New Report Shows Recovery Act Cobra Subsidy Helping Middle Class Families Maintain Health Insurance The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released a new report showing that the COBRA health insurance subsidy provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) has been especially important for middle class families by helping them maintain health insurance coverage during the recession. The analysis, conducted by the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy, provides the first summary of the profile of unemployed individuals who obtained continuing health insurance coverage with the help of the Recovery Act COBRA subsidy.+ Full Report (PDF)

IRS Offers Details on New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit
The Internal Revenue Service has issued new guidance to make it easier for small businesses to determine whether they are eligible for the new health care tax credit under the Affordable Care Act and how large a credit they will receive. The guidance makes clear that small businesses receiving state health care tax credits may still qualify for the full federal tax credit. Additionally, the guidance allows small businesses to receive the credit not only for regular health insurance but also for add-on dental and vision coverage. Notice 2010-44 provides detailed guidelines, illustrated by more than a dozen examples, to help small employers determine whether they qualify for the credit and estimate the amount of the credit. The notice also requests public comment on issues that should be addressed in future guidance. In general, the credit is available to small employers that pay at least half the cost of single coverage for their employees in 2010. The credit is specifically targeted to help small businesses and tax-exempt organizations that primarily employ moderate- and lower-income workers. + Full Document (PDF)

The Toronto Reference Library is a branch of the Toronto Public Library, the world’s largest urban public library system. In 2009, the TPL had more than 31 million books, DVD’s and other items borrowed. More 2009 numbers and other Toronto Public Library facts here.
One of the library's 99 branches is the Toronto Reference Library and a article from The Torontoist offers a look at places normally not seen by the public and along the way meets several Toronto Reference Library employees. The article also has several pictures.

A few overzealous martin house manufacturers have become extremely wealthy by fostering the myth that Purple Martins can eat 2000 mosquitoes per day. Their packaging and sales literature are plastered with this slogan. Such assertions, however, are blatantly untrue. Unfortunately, their propaganda campaigns have been so successful that most martin landlords embrace this falsehood with religious fervor. And because this fabrication has received such wide circulation for so many years, nearly every American knows the Purple Martin as the "mosquito-eating bird." Such inaccurate claims are nothing more than sales hype designed to sell more martin houses. And it works - many people put up housing because they've been misled into thinking martins will control the mosquitoes in their neighborhood. In reality, the martin eats few, if any mosquitoes. The numerous studies that have been conducted on martin diet reveal that it prefers larger, more energetically-rewarding, insects such as dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, katydids, mayflies, cicadas, beetles, flies, wasps, midges, and flying ants. In most of these diet studies, not even a single mosquito was found in the martins' stomachs. But when they were found, they comprised less than 3% of the martin's diet, by volume, and these studies involved the much larger, day-flying salt marsh mosquito, found only in a narrow band of habitat along coastal estuaries. Find many facts about the Purple Martin, including that it is the largest North American swallow at: http://purplemartin.org/update/ThirtWays.html

What is the difference between sparrows and swallows? Sparrows are seed eaters, members of the fringillidae. They are somewhat smaller than swallows, and most species are a brown or brown streaked in color. The swallow family are insect eaters, and swift acrobatic flyers. They are very colorful birds, with the cliff and barn swallows being among our most beautiful birds. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_swallows_and_sparrows

Stories heard from tour guides
(1) Sparrows, not swallows, return to San Juan Capistrano each year.
(2) Christians were not forced to fight lions in the Coliseum.
(3) Christians did not hide in catacombs (underground tunnels used as burial places).

Q: How many Ohioans have won the Congressional Medal of Honor?
A: Men with Ohio connections account for 319, or 9.3 percent, of 3,447 Medal of Honor recipients. They include William Bensinger and John Reed Porter of McComb, who were among the medal's first recipients for their part in a Union raid on a Confederate train near Chattanooga, Tenn., on April 12, 1862. Bensinger died in 1918 and Porter died in 1923, and both are buried in McComb Cemetery. More than 1,500 Medals of Honor were awarded during the Civil War. The most recent Ohio recipient was Air Force Airman 1st Class William Pitsenbarger of Piqua. On April 11, 1966, in Vietnam, Pitsenbarger helped care for and remove many wounded soldiers before he was killed in action. He received the award posthumously in December 2000. By the way, there is no Congressional Medal of Honor. And the Medal of Honor is not "won," but "received," according to "The Associated Press Stylebook." -- Ohio Historical Society, McComb Public Library, AP, Peter Mattiace.
http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2010/May/JU/ar_JU_052410.asp?d=052410,2010,May,24&c=c_13