit card company, but she lost. According to the fine print, if the bid is accepted, bidders are committed to paying the price they offered. And the hotel transactions are non-cancelable, non-refundable, non-changeable and non-transferable.

Have you been scammed by an UNFIXABLE problem? If you’ve got something to warn the rest of us about, e-mail it to szimmermann@suntimes.com with Costly Lessons in the subject line. And don’t worry —with Costly Lessons, we leave out last names to prevent further embarrassment.

Getting the runaround over a consumer problem? Tell it to The Fixer at suntimes.com/fixer.

Updated: July 16, 2011 10:15PM

Tough proposed service cuts and fare increases for Metra next year got a cool reception Saturday from the head of the state Senate Transportation Committee.

“I’m disturbed at their come-outta-nowhere announcement,” State Sen. Martin A. Sandoval (D-Chicago) said of Metra’s presentation Friday to board members on ways to counter rising fuel costs and reduced sales tax receipts.

“I have not been briefed . . . by Metra at any point in the legislative year that this was imminent or on their radar,” he said.

Sandoval and state Rep. Cynthia Soto (D-Chicago), who heads the House Mass Transit Committee, will hold hearings this summer “on the efficiency of Metra,” he said.

“I’m going to challenge Metra to demonstrate to the public that they have instituted every belt-tightening measure, like pay freezes, furloughs, administrative reductions and other efforts, before they consider service reductions and fare increases,” he said.

The agency is discussing a range of cost-cutting and income-raising options, including eliminating 31 weekday trains and 18 weekend trains; ending extra service for White Sox and Bears games, and raising fares between 9 percent and 20 percent, Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said.

The cuts are needed to offset a $100 million shortfall created by higher fuel costs, reduced sales tax receipts and the agency’s practice of diverting money for capital improvements to cover operating costs, Pardonnet said. That leads to fewer repairs and more delays.

Pardonnet said the options being discussed would be the agency’s toughest belt-tightening since the late 1970s.

The cuts and increases are only proposals at this point, she said. Public hearings and online surveys would take rider opinion into account, and fuel prices and income from sales tax also would factor into the final budget recommendations, she said.

Metra’s final budget is to be approved Oct. 14.

FILE – This undated file photo shows Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed Ennis house, a Los Feliz hilltop masterpiece composed of patterned and smooth concrete blocks, in Los Angeles. Supermarket tycoon Ron Burkle has bought the Wright house for just under $4.5 million, according to a report Friday July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Kirk McKoy) NO FORNS; NO SALES; MAGS OUT; ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER OUT; LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS OUT; VENTURA COUNTY STAR OUT; INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN OUT; SAN BERNARDINO SUN OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT, TV OUT

Updated: July 16, 2011 10:35PM

LOS ANGELES — Billionaire Ron Burkle has snapped up Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark Ennis House at the relative bargain price of about $4.5 million, the building’s sellers announced Friday.

Ennis House Foundation chairwoman Marla Felber said Burkle, a supermarket tycoon, would continue rehabilitating the 1924 concrete block home, on which the foundation had already spent $6.5 million for repairs.

“Mr. Burkle has a track record of preserving important historic homes, and we know he’ll be an excellent steward of the Ennis House,” Felber said in a release announcing the sale of the structure, the last and largest of four homes Wright designed in an experimental “textile block” style.

Inspired by Mayan ruins in Uxmal, Mexico, the 6,000-square-foot estate is built from 27,000 blocks featuring 24 design variations and has breathtaking views of the Hollywood Hills. It has been featured in several movies, including “Blade Runner,” “House on Haunted Hill” and “Grand Canyon.”

The house, which sits on a hilltop in the Los Feliz neighborhood north of downtown, had been severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and torrential rains caused the retaining wall to buckle in March 2005, sending several of the building’s patterned blocks down the hill.

The house was completed for men’s clothing store owners Charles and Mabel Ennis. Sold in 1936, it has changed hands several times and has seen various alterations, including the addition of a lap pool on its north terrace.

In June 1968, Augustus O. Brown, the last private owner, bought the estate for $119,000 and made extensive repairs. He donated the property in 1980 to the group that would become the Ennis House Foundation.

