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French companies shed the most jobs in 40 years in the fourth quarter as manufacturing slumped and employers braced for the worst recession since World War II.

Payrolls, excluding government employees, farm workers and the self-employed, dropped by 117,300, or 0.7 percent, to 15.89 million, the Finance Ministry said today in Paris. The decline is larger than originally estimated on Feb. 13, when the ministry said payrolls fell by 88,700, or 0.6 percent.

“It’s going from bad to worse,” said Maryse Pogodzinski, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Paris. “We thought the first quarter would show an improvement, but looking at January’s industrial production in France and most likely in Germany, and at unemployment, I doubt it very much now.”

L’Oreal SA, PPR SA’s Conforama, Rio Tinto Group and carmakers Renault SA and PSA Peugeot Citroen are scaling back production and shedding jobs to confront the slump. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s multibillion-euro package of tax cuts and incentives to support companies may not be enough to boost an economy that the government forecasts will contract 1.5 percent this year.

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said in January that joblessness will keep rising as growth deteriorates, and manufacturers’ confidence remains at a record low.

The national unemployment agency that pays welfare to jobseekers said it expects up to 454,000 new unemployed if the economy shrinks in line with the European Commission forecast of a 1.8 percent contraction, Agence France-Presse reported. Pogodzinski said she revised her 2009 GDP forecast and now expects a 2 easy payday loans.5 percent contraction for France.

‘Bad Year’

“It will be a bad year for payrolls and this will continue also in the beginning of 2010,” Pogodzinski said.

Unions called for another day of protests against the government’s economic policy for March 19 after more than 1 million people demonstrated across France on Jan. 29.

Production in Europe’s second-biggest economy sank 7 percent in the last three months, a calculation by Insee and Bloomberg shows.

Continental AG, Europe’s second-largest tire and car-parts maker, said on March 11 that it will cut 1,120 jobs at its factory in Claroix, France. Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive officer of Vivendi SA, France’s biggest media company, said the global recession is just starting, and that rising jobless rates may weigh on his business.

‘Biggest Fear’

“We are resilient, but at some point in time I think we are going to be caught, mostly by unemployment,” Levy told Bloomberg News on March 6. “My biggest fear, for my business, is that unemployment rates are going up.”

Sarkozy, who on Feb. 5 announced 8 billion euros ($10.2 billion) of tax cuts for manufacturers in 2010, is due to meet unions and business federations on Feb. 18 to discuss a possible income-tax cut or an increase in family allowances or elderly care.

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Cotendo Inc., a content delivery network, said Wednesday it $7 million in a second round of funding.

San Carlos-based Cotendo said funding came from Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital, which both have offices in Menlo Park.

The company plans to use the money to augment its team, bring its suite of content delivery applications to market and accelerate new product development activities.

"Since we first funded the company last year, Cotendo has developed and deployed a world-class suite of content delivery applications," said Randy Ditzler of Sequoia Capital cash till payday. "With the only CDN service designed specifically as a high performance, agile delivery platform, Cotendo is well positioned to become a leader in the CDN marketplace."

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EADS posted an 11 percent increase in full-year 2008 sales to around 43 billion euros ($54.36 billion), Financial Times Deutschland reported on Monday, citing an employee newsletter.

The only one of the European aerospace company’s five divisions that failed to post higher revenues was the Airbus Military Aircraft division, which faces steep penalties on delayed delivery of its A400M military transport aircraft.

EADS is due to report annual results on Tuesday.

An EADS spokesman declined to comment on the contents of any staff publication, but said that nothing new had been communicated to staff beyond what Chief Executive Louis Gallois had already said in public.

EADS shares edged up 0.3 percent in Paris by 0812 GMT.

On January 13, Gallois had said that EADS, which owns airplane maker Airbus, generated around 42 billion euros of revenue in 2008, up from 39 billion a year earlier payday loan no faxing.

Gallois told employees that the company would concentrate on preserving its cash holdings in 2009, FT Deutschland said.

