National / International News

The government's multi-billion-pound programme to help the long-term unemployed back into work is branded "extremely poor" by MPs.

Boeing is expected to offer ways to fix the 787's battery problems at a meeting with the US Federal Aviation Administration on Friday.

At a Jewish service at the Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz funeral home in Cleveland Heights, friends and family share stories about the man they call “Joe.”

“And as you might’ve guessed, a week or two later, you know what happened,” smiles one relative. “One of the kids turned the table on Joe, and put a pie right in his face, and we had that on camera as well.”

I saw scenes of fondness and remembrance -- smiles and tears. But the thing is, I wasn’t really there. Some of the mourners weren’t either. We were watching an online video stream, some from Arizona, Vermont, and Rhode Island.

Cindy Saltzer is Joseph’s daughter. She’s glad the funeral was available online.

“My family... they did not want to have that,” confides Saltzer. “I think they thought it might have been intrusive, but they originally did not want to do it, and I did. I thought it was a good idea.” 

In the Jewish religion, burials are done quickly. In Albert Joseph’s case, it was two days after his death. Normally this means costly, last-minute airfares or long, stressful drives. But in this case, Saltzer arranged a webcast with the funeral home, with an on-demand link for those who could only see it later. 

“And we got wonderful responses, wonderful letters from people who saw it live,” Saltzer says. “Even one of my dad’s elderly friends... figured out how to do it, and watched it live.” 

Funeral director Michael Kumin says he installed the projectors, screens, and computer equipment two months ago, at a cost of $22,000. The funeral home doesn’t charge extra for the service, which gives them a leg-up on competitors.

Kumin says out of the last 80 services, about a third included webcasts... like one where a brother Skype-d in from Florida.

“And bigger than life, we had the brother sitting on that screen... in front of his computer so we saw him,” recalls Kumin. “And he spoke to everyone here. He said the things he wanted to say about his brother that came from his heart, and when it was all over, the rabbi continued, we put the screen back up, and the service continued as if someone had just walked out of the family room to step up on the podium and speak.”

Interest in online funerals is growing. One company, National Webcast, says demand has shot up 250 percent from 2011. But Sara Marsden says some funeral homes are worried.  She’s editor-in-chief for U.S. Funerals Online.

“We will see a lot more funeral homes close down, unfortunately,” says Marsden. “Because I think the more we can access online services, we’re not going to be traveling on the same basis to visit funeral homes.”

In short, less revenues for funeral homes from chapel space, services, and caskets. 

But not everyone thinks the online trend means the end of traditional services. Daniel Berry runs a couple funeral homes in the Cleveland area. 

“I don’t think it’s ever going to replace the value of the human touch, the presence of a friend or family there at the funeral home to comfort and share the grief with the family,” says Berry. “Which is why we have calling hours, why we have funeral services, why we memorialize the individuals.”

Still, for Cindy Saltzer, emailing the link of her father’s service to friends made her happy.

“It was a beautiful service,” she says. “My dad was an outstanding man, and I just wanted to share it with people who would’ve wanted to see it.”

Saltzer’s husband Michael, argues online services will benefit those tight on for cash, too sick or too old to travel, as well as relatives in the military.

“I really don’t see a downside, and since we have the technology, why not take advantage of it, and use it so other people can be a part of it and experience it?” 

This year's St Patrick celebrations in Belfast will be a four-day festival running from 15 March to 18 March.

Ahead of the 2013 Academy Awards this weekend, the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Bellini set out to calculate how long it would take someone to actually watch every film nominee before the ceremony. Plus, how much would it cost?

The United States Olympic Committee recently sent out letters to 35 mayors around the U.S. It's looking for bids to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Among those 35 cities were some you would expect -- New York, Chicago, and L.A. But there were also some surpises like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Columbus Ohio which have city budgets far below the cost of hosting the summer games.

And finally, to Lake Tahoe where researchers discovered a goldfish that was nothing like the one I had as a kid that fit in a little glass bowl. It was a foot and a half long and weighed 4.2 pounds. I'm guessing this goldfish would not be afraid of the house cat.

A woman tells the Old Bailey how she was branded by a man who raped her when she was 12 years old.

The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is up again this morning to $3.78, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Chris Low, chief economist with FTN Financial, joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to explain what's causing the price spike and its impact on buying.

The eurozone recession is expected to linger longer into 2013, the European Commission says, with Spain, France and Portugal expected to miss agreed overspending targets.

