© NS Newsflash

The long standing lawsuit between the newspaper carriers and the Orange County Register has been settled for an amount of $30 million. The class-action law suit against the OC Register had been filed by thousands of newspaper carriers in 2003.
The lawsuit was a result of the classification of the newspaper carriers as independent contractors and not as employees by Freedom Communications Inc., which is the parent company of the newspaper. Due to this classification, the carriers were denied lunch breaks; overtime pay as well as business expenses. In addition to this the carriers alleged that the company was not keeping accurate payroll records and was indulging in unfair business practices. The court had ordered the company to pay the carriers to the tune of $28.9 million in June 2009 but the company filed for bankruptcy soon thereafter.
Then in 2010, the company managed to negotiate a $14.5 million settlement for around 5,000 newspaper carriers. After this the carriers sued the company's officers and directors who have now finally agreed to pay another $15.5 million. Daniel J. Callahan, the plaintiffs' attorney states that the 3,000 carriers that he represents are happy to get over with the lawsuit and this money would be secured for the carriers. The company itself had no part in the post bankruptcy litigation so they had no comment.

© Michigan Municipal League (MML)

The Al Jazeera English language broadcast will be launching a new show where media coverage is guided by what people are talking about on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, according to Wired's Dylan Tweney.

The show will be called The Stream, and it is set to appear later this spring, just in time to capitalize on all the western interest in Al Jazeera that is being generated by their outstanding coverage of the recent protests and revolutions in the North Africa and the Middle East. These revolutions have been fomented in part online, via social media, so it makes sense for the network to base a show around such influential outlets. The organizing principle of The Stream is that in place of a script or teleprompter, the hosts will make use of tweets, Facebook posts and YouTube videos.

© joguldi

GetEducated .com has released their top online college rankings, and among these are the "Top Best Buys" nationwide in online BSN to RN programs. Online nursing programs range widely in price from a low end of $25000 to as much as $77000 to complete prgrams that are regionally-accredited and NLN-accredited.

After reviewing tuition and fees at 22 online colleges, GetEducated.com concluded that among online degrees, the most affordable RN to BSN came from the University of Southern Indiana, with a cost of just over $25,0000 for Indiana residents (out of state residents pay about $58,000). In contrast, Chatham University, a private school in Pittsburgh, PA, topped the charts for the most expensive online nursing degrees at over $77,000 for an accredited RN to BSN program. The estimated national average for these degrees was $44,000.