The details of the shooting were still under investigation, the police said, but it appeared that the gunman and the police exchanged gunfire.

No one knows exactly which websites, or how many, are participating in the event, though more than 100,000 people and websites have pledged to join the cause, according to Causes.com. The event is also spreading across Twitter with the hashtag #momentforSandyHook.

Ron Conway, a high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalist, is one of the core individuals pushing the campaign, which is actually part of a larger debate about federal gun control legislation. Conway is leading the Causes.com pledge, joined by other such celebrities as Ryan Seacrest, Jack Dorsey, Britney Spears, MC Hammer, Suze Orman, and Tyler Florence.

Causes.com is a startup company using social media to spread awareness about charities and causes, and Conway is one of the major investors in the company.

Any site can participate in the moment of silence, regardless of whether they signed the pledge. The site merely has to go offline for a bit, or the site can embed a bit of official code from the campaign to cause their site to go dark. Go to webmomentofsilence.org to sign up for a bit of JavaScript that makes it easier to go dark for the Sandy Hook moment of silence.

Again, websites going dark for a Sandy Hook moment of silence is part of a nationwide debate over federal gun control legislation. Earlier this week Conway and some other notable celebrities and tech geeks placed an ad about gun control in the New York Times.

Major websites going dark is not a new occurrence. The most recent nationwide call to go dark happened during the successful online protest against Stop Online Privacy Act.

A man was arrested for pushing a man onto the tracks of an oncoming train in New York City.  He pushed the man and watched from the platform, making no effort to help him up, as the man was hit by an oncoming train.

“He wouldn’t leave me alone, so I pushed him,” Naeem Davis told investigators, according to the sources. “I saw him get hit by the train.

There’s so much controversy to this story regarding what Naeem Davis did and also something else that happened during the whole incident.  A New York Times photographer took a picture of the man being hit by the subway train as it was happening.  The picture was then published on the front page of the Post showing Han with his head turned towards the train, reaching up to try to get off the track.

Han, 58, of Queens, died shortly after being struck. Police said he tried to climb a few feet to safety but got trapped between the train and the platform’s edge. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train as the situation unfolded. Abbasi said, “I wanted to help the man, but I couldn’t figure out how to help,” Abbasi said. “It all happened so fast.”

This brings a huge moral debate to everyone.  Why didn’t he help?  Was the picture that important?  Could he not put his camera down and at least run to try and save the man?

Get the Android App Now!

The New York Times reports that the company is signing up around 2000 people a minute.

Wow that’s a lot of signups!  Can you imagine having that many signups to one of your apps?  Now for the new Android Instagrammers to catch up with iPhone Instagrammers (is that a word?).

OOPS!  NYT made a huge mistake sending out an email on Wednesday.  They mistakenly sent an email to over 8.6 million people rather than 300.  The email sent out told people they’d cancelled their print subscription, and urged them to reconsider by offering a special discount — 50% off for 16 weeks.

Many Twitter followers started thinking that New York Times was hacked or spammed.  They started to publish Tweet’s like, “Was New York Times Hacked?”, but this was not the case according to NYT.  This is a simple mistake if you’ve ever used newsletter software.  It’s very easy to have multiple lists checked off for a blast or get campaigns mixed up.  I guess it could’ve been worse though, what if it was something more personal?  This makes you realize what happens when a business is on a large scale.  It’s so much more detrimental to send off a newsletter than a website with 10,000 subscribers!  All I know is that I wouldn’t like to be the one who takes the blame for sending out that email, what about you?

Google+ hasn’t even been made available on a large scale to uses, and already it has accumulated 10 million users.

And a lot of buzz is building right now about the potential that news outlets can leverage from Google+ by engaging deeper with their readers and audience.

So in response to the Google+ threat, Facebook is launching Facebook Edition. 

Facebook Edition is an initiative where Facebook is reaching out to top new publications and asking them to create Facebook application versions of their content.

With news portals like The New York Times having a Facebook application where Facebook users can get their news, the intent is that more users will remain engaged on Facebook for longer periods of time.

In fact, Facebook would love it if people never left the social network.

