10 yrs. ago, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart left Americans glued to their televisions and completely engrossed in the story.  Now, Elizabeth is 24, and has just announced her engagement.  I’m sure, as I was, most people were a little shocked, then excited that she had found someone and wasn’t nearly as damaged as one would have thought, and then wanted to know, who is this guy?  The Smart family tried to keep him a secret… but that, obviously, did not work.  He has been identified as Matthew Gilmour, a 21-year old from Scotland.

The couple met in France, while Elizabeth was there serving a mission for the LDS church.  Gilmour shares her Mormon faith and connection to music.  He is the son of 2 music teachers and his late father once played in a brass band.  Smart is a harp major at BYU.

The couple plans to wed in July, according to Smart’s hometown paper, The Salt Lake Tribune.  They described both Smart and her parents as very excited about the impending marriage.  The family plans to keep details of the big day private.

Joe Paterno’s family announced Monday that  the legendary football coach will get a two-day viewing and a public memorial this week on the Penn State campus, two months after the university fired him over the phone.  The legendary coach had been linked to the Jerry Sandusky scandal and had allegedly not taken all the proper steps to put a stop to the reported behavior.

Bitterness over Paterno’s removal has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a note placed next to Paterno’s statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death.  A newspaper headline that read “FIRED” was crossed out and made to read, “Killed by Trustees.”  Lanny Davis, lawyer for the board, said threats have been made against the trustees.

The family gave no details as to who might be invited or asked to speak at the memorial Thursday at the basketball arena, which can hold 16,000 people.  Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the specifics were still being worked out with the Paternos.  But many alumni and students say Paterno was treated shabbily by the Board of Trustees in November, and trustees and other members of the administration might not be made to feel welcome at the memorial for the 85-year-old coach, who died Sunday of lung cancer.  At this point, it seems the Board of Trustees has completely alienated itself from State College and the Penn State community.

“I don’t think it’s going to be heavily laden with administration and trustees,” said trustee Linda Strumpf, who lives in New York and will not attend.  “This is something the family is putting together and not the university.  I don’t think the university wants to be in a position to tell them what a memorial service looks like.”  Sounds rather cold-hearted considering all that Paterno did for the university.

But trustee Al Clemens said he will be there to honor a man he described as a good friend.  “This is really a family thing, and so we’re just going to go as individuals,” Clemens said.  “Joe’s a great guy.  No matter what the situation was in the last two months, it doesn’t take away from what he’s done through history for so many people.  He’s just been tremendous.”

The viewing will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at a campus spiritual center, followed by a private funeral Wednesday afternoon.  The public memorial will be at the Jordan Center and is expected to draw thousands.

Janice Hume, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia, said that staging an appropriate memorial creates a dilemma similar to the one faced by Paterno’s obituary writers: how to address the scandal without letting it negate his entire career.  “I think it’s probably very difficult to strike the right balance,” she said.

Clemens said the board will later consider more lasting tributes to Paterno, including scholarships in his name.  Because of his generosity to the school, his family name is already on the library and a spiritual center.

There has also been a movement over the past few years to change the name of Beaver Stadium, the football team’s home field, to Joe Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, and on Monday the man behind it, Warren W. Armstrong, a 1960 graduate and retired Allentown advertising executive, said he would renew his efforts.  Some are suggesting renaming the street leading to the stadium Paterno Way.

A family spokesman said the Paternos’ focus this week is on the viewing and funeral plans and they do want to weigh in on any ideas for a permanent memorial right now.  But “I would say the family would welcome a conversation on that,” Dan McGinn said.

RIP JoePa.

For the second year in a row, the IRS is giving taxpayers two extra days to get their taxes turned in this year.  While Tax Day typically falls on April 15, the IRS announced Wednesday that it is pushing back this year’s filing deadline to Tuesday, April 17.

The extension was granted because April 15 falls on a Sunday this year, and Monday is Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington D.C. that celebrates the freeing of slaves in the district.  Last year, Tax Day was extended until April 18, also thanks to Emancipation Day.

The IRS will also begin accepting returns submitted online through the agency’s e-filing system, which the IRS says is the fastest, most accurate filing option for taxpayers, on January 17.

