Northeast states cut heating aid to poor
Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can’t afford enough heating oil to stay warm.
She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans.
“I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there,’’ said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. “I will do what I have to do.’’
Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.
“They’re playing Russian roulette with people’s lives,’’ said John Drew, who heads Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which provides aid to low-income residents in Massachusetts.
Read more at link: http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-11/news/30505478_1_heating-aid-heating-oil-home-heating
Israeli tank blows up Catholic Church in Gaza, killing two and wounding
priest who was close friend to Pope Francis
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The shelling of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza also damaged the
church compound, where hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering from
the war.
18 minutes ago