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The American Red Cross is in need of donors.The nation is facing an emergency shortage and all blood types are needed.The Red Cross is hoping to lure donors by offering gift cards between now and Aug. 30.If you give blood or platelets, the Red Cross will email you a Amazon gift card.To make an appointment, visit RedCrossBlood.org.  349

The battle over the sale of the Confederate flag at the Lorain County Fair reached yet another peak after a vandal posted a Confederate flag on a billboard protesting its sale.The billboard is one of three purchased by the Fair Minded Coalition of Lorain County which urges residents to "say no" to the sale of the Confederate flag at the fair. Coalition member Jeanine Donaldson said she believes someone posting the flag on a coalition billboard is further proof of how it divides a community."To my family and other African-Americans it symbolizes hate, torture and terror," Donaldson said. "It's a right and wrong situation in the year 2018.""No less than Governor John Kasich was the one who recommended that the flag come down for the state fair, and he did it because it was the right thing to do," she saidLorain City Councilman Angel Arroyo said the Lorain County Fair Board needs to finally ban the sale of the Confederate flag because it doesn't represent Ohio or his community."It's a sign of ignorance and hatred of people in our community," Arroyo said."It's frustrating putting this flag on the billboard.  It's a sign of disrespect and truly shows the true colors of racism and hatred."But Lorain County Fair Board President Kim Meyers says the Confederate flag has been sold at the fair for 30 years. Currently, it's being sold by one vendor who is selling the flag as part of a wide variety of Civil War memorabilia.Meyers said to restrict the sale of the flag would be a violation of First Amendment rights."Here at the fair, probably 99 percent of the feedback that we received has been in favor of the fair allowing for the sale," Meyers said."The Ohio Fair Managers conference back in 2016 voted unanimously, there were 88 counties and seven independent fairs, that voted to allow the sale of that."Still, Donaldson said her group will continue to protest, and said more efforts to stop the sale of the Confederate flag at the fair will be unveiled in the coming months."We're not going away," Donaldson said."This is not about politics, it's just the right thing to do."    2159

Starting Social Security early typically means getting a smaller benefit for the rest of your life. The penalty is steep: Someone who applies this year at age 62 would see their monthly benefit check reduced by nearly 30%.Many Americans have little choice but to accept the diminished payments. Even before the pandemic, about half of retirees said they quit working earlier than they¡¯d planned, often due to job loss or health issues. Some have enough retirement savings to delay claiming Social Security, but many don¡¯t. And now, with unemployment approaching Depression-era levels, claiming early may be the best of bad options for older people who can¡¯t find a job.But the penalty for early filing, and the bonus for delaying your application, are based on old formulas that don¡¯t reflect gains in life expectancy, says economist Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The result is a system that unfairly penalizes early filers, unjustly benefits late filers ¡ª and hurts lower-income people the most.¡°Low-income people disproportionately collect benefits at 62 and their benefits are cut too much, and high-income people disproportionately delay claiming till 70 and their benefits are increased too much,¡± Munnell says. ¡°So you penalize the low-income and you benefit the high-income.¡±The problem started off as a solutionOriginally, Social Security had one retirement age: 65. In 1956, Congress authorized a reduced benefit for women, to allow them to retire at the same time as their typically older husbands. The reduced benefit option was extended to men in 1961.The amount of the reduction was meant to be ¡°actuarially neutral,¡± so that the cost to Social Security would be the same whether those with average life expectancies claimed the smaller check earlier or the larger check later.As life expectancies rose, though, early filers wound up living with the penalty for longer. In 1956, a 65-year-old woman had an average life expectancy of 16.9 years. Today, it¡¯s 21.6 years, Munnell says. Instead of being actuarially neutral, in other words, the current system results in early filers with average life expectancies getting less.On top of that, Social Security offers a bonus for those who can afford to wait. A 1% delayed retirement credit was introduced in 1972, and the amount was increased over the years to the current 8%. So each year you put off claiming Social Security past your full retirement age adds 8% to your payment. Full retirement age varies according to birth year and is 67 for people born in 1960 or later.Let¡¯s say your full retirement age is 67 and your benefit, if started then, would be ,000 a month. Starting at 62 would shrink the benefit to 0, while waiting until 70 to begin would boost the amount to ,240.The longer you live, the more you can benefit from a delayed filing ¡ª and the higher your income, the longer you¡¯re likely to live. In fact, most of the gains in life expectancy in recent years have accrued to higher-income people.Between 2001 and 2014, for example, life expectancy rose by more than two years for men and nearly three years for women with incomes in the top 5%, according to a study for the Social Security Administration. During the same period, life expectancies for those in the bottom 5% of incomes rose a little less than four months for men and about two weeks for women.How benefits could change to be fairerTo restore actuarial fairness, the penalty for early filing should be lower, Munnell says. Someone who retires at 62 instead of 67 should get 22.5% less, rather than 30% less. Similarly, the bonus for waiting should be reduced to just below 7% per year.¡°The way it¡¯s set up now, people will get 124% of their full benefit if they wait till 70 and they really should only get 120%,¡± Munnell says.Obviously, Social Security has bigger problems. Once its trust fund is depleted, as projected in 15 years or so, the system will be able to pay only 79% of promised benefits in 2035. That proportion is estimated to drop to 73% by 2094.When Congress finally gets around to fixing the system, Munnell says, it should consider making the payouts more fair.¡°I think there¡¯ll be some grand bargain on Social Security at some point because I don¡¯t think anybody¡¯s really going to allow benefits to be cut 25%,¡± Munnell says. ¡°This [actuarial fairness] probably should be put on the agenda.¡±This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by the Associated Press.More From NerdWalletHow to Renegotiate Your Bills to Save MoneyFeeling Out of Control? These Money Moves Could HelpRenters at Risk: Ways to Cope in the Financial CrisisLiz Weston is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: lweston@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lizweston. 4771

