Thanks to the ease of the current VA loan requirements, members of the US military are having a shockingly easy time finding good housing. As long as you are an active or veteran member of the military, or are a spouse of a member of the military, you will be able to qualify for one of these unique loans, even on your first home.
Military members searching for a VA mortgage must be either active duty or a veteran. Individuals need to have served at least three months of war duty or at least 180 days of peace duty prior to applying in order to qualify. In the unfortunate case that a military member is KIA, their spouse will still have the opportunity to get one of these military-exclusive loans as long as they do not marry someone else before the process is complete.
While most loan processes seem to be quite complicated, this type of loan is actually relatively easy to get. While the VA is not actually responsible for lending you any cash, they will make sure that you get a special type of deal from the private lender you choose to do your financing with. With the support of the VA, whatever lender you opt for will be far more inclined to approve the loan you need under the specific terms you are looking for, if not even better than you originally expected.
All you need to do is go into your lender?s office and get the loan papers transcribed, and once they are looked over by the Veteran?s Association, you will be able to save a fortune. To begin with, there is a limit on closing costs and participants are not generally required to pay a down payment. These days, when a civilian homebuyer runs into a problem that prevents them from paying their mortgage when they should, they can rely on a mortgage insurance company to pick up their slack for the time being, but you would get that same great service for no extra cost. Other benefits include reduced interest rates, flexible payment terms and no prepayment period.
Members of our nation?s armed forces have put a lot on the line in honor of their nation. Offering these fantastic sorts of loans to our service members is a reward they definitely each deserve. Now that the VA loan requirements have become so easy to meet, this already incredible reward has become even better for those brave men and women who qualify for it. Interested applicants must visit their preferred bank or credit union today and grab an application to begin the process of approval.
If you?re buying a new home, there are various home loans available in today?s financial. Through VA mortgage you will have all the opportunities to have the lowest interest rates available. Please visit vamortgageleader.com for more benefits and savings available today.
The mother of?Kyron Horman, a missing Portland, Ore.,?boy,?filed a $10 million civil lawsuit Friday against Terri Horman, Kyron's stepmother, in connection with the boy's disappearance two years ago, NBC station KGW reported.
Desiree Young's lawyer, Eldon Rosenthal, said at a Friday news conference?covered by KGW that the statute of limitations for filing a civil lawsuit in the case was two years. Monday, June 4, will be the two-year anniversary of Kyron Horman's disappearance from Skyline Elementary School.
The lawsuit asks the court to compel Terri Horman to disclose Kyron's location, KGW reported. It also includes two claims, one for custodial interference and one for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
See the original story at KGW of Portland, Ore.
Terri Horman's attorney, Stephen Houze, told KGW?he would not make any public statements regarding the suit until he has thoroughly reviewed the filing.
Rick Bowmer / AP
Desiree Young, the mother of Kyron Horman, stands on the steps of the Portland Justice Center on Friday after filing a $10 million civil lawsuit against Kyron's stepmother.
Rosenthal said the lawsuit would enable him to subpoena witnesses, acquire documents and evidence and "peel away the mystery" of what happened to Kyron.
"My family and I are living through a nightmare that most families cannot even imagine,"?Young said, tearfully reading a prepared statement.?"My Kyron has always been my comfort and my joy. I will forever have a hole in my heart because he's not here."
Multnomah County Sheriff / AP
Kyron Horman vanished after his stepmother left him at his Portland, Ore., elementary school.
"I haven't been able to see my son, hug him, kiss him or tuck him into bed" in nearly two years, she said, according to KGW. "Not a day goes by that I don't think of him.
Kyron disappeared two years ago from Skyline grade school, leading to the largest search effort ever conducted in Oregon.
Terri Horman was the last person to see Kyron alive, investigators said. Horman has retained a lawyer for nearly two years and has refused to talk with detectives, who told KGW that they are still pursuing the case.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Years of ferocious storms have threatened to gnaw away the western tip of a popular beachfront park two hours drive north of Los Angeles. Instead of building a 500-foot-long wooden defense next to the pier to tame the tide, the latest thinking is to flee.
Work is under way to gauge the toll of ripping up parking lots on the highly eroded west end of Goleta Beach County Park and moving a scenic bike path and buried utility lines inland away from lapping waves.
