| Charges dropped against Arkansas RB Michael Smith
Prosecutors have dropped forgery and theft charges against Arkansas running back Michael Lee Smith, who was accused of using a stolen credit card. A co-defendant provided a sworn affidavit that cleared Smith, Deputy Prosecutor Bill Jones said. "And I have nothing to dispute that and, therefore, am not going to file charges," he said. Smith, 20, was arrested Sept. 23 on second-degree forgery and theft-by-receiving charges. Razorback coach Houston Nutt suspended Smith from the team for a time but restored him to the roster. Smith is a reserve player behind Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. In the criminal case, co-defendant Micah Kirschbaum, 18, of Greenland is charged with 12 counts of fraudulent use of a credit card and four counts of second-degree forgery.
Phone scams seek account information
Dear Troubleshooter: I was told to write to you. There is a phone scam going around; I had a third call today and decided to listen and talk to those people. They call themselves by a generic name and are from Florida. In short they ask for your name and how many credit cards you have, if you pay high interest etc. because they are working with hundreds of lenders who are willing to lower the interest. I asked her how she got my phone number and she claimed it was given to her by a lender. I have a credit score of 820; of course she did not know that and I made her think I had problems. I was asked to provide her with my credit card accounts and a bank name and address. That is when I told her she was not legit and she hung up. I have no caller ID, but did try to trace the call. It was not traceable.
Future looking bleak for home builders
Home builders such as Centex, Pulte Homes and Hovnanian Enterprises are trying to survive an in dustrywide slump by selling houses at bargain prices, slashing jobs and scrapping growth plans. But as the housing downturn worsens, experts say at least a few major home builders may end up in bankruptcy court. Builders constructed more than 2 million housing units nationwide in 2005, the year the boom peaked. So far this year, housing starts have fallen to an annual rate of 1.2 million units through September, and economists expect the number to drop to an annual rate of 1 million by mid-2008 -- a 50 percent drop over three years. Some analysts foresee a shakeout similar to that of the early 1990s, when numerous builders went through bankruptcy protection, including Reston, Va.-based NVR and U.S.
Billy Graham | God will help you cope with financial woes
DEAR BILLY GRAHAM: We have really gotten ourselves in a hole because we took out one of those subprime mortgages a couple of years ago to buy our house, and now we can't make the payments. It sounded like a good deal at the time, but we didn't read the fine print. Will God help us get out of this somehow? — K.S. DEAR K.S.: From what I've read, thousands of families are facing the same situation you are. Hopefully, others will learn from these headlines about the dangers of taking on too much debt, but I know that doesn't help you now. God is concerned about everything that concerns us, no matter what it is, because he loves us and wants what's best for us. We can bring everything to him in prayer and ask him to give us wisdom when we face problems that seem insurmountable.
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