Schoolyard Bullying: Which Kids Are Most Vulnerable?

Playground gibes are a rite of passage for most school-age kids, but for some children, teasing at school can turn into outright violence and abuse. Researchers say that as many as one in 10 children suffer physical attacks, name-calling and other social aggression at school, and a new study suggests that a child’s risk of becoming a chronic victim of bullying may depend on factors that appear much earlier in life.

Read this article in its entirety at Time.com

Bank of America settles lawsuit over bad mortgages

PHOENIX – Some welcome news for thousands of Arizonans struggling to keep their homes. Bank of America said today it will modify troubled mortgages for nearly 400,000 customers of Countrywide Financial Corporation, the troubled mortgage lender it acquired last summer. The announcement comes after the Illinois attorney general’s office said yesterday that the bank was modifying loans for customers in 11 states, including Arizona.

Read the full story here.

Arizona arrives at settlement over foreclosure rescue fraud allegations

In the following press release Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard today announced a settlement with Harvest Properties Inc. of Tucson, resolving a consumer fraud lawsuit that alleged foreclosure rescue fraud and mortgage fraud by the company and its owners. The settlement was filed on Friday, September 19. The settlement, which comes in the form of a consent judgment and does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing, requires Harvest and its owners and managers to pay $350,000 in restitution to approximately 100 consumers.

Read the rest of the story at Mortgagefraud.org.

Arizona faces lawsuit over water

PHOENIX – Arizona is trying to fend off a lawsuit in which a company is suing the state over its refusal to allow groundwater to be piped to neighboring Nevada to support new development.

The lawsuit pending in federal court in Las Vegas contends, among other things, that the denial interfered with interstate commerce and that Arizona officials violated a federal racketeering law by conspiring with project opponents and by purposely stringing out consideration of the application to “throw up numerous costly bureaucratic hurdles.”

Read the full story here.

Chandler Cheesecake Factory faces sex harassment lawsuit

Several former workers at a Chandler Cheesecake Factory restaurant claim other workers improperly touched them and talked to them while they were at work. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against the company on June 30.

The lawsuit, according to a press release issued by the EEOC, accuses the company of permitting “a class of male employees to be repeated [sic] sexually harassed by groups of other male employees.”

Read the full story here.