The group listed the home for sale at $15 million about two years ago after deciding that private ownership was the best way to assure preservation. It later lowered the price to $5.9 million.

Handout art for Jessica Sedgwick’s plaid Shopping story: Converse Wool Plaid Hi-tops for men, $29.99 (originally $85) at Urban Outfitters.

SUKABUMI, Indonesia — Workers who make Converse sneakers in Indonesia say supervisors throw shoes at them, slap them and call them dogs and pigs. Nike, the brand’s owner, acknowledges such abuses have occurred among contractors that make its hip high-tops, but the company say there is little it can do to stop it.

Dozens of workers interviewed and a document released by Nike show the company has far to go to meet the standards it set a decade ago to end its reliance on sweatshop labor.

Nike says nearly two-thirds of the factories that make Converse products fail to meet standards for contract manufacturers, but the company insists it cannot address many of the problems because many factories operate under contracts set before Nike bought Converse in 2003. But a worker at Pou Chen Group factory in Sukabumi — which didn’t start making Converse products until after Nike bought Converse — said she was kicked by a supervisor after making a mistake while cutting rubber for soles. “We’re powerless,” she said. “Our only choice is to stay and suffer, or speak out and be fired.” AP

Jane Fonda’s scheduled appearance on QVC to promote her new memoir was canceled after the cable shopping channel got calls threatening boycotts over her Vietnam War protests, the actress wrote Saturday on her blog.

“I am, to say the least, deeply disappointed that QVC caved to this kind of insane pressure by . . . political extremist groups,” Fonda wrote. QVC did not immediately respond.

CHICAGO – SEPTEMBER 2: (FILE) Signage for Boeing World Headquarters is seen September 2, 2005 in Chicago, Illinois. According to reports on January 9, 2009, Boeing said they would cut their commercial-airport unit by approximately 4,500. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)

Updated: July 17, 2011 6:16AM

As Chicago-based Boeing lobbied against a rival aerospace company to win a $35 billion government contract, its activities included a curious donation: $10,000 to the Johnstown, Pa., Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra was a favorite cause of Rep. John Murtha, the late Pennsylvania Democrat who, as a gatekeeper for the Defense Department’s budget, held a lot of influence over Pentagon contracting.

Boeing ultimately won the contract to build a new military refueling tanker, after the company and its competitor donated to organizations held in favor by key Pentagon generals and lawmakers like Murtha.

The payments were disclosed under a 2007 law that opened a window into more than $50 million in previously hidden spending by lobbyists and their clients, according to a compilation by the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation. Most money spent in 2009 and 2010 went to nonprofit groups that were connected to government officials or honored them.

For companies seeking influence, “it’s a win-win,” said Wright Andrews, a lobbyist and board member of the American League of Lobbyists. “Give to charities and get a tax deduction.”

“There’s no question it gives you better access. Access is power. It goes to having a direct impact on whether you get support or not,” Andrews said.

Boeing, while vying for the tanker deal that was among the largest government contracts, donated to groups that honored, among others, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.); Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), then chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee; Marine Gen. James Mattis, currently head of the U.S. Central Command; and Gen. David Petraeus, the incoming CIA director.

“The Boeing Co. takes seriously its role as corporate citizen supporting charitable organizations in all locations where we have a considerable presence, including Washington D.C.” said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the company. “We have a commitment to support charities that attempt to make a difference in areas that Boeing has identified as priorities.”

According to the Sunlight Foundation compilation, $36.3 million of the $50 million went to organizations composed of lawmakers, affiliated with them, or that honored them. Another $11 million went to organizations that honored or were connected with executive branch officials.

“By giving millions to nonprofits and charities that lawmakers have a connection to, lobbyists and special interests have a very discreet way of currying favor with the members of Congress they’re trying to influence, one that the public is rarely aware of,” said Bill Allison, editorial director of the foundation. “How much more money is contributed to these nonprofits by clients of lobbyists or others with an interest in federal policy is unclear, since only lobbyists have to disclose these contributions.”

