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Donations via text message raised $7 million for the American Red Cross’s Haiti relief efforts as of 11 p.m. Thursday.

Soon after a 7.0-magnitude quake struck near capital city Port-au-Prince late Tuesday, the Red Cross mobilized fundraising efforts via social networking site Twitter. Just before midnight, @RedCross tweeted: "You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti."

And so far a staggering 700,000 customers have done just that, across all wireless networks including AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile.

"These are donors who are typically the hardest to reach: young people," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. "They’re reacting to something that affects them and realizing their few dollars can make a difference. Texting has opened up a whole new world for philanthropy."

Mobile giving isn’t new, but it’s been in the spotlight since the Haiti earthquake hit. In fact, the $5 million that’s been raised so far by the Red Cross far exceeds the nearly $4 million that was donated to all charities by mobile texts in all of 2009, Nelson said.

Organizations including the ASPCA, Feed the Children and World Land Trust all have 5-digit numbers to which subscribers can text donations at any time.

Nelson said Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500) has a long-standing policy that it does not charge subscribers for texts to make charitable donations, and added that 100% of the donated funds are passed on to the Red Cross. T-Mobile also said its subscribers can text Haiti donations for free.

News reports earlier Thursday said AT&T (T, Fortune 500) was charging subscribers for their texts. But a spokesman said Thursday afternoon that the company had updated its systems in the morning to make texts sent to Haiti relief efforts free of charge, and that the change would cover those who donated yesterday.

On Thursday afternoon Sprint said it will continue to treat donation texts "like any other text message for now," but by that evening the company did an about face and said it would issue a waiver on text message fees for specific Haiti mobile giving donations. 

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The Cleveland Indians’ annual press tour will take the team to Columbus this month for an event set to benefit the cancer research fund started by the late Stefanie Spielman.

The Indians’ tour runs from Jan. 26-28 and consists of three buses visiting sites in Ohio and Pennsylvania with players, Manager Manny Acta, coaching staff and broadcasters.

The team’s Lou Doby bus is arriving at the Gameworks at Easton Town Center Jan. 26 for a press conference at 4:30 p.m. with the main event set for 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 and available only at the door, the team said. For details on scheduled appearances along with other stops and dates, click here http://cleveland small personal loans.indians.mlb.com/cle/fan_forum/presstour.jsp.

The charity set to benefit from proceeds is the Stefanie Spielman Fund at the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. Spielman, wife of former National Football League and Ohio State University star Chris Spielman, died in November at the age of 42 following a years-long battle with breast cancer.

The regular season for the Indians, the parent club of the AAA Columbus Clippers, begins April 5 against the Chicago White Sox at Wrigley Field.

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More details of a bitter dispute between the publisher of Canada’s largest metropolitan newspaper chain and its lenders, mainly Canada’s big banks, have emerged in court documents.

The documents filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice provide an unusual glimpse into the infighting that went on before CanWest Limited Partnership filed for bankruptcy protection last Friday, owing $1.5 billion.

In a frank exchange of letters, Leonard Asper, chief executive officer of CanWest Global Communications Corp. and CanWest Media Inc., accuses the newspaper group’s secured lenders of putting their interests ahead of other creditors.

Asper also pleads for more time, noting improving economic conditions can only benefit everyone involved.

Asper, whose late father Israel (Izzy) Asper founded CanWest Global, says in a Jan. 4 letter to the lenders that he "profoundly disagrees" with their decision to push the newspaper chain into an "early filing." He says the move could result in "undue and unnecessary harm" to some of the company’s long-time suppliers.

Asper said the court filing could end up costing CanWest LP (the entity that holds the company’s major newspapers) as much as $45 million in fees.

Those fees will go to the same "advisory groups that are driving the process," Asper says in the letter addressed to the Bank of Nova Scotia, which is acting as the agent for the secured creditors.

While Asper acknowledged that the newspaper chain ran into trouble last May and is in default on certain principal payments, he said the company has since "stabilized."