Up and down the California coast, some communities are deciding it's not worth trying to wall off the encroaching ocean. Until recently, the thought of bowing to nature was almost unheard of.
But after futile attempts to curb coastal erosion ? a problem expected to grow worse with rising seas fueled by global warming ? there is growing acknowledgment that the sea is relentless and any line drawn in the sand is likely to eventually wash over.
"I like to think of it as getting out of the way gracefully," said David Revell, a senior coastal scientist at ESA PWA, a San Francisco-based environmental consulting firm involved in Goleta and other planned retreat projects.
The issue of whether to stay or flee is being confronted around the globe. Places experimenting with retreat have adopted various strategies. In Britain, for example, several sites along the Essex coast have deliberately breached seawalls to create salt marshes, which act as a natural barrier to flooding.
In the U.S., the starkest example can be found in Alaska, where entire villages have been forced to move to higher ground or are thinking about it in the face of melting sea ice. Hawaii's famous beaches are slowly shrinking and some scientists think it's a matter of time before the state has to explore whether to move back development.
Several states along the Atlantic coast have adopted policies meant to keep a distance from the ocean. They include no-build zones, setbacks or rolling easements that allow development but with a caveat. As the sea advances, homeowners promise not to build seawalls and must either shift inland or let go.
Over the past half-century, the weapon of choice against a shrinking shoreline has been building a seawall or other defense. Roughly 10 percent of California's 1,100-mile coast is armored. In Southern California, where development is sometimes built steps from the ocean, a third of the shore is dotted with man-made barriers.
While such buffers may protect the base of cliffs, and the land and property behind them, they often exacerbate the problem by scouring beaches, making them narrower or even causing them to disappear.
This is one reason state coastal regulators in 2009 turned down a proposal by Santa Barbara County to fortify an eroding section of Goleta Beach park lashed by periodic storms. A rock wall was built as a temporary stopgap, but a long-term solution was needed. After the state rejected the construction of another hard structure, park officials, working with environmentalists, came up with a Plan B: Move gas, water and sewer lines out of the risk zone. Relocate a bike path to higher ground. Demolish 150 parking spaces and allow the acre of asphalt to be reclaimed by the beach.
Last month, the county Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead for an environmental review. Work could begin next year if the $4 million plan passes other regulatory hurdles.
Around California, relocation of coastal infrastructure and development is being pushed by the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental groups. But the efforts also are being driven by increased awareness of climate change. Sea level has risen by 7 inches over the last century in California. By 2050, it's projected to rise between 12 to 18 inches.
San Francisco is mulling a significant retreat on its western flank where the scenic Great Highway is under assault from the Pacific. Erosion has inched closer to the roadway each year, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues girding segments with broken-up rock, a costly temporary fix that has had limited success.
The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association favors mixing retreat with coastal armoring. City, state and federal agencies are considering the group's plan, which calls for moving segments of the Great Highway inland and allowing sand dunes to reclaim some of the paved-over space. The group also wants a temporary seawall to protect a sewer tunnel that's part of a multi-billion dollar sewage and storm water system expected to be affected by sea level rise while money is raised to relocate it in about 50 years.
South of San Francisco, the beach town of Pacifica has been an early adopter of planned retreat as it battles constant erosion. The city in 2002 purchased some homes that were at risk of falling into the sea and demolished them.
This summer, the city of Ventura is pressing ahead with its $4.5 million retreat. Last year, crews removed a disintegrating oceanfront bike path at Surfer's Point, a popular surfing spot, and built a new one farther inland. The beach was widened and cobblestone was put down.
Mark Gold, associate director at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, commended local efforts but thinks a large-scale approach is needed.
"It's definitely something that needs to be taken a lot more seriously," Gold said.
So far, most of the scaling back in California has occurred on public land. It's a harder sell for private property owners to take the same action unless beachfront homes are on the verge of being submerged. The state, however, has a built-in retreat: People who want to build new oceanside construction agree not to build a seawall if their homes become threatened in the future.
Charles Lester, executive director of the California Coastal Commission, said planned retreat is an attractive option in theory, but it's hard to execute in densely populated coastlines where there may not be room to move back. Still, he said it's a tool worth using where possible.
Just don't call it surrender.