This also shows that Facebook is taking notice, quickly, of the rising popularity of Google+ and is already fighting to get ahead of the curve to ensure they remain the social networking king of the web.

via Tehran Times

One AOL insider put it like this:  “6 years to disrupt 100 years.”  Obviously making a comparison between web based content sites and traditional media companies.

Here’s the chart:

It was pointed out quickly by The New York Times that the surge in traffic at HuffingtonPost.com is attributed to the redirects coming from AOL (remember AOL purchased HuffingtonPost.com earlier this year).

Although that may be true, however you cut it, HuffingtonPost.com is getting more traffic than NYTimes.com – period.

I can’t help but also wondering if, on a larger scale, this isn’t attributed to the fact that HuffingPost.com allows readers to access their content for free, while NYTimes.com has created a pay wall – meaning, they are now charging to access content via the web.

So is this really a “paid vs. free” content clash that we are seeing, with HuffingtonPost.com and NYTimes.com being at the forefront of the issue?

Thoughts?

Vote on this issue and discuss it here.

The New York Times paywall is site to go in affect today at 2pm EST today (March 28th).  You’ll be able to read up to 20 articles per month when accessing the Times through your mobile device, iPad, and other NYTimes apps, also when accessing NYTimes.com through your traditional web browser. After you’ve accessed your 20th article in a given month, you’ll be charged accordingly:

• $15 for four weeks of access to NYTimes.com and a mobile phone app.
• $20 for four weeks of access to NYTimes.com and its iPad app.
• $35 for four weeks of access to all of the above.

People who access The New York Times through search engines such as Google and Google News, will only be allowed to view five articles per day before being charged.

If you access the Times through channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, you’ll be able to view the articles even if you’ve exceeded the 20-article reading limit.

Learn more and get subscribed at NYTimes.com/access.

What do you think about The New York Times paywall going into affect today?

It used to be, about five years ago, when SEO (search engine optimization) was the fixation of every online publisher. From blogs like this one, all the up to massive content producing sites like NYTimes.com, the focus was dead set on search optimization and getting higher rankings in Google and the exclusive environment of Google News.

But there’s a shift happening in the way online publishers are generating the highest volume, and the highest quality traffic. And that Facebook is becoming more valuable than Google.

Oh snap… I did not just say that did I?

Oh yeah, you heard me right – Facebook is becoming (or perhaps already is) the more authoritative referral source of online traffic to sites than Google.

And how do I know this, you ask?

Let’s take a look at The New York Times new paywall structure – the strategy implemented to charge for online content.

The New York Times set up a paywall for it’s online edition (NYTimes.com) where you can read up to 20 articles per month for free from the site.

Traffic from Google News will be charged after only 5 visits per month..

However, traffic that comes to a NYTimes.com article from Facebook or Twitter is 100% exempt from the 20 article per month limit – meaning, when you visit an NYTimes.com article from Facebook or Twitter, it doesn’t count against your monthly quota of free articles.

So why would The New Yorks Times charge after 20 visits to their site, and after 5 visits from Google News, but completely exempt traffic from Facebook and Twitter?

To put it simply, social networks are driving a massive amount of traffic to newspaper sites.

Is SEO dead then?

I don’t think so, because you still have the relevance and shear volume of search traffic happening on Google.  Articles that get a top ranking from your site for long tail keywords can be a long term source of continual traffic to your site.

But for sites that are active, producing multiple articles per day on news worthy stories, the NYT is finding that social networks are more valuable than Google.

Why you need a blog and Facebook Fan Page

This brings me to the purpose of my title.

I believe we are at the very forefront of the relevance of Facebook, Twitter, and social networking.

The future of the online world is social, which will also include search. Search algorithms will become highly optimized based on a “friend interactions and recommendations” – it’s inevitable.

And with social networks like Facebook becoming such huge sources of high quality traffic, you can benefit greatly by having a blog and a Facebook Fan Page.

I’ll use this blog – SMSEO – as my example of how to leverage content and social medial.

Every article I write here at SMSEO gets published on the SMSEO Facebook Fan Page.

On my the SMSEO Fan Page, there is a title and an image for the article, along with an additional word or two that highlights the content of the article back here on my blog.

I share each article on my Facebook page with a shortened URL either from Bit.ly or Goo.gl, and that link is clickable, which drives traffic directly to my site.