He asked for six months to come up with a plan "that is fair to all parties," citing employees, suppliers and other unsecured lenders.

"For the first time in 14 months, revenue for the most recent month was ahead of the same month last year," Asper noted.

In a sharply worded response, the Bank of Nova Scotia’s executive vice-president Jane Rowe questions Asper’s authority as chief executive at CanWest Media, owner of the Global TV network, to act on behalf of CanWest Limited Partnership, which owns the newspapers.

Rowe also points out that CanWest LP is behind on at least $100 million in payments on various loans since last May and that the secured lenders, which have the right to recall their loans at any time, have been more than patient.

"LP is insolvent," says the Jan. 6 letter signed by Rowe. "It is plain and obvious that it can not support its massive debt, and that a transaction will have to occur that fundamentally alters the balance sheet of the newspaper business."

The argument between the two parties became moot once CanWest LP filed for bankruptcy court protection two days later, a spokesperson for the company said. However, the exchange provides a glimpse into the factors that went into that decision.

CanWest Limited Partnership, which owns a string of 10 major dailies, plus the National Post, owes its lenders $1.5 billion, according to Dominion Bond Rating Services.

As part of the court filing, the newspaper company, whose papers include the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal’s The Gazette and the Calgary Herald, was put up for sale.

At current valuations it could fetch between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, DBRS analyst Chris Diceman estimates. But it has only one offer in hand, from the secured lenders, for $950 million, the amount those lenders are owed.

Other media and financial companies are expected to take a closer look at CanWest LP.

That could leave the unsecured lenders, such as the holders of CanWest’s 9 3/4 per cent bonds, out in the cold, Diceman said Monday.

"If you get to $1.5 billion, all the creditors get 100 cents on the dollar. But if it’s only worth a billion the banks have the secured debt, the banks get paid first. Anything that’s left over, assuming it’s being sold for cash, they would get very little," Diceman said. "I think that’s what he’s trying to say in his letter."

Diceman noted the secured lenders, a group made up of 184 different entities, was able to get agreement on the bankruptcy court filing from only 48 per cent of its members.

However, Diceman also noted the secured lenders have the right to demand repayment and may be under pressure to reinvest that money where it will generate a better return.

"This is a time where the banks are looking at their capital structures, and the value of their loans, given what’s happening in the financial world," he said, referring to the recent credit crunch. "They’ve got to make sure they can get their capital out."

Other industry insiders say a court-supervised sale process mitigates the risk the secured lenders may be sued by the bondholders.

In his letter, Asper estimates both the newspaper chain and CanWest’s broadcast assets, chiefly Global TV, could suffer combined revenue losses of $40 million due to the perception in advertisers’ minds that the two entities will no longer be doing business together.

The company that holds Global TV, CanWest Media Inc., entered bankruptcy protection last October.

The secured lenders reject Asper’s claim the business will be damaged by the process, with Rowe calling the assertion "unsupported."

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Kate Hanni was involuntarily bumped off US Airways flights in Phoenix not once, but twice, because those flights were oversold.

It took her nearly 36 hours to get from one end of the country to the other — without weather delays — and in the wake of that ordeal, she put her foot down.

“I haven’t flown with US Airways since,” said Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, a nonprofit that represents airline passengers. She also canceled her frequent flyer membership with the carrier.

Stories like Hanni’s have become increasingly familiar among travelers, and Tempe-based US Airways isn’t the only one taking heat from disgruntled customers.

The industry has been hit particularly hard by the recession and customer service has been on the backburner as airlines struggle for survival. The industry saw all-time lows in 2007 for on-time performance, mishandled baggage, denied boardings and customer complaints.

But for the past several years, US Airways in particular has found a home toward or at the bottom for customer service satisfaction ratings among the major domestic air carriers.

The airline now has some of the highest baggage check-in and in-flight service fees and its employees are some of the lowest paid in the industry, according to FareCompare.com. Experts say more layoffs and fewer flights coming early next year likely won’t improve staff morale.