"I don't think it's giving up. It's about making a smart, sustainable decision," said Gary Griggs, who studies coastal erosion at University of California, Santa Cruz.
___
Dearen reported from San Francisco. AP Science Writer Alicia Chang can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia
AAA??Jun. 2, 2012?12:18 PM ET AP Photos: From shy princess to diamond queen AP
FILE - In this Sept. 8 1932 file photo, Britain's Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, front right, stands with her mother and father, Duke and Duchess of York , fourth and fifth from right, at the Braemar Highland Gathering. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 8 1932 file photo, Britain's Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, front right, stands with her mother and father, Duke and Duchess of York , fourth and fifth from right, at the Braemar Highland Gathering. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this 1937 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, poses with her husband, King George VI, and their two daughters, Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, center, and Princess Margaret. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this April 21, 1947 file photo, Britain's Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, sits at Natal National Park in South Africa, on her 21st birthday. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo/Eddie Worth, File)
FILE - In this June 2, 1953 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, seated on the throne, receives the fealty of the Archbishop of Canterbury, back to camera at center, the Bishop of Durham, left and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, during her coronation in Westminster Abbey, London. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this July 29, 1981 file photo, Prince Charles and his bride Diana, Princess of Wales, and his parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in London after their marriage at St. Paul's Catheral. Starting Saturday, June 2, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II begins a four-day celebration of her 60 years on the throne. (AP Photo, File)
LONDON (AP) ? She wasn't born to be queen, but many Britons can't remember a time without her.
Queen Elizabeth II ? once a shy princess ? was thrust onto the throne by the abdication of her uncle and then the death of her father. She has now been Britain's head of state for 60 years, and matriarch of a royal family that has been riven by divorce, death and scandal
At 86 years old, she is a monarch whose longevity and devotion to duty have won her a firm place in her subjects' hearts.
As Britain celebrates the queen's Diamond Jubilee with four days of parties, processions and pomp, here's a gallery of AP photos from across the eight decades of Elizabeth's life.
Summer is here! Like many of you I have a challenge being consistent with my diet and exercise. Maintaining a healthy life I believe is essential to happiness. It is unfortunate many of us don?t put our health first. Although I am aware of the benefits, I too find myself indulging in foods that are high in sugar and letting multiple days go by without exercise.
Over a year ago I began a South Beach diet series. I wasn?t very consistent with the post or the diet for that fact. When you fall of the wagon you just have to get back on. I am going to begin a Health and Fitness Friday Series. The purpose of the blog is to promote happiness and well being in women. ? ? ?We are a supporter of fashion therapy. We want our ladies to look good and feel good. We look the best in our clothes when our bodies are healthy and fit.
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I try to educate myself as much as possible on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As I mentioned I am a big supporter of The South Beach Diet. During different times in my life I followed the diet. During that time I was in my best body. I ate clean, after being on the diet for over 60 days I stopped craving foods high in sugar and processed foods. I am a self-proclaimed foodie. I love good food. While doing the South Beach Diet I found awesome recipes.?
I prefer not to call South Beach a diet because it is truly a lifestyle. The core of the plan is lean protein and complex carbohydrates. One of the ways that I add flavor is with cheese. Usually goat cheese, feta or blue cheese. Once you maintain this diet you will notice a change in your palette. Hence, the word eating clean. The flavor of vegetables will burst in your mouth, literally. Some of you maybe thinking I can?t imagine that? If you are a person who is indulges in foods that are high in fat and sugar I realize it?s hard for you to phantom truly enjoying a healthy clean meal. I have been on both sides of the fence.
Like many women, I am an emotional eater. I love comfort food. Rich pasta?s dishes and desserts. Like I said, because I have been on both sides I can truly tell you the difference. When I am indulging in poor eating habits, it becomes like an addiction. The more sugar-enriched foods I eat the more I crave. Same with foods, which are high in fat. It is a scientific reasoning behind why we become addicted to these foods.
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Sigh? This was to be an introduction, but of course I am long winded. Please check out Health and Fitness Fridays. If you are already fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle please comment and inspire us who are having challenges. When I fall off the wagon I have to pick myself back up. But I know it would make it easier if I had some support. I am going to look to you my friend to help me on this journey.
