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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – Two veteran motorcycle policemen were awarded Monday $2 million by a jury who found their Los Angeles Police Department commanders guilty of requiring them to issue 18 traffic violation tickets per day.

Howard Chan and David Benioff of the LAPD West Traffic Division sued their commanders in 2009 alleging they were punished and harassed for complaining and refusing to comply with the ticket quota.

Benioff’s attorney, Gregory Smith, said the jury’s verdict hopes to end fleecing of motorists adding that the quota was illegal. The LAPD had no comment and city lawyers are considering appealing the jury verdict.

In the suit, Benioff and Chan alleged that Capt. Nancy Lauer, commander of the traffic division, and her lieutenants imposed the quota in 2006. Lauer denied the allegation and said the 18 traffic ticket per day was a goal.

A meeting between the police union and LAPD officials clarified the quota issue but Benioff and Chan pursued the suit because they were already punished for complaining.

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Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Nepali anti-poverty activist Shrikrishna Upadhyay has been awarded the 2010 Right Livelihood Award, often called the “alternative Nobel Prize.” He is the first Nepali to receive the award.

Others receiving the award, announced Thursday by the Stockholm-based Right Livelihood Award Foundation, are Nnimmo Bassey from Nigeria, Bishop Erwin Krautler from Brazil and the organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel. The four recipients will share a 200,000 euro cash award.

Upadhyay was commended “for demonstrating over many years the power of community mobilization to address the multiple causes of poverty even when threatened by political violence and instability,” according to the award committee.

Upadhyay was unavailable to comment because he was traveling outside the country. However, a colleague who has been associated with him for 15 years told All Headline News that he is one of the finest personalities he ever had met.

” I have never met people like him who never committed any mistake at any time during his career,” co-worker Ram Bahadur Bogati told AHN in a short conversation.

Upadhyay’s professional qualities are a source of inspiration for other developmental activists in Nepal, Bogati said. During Upadhyay’s maiden career as chief of the Agriculture Development Bank of Nepal, he was one of the most successful leaders, who successfully took the institution to new heights, said his colleague.

In 1975, Upadhyay helped initiate the Small Farmer Development Programme, which yielded substantial achievements in the fields of micro-credit, low-cost drinking water supply schemes, tree planting, training and literacy through social mobilization. In 1991, Upadhyay founded SAPPROS (Support Activities for Poor Producers of Nepal), which focuses on improving agricultural productivity of small landholders and linking them to emerging markets.

Because of the food crisis and importance of agriculture in reducing poverty, SAPPROS works to promote “high value crops based upon organic agriculture principles, which is going to bring substantial number of small producers out of poverty,” he says on the organization’s website. “In this regard it will promote package of technologies such as sprinklers, water harvesting tanks, SRI, Gravity Rope Ways and others increasing agricultural income of poor households.”

SAPPROS operates in the poorest 12 districts of Nepal. By 2010, SAPPROS said it had formed 2,434 savings and credit groups and 273 cooperatives with a membership of 1.3 million of whom about 40 percent are women.

The awards will be presented to the recipients in a ceremony at the Swedish Parliament on Dec. 6, four days before the Nobel Prizes are handed out.

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Being a student can be very tough. The long hours you have to spend studying and cramming just to get by for your final exam can be very exhausting. Being successful is school can be a mental game if you happen to have a lot of projects at hand.

Sometimes you might find yourself cramming additional units every semester just so that you can graduate on time. The last thing you need to be worrying about is how you can get a loan for school. For most people being able to go back to school and qualify for a loan that they need can be the dealbreaker.

You have several options when it comes to getting back to school loans. One option is to opt for a private loan and your other option is to apply for a federal loan. If you’re deciding to sign up for a federal loan there is no need to get a cosigner.

But if you’re interested in getting a private back to school loan you might need a cosigner if your credit isn’t the best. Usually federal loans will not cover the full cost of your tuition expenses. When you end of coming up short you have the option of getting a private loan or possibly a scholarship award.

In most cases, students end up signing up for scholarships. Scholarships are free sign-up for and they are relatively easy to qualify for. It takes only about five minutes to fill out the required information for a scholarship application.