After surveying 12,900 domestic travelers, the J.D. Power & Associate’s 2009 North American Airline Satisfaction Study concluded that US Airways ranked last in customer satisfaction among the traditional networks.

“US Airways’ overall customer satisfaction has been steadily declining for the past four years,” said Dale Haines, senior director of travel and hospitality practices at J.D. Power.

That’s about the same time the airline officially merged with America West in 2005, which some critics say hasn’t been completely successful.

“Management values trickle down into every aspect of these businesses,” said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University in Kansas, who has conducted the Airline Quality Rating report since 1991.

“The blending of two philosophies is very hard,” he said.

Despite the criticism, the U easy to get unsecured personal loans.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report indicates the airline has improved this year. The report measures monthly data from airlines as well as the number of complaints the DOT receives from consumers.

In its third-quarter report, US Airways boasted about ranking first in on-time arrivals for August, with an 81.4 percent on-time arrival rate among the six big domestic carriers as measured by the DOT. The carrier improved to 87.9 percent in September.

The company also reported September was its lowest mishandled baggage rate, at 2.14 per 1,000 passengers, since January 2002. Its overall number of complaints also dropped nearly 50 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, according to the report.

Numerous requests to speak to top-level US Airways executives for this story were denied. US Air spokesman Andrew Christie said a renewed commitment to listening to customer feedback through a committee of senior-level employees largely has contributed to the improvements.

WSU’s Headley said US Airway’s improvements shouldn’t be glorified because the industry as a whole has improved this year. Data compiled by the Airline Quality Rating also show that leading air carriers’ performance improved in 2009 for the first time in five years.

Haines said the consumer report is a poor representation of what consumers really think. At the same time the DOT reported industry improvements in 2009, J.D. Power found that overall airline customer satisfaction declined for a third consecutive year to a four-year low.

“Unfortunately, any improvements in customer satisfaction are being offset by passenger displeasure with cut-backs on in-flight services, increases in fees and issues with helpfulness and courtesy of flight crews,” Haines said in a press release.

But Headley is more optimistic about the future. With less traveler volume, airlines like US Airways can focus more on improving customer service, among other things, which will hopefully continue when the economy begins to recover.

“It’s clear from the rankings that now is the time to invest in new infrastructure and upgrade technology. Now is the time to innovate,” he said in a press release.

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Arizona Public Service Co. has spent $8.5 million in the past four years on a program to help lower the cost of energy saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Since 2005, the company has provided a discount of about $1 per bulb to retailers to help keep the cost low. Under the program, there have been more than 8.8 million lights sold through participating retailers.

The program is funded by fees charged to customers and approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission paperless payday loans.

APS officials estimate its customers will save about $350 million over the lifetime of the bulbs, which can last five years or more.

To further encourage people to switch their lighting habits, APS has rolled out an online calculator that can estimate the savings at homes that switch to CFLs.

For info: www.aps.com/MyCFL

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Chevron Corp.’s $40 billion Australian natural gas project will drive a global hunt for construction workers and has prompted calls to ease immigration rules to prevent labor shortages and cost overruns at energy and mining projects fueling the country’s economy.

Contractors for Chevron and partners Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc in the Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant plan to pay premiums of as much as 40 percent for welders, pipe fitters, project managers and engineers, recruiters said. They expect to hire in the Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

Gorgon is the largest of more than a dozen LNG ventures in Australia targeting Asian demand for cleaner-burning fuels. It will compete for staff with Woodside Petroleum Ltd., which said Nov. 20 the cost of its $12 billion Pluto LNG project may surge by as much as $1 billion, partly because of labor expenses.

“This doesn’t bode well for Australia’s mega projects,” Woodside Chief Executive Officer Don Voelte said in a Nov. 25 interview at the Perth headquarters of the country’s second- largest oil and gas producer. “It’s going to be a stretch when more than one company is trying to build these things.”

The Chevron and Woodside investments are among more than $90 billion of resources projects expected to generate about 40,000 construction jobs in Western Australia alone, a state government report shows. Voelte wants the federal government to relax immigration regulations for overseas workers and has started an equity incentive plan to retain staff.