Sandia National Laboratories' unique approach to materials allows temperature-stable circuitsPublic release date: 1-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sue Holmes sholmes@sandia.gov 505-844-6362 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M Sandia National Laboratories researcher Steve Dai jokes that his approach to creating materials whose properties won't degenerate during temperature swings is a lot like cooking mixing ingredients and fusing them together in an oven.
Sandia has developed a unique materials approach to multilayered, ceramic-based, 3-D microelectronics circuits, such as those used in cell phones. The approach compensates for how changes due to temperature fluctuations affect something called the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency, a critical property of materials used in radio and microwave frequency applications. Sandia filed a patent for its new approach last fall. The work was the subject of a recently completed two-year Early Career Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project that focused on understanding why certain materials behave as they do. That knowledge could help manufacturers design and build better products.
"At this point we're just trying to demonstrate that the technology is practical," Dai said. "Can we design a device with it, can we design it over and over again, and can we design this reliably?"
The familiar cell phone illustrates how the development might be used. The Federal Communications Commission allocates bandwidth to various uses aviation, the military, cell phones, and so on. Each must operate within an assigned bandwidth with finite signal-carrying capacity. But as temperatures vary, the properties of the materials inside the phone change, and that causes a shift in the resonant frequency at which a signal is sent or received.
Because of that shift, cell phones are designed to operate squarely in the middle of the bandwidth so as not to break the law by drifting outside their assigned frequency range. That necessary caution wastes potential bandwidth and sacrifices higher rates at which data could move.
Dai worked on low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC), a multilayer 3-D packaging and interconnection technology that can integrate passive components resistors, capacitors and inductors.
Most mainstream LTCC dielectrics now on the market have a temperature coefficient of resonant frequency in a range as wide as that between northern Alaska in the winter and southern Arizona in the summer. Dai's research achieved a near-zero temperature coefficient by incorporating compensating materials into the LTCC basically a dielectric that works against the host dielectric and in essence balances the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency. A dielectric is a material, such as glass, that does not conduct electricity but can sustain an electric field.
A graph shows the differences. Resonant frequencies used in various LTCC base dielectrics today appear as slanted lines on the graph as temperatures change. Dai's approach to an LTCC leaves the line essentially flat indicating radio and microwave resonator frequency functions that remain stable as temperatures change.
He presented the results of the approach in a paper published in January in the Journal of Microelectronics and Electronic Packaging.
"We can actually make adjustments in the materials property to make sure my resonance frequency doesn't drift," Dai said. "If this key property of your material doesn't drift with the temperature, you can fully utilize whatever the bandwidth is."
Another advantage: Manufacturers could cut costs by eliminating additional mechanical and electrical circuits now built into a device to compensate for temperature variations.
One challenge was choosing different materials that don't fall apart when co-fired together, Dai said. Glass ceramic materials used in cell phone applications are both fragile and rigid, but they're also very solid with minimal porosity. Researchers experimented with different materials, changing a parameter, adjusting the composition, and seeing which ones worked best together.
He had to consider both physical and chemical compatibility. Physical compatibility means that as materials shrink when they're fired, they shrink in the same way so they don't warp or buckle. Chemical compatibility means each material retains its unique properties rather than diffusing into the whole.
The LDRD project created a new set of materials to solve the problem of resonant frequency drift but also developed a better understanding of why and how the processes involved in identifying the best materials work. "Why select material A and not B, what's the rationale? Once you have A in place, what's the behavior when you make a formulation change, a composition change, do little things?" Dai said.
Researchers looked at variables to boost performance. For example, the functional material within the composite carries the electrical signal, and researchers experimented with placing that material in different areas within the composite until they came up with what arrangement worked best and understood why.
The team also constructed a computational model to analyze what happens when materials with different properties are placed together, and what happens when they change their order in the stacked layers or the dimensions of one material versus another.
"We study all these different facets, the placement of materials, the thickness, to try to hit the sweet spot of the commercial process," Dai said.
Manufacturing can be done as simple screen printing, a low-cost, standard commercial process much like printing an image on a T-shirt. Dai said the idea was to avoid special requirements that would make the process more expensive or difficult.
"That's kind of the approach you try to take: Make it simple to use with solid understanding of the fundamentals of materials science," he said.