It’s a strategy that works.

And in the long term, the NYT sees social networks as so such a huge factor in traffic, they decided to keep their content free to those coming from places like Facebook and Twitter.

It’s worth considering.

How about some half-and-half with that coffee? Or as of today, an exclusive digital network that all Starbucks customers can access from their computers and other wireless devices while lounging around at the famous coffee chain?

Though it already took the step to make its Wi-Fi access completely free for customers only mere months ago, Starbucks is taking things up another notch with the launch of the Starbucks Digital Network.

Built in a partnership with Yahoo, Starbucks’ network provides customers with premium access to sites that normally require a subscription, like the Wall Street Journal, iTunes, Nickelodeon, SnagFilms, New York Times, and much more.

Coffee enthusiasts can take up residence in one of the various bar stools or oversized couches in Starbucks, prop their laptops or iPads in their laps, and click away to enjoy the content. They will be able to read digital versions of the nation’s top newspapers, enjoy free books and book previews, stream and watch movies, television shows, and user-uploaded videos, and download exclusive music tracks especially picked out by Starbucks.

Even the business workers who hang out at Starbucks will have something to enjoy, with access to websites like LinkedIn as well as a free trial to some popular job hunting services.

To make things even more inviting, Starbucks also ensured that all of the content provided on the Starbucks Digital Network is built entirely in HTML5, making it completely compatible with smart phones and tablet technology so that no one is left out of the loop.

All of these things work to enhance the customer experience at Starbucks, which in turn will encourage them to go back for a second and third cup of coffee rather than rushing out the door as soon as they hit the cardboard bottom of their hot latte.

Coffee rage will also be averted as customers waiting for their caffeine fix can easily look through what the network has to offer and focus their attention elsewhere instead of concentrating on how long it takes to get a macchiato brewed.

Best of all, all of the content provided by the Starbucks Digital Network will be free.

Seeing as how Starbucks already reaches out to create a unique experience for customers with its exclusive music compilations and other related aspects, it only makes sense that a digital network be the next step.

After all, a great number of Starbucks’ clientele do work at the coffee chain, whether they are students studying for the next big exam or business workers hammering out a new proposal.

Making the Wi-Fi experience more personal and Starbucks-friendly is a great way to reach those customers. It is only a matter of time before other popular establishments follow suit and create their own free Wi-Fi experiences for their most loyal patrons.

Federal authorities are reportedly going to indict Roger Clemens on charges of perjury for making false statements to Congress while under oath about his use of “performance enhancing drugs.” It was not quite three years ago when Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, where summoned to Washington D.C. to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. During the testimony before Congress, Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee were making contradictory statements about Clemens’ use of banned substances.

Watch for the official news to be hitting soon.

Thoughts?

via New York Times

On Monday it was reported that China has passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States. China’s economy is growing so quickly that some experts believe they will actually surpass the United States to become the number one economy globally by the year 2013.

China’s economy is reportedly valued at about $1.33 trillion, and on Monday Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at approximately $1.28 trillion.  The United States gross domestic product was valued at approximately $14 trillion in 2009.

So how has China risen to such an economic powerhouse? Aren’t they a Communist country and isn’t capitalism suppose to be supreme? I don’t really understand this to be completely honest with you.

Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s. So in the last 5 years alone, they have caught up with, and surpassed Japan’s gross domestic product.

Again, I don’t get it…

And yet while the United States and European Union are struggling in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, China’s economy rages ahead.

Can someone help me out here with this…

source: New York Times

The almost certain passage of a bill that will extend jobless benefits has just cleared the Senate with a vote of 60-40 in favor of the bill. Nearly all 60 of the “yes” votes came from the Democratic party.

The New York Times is reporting that “with the bare minimum of votes required to avoid a filibuster, the bill to extend unemployment benefits cleared the most important procedural hurdle in the Senate and advanced to a final vote and all but certain passage, expected later today. Democrats in the Senate moved ahead with the bill after an interim appointee, Carte Goodwin, was sworn in this afternoon to fill the West Virginia seat left vacant by the death of Robert C. Byrd and provide the 60th yes in a largely party-line vote. The bill is expected to be approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

In a time where jobs are bleeding from our country, the new jobless benefits extension bill would have been difficult to stop, especially from a political perspective.