Due to the global economic crisis, the company would reach some of its 2020 targets later than planned. It still aimed to double annual sales to 80 billion euros and lower the proportion of sales generated by Airbus to 50 percent from two thirds.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan in Frankfurt and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by David Cowell and Jon Loades-Carter)

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Another 651,000 U.S. jobs were lost in February, adding to the millions of people who have been thrown out of work as the economic downturn deepens.

In a stark measure of the recession’s toll, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the national unemployment rate surged to 8.1 per cent last month, its highest in more than 25 years. The economy has now shed more than 4.4 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007.

Economists expect that unemployment will continue to rise for the rest of the year and into early 2010, with the unemployment rate reaching 9 per cent to 10 per cent by the time a recovery begins. But even then, with so many job losses in manufacturing, economists say that many positions devoured during this recession will not be coming back.

"This is not people being on furlough for six weeks or a month or two – this is permanent job losses, and that is what makes this so difficult," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. "That is very telling in terms of how we’re really restructuring the overall economy."

Although the tally of February’s losses was grim, the 651,000 jobs lost last month were actually fewer than the number in each of the preceding two months, according to revisions reported yesterday. Some 655,000 jobs were lost in January, when the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 per cent. December’s decline was revised to 681,000, from 577,000.

On Wall Street, financial markets opened by seizing on the fact that monthly job losses were less than anticipated in February, and stocks rose at the start of trading, a day after plunging more than 4 per cent. But by 11 a.m. the Dow Jones industrial average had reversed direction and was down about 30 points.

The broader-based Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was 0.7 per cent lower and the Nasdaq index was down 1.5 per cent.

February marked the fourth consecutive month that the economy has shed more than 500,000 jobs, a pace that underscores the magnitude of the problems facing the Obama administration as it promises to save or create 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.

Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion (U.S.) stimulus package of tax cuts, infrastructure spending and emergency aid. The first tax credits, in the form of reduced payroll withholdings, are expected to appear in paychecks beginning April 1.

But in testimony this week before Congress, federal officials again cautioned that even with the stimulus spending, a recovery will take time free copy of my credit report.

The package "should provide a boost to demand and production over the next two years as well as mitigate the overall loss of employment and income," the Federal Reserve chair, Ben Bernanke, told the Senate Budget Committee, but the timing is "subject to considerable uncertainty."

The pace of job losses has only increased since the credit crisis shook financial markets last autumn, spawning a vicious circle of economic contraction that dragged down corporate earnings, consumer spending and overall growth. And Bernanke said in testimony this week that the labour market "may have worsened further in recent weeks."

"It just feels like we’re in the teeth of the recession, and the bite is still very hard," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. "This is economy-wide, industry-wide. It just shows the severity and the breadth of the job losses."

Economists worry that mounting job losses could make it harder for homeowners to make their mortgage payments, triggering another wave of home foreclosures, which would further depress home values and the mortgage-related securities owned by major banks.

"We’re feeling the negative fallout from the intensification of the financial crisis," Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America, said. "We’re in the middle of the worst stage of job losses as well as the speed of contraction of gross domestic product."

Workers from New York to Florida, from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, and across nearly every sector of the economy are being affected as employers reduce costs by slashing their payrolls and cutting their capital investment.

"There’s been no place to hide," Hoffman said. "Everybody in every industry has lost jobs or is feeling insecure about whether they’re going to keep their jobs or how their company’s going to do."

Retailers cut 39,500 jobs, and the construction industry cut 104,000 jobs as the housing market remained in the doldrums and home builders all but halted new-home construction.

Manufacturers alone slashed a seasonally adjusted 168,000 jobs in February.

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Americans already shouldering the cost of millions of people without health insurance should brace for a double-whammy: a surge in the number of the "underinsured," or consumers who have some but not enough coverage.

The problem, according to health care industry experts, is that the government and those with employer-based plans will have to pick up the tab as more Americans are unable to pay their entire medical bill.

As the recession puts a bigger strain on consumers’ wallets, many underinsured Americans either can’t or won’t pay the high deductibles and co-pays for treatment they receive in hospitals and emergency rooms.

By one estimate, 25 million Americans can’t afford to cover the gap between what their insurance covers and their medical bills demand.

