Just blocks from the University of Washington, a line of people shuffle toward a food pantry, awaiting handouts such as milk and bread.

For years, the small University District pantry has offered help to the working poor and single parents in this neighborhood of campus rentals. Now rising food prices are bringing another group: Struggling college students.

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You pay on time and stay within your limit, and your rate can still spike. How can that possibly happen?

Credit card companies are always coming up with new ways to make money. Slip up and they'll bump up your interest rate. But the latest gotcha takes the cake.

Make companies now put language in their contracts that gives them the right to change your interest rate whenever they feel like it.

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According to the survey, 48 of the 50 states and 95 of the 100 major city regions had experienced year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity.

TVNL Comment: Another Bush legacy.

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Facing a crippling increase in fuel costs, some rural U.S. schools are mulling a solution born of the '70s oil crisis: a four-day week.

"For rural school districts where buses may travel 100 miles round-trip each day, there certainly are transportation savings worth considering.

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Sales of existing homes fell more sharply than expected in June as the housing industry continued to be bruised by the worst slump in more than two decades.

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San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre said on Wednesday he filed a lawsuit against Bank of America Corp and its Countrywide unit to prevent the mortgage lenders from foreclosing on homes in his city, which he aims to make a "foreclosure sanctuary."

Aguirre plans to file similar lawsuits against Washington Mutual Inc, Wells Fargo & Co and Wachovia Corp in an effort to make the lenders negotiate with mortgage borrowers facing foreclosure.

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In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

According to the figures, the richest 1% reported 22% of the nation's total adjusted gross income in 2006.  

TVNL Comment: Another Bush legacy. 

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"When companies freeze plans, older employees often experience huge benefit losses and younger workers are left to save for themselves," said Karen Friedman, policy director for the Pension Rights Center. "Congress needs to step up to the plate to develop solutions that encourage companies to preserve their employer-paid, guaranteed pension plans, not freeze them."

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General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the two biggest U.S. automakers, have about a 46 percent chance of default within five years, according to Edward Altman, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

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