Online gambling is poised to go interstate, thanks to a fast-tracked bill in Nevada that Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) signed in to law on Thursday. Not only does the bill legalize some forms of online gaming within the state, it also allows Nevada to negotiate online gambling agreements with other states. 

The bill was signed in to law in the same room where, 80 years ago, Nevada legalized gambling at good old fashioned brick and mortar casinos. Now, the state hopes to get an early advantage within the online frontier. 

“Online gaming is a multibillion dollar industry. We've been missing out for years on that revenue and we hope to start benefitting from it,” said the bill’s sponsor, Nevada state Assemblyman William Horne (D) in an interview with television station KTVN in Reno.

Lawmakers hope online gambling license fees, which will cost $500,000 a pop, will bring new revenue to the state. Prof. Richard McGowan, a gambling industry expert at Boston College, says Nevada is betting that online gaming will not cannibalize the state's real world casinos, but instead help the industry recruit new gamblers. 

“I guess their rationale is that people will like to learn to gamble online, but will want to come to the real thing in Nevada,” he says. 

A federal bill to legalize online gaming across the country failed in congress last year, so for the time being states are tackling the issue piece meal. Besides Nevada, Delaware is the only other state that's legalized online gaming. New Jersey is expected to take action soon. 

As a checkerboard of states emerges, there will be new challenges for online gaming companies required to keep track of who is logging on where, and that could be a lucrative opportunity for geo-tech companies.

“None of these operators want to find out that there’s somebody playing from Idaho, but makes it look they’re in Nevada,” says online gaming consultant Sue Schneider.

Also keeping a close eye on the trend toward legalization are social gaming companies like Zynga, that already have Facebook games where you can use real money to buy credits on virtual slot machines, but -- at least, currently -- can't cash out. As online gambling becomes legal in more parts of the U.S., those companies could start allowing users to bet real money. 

“The way is already paved, and this is going to complete the journey and make it possible to directly gambling online,” says Natasha Dow Schull, a professor at MIT.  Schull worries Facebook could become a potent “gambling gateway,” for its more than 100 million users in the U.S.   

She warns that if you think Facebook is addictive now, think of what it could be like if you could gamble there with real money. 

Winter Storm Q has dumped up to 17 inches in parts of Kansas but brings much-needed relief to the region's drought-stricken farmers.

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England's easy-going forward Geoff Parling calls for more consistency ahead of the crunch clash with France

I described one of my friends as being exactly like her avatar.

Her little 48 x 48-pixel photo features her wry smile and the kind of glasses you wish you wore. It conveys her mien of earnest, disappointed cheerfulness that brightens the lives of everyone she knows. Her avatar captures her perfectly.

How rare is that? Not only do few of us look like our avatars on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, few of us even know what our avatars are supposed to do. Generate interest? Radiate professionalism? Spark a smile?

The avatar is our post-post-everything combination of a logo, a business card, a wallet-size photo, and a refrigerator magnet. It's a distillation, your essence in an image that flashes for a second and takes up a tiny fraction of a screen that is itself smaller than a candy bar. "This is me," it says. "It's the size of the nail on your pinkie, but it represents my soul."

My friend chose what you might fall the winsome approach, and it suits her. But the web abounds with other choices not nearly so successful. "Mugshot Modern" seems always to show an expression not nearly as fetching as people think it is, though it outperforms "Ironic Me," which is usually ironic for much different reasons than its users think it is. For my own avatar I've chosen "Someone Drew Me Once," which works for those of us who just don't look good in photos, but it doesn't convey much. Actual logos can work, if you can figure out what they mean, though I rarely can. More intimate avatars -- "Look at My Children," say, or "Here Is My Kitty" -- barely merit discussion.

In fact, if there's any theme among avatars it's that they betray more of our fears than our hopes, which makes my friend's successful avatar even more of a treat. I'll have to tell her about it.

If I ever see her in person.

I described one of my friends as being exactly like her avatar.

Her little 48 x 48-pixel photo features her wry smile and the kind of glasses you wish you wore. It conveys her mien of earnest, disappointed cheerfulness that brightens the lives of everyone she knows. Her avatar captures her perfectly.

How rare is that? Not only do few of us look like our avatars on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, few of us even know what our avatars are supposed to do. Generate interest? Radiate professionalism? Spark a smile?