The issue shows the steep challenge faced by President Obama and other Washington leaders vowing to put the health care system on a course for long-term fiscal viability. On Thursday, the president is convening 150 experts, advocates and lawmakers for a "summit" to debate options.

Many people without adequate insurance are also delaying or forgoing medical care until it becomes an absolute emergency, said Dr. David Chin, managing partner of consulting firm PricewaterhouseCooper’s Global Healthcare Research Institute.

By law, hospitals have to treat all emergency admissions regardless of insurance.

"If the underinsured can’t pay the bills, the hospital either writes it off as bad debt or shifts the cost to its charity care program," said John Pickering, principal and consulting actuary with consulting firm Milliman Inc.

Increasingly, hospitals are shifting costs to "those who can pay," said Wynn Bailey, partner and health care expert with consulting firm AT Kearney. "That’s the government, private insurers and the self-insured."

Bailey said hospitals are negotiating higher treatment rates with insurance companies to offset the bad debt.

In turn, commercial insurance providers are charging higher premiums to their clients, both businesses and individuals, to cover their cost increases. As businesses struggle with their employee health care costs, they are shifting a higher percentage of overall premiums to their workers, charging higher deductibles, or encouraging greater use of generic drugs.

"It’s a vicious cycle," said Pickering.

Bailey said he wouldn’t be surprised if people with employer-based health insurance have to pay 5% to 10% more for their coverage over the next year or two.

Not tracked by government

One reason the exponential growth in underinsured Americans hasn’t made headlines is because this group isn’t yet tracked by the government, explained Sara Collins, economist and assistant vice president with health policy research group The Commonwealth Fund free credit report and score.

"It’s harder to define the underinsured," Collins said.

The Commonwealth Fund defines underinsured as those who incur high out-of-pocket costs - excluding premiums - relative to their income, despite having coverage all year.

Using that measure in consumer surveys, Collins’ firm estimates that 25 million adults under age 65 were underinsured in 2007.

More importantly, Collins pointed out that the number of underinsured increased 60% from 2003 to 2007. That compares with a 5.1% increase in the number of uninsured Americans - to about 46 million - over the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The 25 million [number] can still be an underestimate," Collins said.

What’s also troubling, she said, is that the ranks of the underinsured are spreading across income levels and have seen the most rapid increases lately in middle-income households earning between $40,000 to $60,000.

Obama’s plans

Meanwhile, Obama has made health care reform a top priority, detailing a dramatic overhaul of the system in his budget outline last week.

Some of Obama’s initiatives will provide short-term relief to both the uninsured and underinsured.

Specifically, the government will provide a 65% subsidy to businesses who continue Cobra premiums for laid off employees for a period of 9 months.

"But what happens after that period?" said Bailey. "Many people are wary about finding another job in a year in this economy."

Longer term, Obama last month extended the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act which renews and expands health coverage by an additional 3 million children, to 11 million children.

Investments in health care technology will eliminate unnecessary costs and prevent duplicative care, Bailey said.

Also, in his budget, Obama proposed a 10-year health care reserve fund of $630 billion to "bring down costs and expand coverage."

Bailey has reservations.

That $630 billion "sounds like a lot of money. But total health care consumption this year is expected to be about $2 trillion," he said. "So is spending $63 billion a year enough to transform this gigantic beast?"

"Obama’s proposals certainly are a start, but much more is needed," said Bailey. 

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NEW YORK — Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for oil are now parked offshore, fully loaded, anchors down, their crews killing time. In the U.S., vast storage farms for oil are almost out of room.

As demand for crude has plummeted, the world suddenly finds itself awash in oil that has nowhere to go.

It’s been less than a year since oil prices hit record highs. But now producers and traders are struggling with the new reality: The world wants less oil, not more. And turning off the spigot is about as easy as turning around one of those tankers.

So oil companies and investors are stashing crude, waiting for demand to rise and the bear market to end so they can turn a profit later.

Meanwhile, oil-producing countries such as Iran have pumped millions of barrels of their own crude into idle tankers, in effect taking crude off the market to halt declining prices that are devastating their economies.

