Text hero to 90999 on Monday February 1st in order to help donate.

You will then immediately get a text message back confirming that you want to donate. Respond with a y and the donation will be complete

This will put a 1, and only 1 time charge of 5 dollars on your phone bill that will be donated directly to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. (Standard text message rates will apply)

Please help us save millions of lives and reach down into your pocket and grab that cell phone and donate.

This number will only be active for this one day so please find it in your hearts to donate to this cause.

Ken & Barbie Events Elvis will be in the house…. Tom Lagravinese from http://www.Tomedy.com. Join us at Everything Love! You don’t want to miss it!

Whether you are looking for an Elvis Show, or Elvis for a private party, Tom is the performer you are looking for. No audience is too big or small for Tom!
The Personable Entertainer!

We found our male cupid. Meet Ken & Barbie Events’ Mr. Cupid at Everything Love. Wouldn’t you want a picture taken with him?

We are in love… Meet Tastefully Bare Miss January 2010 at Everything Love dressed up as Miss Cupid. Wouldn’t you want a picture?

St. Lucy’s School’s Parent Association in Bronx, New York, will be hosting a gold party to fund raise for the school. Please come a support the students by bringing your unwanted gold, scraps, mismatch gold, and broken jewelry. LaGravinese Gold Party will give you top dollar for your gold and give you cash on the spot, not checks like other companies.

Bring a friend, or two, or even three.

November 11 – 17

KBE will be on BronxNet, Monday, November 9 at 10am, Live!

“OPEN” is a live, call-in television program featuring in-studio discussions with/and demonstrations by guest experts, as well as highlight stories produced on location. Our topics range from Health and Fitness, Education and Politics, to Arts and Entertainment. The program is cablecast on BronxNet, Channel 67, on the Cablevision system, in the borough of the Bronx. “OPEN” is cablecast live on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, at 10:00 a.m., with repeat cablecasts each of those nights at 10:00 p.m.

For more on “OPEN” and BronxNet Television visit our website: www.bronxnet.org.

More information to come… Thank you for your support.

LatISM on: Twitter / FaceBook / LinkedIn

The first national tour taking place in three states – NY, TX, FL - during the Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th – October 15th).

This two-day event will provide a networking opportunity and conference presentation, bringing together the leading minds and innovators in social media and technology.

All are welcome to learn, understand and support Latinos in the current dynamic social media enviornment.

With 21 million projected Latino internet users by 2010, Latinos are adopting social media as their primary source of communication, news and entertainment faster than any other group.  Their buying power is projected to reach $1.3 Trillion by 2013.

It is paramount to learn what cultural factors are driving this shift, and understand how to reach Latinos where they are primarily active in emerging technologies.

The Latinos In Social Media Heritage Tour, will present these topics and more:

-Latest trends in social media and effective marketing strategies.
-Case studies of top brands/companies; challenges and obstacles.
-Developing and social media technologies and trends
-Latino culture, heritage, demographics in the U.S. today

We believe the best way to reach Latinos is through Latinos.  LatISM will bring Bloggers, Twitters, Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, LinkedIn Leaders and many more together to learn about the latest Social Media trends.  All this while celebrating our culture!

• Event Highlights

The LatIsm Heritage Tour will bring a combination of learning and deal making, it will provide sponsors and social media professionals with incredible opportunities to strengthen relationships while obtaining key industry insights that can be used to drive results.

The Tour will take place during the Hispanic Heritage Month in Texas (Sep. 24-25), New York (Oct 1-2), and Florida (Oct. 8-9).

• Latism Awards

The LatISM Awards will give official recognition to the best Latinos and Latinas in Social Media.  Awards will also go to the best companies and non-for-profit organizations targeting Hispanics through Social Media.

We are now calling for nominations in the following categories:

• Best Latino Blogger
• Best Latino Tweep
• Best Facebook Leader
• Best Linkedin Leader
• Best Latino Marketer
• Best Latino Social Entrepreneur
• Best Latino Social Media Business Man/Woman
• Best Hispanic Marketing Campaign
• Best Non-For-Profit Hispanic Outreach
• Best Latino Social Media Professional

• Latism in NY

Recently, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a new initiative to vitalize the media industry in NYC to maintain its role as the media capital of the world.  Combine that with over 2 million Latinos who make New York their home it is no surprise that the LatISM tour will take place here.

LatISM NY will take place at the Pier Sixty in the heart of Manhattan on October 1st & 2nd. Take a look at the agenda and take advantage of the early bird registration discount.

Our local partner:

George Torres

George Torres aka The Urban Jibaro is a bi-lingual social media guru, cultural activist, radio personality and founder of cultural online magazine SofritoForYourSoul.com. Having been born & raised between Brooklyn & Bayamon, he was reared with traditional Puerto Rican values and incorporated that with what he learned in the streets of East New York. This mixture of elements in his life earned him the nickname “Urban Jibaro” that former Young Lord and Community Leader, the late Richie Perez bestowed on him.

