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NEW YORK – In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

Full Story atmoney.cnn.com

Former homeowners may still be on the hook if there’s a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. And these “deficiency judgments” are ticking time bombs that can explode years after borrowers lose their homes.

It can even happen to people who got their bank to approve them selling their home for less than it is worth.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Fox Networks and Time Warner Cable announced an agreement Friday that will avert the disruption of Fox network programming to 15 million subscribers of Time Warner Cable and an affiliated company.

The agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed, was announced several hours after a midnight deadline and just before Fox was to air the Sugar Bowl football game between Cincinnati and the University of Florida.

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DENVER – Wind farms have no measurable effect on nearby property values, according to a government report published Wednesday.

In the latest study, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory spent three years examining nearly 7,500 sales of homes in 10 communities near two dozen wind farms in nine states.

The findings, however, are unlikely to cool the debate over the placement of massive wind turbines which to some represent progress, but to others an intrusion.

Full Story at mcall.com

As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear this week, it’s a good a time to ask: Are the toys we’re buying safer than the ones a couple years ago, when millions of playthings were recalled because of high lead levels and other hazards?

The world’s largest toy manufacturer, Mattel Inc., says yes, as do federal regulators.

But after spending a few hours roaming the Toy District in downtown Los Angeles, I’m not so sure.

In one shop, I found a package of brightly colored rattles and pacifiers manufactured in China. The package depicts babies in cribs playing with the contents, which include small pieces that could break or be bitten off.

It says in large print that the rattles and pacifiers are for ages 6 months and up.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The federal agency in charge of product safety announced the recall of 2.1 million cribs Monday, citing defective hardware that can cause toddlers and infants to suffocate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said parents should immediately stop using Stork Craft drop-side cribs, which are made by Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc., of British Columbia, Canada.

About 1.2 million of the cribs have been distributed in the United States and 968,000 units distributed in Canada.

The recall includes about 147,000 Stork Craft drop-side cribs with the Fisher-Price logo, the CPSC said.

Full Story at CNNMoney.com

America’s most affordable housing market is the 33rd largest metro area in the United States, with 1.7 million people.

The median family income is fairly high — $68,100 — and home prices are a very reasonable median $107,000, according to the National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.

Helping keep home prices depressed is a fairly virulent foreclosure plague: There were more than 16,000 properties with foreclosure filings during the first nine months of the year.

Full Story at brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

College students who took advantage of a “deal too sweet to pass up” have run into a bit of trouble.

The $29 electronic version of Windows 7 Home Edition sold for Microsoft (MSFT) through Digital River (DRIV) doesn’t seem to install properly on some 32-bit Vista machines.

Apparently the download files weren’t properly packaged and when some users tried to “unload the box” they got an error that read:

“We are unable to create or save new files in the folder in which this application was downloaded”

A discussion thread with that title was begun on Microsoft Answers’ Windows 7 install forum less than 3 hours after the new operating system launched. By Saturday morning it had generated more than 500 replies and been read nearly 44,000 times.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Most people think they pay too much to Uncle Sam, but for some people it simply is not true.

In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As the H1N1 swine flu virus starts its second major sweep through the U.S., business owners are bracing for the impact of a worse-than-usual flu season on their workforces. That’s reviving debate on a contentious issue: What kind of sick leave should companies offer employees — and should it be mandated by law?

“On the one hand, you have all of our top officials saying, ‘Do the responsible thing. If you’re sick, stay home,’” says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group that is pushing for paid sick leave laws. “You have advice from the Centers for Disease Control on exactly how many days you should stay home, and how many days we need to keep kids at home. And at the same time, we have a country where almost half the workforce doesn’t have a single paid sick day.”

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WASHINGTON – The poverty rate among older Americans could be nearly twice as high as the traditional 10 percent level, according to a revision of a half-century-old formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations in the cost of living.

The National Academy of Science’s formula, which is gaining credibility with public officials including some in the Obama administration, would put the poverty rate for Americans 65 and over at 18.6 percent, or 6.8 million people, compared with 9.7 percent, or 3.6 million people, under the existing measure. The original government formula, created in 1955, doesn’t take account of rising costs of medical care and other factors.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Use any metaphor you want: the ticking clock, sands running through the hourglass or pages falling away from the calendar. The fact is, time is running out to claim the $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit.

Passed earlier this year as part of the economic stimulus package, the credit is good for up to $8,000, or 10% of the purchase price, and applies to people who have not owned a home in the previous three years. (There are some income restrictions.) The best part: Unlike a similar program from 2008, the credit does not have to be repaid.

The bad part: It ends on Dec. 1.

Because it usually takes around 90 days to close on a house after a contract is signed, buyers have very little time left to act. As of Thurs., Aug. 27, there were only 96 days left before the credit ends.