Labor ‘Race’

“For Woodside we believe it is a race to capture or not lose the workforce to Chevron, a significant risk for Woodside’s growth plans,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Mark Greenwood wrote in a Nov. 25 report.

About 80 natural resource ventures to be built in the next decade may increase demand for skilled workers by as much as 70 percent, Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said in a Nov. 30 speech in Perth to mark the start of construction of Gorgon on Barrow Island, a nature reserve about 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the northwestern coast.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has tasked a group of government, immigration and industry officials to help companies such as Chevron and BHP Billiton Ltd. find 70,000 workers in the next decade, making Gorgon its top priority.

“A series of cost overruns could discourage future investments,” Gary Gray, chairman of the Rudd-appointed group and Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, said by phone. “The urgency is to ensure as best as we can the adequacy of labor to deliver projects on time and on budget.”

Wage ‘Premium’

About 80 percent of oil and gas industry employers in Australia said in a survey they intend to increase salaries in the next 12 months, Matt Underhill, managing director at recruiting firm Hays, said from Sydney. Professionals in the pipeline industry currently earn $191,000 annually on average in Australia, he said.

“The expertise is specialized, so there’s going to be a premium paid for that type of labor,” said John Hirjee, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Melbourne same day payday loans. Labor may account for 10 to 20 percent of costs at Australian LNG projects, he said.

Contractors may offer workers as much as 40 percent more than they could earn in Sydney to entice them to Barrow Island, said John Downing of Downing Teal Pty. The company and other recruiting firms hiring for ventures including Gorgon will extend their search to the Middle East and Latin America, he said.

Serbian Sparks

Leighton Holdings Ltd., whose units have won A$1.3 billion of Gorgon work, has in the past hired electricians in Serbia and welders in South Korea, said spokesman Justin Grogan.

Officials with Western Australia’s Department of Training and Workforce Development have met with Chevron to discuss labor needs, Simon Walker, an executive director at the department, said in e-mailed comments.

The department is working on a proposal to tackle the looming shortage and “strategic immigration will be a key consideration factored into the plan,” he wrote.

“Capacity constraints can lead to escalating labor costs, increasing prices and ultimately, they can threaten the viability of enterprises, which negatively affects economic growth and the well-being of the population,” Walker said.

A Chevron advertising campaign to tout Gorgon includes a television commercial with the line “creating thousands of jobs and providing opportunities for generations to come.”

‘Sexy’ Gorgon

It’s a “sexy project” that should have an advantage in securing labor, Colin Beckett, the venture’s general manager, said on Barrow Island in October. A thousand applicants have chased 30 or 40 positions in some cases, he said. Welders and instrument technicians will prove harder to find.

Conditions for those living on Barrow Island, where average temperatures reach as high as 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit), will be improved by access to the Internet, cable television, gyms, swimming pools and a golf driving range.

“We think Barrow Island will be attractive to a lot of people,” Beckett said.

One Gorgon contractor is offering A$300,000 ($280,000) for a manager to assess risk and as much as A$135,000 for a contracts administrator, according to advertisements placed by Downing Teal. Engineers will earn “well into six figures,” John Downing said.

A labor shortage that confronted Australian mining and energy during a previous boom is set to return BHP Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers said last month. “Just two short years ago there was a massive talent gap in the resources industry,” he said in a Nov. 18 speech. “I believe this gap will return along with demand.”

Gas project developers have built the risk of rising labor bills into their plans and are having LNG processing units built in lower-cost Asian countries and reassembled in Australia to cut expenses, Deutsche Bank’s Hirjee said.

“That’s not to say these cost blow-outs may not happen,” he said. “They could.”

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A man who claims to be the "Godfather of Spam" has been sentenced to 51 months in prison by a federal judge in Detroit for his lead role in an e-mail stock scam scheme, according to court documents.

Alan Ralsky, 64, also faces five years probation and will have to forfeit $250,000 that was seized by the government in 2007.

