Why Didn't 99 Other Senators Close Up Shop Too?
621340
Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton shuts down his office after a CIA briefing
711526
Sometimes one retirement account really isn't enough.
677123
In a March 6 story about Senate action on a homeland security bill, The Associated Press reported erroneously that an amendment to guarantee each state a bigger share of $3 billion in homeland security grants survived a challenge in the Senate. The amendment failed.
111947
Dick Cheney would love our 200 growth companies (see p. 180)--they're small and they are (most of them, anyway) adding to their payrolls. The other day Cheney was singing the praises of small businesses by noting that they create seven of ten jobs in this country. This was by way of justifying tax breaks for the sort of people who own small businesses.
335482
This retailer's still trying to loosen up.
678048
Republican Alan Keyes needs votes, so he is here to meet and greet and make nice. This is a daunting task. Not many of his fellow Republicans have expressed great interest in the the former presidential candidate now running for a Senate seat from Illinois.
93705
Vermont ranks 49th of the 50 states in population, with just more than 600,000 residents.And yet the three major candidates for the stateÃ¢ÂÂs open Senate seat Ã¢ÂÂ Democratic-allied Independent Rep. Bernard Sanders and Republicans Rich Tarrant and Greg Parke Ã¢ÂÂ have so far spent a combined total of more than $9.5 million dollars in the run-up to the Sept. 12 primary.
498724
Lawmakers are people, too. They give, and they receive. And amid the marathon partisan (and intraparty) griping over everything from the farm bill to the mammoth $555 billion spending bill, many of them managed to squeeze in some holiday shopping before splitting town for the Christmas recess.
288118
Also: Online grocers can bring you many things, they just can't deliver a profit. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
467890
Unable to extend tax breaks as part of a broad energy bill two months ago, lawmakers are trying to attach some of them to an emergency economic aid package containing rebates for millions of taxpayers.
693097
(Source: Webex)  Last year 671,800 small businesses opened, while 544,800 shuttered their doors. Not all of these failures were due to bankruptcy. One major culprit was travel expenses. See how you can proactively react to increasing travel budgets and literally eliminate most if not all of them through web collaboration solutions.
513096
The Green Party's U.S. Senate candidate fell about 9,000 signatures short of the number he needs to qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot as counting stopped Friday, according to his lawyers and those of state Democrats.
58554
The Story: Silicon Valley businesses have long argued that changes in the immigration laws are needed to ensure a continuing supply of highly skilled workers. The current limit of 65,000 under the standard H1-B visas is not enough, they say. (The quota was filled in less than a month in 2007.)[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    But that number obscures an important fact: The real total of visas issued to highly skilled workers is closer to 400,000 annually, according to the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) agency. And that, say some critics, may mean that the law is being abused.There are two reasons the number is so large.First, the H1-B visa cap has a built-in exemption that allows an additional 20,000 workers who have graduated from U.S. universities with an advanced degree (master?s or higher) to enter every year.Second ? and the biggest reason ? is the use of L-1 visas, which are granted to executives and workers with specialized skills employed by multinational companies. Because there is no cap on L-1 visas issued each year, the numbers have soared. In the last three years, an average of 315,000 L-1 visas have been issued each year.Unlike the H-1B visas, the L-1 visas are not intended to be a springboard to possible permanent residency and a coveted green card. In essence, the L-1s are intended to allow multinational companies to rotate staff across national borders, so they can transfer foreign managers and specialists within the company to U.S. offices for a limited period of time.But the vast number of workers admitted with L-1 visas has critics suspecting that companies ? Indian outsourcing firms in particular ?are using them as a back door to bring in lower-paid workers to do jobs that could be performed by Americans, rather than for the intended purposes of staff rotation."It's clear that foreign outsourcing firms are abusing the system, and we can't let that continue," Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said earlier this year as Congress debated immigration reform. Here?s what upset him: According to immigration records, 14 of 20 companies whose employees were granted the most L-1 visas were offshore outsourcing firms, including Tata Consultancy, Satyam Computer Services, Wipro, and Infosys Technologies.Tata Consultancy obtained 4,887 L-1s in fiscal 2006 ? the most of any company ? and 3,601 in fiscal 2007, second only to Cognizant (4,869), a U.S.-based outsourcer with a major presence in India. "I find it hard to believe that any one company has that many individuals ? legitimately being transferred within a single year," Durbin said in Congress. (Tata declined to comment to InfoWorld, but a spokesman told BusinessWeek, "We're complying with the law and with the regulations. We want to work with Congress to address any issues they may have.")Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Tata, and Cognizant also appear on the CIS?s top 10 list of companies obtaining H-1B visas for employees in fiscal 2007, along with Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Motorola, and Intel. Those facts further raise critics? suspicions.Bob Meltzer, who heads the VisaNow firm that helps applicants obtain visas, says there?s a growing belief that the L-1s are being abused today, though he can?t tell if that belief is justified. He does note that the L-1s had been abused in the early 1990s in the manner that critics suspect is happening today.The Bottom Line: Immigration is a tough issue. And it?s even tougher when we don?t have all the facts, as is the case on employers? claims of labor shortages requiring more foreign hires and employees? claims of being replaced by foreign workers by companies looking to save a buck. When you?ve figured out the right balance, let the pols know what you think.Complete list of 2007's underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
624037
Weren't Gillette Co. and Filene's enough for Ohio? Apparently not. Even though Cincinnati's Procter &amp; Gamble Co. and Federated Department Stores just finished gobbling those quintessential Boston firms, Ohio Governor Bob Taft will come to Boston Thursday looking to snag a few more companies -- or at least their new or expanded facilities -- for his state.
499776
When criminals need guns, they have plenty of options in a country with nearly 100,000 licensed gun stores. But drug dealers and other crooks don't shop just anywhere. They have their favorites.
44484
A long-awaited Senate showdown on the war in Iraq was shut down before it even started yesterday, when nearly all Republicans voted to stop the Senate from considering a resolution opposing President Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional combat troops into battle.
395473
President Bush isn't the only lame duck in our nation's capital. All 435 Congressmen are up for re-election next year, and so are 34 of our senators. That's a total of 469 lame ducks, the way I see it.