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Sue Holmes, sholmes@sandia.gov, (505) 844-6362
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sandia National Laboratories' unique approach to materials allows temperature-stable circuitsPublic release date: 1-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sue Holmes sholmes@sandia.gov 505-844-6362 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M Sandia National Laboratories researcher Steve Dai jokes that his approach to creating materials whose properties won't degenerate during temperature swings is a lot like cooking mixing ingredients and fusing them together in an oven.
Sandia has developed a unique materials approach to multilayered, ceramic-based, 3-D microelectronics circuits, such as those used in cell phones. The approach compensates for how changes due to temperature fluctuations affect something called the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency, a critical property of materials used in radio and microwave frequency applications. Sandia filed a patent for its new approach last fall. The work was the subject of a recently completed two-year Early Career Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project that focused on understanding why certain materials behave as they do. That knowledge could help manufacturers design and build better products.
"At this point we're just trying to demonstrate that the technology is practical," Dai said. "Can we design a device with it, can we design it over and over again, and can we design this reliably?"
The familiar cell phone illustrates how the development might be used. The Federal Communications Commission allocates bandwidth to various uses aviation, the military, cell phones, and so on. Each must operate within an assigned bandwidth with finite signal-carrying capacity. But as temperatures vary, the properties of the materials inside the phone change, and that causes a shift in the resonant frequency at which a signal is sent or received.
Because of that shift, cell phones are designed to operate squarely in the middle of the bandwidth so as not to break the law by drifting outside their assigned frequency range. That necessary caution wastes potential bandwidth and sacrifices higher rates at which data could move.
Dai worked on low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC), a multilayer 3-D packaging and interconnection technology that can integrate passive components resistors, capacitors and inductors.
Most mainstream LTCC dielectrics now on the market have a temperature coefficient of resonant frequency in a range as wide as that between northern Alaska in the winter and southern Arizona in the summer. Dai's research achieved a near-zero temperature coefficient by incorporating compensating materials into the LTCC basically a dielectric that works against the host dielectric and in essence balances the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency. A dielectric is a material, such as glass, that does not conduct electricity but can sustain an electric field.
A graph shows the differences. Resonant frequencies used in various LTCC base dielectrics today appear as slanted lines on the graph as temperatures change. Dai's approach to an LTCC leaves the line essentially flat indicating radio and microwave resonator frequency functions that remain stable as temperatures change.
He presented the results of the approach in a paper published in January in the Journal of Microelectronics and Electronic Packaging.
"We can actually make adjustments in the materials property to make sure my resonance frequency doesn't drift," Dai said. "If this key property of your material doesn't drift with the temperature, you can fully utilize whatever the bandwidth is."
Another advantage: Manufacturers could cut costs by eliminating additional mechanical and electrical circuits now built into a device to compensate for temperature variations.
One challenge was choosing different materials that don't fall apart when co-fired together, Dai said. Glass ceramic materials used in cell phone applications are both fragile and rigid, but they're also very solid with minimal porosity. Researchers experimented with different materials, changing a parameter, adjusting the composition, and seeing which ones worked best together.
He had to consider both physical and chemical compatibility. Physical compatibility means that as materials shrink when they're fired, they shrink in the same way so they don't warp or buckle. Chemical compatibility means each material retains its unique properties rather than diffusing into the whole.
The LDRD project created a new set of materials to solve the problem of resonant frequency drift but also developed a better understanding of why and how the processes involved in identifying the best materials work. "Why select material A and not B, what's the rationale? Once you have A in place, what's the behavior when you make a formulation change, a composition change, do little things?" Dai said.
Researchers looked at variables to boost performance. For example, the functional material within the composite carries the electrical signal, and researchers experimented with placing that material in different areas within the composite until they came up with what arrangement worked best and understood why.
The team also constructed a computational model to analyze what happens when materials with different properties are placed together, and what happens when they change their order in the stacked layers or the dimensions of one material versus another.
"We study all these different facets, the placement of materials, the thickness, to try to hit the sweet spot of the commercial process," Dai said.
Manufacturing can be done as simple screen printing, a low-cost, standard commercial process much like printing an image on a T-shirt. Dai said the idea was to avoid special requirements that would make the process more expensive or difficult.
"That's kind of the approach you try to take: Make it simple to use with solid understanding of the fundamentals of materials science," he said.
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Sue Holmes, sholmes@sandia.gov, (505) 844-6362
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 1-Jun-2012
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