U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani also sentenced three others Monday for their involvement in the scheme, including Ralsky’s son-in-law Scott Bradley, 48, who received 40 months in prison and five years probation.

Ralsky and Bradley were charged for conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud and violating the CAN-SPAM Act, which criminalizes large, commercial e-mail messages sent using an unauthorized computer or with the intent to hide the e-mail’s original source, according to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. They were also charged with committing wire fraud and engaging in money laundering.

Ralsky and Bradley, both of West Bloomfield, Mich., pleaded guilty to the charges in June.

Ralsky’s history as a prolific spammer dates back to 1997. Before the Bush administration passed a law to crack down on e-mail marketers in 2003, Ralsky reportedly sent 70 million messages a day from fake names.

In the operation that began in January 2004, the team sent billions of illegal e-mail advertisements to inflate the price of Chinese penny stocks and then reaped the profit, according to the prosecutor’s office. They raked in nearly $3 million during the summer of 2005.

The prosecution said Ralsky worked with How Wai John Hui, a resident of Hong Kong and Canada, to run the operation. Hui was also sentenced to 51 months in prison and 3 years of probation, and he agreed to forfeit $500,000 easy payday loans.

Hui was the CEO of China World Trade and served as the lead dealmaker representing companies whose stocks were being promoted in the spam e-mails. Hui plead guilty in December 2008.

John Bown, 45, of Fresno, Calif., was sentenced to 32 months in prison for his role in the scheme. He will face 3 years of probation and will forfeit $120,000.

"With today’s sentence of the self-proclaimed ‘Godfather of Spam,’ Alan Ralsky, and three others who played central roles in a complicated stock span pump- and-dump scheme, the court has made it clear that advancing fraud through the abuse of the Internet will lead to several years in prison," said U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, in a statement Monday.

Though the government originally recommended that Ralsky receive up to 87 months in prison, it lowered the sentence recommendation range in November to between 35 and 43 months because of Ralsky’s cooperation.

Ralsky’s lawyer, Steven Fishman, said he believed the sentence was "excessive."

"It was the most disappointing event that I have ever experienced in 36 years as a lawyer," Fishman said. "The sentence was higher than even what the government recommended, and I never imagined that in a million years. Everyone in the court house was stunned."

The FBI conducted a 3-year investigation and indicted the 11 involved individuals in December 2007.

Five others, who also pleaded guilty, were to be given their sentence Tuesday. Cases for two other individuals that were indicted were still pending. 

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WASHINGTON–The apparent end of the recession and stabilizing financial markets have not cured the U.S. banking industry, as souring and past-due loans have reached the highest levels in 26 years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday.

Banks earned $2.8 billion (U.S.) in the third quarter, but loan balances plummeted and the fund that insures their deposits was $8.2 billion in the red.

The number of banks on the FDIC’s "problem list" rose to 552 from 416 on June 30, the highest level in 16 years. Fifty banks failed during the quarter – the largest number since the second quarter of 1990.

The FDIC’s fund that insures bank deposits fell by $18.6 billion, mostly because $21.7 billion was set aside for expected losses on future bank failures. The last similar deficit was in Dec. 1991, when a predecessor fund was more than $7 billion in the red.

Separately, the Office of Thrift Supervision said Tuesday that thrifts eked out a $200 million profit in the third quarter. The agency called it "another break-even quarter," after a small second-quarter profit was revised downward to a $94 million loss.

Still, it was the first profitable quarter since the same period in 2007.

The nominal profit for the third quarter is $1.3 billion, but $1.1 billion is a one-time gain at a single institution.

The agency says the number of "problem thrifts" rose to 43 from 40 last quarter.

Thrifts differ from banks in that they are required, by law, to have at least 65 per cent of their lending in mortgages and other consumer loans. That makes them especially vulnerable to the housing downturn and unemployment. It also means they will play a key role in an eventual economic recovery.

The FDIC voted this month to require banks to prepay three years of deposit insurance premiums by the end of next month to help replenish the dwindling deposit insurance fund, which is at its lowest point on record. That will raise about $45 billion.