It’s a hard thing to convince those who are without jobs right now that extending the jobless claims isn’t a good idea – just find someone who is out of work and ask them!

There’s an interesting mix of changes and challenges that the business world is experiencing at the moment.

On the one hand, you have the recession. This is forcing everyone, both low end and high end businesses to learn how to do more with less.

On the other hand, you have the web. This is allowing everyone – even the no name brands – to show up, dominate a niche, and profit.

This combination of forces (recession + the web) is beginning to reach it’s way into the world of high end, luxury fashion.

Marc Jacobs, Luxury Fashion

Take Marc Jacobs for example who is a luxury fashion designer with a nearly $5 billion brand.

Robert Duffy, The President and Vice Chairman of Marc Jacobs, is quoted as saying “I was so annoyed last year that I wished no one had our merchandise. All the department stores were panicked, and they were marking things down,” according to the New York Times.

So because of the frustration in dealing with skittish department stores, marcjacobs.com is going retail in September, 10 years after most brands opened Web showrooms.

The argument will be however that a luxury fashion website will be nothing more than high end flash, and beautiful pictures. And everyone knows that you need more than that to generate traffic from the web.

But I have only 2 words for this argument – social media.

Luxury brands like Marc Jacobs and others that are now turning to the web already have a strong brand name in place.

Couple that with an aggressive blogging and social media campaign, you now have an entire online presence that can command traffic and attention.

Most importantly, you have high end luxury brands that are able to command higher prices than what a retailer would be able to generate.

Best of all, when luxury fashion brands – or any brand for that matter – builds their own online presence, and sells their own products from their own website, they’ve instantly cut out the middleman.

Now these brands can not only increase profits, but they can also increase customer interaction and further build their brand and influence far beyond what a retailer could achieve.

[image from Marc Jacobs website]

According to the New York Times, General David H. Petraeus  got sick during a Senate testimony on Capital Hill and had to be rushed out of the Senate hearing.

(Source: NYTimes.com) – The commander of American forces in the Middle East, Gen. David H. Petraeus, appeared to swoon or faint briefly during an intense period of questioning by senators Tuesday on whether the military can fulfill President Obama’s orders to begin pulling troops from Afghanistan in July of next year.

Gen. David H. Petraeus was surrounded by staff after appearing to faint briefly on Tuesday while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

General Petraeus, a long-distance runner, pitched forward toward the microphone where he was seated, and was escorted from the Senate hearing room as the session was adjourned by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Senator Levin announced a few minutes later that General Petraeus appeared to be feeling better, and was eating and drinking water.

General David Petraeus returned about 30 minutes later and was greeted with applause from those in the audience.

It sounds like something Spock and Scotty might debate about in Star Trek, but this is reality.

Science says that it has come across a clue that could help explain why the universe is comprised of matter and not antimatter.

The New York Times has reported that researchers at The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory say they have produced pairs of particles called “muons” by generating collisions of protons and anti-protons.  These collisions of protons and anti-protons produce the muons more frequently than they produce anti-muons.

“This result may provide an important input for explaining the matter dominance in our universe,” Guennadi Borissov, a co-leader of the study from England’s Lancaster University, said Friday at the Fermi lab in Batavia, Ill.

By arriving at the answer to “why the universe is comprised of matter and not antimatter,” it could be revealed why we even exist, scientists say.  (Just my thoughts, but I’ve known why we exist since I could read.  I didn’t need an atom smasher.  But who am I to argue with science?)

The researchers say the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator  near Geneva, Switzerland, will help move the research forward.

Joe Lykken, a theorist at Fermilab, agrees the potential for a significant breakthrough in answering why we exist is great.

He goes on to add, “So I would not say that this announcement is the equivalent of seeing the face of God, but it might turn out to be the toe of God,”

Well, the purpose of science is to help us see the glory of God by understanding His creation.  So, if this study succeeds, then we will see that there is more glory in God’s toe than there is in the answer

(New York Times) –  Financial markets went into a tailspin in Europe and the
United States on Friday as investors took a second look at the plan meant to end Europe’s debt crisis.