George has over 12 years experience developing projects that market to the urban Latino demographic on the internet. His current projects include Capicu Poetry, a monthly open mic poetry / cultural showcase in Williamsburg Brooklyn he founded with Urban Legend PaPo Swiggity from Espacio Latino. There is also the first Latino radio show on Blog Talk Radio called Radio Capicu that he co-hosts with La Chica Que Pica. It is through this work that he hopes to continue to empower the community to promote and document the evolution of Latino culture in order to help second and third generation Latinos reconnect with lost elements of a cultural legacy they rightfully own.

• Tickets (http://latism.org/tickets.php)

Early Full Registration until August 14 – $150

Full Registration – $200

Network, Award, and Party Only – $80

• Agenda

[Source: LatISM.org]

Job losses slow to 247,000; jobless rate dips

WASHINGTON — Employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent, its first decline in 15 months.

It was a better-than-expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending.

The new snapshot, released by the Labor Department on Friday, also offered other encouraging news: workers’ hours nudged up after sinking to a record low in June, and paychecks grew after having fallen or flat lined in some cases.

To be sure, the report still indicates that the jobs market is on shaky ground. But the new figures were better than many analysts were expecting and offered welcomed improvements to a part of the economy that has been clobbered by the recession.

Analysts were forecasting job losses to slow to around 320,000 and the unemployment rate to tick up to 9.6 percent.

“There’s clearly been a turn for the better. The worst is behind us in terms of layoffs. Now we need to see more hiring,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

The dip in the unemployment rate — from June’s 9.5 percent — was the first since April 2008. One of the reasons the rate went down, however, was because hundreds of thousands of people left the labor force. Fewer people, though, did report being unemployed.

All told, there were 14.5 million out of work in July.

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included the unemployment rate would have been 16.3 percent in July. That’s down from 16.5 percent in June, which was the highest on records dating to 1994.

Also heartening: job losses in May and June turned out to be less than previously reported. Employers sliced 303,000 positions in May, versus 322,000 previously logged. And, they cut 443,000 in June, compared with an earlier estimate of 467,000.

The job cuts made in July were the fewest since August 2008.

The slowdown in layoffs in part reflected fewer jobs cuts in manufacturing, construction, professional and business services and financial activities — areas that have been hard hit by the collapse of the housing market and the financial crisis. There also were fewer layoffs in the temporary-help industry, which analysts watch for clues about future hiring. Retailers, however, cut more jobs in July.

Those losses were blunted by job gains in government, education and health services, and in leisure and hospitality.

The worst of the job cuts have passed.

The deepest job cuts of the recession came in January, when 741,000 job disappeared, the most in any month since 1949.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6.7 million jobs.

Slower job losses are occurring because companies aren’t cutting investment and spending as drastically as they had been during the depths of the recession which came in the final quarter of last year and carried over into the first quarter of this year.

With companies feeling a bit better about the economy’s prospects and their own, they boosted workers’ hours in July. The average work week rose to 33.1 hours, after having fallen to 33 hours in June, the lowest on records dating to 1964.

And, employers bumped up wages.

Average hourly earnings rose to $18.56 in July, up from $18.53 in June. Hourly earnings were stagnant in June. Average weekly earnings, which fell in June, rose to $614.34. Those gains raised hopes that consumers — whose spending accounts for the single-largest slice of economic activity — will feel more confident and more inclined to spend in the months ahead, thus helping the recovery.

Other recent barometers have shown some improvements in manufacturing, housing and construction activity.

The government reported last week that the economy shrank at a pace of just 1 percent from April-to-June, another sign the recession is winding down.

Many analysts predict the economy could start growing again in the current July-to-September quarter. And, the Fed recently observed that the economy is finally showing signs of stabilizing in some regions of the country — especially in parts of the Northeast and Midwest — bolstering hopes of a broader-based recovery this year.

Even with the improvements, it will take time for the jobs market to fully heal.

The Federal Reserve has predicted the unemployment rate is likely to top 10 percent this year. Some Fed officials think it could rise as high as 10.6 percent in 2010. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country suffered through a severe recession.

An elevated unemployment rate could become a political liability for President Barack Obama when congressional elections are held next year. The last time the unemployment rate topped 10 percent, the party of the president — then Ronald Reagan’s GOP — lost 26 House seats in the midterm elections in 1982.

Obama has urged Americans to be patient and give time for his $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending to take hold. Most of the money will flow in 2010.

When the economy is healthy, employers add a net total of around 125,000 jobs a month just to keep the unemployment rate stable. To get the jobless rate down to a more normal 5 percent range, it would take stronger job growth — of at least 200,000 jobs a month. Economists say it might take until 2013 to drive down the unemployment rate to 5 percent.

In this Aug. 3, 2009 photo, people looking for work search on computers at a Worksource office in Portland, Ore. Employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent. It was a better than expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending.(AP Photo/Don Ryan)

Zina Mixx, 44, who is homeless, fills out a job application in a South Florida Mobile Workforce van at the Community Partnership for the Homeless in Homestead, Fla. Thursday Aug. 6, 2009. Mixx has been unemployed since she lost her waitress job in April. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

[Source: By Jeannine Aversa (AP)]