Group 4

BofA OKs foreclosure relief for Californians
More than 120,000 struggling California homeowners could see their monthly mortgage payments lowered after Bank of America Corp. agreed to provide $3.5 billion in loan and foreclosure relief to settle lawsuits it inherited with its takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp.
San Francisco Chronicle

Man Kills His Family and Himself Over Market
In a suicide note, Karthik Rajaram wrote that he had considered killing only himself because of his financial troubles, but decided to take his family with him.
New York Times

Will the Environment Lose Out to the Economy?
Environmentalists are often accused — not always unfairly — of overplaying the fear card. With apocalyptic references to melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels and widespread species extinction, the driving message of environmentalism is that the future is doomed, unless we act now to save it.
TIME

Rampant violence is Latin America's 'worst epidemic'
Violent crime in Latin America kills more people and wreaks more economic havoc than Aids, the head of the Organisation of American States warned this week. Drug trafficking, gang warfare, kidnapping and other crimes pose one of the gravest threats to the region's stability, said José Miguel Insulza. "It is an epidemic, a plague on our continent that kills more people than Aids or any other known epidemic. It destroys more homes than any economic crisis."
The Guardian

Police raid Nigeria 'baby farm'
Police have raided a private hospital in Nigeria where they suspect new-born babies were being sold to traffickers.
British Broadcasting Company

September Retail Sales Reflect the Slowdown
If the last few weeks of retail sales are any indication, it is shaping up to be, in the words of one analyst, a Christmas of movie tickets and board games.
New York Times

Nano 'Basketballs' to Battle Drug-Resistant Cancer
Drug-resistant bacteria, caused by the over-prescription of powerful antibiotics, is bad enough. Now scientists are identifying the genes responsible for drug-resistant cancers, and finding new ways to stop them.
Discovery News

Spermicide Coke, stale chips research wins Ig Nobels
A researcher who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough won alternative "Ig Nobel" prizes Thursday.
Yahoo! News

Powerful Hurricane Norbert roars toward Baja in Mexico
Hurricane Norbert strengthened Wednesday to a powerful Category 3 storm in the Pacific Ocean and was forecast to hit Mexico's Baja California peninsula by the weekend.
USA Today

Colleges Getting Hit by the Credit Crunch
American universities have long been the envy of the world, with seemingly bottomless purses to bankroll cutting-edge research, top-notch faculty and construction projects galore. And fiscally speaking, these schools have it better than most businesses in the U.S.: multiple sources of revenue, including parents willing to pay tuition through the nose amid all kinds of money trouble, have often kept these institutions insulated from economic downturns. But in a financial crisis of this magnitutde, even the ivory towers are getting hit — and in more ways than one. Not only have Bank of America, Citigroup and some two dozen other lenders cut back on or stopped issuing student loans, but the market meltdown has left many colleges scrambling to come up enough cash to cover payroll and other near-term necessities.
TIME