Only five days after the European Union and the International Monetary Fund approved a $957 billion package signaling a “shock and awe” commitment to head off a spread of the crisis, new worries emerged about the effect of drastic
austerity measures for the fragile European economies, the prospect of a restructuring of Greek debt, and the future of the euro.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index ended the day nearly 2 percent lower, in preliminary figures, and major indexes in Europe were down 3 percent or more. The euro, which rallied sharply earlier in the week, fell below $1.24, an 18-month low.

[source New York Times]

This coming Saturday, May 15th, is a day that for many is the “forgotten”  holiday.  But this day honors the many men and women who have made it so that we, and many nations world wide, can live in freedom.  This day is Armed Forces Day.

President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.

On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department — the Department of Defense.

In the United States, Armed Forces Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in May. It falls near the end of Armed Forces Week, which begins on the second Saturday of May and ends on the third Sunday of May.

If you read the New York Times and own an Android handset you might want to download this application.

The application has been available on the iPhone for a while now.

And it’s basically a straight port of the iPhone version. The application will have a simple user interface & black & white color scheme.  And will feature photo’s, sharing options & videos. So if you read the New York Times and want to take it with you in your pocket then scan the qrcode &download this application.

Josh Uhlemeyer,

Former Author of Mobile News Now.

Twitter:www.twitter.com/joshuhl

Gail Lumet Buckley – is a journalist and the daughter of Lena Horne, also the former wife of film director Sidney Lumet. Gail Lumet Buckley birth name is Gail Horne Jones was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA on 21 December 1937. Gail Lumet Buckley become the HOT trends a past hour and I still don’t know why Gail Lumet Buckley still on the top of search trends.

Lets take a look of her short Bio

Gail Lumet Buckley is a journalist and the daughter of Lena Horne. Her family history — The Hornes — became an American Masters documentary, and she narrated a documentary on black American families for PBS. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, the New York Daily News, and The New York Times. She lives in New York.

Gail Lumet Buckley Books

• American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm
• The Hornes: An American Family
• Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture

Gail Lumet Buckley Quotes

“Family faces are magic mirrors looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future”

“Whites they pretended to ignore, as they busily lived mirror-image white lives.”

Part of Times Square had to be evacuated after a suspicious package was found in the vacinity.

Part of Times Square was evacuated between West 44th and West 47th Streets after the police received reports of a suspicious package at Broadway and West 46th Street at about 12:45 p.m. It was the second suspicious-package call and at least partial evacuation in the area of the day, according to the New York Times.

The package “looks like a cooler,” a police spokesman said. “We’re trying to see if it’s clear.”

It was the second suspicious-package call and at least partial evacuation in the area today.

Several streets have been closed as a precaution because the cooler was found a few blocks from where a smoking SUV and failed car bomb was found Saturday night.

There are several blocks closed as a precaution due to the worry over a possible bombing. NYPD are being especially careful because of the failed car bomb attempt in Times Square on Saturday, May 1, 2010.

Are The Terrorists Winning Even If People Aren’t Dying?

People in New York City are seriously on edge, and rightly so.

But we have to ask ourselves, are the terrorist winning their little war even though car bombs aren’t exploding in Times Square?

I mean, if the terrorists have planted such a f ear into our hearts and minds, and Times Square is continually evacuated several times a day, and we live in perpetual paranoia over bombs, car bombs, and terrorist attacks, what kind of life is that?

Faisal Shahzad, now in custody on terrorism and weapons charges was reported to scout the Times Square district of New York in a Nissan SUV looking for the best place to leave the vehicle later.  He then returned on a second trip and left his getaway car (a black Isuzu)  just blocks from his chosen target.  Police have video of Shahzad in Times Square just moments after the botched attack.

The Pathfinder was filled with firecrackers, gasoline and propane.  Although the resulting explosion may not have destroyed much of its surroundings, if it had ignited properly, it would have made a “fire ball” big enough to injure or kill nearby tourists or theatergoers.

Police are in possession of  surveillance video of the Pakistani-American in Pennsylvania buying the fireworks.  He purchased approximately eight boxes of M88 fireworks from the Phantom Fireworks in Matamoras, Pa.  William Wiemer, the store vice president said that even if used together, the fireworks couldn’t have caused an explosion.  “The M88 he used wouldn’t damage a watermelon.  Thank goodness he used that,” said the company’s president, Bruce Zoldan. (Each M88 has an amount of explosive powder less than one-sixth the size of an aspirin.)

