NightBlogger

DALLAS (AP) — Continental Airlines said Thursday it is cutting 3,000 jobs and reducing capacity by 11 percent, citing record fuel costs that have pushed the industry into its worst crisis since 2001. It also said its two top executives will forgo pay for the rest of the year. The job cuts represent about 6.5 percent of the company’s work force of 45,000.

Houston-based Continental said it will begin pulling back on flights in September, when departures on its mainline operations will drop about 16 percent below September 2007 levels. Fourth-quarter capacity will fall 11 percent. More

GEORGE PAWLACZYK
AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services wrongly placed more than 3,000 people on the state’s official list of child abusers over a five-year period, a News-Democrat investigation found. That’s an error rate of one in four, based on more than 11,000 cases where people appealed to have their names removed from the list.

Parents and foster parents accused of child abuse or neglect can lose their reputations, their jobs, even their children. “They’re not all bad, there are good ones,” Nick Brunstein said of state child abuse investigators, “but the bad ones have the power of God, and with the stroke of a pen they can ruin your life.” Read more