If you are requesting an extension, you have until Oct. 15 to file your 2011 tax return, the agency said.

The IRS said it expects to receive more than 144 million individual tax returns this year, with the majority projected to be submitted by the new April 17 deadline.

The manager of a Sears store in downtown Seattle says an elderly man has repaid, with interest, cash the man says he stole in the late 1940s.  KING-TV reported that the man hand-delivered an envelope Monday addressed to the “Sears manager.”  Inside was a note and a $100 bill.  The note said the man stole $20 to $30 from a cash register decades ago and wanted to pay back $100.  Manager Gary Lorentson says he thinks the man’s conscience “has been bothering him for the past 60 years.”  Store security cameras recorded the man, but Sears officials said they don’t know who he is and they won’t release the video.  The store plans to put the money toward helping needy families in the holiday season.

In an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday evening, Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson revealed that the Apple founder had actually met his biological father face-to-face once – even though neither man had known at the time.  The extremely private Jobs sought out his biological mother and sister in the mid 1980s, saying that he felt something was missing from his life.  He became very close with his biological sister, novelist Mona Simpson.  But, after learning a bit about his father, Abdulfattah Jandali, who had left his mother when Mona was still young, he decided against it.  “I learned a little bit about him, and I didn’t like what I learned,” Jobs says in new audio recordings released by Isaacson.  “I asked her to not tell him that we’d ever met and not tell him anything about me.”  But, as it turns out they had already met, even though neither man realized it.  When Mona Simpson tracked down Jandali, he told her about a restaurant he used to manage in Silicon Valley that was very popular.  “Everybody used to come there… even Steve Jobs used to come there,” he told her.  “He was a great tipper.”  Simpson was shocked, but didn’t reveal that Jobs was Jandali’s son.  “I remember meeting the owner who was from Syria, and it was most certainly him, and I shook his hand and he shook my hand and that’s all,” Jobs told Isaacson.  Jandali, now 80, said he sent Jobs’ birthday emails after he found out he was his father, and claims that one time he received a response that just said “Thank you.”

Amanda Knox is on her way home to Seattle, one day after an Italian appeals court overturned her controversial murder conviction, ending her four year nightmare.  Amanda, 24, was seen at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome early Tuesday morning, along with several family members.

Her father Kurt Knox and mother Edda Mellas declined to talk to reporters as they were escorted through the airport by plainclothes Italian police officers.  They were accompanied by their spouses and children, but Amanda herself was spared the public check-in process and met up with her family on the flight.  Amanda’s flight will make a stop in London; she’ll then catch a connecting flight to Seattle.  She’s expected to arrive home in Washington state later on Tuesday.

Prior to leaving Italy, Amanda thanked those “who shared my suffering and helped me survive with hope,” in a letter to the Italy-US Foundation, which seeks to promote ties between Italy and the United States and championed Knox’s cause.  “Those who wrote, those who defended me, those who were close, those who prayed for me,” Knox wrote.  “I love you, Amanda.”

After ten hours of deliberations, the appeals jury on Monday reserved her conviction for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher; the court also threw out the conviction of Knox’s former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.  A third defendant, Rudy Guede, 24, was also convicted of  Kercher’s murder in a separate trial and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.  He had asked for his trial to be fast tracked, and later appealed with the conviction being upheld, but his sentence was shortened to 16 years.

Prosecutors in Italy say that they plan to appeal the jury’s decision, but legal experts say it’s not likely Amanda would be extradited back to the country to face a retrial.

In a scene that was eerily reminiscent of Black Friday, Target’s website crashed several times throughout the day yesterday and more than hundred shoppers lined up at many of its stores early in the morning on Tuesday for a sale of limited offerings of its Missoni for Target collection of bikes, luggage, clothes and housewares.  The 400-piece line made by the Italian luxury knitwear designer Missoni exclusively for the “cheap chic” retailer features its trademark zig-zag patterns for between $2.99 for stationary and $599.99 for patio furniture (a fraction of the price of the designer’s real duds that can cost $595 to $1,500).

So-called limited partnerships, in which high-end designers create cheaper versions of their fashions for lower-end stores, have become popular in recent years because they appeal to cost-conscious customers who want to be stylish but aren’t willing to pay designer prices.  At a time when Americans are watching every dollar they spend, the limited-time offerings are also part of a growing strategy by retailers to spur impulse buys by creating a sense of urgency for shoppers to buy.