Traders have always played a game of store and sell, bringing oil to market when it can fetch the best price. They say this time is different because of how fast the bottom fell out of the oil market.

"Nobody expected this," said Antoine Halff, an analyst with Newedge. "The majority of people out there thought the market would keep rising to $200, even $250, a barrel. They were tripping over each other to pick a higher forecast."

Now the strategy is storage. Anyone who can buy cheap oil and store it might be able to sell it at a premium later, when the global economy ramps up again.

The oil tanks that surrounded Cushing, Okla., in a sprawling network that holds 10 percent of the nation’s oil, have been swelling for months. Exactly how close they are to full is a closely guarded secret, but analysts who cover the industry say Cushing is approaching capacity.

It’s the same scene at the four other massive storage sites in the U.S., complexes on the East Coast, Gulf Coast, West Coast and near the Rocky Mountains.

Some oil is ending up in giant ships and staying there. On these supertankers, rented by oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, there is little for crews to do but paint and repaint the decks to pass time car loan.

More than 30 tankers, each with the ability to move 2 million barrels of oil from port to port, now serve as little more than floating storage tanks. They are moored across the globe, from the Texas coast to the calm waters off Europe and Nigeria.

"It gets expensive to do this," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "If you’re sitting on a bunch of oil and you’re stuck paying storage and insurance and you can’t find a buyer, you may have to sell it at a discount just to get rid of it."

On the other hand, as storage units on land have filled up, the companies that own the tankers have profited. Tanker companies charge an average of $75,000 a day, three times as much as last summer, to hold crude, said Douglas Mavrinac, an analyst with Jefferies & Co.

Demand for oil began to increase steadily in the early 1980s, and it went into overdrive in recent years as the Chinese economy surged. That changed when recession gripped the globe and frozen credit markets made things worse. Inventories swelled.

Refineries in the U.S. have cut way back on production of gas as the economy weakens and millions of Americans, many of them laid off, keep their cars in the garage.

Experts aren’t sure what will happen when all that oil finally comes ashore. One fear is that with oil prices so low, companies will slash drilling and production, setting the world up for an energy crunch that would send prices soaring. The number of oil and gas rigs operating in the United States has fallen a staggering 39 percent since August.

Others say prices would plummet if companies forced millions of barrels onto the market at once.

"If everyone’s running for the exits at the same time, they’ll engineer a price collapse," Flynn said.

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Ron Kirk, who President Barack Obama nominated earlier this year to serve as U.S. trade representative, will have to pay close to $10,000 to resolve tax issues uncovered during the Senate Finance Committee’s official vetting of the former Dallas mayor's taxes for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The report says Kirk's tax returns for those years raised several questions, including questions about undeclared income that the Senate Committee said should have been reported but was not because Kirk had asked for his speaking fees to be donated to Austin College. Lawmakers in the report say Kirk has agreed to file amended returns to reflect the fees as income.

In addition, charitable donations made by Kirk were vetted and the Senate Finance Committee raised questions about charitable donations in the 2006 fiscal year. The report says charitable donations for the year may be increased to include a $1,500 deduction that was overlooked in the original filing. In addition, the report says acknowledgement was not provided in one part and in relation to one charitable donation, the fair market value of a TV needed to be reduced from $3,000 to $1,500 bad credit auto loans.

The vetting process also included questions about Kirk’s reduced net partnership income based on unreimbursed business expenses tied to the purchase of season tickets to Dallas Mavericks games. The committee raised questions about whether the purchases were personal in nature and asked for additional information to show the events were tied to business expenses and not for personal use.

In response to the official vetting report from the Senatate Finance Committee, the White House sent the following statement: "We are confident that Mayor Kirk will be confirmed. The president nominated Mayor Kirk because of his proven ability at the negotiating table — building consensus between opposing stakeholders in Dallas and crafting deals to create opportunities for U.S. businesses overseas."

The White House called the tax issues minor, and said Kirk's nomination is on track. The Senate Finance Committee is set to meet on March 9 to discuss Kirk's nomination.