Police also said that Shahzad legally bought a rifle from a dealer after he passed a criminal background check and the 14 day waiting period.

The 30 year-old Shahzad admitted to rigging the 1993 Nissan with a crude bomb based on explosives training he received while visiting his homeland of Pakistan.  He tried to leave the country on a Dubai bound jetliner but was pulled off and according to authorities he has been cooperating with investigators.

In what seemed to be a scene out of the “Keystone Cops” or a tale fit for “The World’s Dumbest Criminals”… Shahzad inadvertently left a set of 20 keys (including those to the getaway car and his Connecticut home) inside the SUV.  Doing so meant that he had to take public transportation.  He returned to the scene on Sunday with a second set of keys to pick up the Isuzu getaway car, which was parked about eight blocks from the bomb site.

It was reported at the beginning of March that Google is teaming up with Intel and Sony to deliver a Google TV that will be powered by Android, according to The New York Times.

I wrote on April 5th about a company named Lava that is already set to sell Android powered TV’s.

“Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes. (…) The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel. Google intends to open the Google TV platform, which is based on its Android operating system for cellphones, to software developers in the hopes of spurring the same creativity that the consumers have seen in phone apps.”

Exactly when we’ll see Google TV’s being purchased on a large scale is anyone’s guess, but one thing is for sure, Google’s Android OS is highly flexible to dominate not only mobile phones, but also now TV’s.

An Android powered TV will allow you to quickly access the web right from your living room.

And since Android allows open source web application development, we can only imagine the type of applications that will be available – most for free more than likely – that Google TV owners will be able to download and install, again right from their living room.

What do you think?

So what do you think about a Google TV powered by Android?

Would you buy an Android powered TV so you can have web access right from your living room?

AT&T is making every effort to separate itself from the image of “everyone is ganging up on me so I’m going to stand up and fight back” type of company.

So now AT&T is trying a new angle by calling themselves a lifestyle company and launching a new “Rethink Possible” ad campaign.

Esther Lee, senior vice president for brand marketing and advertising for AT&T, told the New York Times that the spirit of “Rethink Possible” is “so much in keeping with what an innovative company like AT&T embodies.”

David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer for ad agency BBDO North America told the Times that “Rethink Possible” moves AT&T “out of the gloom” and props it as a “forward-thinking, optimistic company.”

Here’s the Rethink Possible commercial:

Health Care Bill Full Text Online (see below)

According to The New York Times, House Democrats have posted the revisions to their major health care legislation.  The revisions to the health care legislation take the form of an “amendment in the nature of a substitute” to a bill reported out earlier this week by the House Budget Committee. Keep in mind that the budget reconciliation measure makes changes to the health care bill adopted by the Senate on Dec. 24. The text of the Senate bill is also posted on the Rules Committee site.

Read the full text of the Health Care Bill Text Online Here

From Allison Busacca:  New York Times

In celebration of JetBlue’s 10th anniversary, the airline is offering $10 fares on all remaining seats between Kennedy Airport in New York and the airline’s first 10 destinations. Travel must be booked online by midnight tonight, Central Time, for travel tomorrow or Wednesday, March 9 or 10.

Jet Blue $10 Flights:

Keep in mind: the $10 fares are only for the departing flight. The return flight is normally priced. Anniversary fares are available between J.F.K. and:

• Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
• Buffalo, N.Y.
• Tampa, Fla.
• Orlando, Fla.
• Rochester, N.Y.
• Oakland, Calif.
• Burlington, Vt.
• West Palm Beach, Fla.
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Fort Myers, Fla.

By David Streitfeld:  The New York Times

In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.

For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or even reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.

Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

“We want to streamline and standardize the short sale process to make it much easier on the borrower and much easier on the lender,” said Seth Wheeler, a Treasury senior adviser.

The problem is highlighted by a routine case in Phoenix. Chris Paul, a real estate agent, has a house he is trying to sell on behalf of its owner, who owes $150,000. Mr. Paul has an offer for $48,000, but the bank holding the mortgage says it wants at least $90,000. The frustrated owner is now contemplating foreclosure.

