By TSC Staff

Sen. Arlen Specter visits the White House today to shake hands with his new best friends President Obama and Vice President Biden.  Specter, a longtime Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, shocked the political world on Tuesday, announcing that he will run for reelection in 2010 as a Democrat.

Specter is a consummate member of The Survivors Club many times over.  For the last three decades, he has battled all kinds of serious health challenges.  In 1979 at age 48, he was told he had ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease but found out several months later it was a misdiagnosis.  He survived brain tumors in 1993 and 1996 and coronary bypass surgery in 1998.  In 2005, he was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, Stage IVB, the most advanced kind.  After extensive treatment, the disease went into remission and then recurred in 2008.  In 2008, he published his memoir, “Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate."

In terms of his Survivor Type, Specter is a classic "Fighter."  Indeed, he borrowed the title of his memoir from Winston Churchill, who said famously: "Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." 

By Ben Sherwood
The Survivors Club

In this 76th hour of the swine flu emergency, President Obama urges that we take "the utmost precautions." And the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the pandemic flu alert level to 5 out of 6, warning that this international outbreak will pose a prolonged threat.

What do "utmost precautions" mean for all of us? What follows is a crib sheet on what we've learned so far about the swine flu, what we still don't know, and a few steps we can each take to reduce the likelihood of getting sick.

Jean Chatzky is the wonderful and talented financial editor of NBC's Today program and regular guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. She has written a very readable and helpful new book called The Difference: How Anyone Can Prosper Even in the Toughest Times.  As you'll see in the article below from The Daily Journal of Kanakee, Illinois, Jean has a lot of good ideas about surviving the recession.  She also invokes some of the ideas from The Survivors Club.

By Lee Woodruff
TSC Exclusive

Surviving is a natural instinct.  Somehow deep in our beings we are programmed with a will to live.  I have thought at times about people who take their own lives.   To override the instinct to live must be the deepest level of despair and pain for a human being.  I know a little something about surviving.  I am married to a survivor and so I suppose that makes me one too.  When my husband Bob Woodruff was injured by a roadside bomb while covering the Iraq war for ABC News, I watched survival in the ICU in its most basic form.

It's been 10 years since the slaughter at Columbne.  Who can forget the morning of April 20, 1999.  Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stormed the Colorado high school, murdering 12 classmates and a teacher, injuring two dozen, then killing themselves.

How are the survivors doing today?  Kate Snow of ABC News Good Morning America has a very good update here on Patrick Ireland, the "face in the window" during the massacre.  Ireland was shot twice in the head and once in the foot - and managed to survive.  The Associated Press also offers an excellent update.  "Many survivors," the AP says, "have moved on to careers in education, medicine, ministry, retail. But emotional scares still can trigger anxiety, nightmares and deeply etched recollections of gunfire, blood and bodies."

Here's the rest of the AP article...

By The Survivors Club Staff

How are people surviving the Great Recession?  The Survivors Club collects stories every day about different coping and thriving strategies.  We coe across all sorts of revealing facts too.  For instance, sales of vegetable seeds have skyrocketed as people plant gardens and grown their own food.  Some companies like Burpee even offer "Money Garden" seed packages - for $10 in seeds you can grow around $650 in food.

Judy Keen at USA Today jumps on the "economic survivalist" story with a very interesting article (copied below).  Take a look and visit TSC's Money Support Center for a variety of expert guides to the different financial challenges you're facing.

Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary who supervises the Internal Revenue Service, didn't pay all of his taxes ($34,000 to be precise).  Nearly a half-dozen other top Obama nominees or their spouses didn't pay all of their taxes either.  Tom Daschle, tapped first to run Health and Human Services, owed $128,000.  Now, according to the Chicago Tribune, "some Americans are wondering why they should comply with the arcane requirements of the Internal Revenue Service when top administration officials failed to do the same. Even some IRS employees are upset at what they see as a double standard."

In the midst of this deep recession, experts also predict a significant increase in taxpayer delinquency.

On the bright side, according to the Sun-Sentinel of Florida, federal tax refunds are 10 to 15 percent higher than last year.  On average, a refund of $2,705 is waiting for millions of Americans right now.  If you know what to do, you can also get special tax breaks this year for new home buyers, foreclosures, unemployment, and new cars.

In the final countdown toward midnight, what should you know? For the best resources on the Web, please take a look at TSC's Tax Support Center.

For more useful tips, take a look at this quick survival guide:

By Ben Sherwood
The Survivors Club

With three perfect sniper shots, Navy SEALs saved the life of Capt. Richard Phillips, the 53-year-old hostage held by Somali pirates for $2 million in ransom.

"I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew," President Obama said in a White House statement. "His courage is a model for all Americans."

No doubt, the captain's courage is a model for all of us. But as we await his first interview and details of how he made it through his four-day ordeal, it's clear that there was much more to his survival than just bravery. Capt. Phillips is a quintessential member of the Survivors Club whose experience offers lessons for anyone and everyone facing adversity: