An Achievable Dream senior's journey takes him from homeless shelters to Virginia Tech

NEWPORT NEWS — Sam Stackhouse was in kindergarten when he and his four siblings began living in homeless shelters with their mother.

In second-grade, Sam and the children moved in with his maternal grandmother, and his mom disappeared from his life for a year. The pattern of seeing her in and out of his life continued through Sam's education at An Achievable Dream, which he's set to graduate from Thursday.

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Pressured by Greenpeace, Mattel cuts off sub-supplier APP

Responding to pressure from Greenpeace this week, toy maker Mattel Inc. said it would direct its suppliers to stop buying wood products from Asia Pulp & Paper, a Singapore company that has clear-cut vast swaths of Indonesia's rain forest.

As the environmental group's global campaign against Mattel gained traction, the El Segundo company said on its Facebook page: "Mattel does not support deforestation nor does it contract directly with Sinar Mas/APP. We purchase packaging materials from a variety of suppliers and it is not the normal course of business to dictate where suppliers source materials."

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May budget deficit less than half prior year's

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The budget deficit fell by more than half in May from year-earlier levels to $57.64 billion as tax revenues continued to rise, the Treasury Department reported on Friday.

The monthly deficit was far below the $140 billion gap that economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast, and was down from $135.93 billion in May 2010.

Revenues have been relatively strong, given a relatively high rate of national unemployment, but lawmakers still face an urgent need to reach a deal on budget and debt issues to try to get the deficit onto a long-term downward trajectory.

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