The avatar is our post-post-everything combination of a logo, a business card, a wallet-size photo, and a refrigerator magnet. It's a distillation, your essence in an image that flashes for a second and takes up a tiny fraction of a screen that is itself smaller than a candy bar. "This is me," it says. "It's the size of the nail on your pinkie, but it represents my soul."

My friend chose what you might fall the winsome approach, and it suits her. But the web abounds with other choices not nearly so successful. "Mugshot Modern" seems always to show an expression not nearly as fetching as people think it is, though it outperforms "Ironic Me," which is usually ironic for much different reasons than its users think it is. For my own avatar I've chosen "Someone Drew Me Once," which works for those of us who just don't look good in photos, but it doesn't convey much. Actual logos can work, if you can figure out what they mean, though I rarely can. More intimate avatars -- "Look at My Children," say, or "Here Is My Kitty" -- barely merit discussion.

In fact, if there's any theme among avatars it's that they betray more of our fears than our hopes, which makes my friend's successful avatar even more of a treat. I'll have to tell her about it.

If I ever see her in person.

David Price believes Saturday's fight against Tony Thompson could prove to be a defining moment in his boxing career.

Italian voters go to the polls this weekend. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in the running to replace the technocratic government that was meant to bring stability to the financially troubled country. But as the election nears, Italy faces an even tougher euro zone economy than it thought.

Today, the European Commission said the euro zone will shrink another 0.3 percent in 2013, which is deeper and longer lasting than originally expected. Growth is not forecasted to return until the end of the year.

"It does confirm that I think that austerity is perhaps having a negative effect on the major economies of the euro zone and indeed the small economies of the euro zone," says Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics.

Growth in France has flatlined. Italy will contract by a full one percent this year -- twice the estimate just three months ago.

Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy says the euro zone needs a change in policy away from cutting government spending and cutting taxes.

"Europe is condemning itself to years of sub par growth after an extremely brutal and savage downturn," Spiro says.

But not all of the euro zone countries are in the doldrums. Germany should grow by a half a percent this year. And optimism among German businesses is on the rise.

A protester struck by a tear gas canister fired by police in Bahrain last week has died, opposition officials say, the third death in a week of unrest.

News photos over 24 hours: 22 February

It’s a story that sounds straight out of Hollywood: professional thieves disguised as police officers, big guns, an airplane about to take off, and $50 million in diamonds -- stolen. But the thieves are unlikely to walk away with all that money. By some estimates, they’ll get about 20 percent of the value when they resell the stones.

That number got us thinking about our own diamonds sparkling on our fingers. Just how much are they actually worth if we wanted to sell them?

Probably not as much as you might think.

 Jeweler Sam Chamsi has been selling diamonds in Los Angeles' jewelry district for nearly 25 years. In all that time, he says, he’s only had a couple of gents (and their diamond engagement rings) get rejected by their chosen ladies. And when they do, he tries to return as much of their money as he can. The first time it happened, he said, he gave it all back. The suitor was just too sad.

But love, and diamond ring resales, can go wrong in other ways.

Take Josh Opperman. He had a broken engagement. He tried to sell his ring back, and, he says, “the place I brought it from would only give me store credit.” (Rarely valuable for a man out of love.) So he took it around to a few other places, and, says Josh, “the highest I was offered was 35 percent of what I paid for it.”

So Josh turned his heartbreak into a business. He started a website called I Do…Now I Don’t. It’s a place to resell second-hand engagement rings and jewelry. He says he was able to sell his $10,000 ring for about $7,000.

Jewelry appraiser Neil Beaty says when it comes to the resale value of diamond rings, people need to keep their expectations in check.

“Diamonds as an investment almost always fail,” Neil says. The cost -- and appraisal value -- of a piece of jewelry isn’t just the value of the diamond plus the value of the gold or platinum. You’re also paying for the cost of making the piece, and selling it to you, the rent, the middlemen, the intimidatingly clean jewelry cases. Just like a new car or a couch, the resale value often falls once you get your hands on it. “People don’t think of diamonds as a consumer purchase,” Neil says. “They are.”

Now depending on the diamond, there are some exceptions to this. Diamond values fluctuate based on supply and demand (And no, the diamond heist was too small in the scheme of things to change those prices).

But, Neil says there is still value in these purchases. When your wife looks at her ring and is reminded that she is loved, that matters.

The investment is just in the relationship, not the stone.

Police confirm that a three-year-old old boy who was injured in an incident at a house in Falkirk has died.

India's Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visits the sites of the two explosions in Hyderabad which killed 16 people and injured 117.