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Take head to the article please everyone watch out for your hard earned money!

‘Tis the season to be mindful of your money.

That’s the mantra of charity evaluators, consumer advocates and security experts as unscrupulous retailers and scammers target holiday shoppers nationwide, both online and off. From bogus charities to identity theft to Web sites selling purportedly authentic wares, consumers can quickly lose their seasonal cheer unless basic preventative steps are taken.

Earlier this week, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against one of New York City’s most visible homeless charities — the United Homeless Organization, which solicits donations on numerous street corners. Cuomo said the organization is a sham and that almost all donations purportedly destined for services at shelters and drug treatment centers end up being pocketed by staffers and the group’s founders.

“UHO exploits the good intentions of people who thought that their charitable donations were helping to fund services for the homeless," Cuomo said in a written statement. "Instead, their donations go directly to UHO’s principals and workers, who abused the organization’s tax-exempt status to line their own pockets."

To avoid being taken for a similar ride, Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, the nation’s largest independent charity evaluator, suggests you do a little homework before doling out your hard-earned cash.

“People should start with their hearts when they give, but they should also use their heads to make sure that donation is truly going to help,” Berger told FoxNews.com. “It’s critically important.”

Berger strongly advised against making donations to street solicitors and giving money over the phone.

“You could very well be enabling a drug habit or bad behaviors that could actually do more harm than good,” Berger said. “We recommend cutting them a check directly or giving online.”

Charitable organizations should be vetted by visiting evaluation sites like Charity Navigator, Berger said, or by perusing the charity’s Web site to ensure it’s a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization.

‘You need to look and see if they’re being investigated by anyone,” he said. “You should also call and say, ‘Show me data that indicates you’re having meaningful results in people’s lives.”

Charities that Berger recommends include the Nurse Family Partnership, Harlem Children’s Zone and Youth Villages. Due to the tight economy, Berger said people are looking for more out of their goodwill.

“More and more people are thinking it’s not just a donation, but a social investment that has meaningful results,” he said. “So don’t just give from your heart, use your head too.”

Meanwhile, for those looking to buy gifts for loved ones rather than making donations, the Better Business Bureau recommends brick and mortar shoppers keep wallets or purses snugly beneath their arms or in front pockets. Receipts should also be kept in a wallet rather than stored in a bag that could be swiped if left unattended, and credit card statements should be checked early and often rather than at the end of the month.

Online shopping, where 40 percent of holiday buyers purchased gifts last year, can be trickier, experts say.

According to a report from Javelin Strategy and Research, 10 million people were identity theft victims in 2008, a 22 percent increase from a year earlier. And with shoppers looking to get the best deal possible in a poor economy, this holiday season has the potential to be record-breaking for cybercriminals who have bilked $8 billion from consumers in the past two years, according to Consumer Reports’ 2009 State of the Net Survey.

“We find that usually with the holiday season, your scams are going to center around buying presents online,” said Alison Southwick, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau. “So you need to be cautious.”

Southwick said BBB officials have noticed a sharp increase in Asian-based Web sites selling seemingly high-end electronics.

“But they only accept payments via wire transfer,” Southwick said. “Right there, that’s a big flag. And of course, you never get the item.”

Southwick also warned against phishing e-mails in which consumers receive a message indicating a problem with an order or the user’s account. In just a few clicks, victims can quickly find themselves on a malicious Web site out to pilfer their financial information.

“Don’t click on any links in the e-mail,” Southwick said. “Pick up the phone and call someone or go directly to their Web site. But don’t just follow the links.”

Holiday e-cards can also bring trouble into inboxes, where worms masked as Hallmark e-cards and McDonald’s and Coca-Cola holiday promotions were discovered last year by security firm McAfee Labs.

“You do need to be very cautious when opening e-cards,” Southwick said. “Check the link and make sure it’s legitimate.”

To be entirely safe, Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Labs, suggested treating every holiday-related e-mail received from now until the end of year with caution.

“During the holiday season, the bad guys know that people are more apt to give more, to be more generous,” Marcus said. “They know people are doing seasonal shopping, so the bad guys take the step of registering and creating fake Web sites. They read the same news as we do and prepare for the holidays and seasonal trends.”

Consumers can also be targeted with invoices and delivery notifications purportedly from reputable retailers like Federal Express or UPS, so they should exercise caution during virtually every transaction this holiday season, which has the potential to be a “record” holiday season for scams, Marcus said.

“People are going to be looking for bargains,” he said. “It all kinds of comes together and the bad guys have done the prep.”

Wisconsin construction crew reportedly uncovered human remains that may be nearly 800 years old.

Archaeologists said the bones, found along a highway, may be those of a Native American woman dating back to the year 1250, according to FOX 11.

The scientists believe the site may have been a burial ground and will continue digging for more remains, FOX 11 reported.

Construction on the property was postponed until the State Historical Society can thoroughly examine the findings, the station reported.

Wisconsin Construction Crew Uncovers Possible Native American Burial Ground – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com

Stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers have revealed.

These hyperactive stars move at about twice the speed of our sun through the Milky Way, because their host galaxy is very massive, yet strangely compact. The scene, which has theorists baffled, is 11 billion light-years away. It is the first time motions of individual stars have been measured in a galaxy so distant.

While the stars’ swiftness is notable, stars in other galaxies have been observed to travel at similarly high speeds. In those situations, it was usually because they were interlopers from outside, or circling close to a black hole.

But in this case, the stars’ high velocities help astronomers confirm that the galaxy they belong to really is as massive as earlier data suggested.

1 Million MPH Stars Move Through Galaxy – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com

SAN FRANCISCO —  Electronic books are often mentioned in the same breath as Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle digital reader. Now e-book rival Sony Corp. is determined to recapture consumers’ attention with a smaller reader that’s also $100 cheaper.