Swedish retailer H&M, which caters to 20- and 30-somethings with trendy clothes, often attracts long lines at its stores that reach around the block when it offers limited-run affordable collaborations from upscale designers like Jimmy Choo.  It also will be launching a less expensive version of the Italian designer Versace’s fashion collection in November.

Target, in particular, has become known for creating a lot of buzz for its limited partnerships with designers and fashion brands, including its latest success with Liberty of London last year.  Target offered 300 items with the designer, which is known for its floral prints, and sold out of most of the merchandise in a couple of days.  Likewise, Target Corp., based in Minneapolis, worked hard to create buzz around the Missoni by Target collection.  Target declined to comment on how much the company spent on marketing, but it targeted social media sites like Twitter and had ads on TV and in Vogue magazine.  Obviously, their marketing campaign worked and was worth every penny they spent.

Money doesn’t grow on trees… or does it?  In this case, no, but it sprouted up in the garden.  An unemployed man in northern Illinois was out working in his backyard when he came across some serious green: bags filled with $150,000 cash.  Wayne Sabaj was out picking broccoli to go with his dinner roast when he spotted duffel bags that looked like trash by the peppers.  When he opened the bags, they turned out to contain cash.  There were stacks of $20 bills that added up to about $150,000.  The 49-year-old, who is living with his dad, did not exactly jump for joy.  The out-of-work carpenter told ABC7, “I could really use this money.”  But with this money comes trouble.  He explained, “With my luck, it would be bank robbery and I’d get caught and say I’d robbed a bank.”  So the honest man with money troubles alerted the police to his amazing backyard treasure.  For now, police haven’t a clue to where the cash came from.  There have been no reported burglaries in the area, and no banks have been robbed.  Then there was the concern that whoever left the money behind would be back, and that’s a problem Sabaj would rather have dealt with by the police.  If nobody comes forward to legitimately claim the cash, there may be a happy ending for the man tending his garden: Police will return the money to Sabaj.  The carpenter has retained an attorney just in case.  For now, the cash is in custody with the country sheriff, who left behind a card on the lawn where Sabaj found the bags, bearing the simple message, “Please Call”.

For the roughly four million homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, the federal government is offering yet another remedy: free money to catch up on their loans.  The effort, called the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, is the latest in the federal government’s efforts to slow down the flood of foreclosures a necessary step to a meaningful recovery in the housing market, says a Department of Housing and Urban Development official.  For people who have lost their jobs, the $1 billion program offers loans of up to $50,000 that don’t actually need to be repaid, if applicants meet certain requirements.

The goal, says HUD, is to offer short-term aid to people who look like they’ll be back on their feet soon.  But critics say the loans may leave homeowners worse off in the long run.

Rolled out by HUD and the nonprofit housing advocacy group NeighborWorks America, the program is making loans with far better terms than anything on offer at a local bank.  The loans are interest-free.  Payments go directly to the lender for a portion of the borrower’s monthly mortgage, including missed payments or past due charges.  And when the assistance period, which runs for up to two years, ends, 20% of the loan is forgiven with each passing year.  In other words, for qualified borrowers who stay in their home for at least five years after the assistance period and who don’t fall behind on their mortgage again, this money doesn’t have to be paid back.

But some critics say that’s where help for consumers ends.  By taking this loan, borrowers risk falling further into debt.  If they sell their home before the entire loan is forgiven, they’ll be on the hook for the remaining amount.  The same holds true if they fall behind on their mortgage payments again: they’ll need to repay the remaining balance of the loan when they sell or refinance their home.  Separately, borrowers aren’t required to have equity in their home to receive this money, so someone who has to repay this loan risks owing more on the home later than they do now.  For homeowners who are significantly underwater now, the loan may only delay foreclosure.  While the limit each person will get is up to $50,000, loans will average about $35,000 per person, according to NeighborWorks America.

The application process for this program ended July 22, so critics are closely watching to see whether this program succeeds or causes more problems.  If the program is a success, the government may be more inclined to offer programs such as this in the future.