Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's faltering Rhode Island video game company laid off its entire staff Thursday.

An email sent by the 38 Studios company to workers and obtained by The Associated Press says they were notified of the "non-voluntary and non-disciplinary" layoffs on Thursday.

38 Studios moved from Massachusetts in 2010 after Rhode Island offered a $75 million loan guarantee officials said would bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars of tax revenue. The company was more than two weeks late this month on a $1.1 million payment to the state economic development agency. State officials said the company wasn't able to make its payroll.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee said the layoffs were an indication of the "grim times" facing the company and the state, which could be responsible for some of 38 Studios' debt should the company collapse.

The company had 300 employees in Providence, Chafee said. It also has an office in Maryland.

Attempts to reach Schilling and company executives on Thursday were unsuccessful.

Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama still accepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from three Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt told The Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”

On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.

http://politicker.com/2012/05/president-obama-wont-be-returning-his-donations-from-bain-capital/

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.

Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/senate-dems-betray-lilly/

The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress.

A U.S. household's median income is $49,445, the Census reports.

The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government's books.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-18/federal-deficit-accounting/55179748/1

A bill that would close an IRS tax credit loophole that allows the IRS to funnel over $4 billion to illegal immigrants is being held up by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, has been vocal in his disdain for the blatant misuse of taxpayer monies:

I’m disappointed that the Majority Leader objected to our effort today to prevent billions in tax credits from being wrongly sent to illegal immigrants claiming they have dependents, many of whom do not live in the US. This should not be a partisan issue: it is wrong for the government to use Americans’ tax dollars to directly subsidize illegality, especially at a time when our nation is spending so much money we don’t have.

The $4 billion wasted on the illegal immigrant tax credit loophole is “roughly the same amount the President proposes to raise annually by instituting the new Warren Buffett Tax,” says Sen. Sessions. The Alabama senator also notes that it's the amount needed to fund the shortfall in the highway bill and nearly all of the student loan bill.

A tattoo of a giant iguana curling up her chest had seemed like a good idea when she was younger.

“We were 18, and we really liked lizards,” says Kaylie, now 26. “It wasn’t a mistake, but at a certain point it didn’t fit with who I was anymore.”

Kaylie (who asked that her last name not be used) got her tattoo while on a celebratory beach trip with friends following high school graduation. Although three of her friends still sport the matching iguanas they chose to symbolize their friendship, Kaylie recently made the decision to have hers removed for an upcoming wedding and to improve her job prospects.

“I was tired of wearing turtle necks to job interviews, and I didn’t like the way the more closed-minded people judged me just because I had a tattoo,” she says.

After spending more than $2,000 on laser treatments to have her ink removed, Kaylie is now tattoo-free on her chest and lower neck. Although she still has more than 10 tattoos elsewhere on her body, she says having one removed is not something she would do again.

“It was painful, and it was way more expensive than the actual tattoo. I’m definitely keeping the others that I have. I like them, and they’re not in such obvious places,” she says.

Almost 200 employees of G&D Integrated will lose their jobs by the end of the summer, according to a notice sent to employees by the company.

Caterpillar Inc. is terminating its contract with the logistics company and sourcing the work elsewhere in central Illinois, G&D CEO Joe O'Neill said Tuesday.

The notice sent to employees of G&D who work at the Caterpillar STRF facility at 2223 W. Altorfer Drive stated that the layoffs are the result of an unforeseen business circumstance. There are currently 189 employees at the facility affected by the contract termination.

"They sourced the work to another provider," O'Neill said. "Cat makes its own decisions about these sorts of things."

Without specifying what company is taking over the work, O'Neill said he expects that it will hire roughly the same amount of people laid off from G&D.

CAE Inc. is making the largest cut to its workforce in nearly three years by trimming 300 jobs as the flight simulator and training company adjusts to the impact of military budget cuts in Europe.

The Montreal-based company announced Wednesday that it is trimming about four per cent of its global workforce of 8,000 despite growing revenues and profits.

Most of the job cuts are in Germany, but 90 employees in Montreal were notified as of Wednesday they would no longer be needed. No engineering positions are affected. Most are general, administrative and support jobs.