The top recipients from all donors in 2009 and 2010 were the charity arms of the Congressional Black Caucus, $6.6 million, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, $4.1 million, the Sunlight database showed.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.V.) is honorary chairman of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute at West Virginia University, founded in the memory of his late mother.

The institute received a total of $90,000 from two airline giants — United and Continental — during their pending merger, which was before the Senate Commerce Committee that Rockefeller chairs. Donations also came from the combined firm, Chicago-based United Continental Holdings.

Megan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the merged airline company, said, “We have a long history of supporting this foundation and other health related causes, and we make contributions to worthwhile organizations in many of the communities we serve throughout the country.”

Said a Rockefeller spokeswoman: “The senator’s personal commitment to supporting research for Alzheimer’s disease is completely separate from his work in public office, and the senator intends to keep it that way.”

AP

The debt crises in Europe and the United States should keep the stock market volatile. | AP

Updated: July 17, 2011 2:24AM

Summer is generally a calm season for the financial markets. It offers time to reflect, check your mutual fund portfolio, and see whether you’re on track.

But this summer, the stock market is volatile. Bond investors wonder when interest rates will rise, cutting into returns. A debt default still is possible in Greece. It could happen in the U.S., too, if Congress and President Barack Obama fail to raise the government’s debt ceiling.

Despite all the uncertainty, there’s no excuse for inaction.

Periodically tweaking the mix of stocks, bonds and any alternative assets, such as gold, is essential to avoid taking on too much risk or becoming too conservative. Also take a close look at investments in recently hot segments of the market. Top performers may make up a bigger piece of your portfolio than you’re comfortable with.

Here are seven portfolio checkup tips, including special considerations for the current market environment:

1. Create a plan

Determine your appropriate asset mix. For example, an investor expecting to retire in 2025 might set a target of about 70 percent in stocks and 30 percent in bonds. If you’re retired, you’ll want to reduce risk and emphasize bonds. If you’re younger, be bolder and emphasize stocks.

2. See where you stand

To assess your asset mix, examine all of your investments — 401(k)s,
individual retirement accounts and any individual stocks. Don’t overlook accounts with former employers. See how far you may have strayed from your target asset allocation percentages. Rebalance if you’re 5 percentage points or more above or below your targets.

3. Dive deep to diversify

A more thorough review can pay off. Examine your investments within each asset category, with an eye toward diversification.

One tool to uncover trouble spots is Morningstar’s Instant X-Ray, on Morningstar’s website under the ‘tools’ tab. It breaks down total investments by asset category and highlights market segments where an investor may be over- or underexposed. It can also show whether multiple mutual funds count the same company’s stock among their top holdings.

4. Consider doing nothing

If a portfolio checkup doesn’t reveal any big variations from your savings goals, it may not make sense to make any adjustments.

5. Limit interest rate risk

Bond investors face substantial long-term risk from an inevitable rise in short-term interest rates, currently near zero. When the Federal Reserve raises rates, prices for bonds with locked-in rates will drop. When rates rise, investment returns will decline at bond mutual funds, which continually buy new bonds to replace those that have matured. Bonds with maturity dates of 15 years or longer are more vulnerable to rising rates.

6. Consider what’s hot, not

Stocks of small companies have performed unusually well in recent years. Funds that specialize in small-cap stocks have returned an average of more than 9 percent a year over the latest 3-year-period, versus less than 4 percent for large-cap funds. That’s why small-cap stocks deserve special scrutiny to ensure they don’t make up a disproportionate share of your portfolio.

Market segments that have been hot this year and deserve special attention include health-care stocks and real estate investment trusts. Stocks of big banks have fared poorly, financial services funds have lost an average 3 percent — which could present a buying opportunity.

7. Stay flexible:

Maintaining cash investments such as money-market funds can provide cushion from a stock market decline. Cliff Caplan, a financial planner and president of Neponset Valley Financial Partners in Norwood, Mass., is considering increasing holdings in gold. He’s not alone. Investors bid gold prices up to an all-time high of $1,589 an ounce — not adjusted for inflation — partly because of fears over the U.S. debt ceiling debate. AP