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President Barack Obama’s economic advisers are increasingly concerned about the U.S. Senate’s delay in confirming the nominations of Austan Goolsbee and Cecilia Rouse to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Without Senate confirmation, the two economists are barred from advising the president as the administration tackles the worst financial crisis in 70 years and tries to advance the spending plan Obama submitted to Congress last week.

“It’s frustrating,” said Christina Romer, who heads the three-member CEA. “These are hard economic times and we desperately want to get them through the Senate and definitely on the job.”

“They are both superb economists,” she said. “I can’t imagine what the holdup is.”

Goolsbee and Rouse appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on Jan. 15 and were slated for a full Senate confirmation before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, according to a senior administration official. Instead, they were approved by the panel Feb. 10.

They weren’t placed on the confirmation slate for the full chamber, leading some administration officials to conclude that Senate Republicans were retaliating against the Democrats because President George W. Bush’s nominations for the same slots languished in the Senate for months at the end of his second term.

‘Above my Pay Grade’

Asked why the Senate has failed to hold a confirmation vote, Romer said, “That’s above my pay grade.”

Goolsbee, 39, a University of Chicago economist who advised Obama during the campaign, also serves on the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Still, the delay in the confirmation means Goolsbee and Rouse — a Princeton University economist who specializes in educational investments — are limited in the interaction they can have with the president and other advisers.

For example, Rouse’s uncertain status precluded her from traveling with Vice President Joe Biden to participate in a task force on the middle class in Philadelphia on Feb. 27, according to a senior administration official. Neither has been able to do media interviews or otherwise promote Obama’s $787 billion economic-stimulus package.

Republican Objections

A Senate Democratic aide said Republicans had relayed some concerns about the nominations that the administration and party lawmakers are working to address. Under Senate rules, any senator can block consideration of a nominee no teletrack payday loans.

“There are some objections on the Republican side that we are trying to deal with,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Still, there is some confusion, both in Congress and the White House, as to why the two nominees have been delayed.

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican leader, said in an interview he hadn’t “heard one way or another,” if one of his colleagues had placed an official “hold” on their nomination, which would prevent them from receiving a floor vote.

“I know nothing,” he said.

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a senior member of the Finance Committee, was also unaware of any holds. “I hope they don’t have any on them,” he said.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, declined to respond when asked about Goolsbee and Rouse. His spokesman, Robert Steurer, also declined to comment.

Bush-Era Delays

Bush’s last CEA chairman, Edward Lazear, lacked a fully operational council for most of his tenure, as the confirmation of his two deputies got bogged down in Senate politics.

“This was nothing personal, it was tit-for-tat,” said Lazear in an interview. “One of the R’s held one of their guys, so the D’s held some of our guys.”

Running a one-man CEA was “difficult, especially at a time when the economy was at a pretty hot issue,” he said. “It was not a good situation and I am sure it’s not a good situation for Austan or Ceci Rouse, either.”

One of his delayed deputies, Donald Marron, said he sympathized with Goolsbee and Rouse.

“It’s doubly frustrating to be held up when we face such major economic challenges,” he said.

Goolsbee and Rouse shouldn’t “take it personally,” said Marron, who was eventually confirmed, 364 days after his nomination.

“You’ve already done your part, demonstrating that you are highly qualified to become CEA members,” said Marron, a former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office. “Everything else is just politics.”

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When you lose your job, it’s easy to dig yourself into a financial hole. That’s what happened to Laurie Ferrer and her husband, Carlos.

It was a deep hole: $40,000 in credit card debt, with other bills piling up. When the bill collectors started calling, the couple worried they might lose their home in Fairview Heights.

Now, Laurie has a message for those who find themselves in a similar fix. As easy as it is to fall into a financial mess, it’s possible — with some discipline — to climb out again. And it’s quite a relief when you do.

Laurie and Carlos have four kids. She’s a managing nurse; he’s a technician in a pharmaceutical firm. They live in a nice but not fancy house on a quiet suburban street.
A few years ago, they were earning about $70,000 between them. Like most Americans, they had modest savings and lived paycheck to paycheck. "We were doing OK," Laurie says.