But bank failures this year through 2013 are expected to cost the fund $100 billion, so the prepayments won’t provide a long-term fix for the insurance fund. It does spare ailing banks the immediate cost of paying a second emergency fee this year.

Depositors’ money – insured up to $250,000 per account – is not at risk, since the FDIC has the option of tapping a credit line with the Treasury Department no checking account payday advance.

"While bank and thrift earnings have improved, the effects of the recession continue to be reflected in their financial performance," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.

A 2.8 per cent drop-off in loans outstanding – the largest percentage decline on record – showed that credit for consumers and businesses remained tight, she said.

"There is no question that credit availability is an important issue for the economic recovery," Bair said. "We need to see banks making more loans to their business customers.”

That’s especially important for small businesses, which get more than 60 per cent of their credit from banks the FDIC insures, she said.

Bank profits returned in the third quarter after a $4.3 billion loss in the previous quarter and $879 million in earnings last year. But analysts warned not to read much into the better earnings.

"A few very large banks are making a pile of money, and the rest of the industry is hurting," said Daniel Alpert, managing director of the New York investment bank Westwood Capital LLC.

The largest Wall Street firms are benefiting from a host of government subsidies – such as capital injections, asset guarantees, low-cost borrowing – that cost taxpayers without improving the economy, Alpert said.

"We’re creating riskless profits for the big banks," he said.

Still, banking analyst Bert Ely said the Federal Reserve’s low-interest rate policy is helping the whole industry.

Net interest margin – the difference between what it costs banks to borrow and what they pay to depositors – reached a four-year high.

It was a rare bright spot in the FDIC report.

That bright spot comes at the expense of consumers, who are earning historically low interest rates on their deposits.

"Americans are getting nothing in terms of interest on their savings so that the banks can make money," Alpert said.

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Thanksgiving air travelers can expect crowded planes as a result of the most dramatic capacity cuts since World War II, according to the industry’s trade group.

Airplanes will be full, despite a 4% reduction in passenger volume for the Thanksgiving season compared to last year, according to the Air Transport Association. This is because the industry has slashed capacity by 6.9% year-over-year to improve efficiency in the face of higher fuel costs and slumping demand, said the trade group.

"Our expectation is that there will be fewer passengers flying because of economic measures," said ATA spokeswoman Elizabeth Merida. "The planes will still be full, even though the airports will be 4% less crowded."

This year has seen the biggest capacity reduction since 1942, when civilian aircraft were diverted towards the war effort, resulting in a cut of 16.9%, she said.

Since then, the industry has grown its capacity with few interruptions. The most dramatic capacity plunge, aside from the current decline and World War II, occurred immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but it was relatively short-term.

Packed airports and planes but fewer delays

Anne Banas, executive editor at smartertravel.com, said with fewer planes in the air the holiday travel experience may be streamlined.

"Yes, planes will be full, but I don’t think there will be so many delays," she said. "[It will be] smooth sailing compared to last year, in terms of getting stuck in the airports, because there are so few airplanes compared to last year."

But she added that the airports during the Thanksgiving holiday are packed with once-a-year fliers who tend to be less "savvy" in negotiating airport security, holding up the line for frequent fliers.

Rick Seaney, chief executive of Farecompare.com, said the airports will be "jam-packed full," despite the decline in passenger volume, because the Thanksgiving travel season is the busiest of the year - even busier than Christmas payday loan.

Forget about bringing those presents

The biggest and the newest obstacle facing air travelers will probably be the fees for checked baggage, said Seaney, which were implemented by most of the carriers last year.

"Everybody now is pretty much educated on baggage fees, so there’s going to be absolutely no room in the cabin for packages," he said. "So you might want to send your bags ahead. You don’t want to be in the back half of the boarding cycle."