On Wednesday, Sony is expected to announce that it will release the Reader Pocket Edition by the end of August. Like the Kindle and Sony’s previous Readers, the Pocket Edition will come with an "electronic ink" display, which shows dark gray text on a lighter gray background. As the word "pocket" implies, its five-inch screen will be smaller than that on the Kindle and other Sony models.

Unlike other Readers, the Pocket Edition won’t play digital music files, and it won’t have a slot for a memory card to supplement internal storage that can hold 350 books.

It will retail for $199, a third off the price of the basic Kindle model and about $80 less than Sony’s PRS-505 reader, which will be discontinued. Color choices include blue, red and silver.

The device is entering a small but growing market. U.S. e-book sales totaled $113 million last year — up 68 percent from 2007 but still a fraction of the estimated $24.3 billion spent on all books, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Kindle Competition: New Sony E-Book Reader $100 Cheaper – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com

ISLAMORADA, Fla. —  Boat captain Tad Burke looks out over Florida Bay and sees an ecosystem that’s dying as politicians, land owners and environmentalists bicker.

He’s been plying these waters for nearly 25 years, and has seen the declines in shrimp and lobster that use the bay as a nursery, and less of the coveted species like bonefish that draw recreational sportsmen from around the world.

"Bonefish used to be very prevalent, and now we don’t see a tenth of the amount that we used to find in the bay, and even around the Keys because the habitat no longer supports the population," says Burke, head of the Florida Keys Fishing Guides Association.

Florida Bay’s Ecosystem on Brink of Collapse; Threatens Tourism – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com

I would do the same thing!

A promise is a promise.

A California dad is refusing to take down the tattered and torn American flag that’s been flying on his lawn in Fresno for almost a year, despite complaints from neighbors on his military-heavy block and from a national veterans group that says he’s mistreating the Stars and Stripes.

Even passersby have phoned Louis Haros, demanding that he take down his weather-beaten flag immediately.

But Haros, a Vietnam veteran, told his son last September that he’d wave that flag until he comes home from Iraq.

And a promise is a promise.

"I made a promise to him that it won’t come down until he’s home," Haros told FOXNews.com on Tuesday. "Well, it’s still there. I feel if I bring it down and something happens to him … I don’t know."

Paul Haros is already back on U.S. soil after his second tour in Iraq. He and his dad spoke yesterday when he landed in Wisconsin to undergo medical checks and to relinquish his weapons. But Louis Haros says the flag won’t come down until Paul returns to Fresno.

"I told him this flag protected me in Vietnam and I will see that it protects you," said Haros, a former master sergeant in the U.S. Army. "In a normal situation, I would’ve brought it down a long time ago."

Corporal Paul Haros is expected to be back home by Friday after two tours in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserve and a tour with the 82nd Airborne Division in Operation Desert Storm.

It won’t be soon enough for some of Haros’ neighbors, who see no reason to wait any longer to play taps for the flag.

"I understand why the gentleman is doing it, but it’s in tatters," neighbor John Southward told FOXNews.com. "I fly my flag every day."

But Southward, a former Navy signalman, said he also found it "appalling" that Haros’ son had been in Iraq long enough for the flag to become so raggedy.

"To me, that’s appalling," Southward said. "I wish Mr. Haros and his son the very best, I really do."

Another neighbor, Bryan Walters Sr., was so moved about the condition of the flag that he confronted Haros and then dropped off a new one.

"I’d been watching that flag fall apart," Walters, a Navy veteran, told the Fresno Bee. "It had been getting more and more tattered every day, and it was just breaking my heart."

Ryan Gallucci, a spokesman for AMVETS, a group of 180,000 U.S. veterans, said while it’s a "dicey" situation, the organization would prefer that Haros stop flying the tattered flag.

"It’s a national symbol and not just a symbol of one soldier’s sacrifice," Gallucci told FOXNews.com. "We would advocate he replace it with a serviceable flag out of respect for those who have gone before."

Gallucci acknowledged that Haros was flying the flag for the "right reason," but he suggested that he properly retire it in an appropriate fashion.

According to U.S. Code, an American flag should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning, when it is "no longer a fitting emblem for display."

Haros said he intends to bring the flag down as soon as his son comes home. He’s "definitely" surprised by the complaints he and his wife have received from neighbors and even strangers who drive by and later call their home.

"Once they understand the reason behind what’s going on, they get it," Haros said. "But nobody can actually be in the shoes of the individual until you stand in them. It was a promise I made to my son. If something happened to him, how could I live with that?"

Still, the negative attention brought on by the flag has Haros’ wife getting anxious.

"She’s saying she doesn’t want to get any more heat," he said of the multiple phone calls they receive each day. "It’s really turned into something."

California Father Refuses to Take Down Tattered U.S. Flag – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com

A high school girls basketball coach in Kentucky was fired after officials said he exchanged inappropriate phone calls and text messages with a female student.

Butler High School coach Michael Eddy Wilson lost his job after hundreds of phone calls and texts between Wilson and the student were reportedly discovered as part of an investigation by the Jefferson County Public Schools system in Louisville.

His termination letter said he was fired for "conduct unbecoming a teacher," according to The Courier-Journal of Louisville.

The Courier-Journal reported the district said Wilson let students who wanted to avoid running in his gym classes pay him for the privilege.

Investigators said Wilson and the student exchanged 555 texts and calls, totaling 5,399 minutes.

He was fired on Thursday for what Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, told The Associated Press on Tuesday he isn’t certain if Wilson would appeal.

Wilson’s team won the girls’ state basketball title in 2008.

The newspaper reported it wasn’t able to reach Wilson for comment.

Girls Basketball Coach Fired After Officials Said They Found Texts, Calls With Female Student – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com