Taylor Swift is back in the global spotlight after the release of her highly-anticipated new album ¡°Reputation¡± and has one question for her fans, ¡°Are You Ready for It?¡±.Swift announced the first 27 dates of her world tour ¡°Reputation¡±, named after the new album, on Monday morning. It comes on the heels of her appearance on ¡°Saturday Night Live¡± this weekend where she performed two songs of her latest studio project, ¡°...Ready for It¡± and a stripped-down acoustic version of ¡°Call It Want You Want¡±.The stadium tour focuses on larger venues, mainly NFL stadiums, and kicks off in May.The ¡°Look What You Made Me Do¡± singer is excepted to bring back her ¡°1989 World Tour¡± producer Louis Messina.Messina is no stranger to finding success with stadium tours as he also works with country superstar Kenny Chesney who is making stops in 17 NFL markets for his 2018 ¡°Trip Around The Sun¡± tour.Tickets for Swift¡¯s new tour go on sale to the general public on the singer's birthday, Wednesday, December 13.Some fans will have a chance to grab tickets early through the new Ticketmaster Verified Fan program.It will be a test for the new method of buying tickets, which rewards fans for participating in artist activities like engaging with them on social media or buying merchandise.The program faced some early backlash as some fans saw it as creating an additional expense to get the same tickets. However, ticket promoters insist it is a new layer of screening to keep the tickets in the hands of actual fans and away from scalpers.More tour dates, including international stops in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, are expected to be announced at a later time.Reputation World Tour Dates: May 8    Glendale, AZ     University of Phoenix Stadium 1809

Swiss authorities are investigating a series of bizarre deposits.Investigators in Geneva are trying to understand why two Spanish women flushed roughly €100,000 (0,000) down toilets at a UBS bank branch and three nearby restaurants.Vincent Derouand of the Geneva Prosecutors' Office said the first incident involving cut-up €500 bills occurred in May.Security camera footage led investigators to the two Spanish women. Derouand said that a lawyer for the women confirmed the cash belonged to them."It may be illegal [cash] and they tried to get rid of it," Derouand said. "We have to check where the money is coming from."Derouand declined to identify the women."This is a strange story," he said. "It does not happen often."UBS declined to comment on the cash found at the Geneva branch, citing the ongoing investigation.The European Central Bank plans to kill off the €500 note next year because of concerns that it "could facilitate illicit activities."Europe's top law enforcement agency says the note (worth about 0) is often used by money launderers because of its unusually large denomination and portability. Plus, using cash helps criminals keep transactions and savings anonymous.In a 2015 report, Europol said cash was still the "instrument of choice" for terrorists and €500 bills were in high demand.Switzerland was long known for banking privacy laws that made it possible for banks to refuse to hand over their customers' data to authorities.But in recent years the country has agreed to start sharing financial information with outsiders, including the European Union and the U.S. 1610

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