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Hunter Biden, who is embroiled in a tenuous legal position, reportedly downsized to a $15,800 a month ocean view Malibu home, a substantial cut back from his previous $20,000 a month California residence. While the national average rental price is just north of $2,000 a month, Hunter Biden, the first family’s business rainmaker, pays $15,800 a month for a beautiful residence on the Pacific Ocean, the Daily Mail reported. Hunter Biden’s new home is a three-bed, three-bath compound with panoramic sea views, built on a cliff in a gated community. The rental’s listing calculates the home’s square footage to be...

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department is offering buyouts of up to $25,000 in an effort to trim 641 employees from its ranks, department officials said Saturday. A state official told ABC News the voluntary buyouts would be in addition to the normal attrition expected within the department by the end of 2018. Multiple officials told The New York Times that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's goal is to reduce the department by 8 percent, or 1,982 people. The department already has instituted hiring and promotion freezes, left a number of ambassadorships and senior leadership positions fulfilled and...

On March 13th, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order that will make the Federal government more efficient, effective, and accountable to you, the American people. This Executive Order directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to present the President with a plan that recommends ways to reorganize the executive branch and eliminate unnecessary agencies. President Trump wants to hear your ideas and suggestions on how the government can be better organized to work for the American people. Share your ideas below by June 12th!

In office only five days, India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi is already showing people how a small government, conservative head of state acts. Without even touching his people’s services or their quality, he began on his very first day in office fulfilling his promise to cut the size of his country’s bloated government. He began by swearing in only 23 cabinet ministers, combining several portfolios and eliminating others. It was the smallest number of cabinet posts in 16 years. Only five days later, the Prime Minister did away with an entire layer of government by summarily abolishing the country’s...

David Halpern, a senior No.10 aide, said loneliness was a “more powerful predictor” of whether a pensioner would be alive for more than a decade than whether they smoked. He also suggested that elderly people who did not move to smaller homes were contributing to the shortage of housing in England. On an official visit to Sweden, the Prime Minister and some of his key advisers discussed radical plans on retirement with their Scandinavian counterparts. Mr Cameron said he supported plans to increase the retirement age in line with life expectancy which could see workers remaining in employment until well...

Driving from California to East Texas, my daughter and grandson were 90 miles into the Lone Star state when traffic was stopped at a road block just outside the little town of Sierra Blanca. Drug-sniffing dogs worked down the line of cars. Under treatment for a medical condition for which her California doctor prescribed medical marijuana, my daughter had a small amount in her luggage in the trunk. The dogs immediately sniffed it. She showed the police her medical authorization, but California law didn’t apply in Texas. She and my grandson were arrested, taken to jail and put into a...

They had the land and the plan ready for a 3,000-square-foot retirement home. But sticker shock and a sour economy spurred Lee and Donna McCollough to downsize their dream into a 336-square-foot "country cabin." "It was mostly an economic move. But itÂ’s serving our lifestyle very well," said Lee McCollough of their home near Schulenburg in South Texas. Built from vintage salvage materials by Tiny Texas Houses of Luling, McCollough said the "turnkey package" cost $70,000. "ItÂ’s great," said the 62-year-old retired electrical technician. "People are impressed with the construction and coziness of it. ItÂ’s built like an Igloo...

The postal service You've got (no) mail Apr 30th 2009 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition The postal service has been hit hard by the recession and by faster competition ENGRAVED magnificently above the columns of the main post office in Manhattan is a promise of the postal service’s resilience. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night”, runs the motto, “stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Inclement weather is one thing, but the downturn is posing a greater challenge. Starting on May 9th, New York’s main post office, which prides...

One of my readers is an underemployed 59-year-old man from among us here in the South Suburbs. Call him Harry. He works in information technology. Slowly and wearily, he says: "Once you get past 50, I swear, it gets tough, it gets really tough." For instance, Harry applied for a job with a city of Chicago department that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He got an offer for some contract work. There were no benefits, but it was a paying job. A woman from the city called him one Monday morning and wanted to know if...

Travel Weekly Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The bubble will burst this year for travel companies outsourcing call centres to India, recruitment chiefs have predicted. Problems with language, customer service and call handling are forcing companies to think again about using cheap labour for activities such as sales calls. AA Appointments managing director John Tolmie said: "It makes sense to have back office and ticketing in India if you want low skills and the numbers, but the British public are put off by people trying to sell them something from overseas. You do not get the levels of service you expect....

The word "reinvent" is a dumb term, having an overtone of redundancy. After all, when you have invented something, it exists. You can revise it or change it, but you can't "reinvent" it after you have already invented it. I never heard the term when I first entered the workforce. But somewhere in the 1970s or so, corporate executives-began using the word, and using it a lot. Then as now, the nation had its usual economic ups and downs, but suddenly after one downturn, our nation was heavily laden with companies that had reinvented themselves. What happened is that after...

I quit! Overworked employees are fed up: a survey finds 8 out of 10 Americans want a new job. November 12, 2003: 9:42 AM EST By Leslie Haggin Geary, CNN/Money Staff Writer New York (CNN/Money) - Ready to quit? You have plenty of company. Many employees are overworked, stressed out, fed up -- and eager to quit their jobs once the economy picks up. In fact, worker angst is so pronounced that it has surprised even the most tuned-in human resource professionals. Consider, for example, that more than eight in 10 workers plan to look for a new job when...

Repairing hiking trails in Acadia National Park. Tracking lobsters aboard fishing boats. Publishing an environmental newsletter for 5,000 teachers statewide. These conservation-related programs and numerous other activities are bracing to do without scores of volunteers funded by the federal AmeriCorps program. Congress has been unable to resolve disputes over whether to funnel $100 million to the financially troubled agency. Now the uncertainty threatens to undermine the entire program because organizers say they must know by Aug. 1 how many volunteers to recruit and hire for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Congress almost certainly cannot approve any funding until...

Author's "Truth" More Fancy Than Fact Pablo Wegesend Recently, filmmaker and political satirist Michael Moore has been getting some publicity. His most recent book "Stupid White Men" has been on the New York Times bestseller list for a while and his latest film "Bowling for Columbine" has received great applause at the Cannes Film Festival recently. His earlier works include his book "Downsize This", films "Roger and Me" and "The Big One," and the canceled TV show "TV Nation." Some of you may not be familiar with Moore's work. Michael Moore isn't a mainstream star, but he is a...