The Christus Santa Rosa Health System informed the Texas Workforce Commission on Wednesday that 400 employees in San Antonio will lose their positions between July 31 and Aug. 13.

The layoffs stem from the consolidation of the hospital system's City Centre at 333 N. Santa Rosa St. downtown into its existing Children's Hospital to form a planned stand-alone children's hospital.

About 90 of the 400 affected workers already have secured job transfers to other Christus Santa Rosa hospitals.

All 400 City Centre employees could find positions eventually, a Christus Santa Rosa spokesperson said.

City Centre is a 400-plus bed adult-care hospital.

Some City Centre units will be transferred to other Christus Santa Rosa hospitals, the letter explained.

Driving onto an Interstate highway? Crossing a bridge on the way into work? Taking a tunnel under a river or bay? Get ready to pay.

With Congress unwilling to contemplate an increase in the federal gas tax, motorists are likely to be paying ever more tolls as the government searches for ways to repair and expand the nation's congested highways.

Tolling is less efficient and sometimes can seem less fair than the main alternative, gasoline taxes. It can increase traffic on side roads as motorists seek to evade paying. Some tolling authorities — often quasi-governmental agencies operating outside the public eye — have been plagued by mismanagement. And some public-private partnerships to build toll roads have drowned in debt because of too-rosy revenue predictions.

Tolls are hardly a perfect solution. But to many states and communities, they're the best option available.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/states-looking-tolls-pay-highways-161604357.html

$15 per month

Skyways Express AB and its subsidiary City Airline AB Tuesday canceled all flights with immediate effect and said it will file for bankruptcy during the day as its owner said it could no longer finance the Swedish regional airline.

Featured today on @WikiCommons: Xysticus sp. lurking on Geranium palustre. (author: ) #CC

Featured today on @WikiCommons: Xysticus sp. lurking on Geranium palustre. (author: ) #CC

"The NCL Club is a repository for interactive applications where authors can publish their ideas, talents, and their development techniques using the NCL language and Lua scripts. The whole site is basically a collaborative environment, where everyone can participate. Perform a search on the repository right now!

See also tutorials and documents that help you on learning NCL. Use the development & testing tools provided by the Ginga Community to start your creation.

Each published application has a Creative Commons license assigned by the author at submission time. When you save or run an application published here in your computer, you are agreeing with its respective license.

In order to publish an application in the Club, you must own all rights to the submitted content, including NCL/Lua code, media files, characters, narratives etc. You are legally responsible for the content you submit."

Faced with no growth in two of its key medical-device markets, Fridley-based Medtronic said it would eliminate about 1,000 jobs, including 250 positions in the Twin Cities.

Most of the local job cuts -- which were first disclosed by the company earlier this month -- are in Medtronic's heart rhythm device unit, which is based in Mounds View and makes pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators.

General Mills Inc. GIS +0.08% said Tuesday it'll eliminate 850 jobs globally in order to cut costs. The Minneapolis-based food company said it'll book $109 million in separation expenses as well as $13 million for the write-down of production equipment. It'll book $94 million in restructuring costs in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, with the remaining costs to be recorded in fiscal 2013. General Mills continues to expect adjusted fiscal 2012 earnings of $2.53 to $2.55 a share, compared to the Wall Street estimate of $2.54 a share in a survey of analysts by FactSet Research.

Hoku Materials has laid off nearly 100 employees at the company's Pocatello plant.

According to a news release provided to the Associated Press: Hoku Corporation announced that as of March 31, 2012, its preliminary estimates of cash, other current assets and current liabilities was approximately $7.7 million, $6.7 million, and $278.8 million, respectively. The current liabilities include approximately $74.4 million of accounts payable at Hoku Materials. Due to the delinquency of unpaid construction obligations, liens have been filed against the Hoku Materials polysilicon plant, and some lien holders have begun foreclosure proceedings in the Idaho courts.

The Company announced that it received an additional loan from China Merchant's Bank, New York Branch., which is secured by a cash collateralized letter of credit drawn by Hoku's parent company, Tianwei New Energy Holdings Co.