They were a little nonchalant about their finances. They carried balances on their credit cards despite the hefty interest charges. "If the minimum payment was $100, I’d pay $150." They liked take-out food and restaurant meals. But their major extravagance was to send their children to Catholic schools, at $600 per month.

"Back then, we had no budget. If we wanted to do something special, I’d work a couple of shifts of OT. We were not really balancing the checkbook," she says.

Things went fine as long as the paychecks kept coming. Then, in 2004, Carlos lost his job when his employer closed. He went without work for six months.

That began their long slide. Carlos used his severance money to pay off his car loan. "We had his car, but we still owed on the house and a few credit cards. We still had to pay utilities," Laurie says.

Despite their growing troubles, the couple were determined to give their children a Catholic education. "I ended up having to get a loan to pay tuition," Laurie says.

Groceries went on the credit cards, and their balances began building. Laurie and Carlos started making only the minimum payment. Then they began skipping some bills entirely to pay others. "It got to, ‘Which one is going to be the lucky one today?’"

Credit card companies hiked their interest rates as high as 32 percent as they fell farther behind. Carlos got another job, which helped, but he took a pay cut. The bills kept piling up. Relatives offered them money, "and that made us feel horrible." There was a Christmas with no presents.

In 2006, Laurie gave birth to her youngest child. The baby was cleared to leave the hospital, but there was a major power outage that affected their home and the baby needed a special electric light to treat jaundice. The medical staff recommended they go to a hotel, but they couldn’t pay for it.

In 2007, payments on their adjustable mortgage jumped $200 a month, and they began to fall behind.

"I started getting stressed out," Laurie says. "There were lots of arguments about money personal loans for bad credit. I’d say, ‘Why do you need that six-pack of beer?’ He’d say, "Do you need those new panty hose?’"

People like Laurie and Carlos are candidates for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, says T.J. Mullin, one of the region’s busiest personal bankruptcy lawyers. Chapter 13 is a "wage earner plan," which can allow a family to keep their house and often their cars. Families pay a small part of their credit card and other unsecured debt over time and the rest is simply wiped out.

In the end, Laurie and Carlos went in another direction. Early last year, during one of many sleepless nights, Laurie got up and began cruising the Internet. She found Clearpoint Financial Solutions, a credit counseling agency.

Such groups help families set up a budget. Then they mediate with creditors, often reducing interest rates and penalties. Clients send monthly payments to the counseling service, and the service pays the creditors. Clients usually end up paying their creditors in full.

That seemed a fairer option to Laurie; she’d taken on the debt, and she wanted to pay it back.

Such services aren’t free; Clearpoint charges a maximum of $35 per month for a payment plan, although the agency says it will serve clients who can’t pay.

Consumers have to be careful in picking a credit counselor. There are shady operators in the business who overcharge for bad repayment plans. Suzanne Gellman, a consumer economics specialist at the University of Missouri’s extension service, recommends choosing services that are members of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (www.nfcc.org), which sets standards for membership. Clearpoint, a national group that bought the old Consumer Credit Counseling Service of St. Louis, is a member.

Laurie Ferrer is a poster person for Clearpoint. She says she wrote a testimonial for the Clearpoint website and the company paid her $3,000 to use her picture in their promotions. You may have seen her face on the side of a bus.

Her credit card companies knocked the interest rates on her debt down to the 7 to 11 percent range, which she can afford. Just as important, the counselor taught her how to budget and cut spending.

"Initially, it was hard. I wasn’t used to having to figure this out," she said. "Now, everything I buy is a necessity. I shop coupons and sales. I have to be very diligent in looking in newspapers ads for food I normally buy. A couple of weeks ago, they had soup on sale, so I got 10 cans. For my kids, eating lunch at school was like $80 a month." So now they brown-bag it.

She pays $1,000 a month on her debts. With what’s left over, she’s building a savings account. Her credit card debt is down to $32,000, and she should be free of it three years from now.

They’ll celebrate that day. But Laurie, 41, says she’s happy now. "Being able to sleep at night is enough," she said.

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