Some tax-resolution companies are scams

Investors are often warned that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Or in other words, if that guy on TV really made millions investing in real estate with no money down, why can't he afford a better toupee?By Tina Fineberg, APWhen hiring any type of tax professional consumers should investigate how reputable the company or individual is.By Tina Fineberg, APWhen hiring any type...

Worried about retirement? Online calculators can help

Q: Can you recommend any online retirement calculators?adbuilder.comadbuilder.comA: Mountaineers plan to scale Mount Everest. Runners train for a marathon. But for investors, retirement is the big long term goal.Few financial goals are more important than making sure you have enough money when you are elderly. Do the math wrong and you might wind up eating dog food when you're 90 years old. But...

Explorers' century-old whisky found in Antarctic

Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.Ice cracked some of the bottles that had been left there in 1909, but the restorers said Friday they are confident the five crates contain intact bottles "given liquid can be heard when the crates are moved."New Zealand Antarctic...

Dawn closes in on Vesta

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has closed within 300,000 miles of the second-largest object in the asteroid belt, Vesta, report mission managers. "Vesta is coming more and more into focus," said team camera lead investigator Andreas Nathues, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, in a statement. "Dawn's framing camera is working exactly as anticipated."Scheduled for a July 16, rendezvous...

Q&A sites take search to the next level

Kerryann Bouret spends her week answering a lot of questions.ChaChaChaCha's web site.ChaChaChaCha's web site.As one of 65,000 "guides" for the ChaCha question-and-answer website, she'll answer about 500 questions a day. Some are easy: "What time is sunrise today in Sacramento?" Others are doozies: "Compare and contrast Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird with characters in 1984."She doesn't...