As for air fares, the Air Transport Association said that ticket prices are down 13% this year, compared to 2008. Thanksgiving is fast approaching for those who haven’t purchased tickets. But Seaney said that some airlines, such as Delta Air Lines (DAL, Fortune 500) and UAL Corp.’s (UAUA, Fortune 500) United Airlines, have shortened their pre-flight purchase windows to seven days from 14, meaning that passengers still have time before fares hit their dramatic, short-term increases.

Banas suggested that people who haven’t purchased their tickets should schedule their return flight for the Monday following Thanksgiving, rather than the Sunday. The Monday fare should be cheaper, she said, because most travelers "maximize the weekend" and fly on Sunday.

As a final word of Thanksgiving advice, Seaney urged travelers to not vent their frustrations on airline and airport employees.

"The people who are working those holidays are just as frustrated about being at the airport as you are on the holiday, and you’re not going to get what you want if you blow up at them," he said. 

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Unemployment rose in 23 U.S. states in September and hit records in Nevada, Rhode Island and Florida.

Nevada’s jobless rate, at 13.3 percent, was the second- highest among U.S. states behind Michigan, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Unemployment in Rhode Island reached 13 percent, and Florida’s rate climbed to 11 percent, the highest since data began in 1976.

Mounting unemployment is hurting state budgets by cutting tax revenue and boosting benefits to fired workers. Joblessness nationally will reach 10 percent this quarter, a Bloomberg News survey of economists showed this month, indicating consumers will probably not lead a recovery from the recession.

“There is still scant evidence of hiring,” said Marisa Di Natale, a director at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “We expect the unemployment rate in most areas to continue rising despite fewer job cuts,” she said.

The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment held at 14 last month. The jobless rate nationally reached a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, the Labor Department reported earlier this month.

Unemployment in the District of Columbia also exceeded 10 percent for a fifth consecutive month, rising to 11.4 percent from 11.1 percent.

Michigan Unemployment

Michigan continued to lead the nation in joblessness, with a rate of 15.3 percent in September, up from 15.2 percent.

The depressed labor market in the state reflects Michigan’s dependence on the auto industry, said Timothy Bartik, a senior economist with the W.E. Upjohn Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a non-profit labor-research group.

“Any state that specializes in a particular industry, when that industry tanks, it’s very hard to offset in any five- or 10-year period.”

New York City’s unemployment rate reached a 25-year high of 10.3 percent in September, the state’s Labor Department reported last week. The rate was 10.2 percent in August and 6 percent in September 2008. The state’s jobless level held at 8.9 percent.

New Jersey, Connecticut

New Jersey’s rate rose to 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1977, from 9 no fax payday loan.6 percent, the state’s Labor Department said Oct. 14. Joblessness in Connecticut climbed to 8.4 percent, also the highest in 32 years, from 8.1 percent, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

“The economy right now is very bad,” said Ireita Kante, 52, of Atlanta, who lost her restaurant management job this month. “I do have confidence we will turn around. We have to. We are a strong country.”

Georgia’s unemployment rate held at 10.1 percent.

Payrolls fell last month in 43 states and the District of Columbia, today’s report showed. New York showed the biggest drop with an 81,700 decrease. The decline reflected a 63,400 drop in government payrolls, which the state said was caused by the expiration of the summer youth employment program.

Texas followed with a 44,700 drop in payrolls and California was next with a 39,300 decrease.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc., the world’s second- largest maker of personal computers, is among companies still paring staff to cut expenses. Dell said this month it will shutter a North Carolina factory with 905 employees by January. The job cuts are part of the company’s objective of saving $4 billion a year in costs as demand for computers declines.

Cutting Costs

“We set out a pretty big cost goal for ourselves,” Michael Dell, chief executive officer of the Round Rock, Texas- based company, said Oct. 14, a week after announcing the closure of the PC factory. “It’s looking like the $4 billion is quite achievable.”

Over the last year, California showed the biggest loss of jobs, with payrolls falling by 732,700 workers, more than twice Florida’s 360,400 decrease that was the second-biggest.

Payrolls in the world’s largest economy fell by 263,000 last month, more than forecast, the Labor Department reported earlier this month. The U.S. economy has lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.

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