To bring the various parties to the table — the homeowner, the lender that services the loan, the investor that owns the loan, the bank that owns the second mortgage on the property — the government intends to spread its cash around.

Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in “relocation assistance.”

Should the incentives prove successful, the short sales program could have multiple benefits. For the investment pools that own many home loans, there is the prospect of getting more money with a sale than with a foreclosure.

For the borrowers, there is the likelihood of suffering less damage to credit ratings. And as part of the transaction, they will get the lender’s assurance that they will not later be sued for an unpaid mortgage balance.

For communities, the plan will mean fewer empty foreclosed houses waiting to be sold by banks. By some estimates, as many as half of all foreclosed properties are ransacked by either the former owners or vandals, which depresses the value of the property further and pulls down the value of neighboring homes.

If short sales are about to have their moment, it has been a long time coming. At the beginning of the foreclosure crisis, lenders shunned short sales. They were not equipped to deal with the labor-intensive process and were suspicious of it.

The lenders’ thinking, said the economist Thomas Lawler, went like this: “I lend someone $200,000 to buy a house. Then he says, ‘Look, I have someone willing to pay $150,000 for it; otherwise I think I’m going to default.’ Do I really believe the borrower can’t pay it back? And is $150,000 a reasonable offer for the property?”

Short sales are “tailor-made for fraud,” said Mr. Lawler, a former executive at the mortgage finance company Fannie Mae.

Last year, short sales started to increase, although they remain relatively uncommon. Fannie Mae said preforeclosure deals on loans in its portfolio more than tripled in 2009, to 36,968. But real estate agents say many lenders still seem to disapprove of short sales.

Under the new federal program, a lender will use real estate agents to determine the value of a home and thus the minimum to accept. This figure will not be shared with the owner, but if an offer comes in that is equal to or higher than this amount, the lender must take it.

Mr. Paul, the Phoenix agent, was skeptical. “In a perfect world, this would work,” he said. “But because estimates of value are inherently subjective, it won’t. The banks don’t want to sell at a discount.”

There are myriad other potential conflicts over short sales that may not be solved by the program, which was announced on Nov. 30 but whose details are still being fine-tuned. Many would-be short sellers have second and even third mortgages on their houses. Banks that own these loans are in a position to block any sale unless they get a piece of the deal.

“You have one loan, it’s no sweat to get a short sale,” said Howard Chase, a Miami Beach agent who says he does around 20 short sales a month. “But the second mortgage often is the obstacle.”

Major lenders seem to be taking a cautious approach to the new initiative. In many cases, big banks do not actually own the mortgages; they simply administer them and collect payments. J. K. Huey, a Wells Fargo vice president, said a short sale, like a loan modification, would have to meet the requirements of the investor who owns the loan.

“This is not an opportunity for the customer to just walk away,” Ms. Huey said. “If someone doesn’t come to us saying, ‘I’ve done everything I can, I used all my savings, I borrowed money and, by the way, I’m losing my job and moving to another city, and have all the documentation,’ we’re not going to do a short sale.”

But even if lenders want to treat short sales as a last resort for desperate borrowers, in reality the standards seem to be looser.

Sree Reddy, a lawyer and commercial real estate investor who lives in Miami Beach, bought a one-bedroom condominium in 2005, spent about $30,000 on improvements and ended up owing $540,000. Three years later, the value had fallen by 40 percent.

Mr. Reddy wanted to get out from under his crushing monthly payments. He lost a lot of money in the crash but was not in default. Nevertheless, his bank let him sell the place for $360,000 last summer.

“A short sale provides peace of mind,” said Mr. Reddy, 32. “If you’re in foreclosure, you don’t know when they’re ultimately going to take the place away from you.”

Mr. Reddy still lives in the apartment complex where he bought that condo, but is now a renter paying about half of his old mortgage payment. Another benefit, he said: “The place I’m in now is nicer and a little bigger.”

From The New York Times:

American and Afghan troops launched an attack on Marja, a Taliban-held town in southern Helmand Province, The Associated Press reported. In this attack, commanders say they will do something they have never done before: bring in
an Afghan government and police force behind them. American and British troops will stay on to support them.

Read more at The New York Times