NPR News

Launching a new company is never easy. But in the beginning, the founders of Web-based marketing firm Bluebox Now felt they were on track. The Seattle startup lined up a large paying customer, had a lot of other great leads and was reasonably confident it would get a sizable amount of outside funding. A lot has happened since then.

The jobless rate has declined a bit in the last year, but among veterans who served in conflict since 2003, it is increasing. The unemployment rate for vets serving since the Iraq war began has risen 1.5 percentage points to more than 12 percent in the past year.

Many veterans say they face a tougher job market than civilians. Tom Tarantino spent a decade in the military, where he served in Iraq and led a platoon. But when he separated from the military in 2007, he spent nearly a year looking for a job.

New York City is safer than it's been in generations, but there does seem to be an alarming jump in the crime rate inside the New York Police Department.

In the past two months, members of the country's biggest police force have been accused of fixing parking tickets, smuggling guns and even planting drugs on innocent people.

In October, the U.S. attorney in New York, Preet Bharara, charged five current NYPD officers with smuggling what they thought were stolen cigarettes and firearms as part of an FBI sting.