New Mortgage Limit May Set Buyers Back 

FOR most potential buyers, the impending change in mortgage limits is just another obscure wrinkle in federal policy. But for some New Yorkers, it could mean the difference between buying and not buying a new home.
On Oct. 1, when the limit on federally guaranteed loans drops to $625,500 from the current level of $729,750, hundreds of buyers in the city and nearby suburbs will either have to come up with larger down payments to stay under the new limit or face the prospect of applying for jumbo loans — anything above $625,500 — which have higher interest rates.

Hospital Staff Found To Carry MRSA Superbug On Uniforms, Swipe Cards

A new study has demonstrated that potentially dangerous bacteria can be carried around healthcare facilities by hospital nurses and physicians. It has been discovered that 60% of the doctors' uniforms and 65% of nurses' in hospitals do just that. In the study, especially dangerous drug-resistant bacteria were found in 21 of the samples from nurses' uniforms and six samples from doctors' uniforms after 75 and 60 were examined respectively. Eight of the samples had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is becoming more and more resistant to current treatments.

Researchers in Israel swabbed nurses' and physicians' uniforms and found potentially dangerous bacteria on more than half of the clothing items after swab samples collected from three parts were analyzed (sleeve ends, pockets and abdominal area). 

U.S. Unemployment: Racing Toward The Bottom

While a Department of Education program embraces “a race to the top,” the nation's current stance toward our 14 million officially unemployed people represents nothing less than a race to the bottom. We are content to report, month after month, unemployment rates in excess of nine percent, to use questionable language to describe tepid performance, and to assuage ourselves with myths that the economy is in recovery because GDP growth is up. Imagine that one of our children came home from school with a report card that showed a drop from a C- to a D, and she reported her grades as “substantially unchanged.” She would, substantially, find her allowance cut, her study hours increased, her privileges restricted. But when high unemployment continues month after month, an unsatisfactory outcome in and of itself, we hear nonsense and platitudes.