It’s the biggest company you’ve probably never heard of, and today, according to Governor Bobby Jindal, CenturyLink is hiring. Up until this year, CenturyLink was CenturyTel, a company of about 6,000 employees based in a sleepy corner of Northeast Louisiana. Last year, CenturyTel announced they were buying Kansas-based Embarq., a company three times the size of CenturyTel. The new combined company has 20,000 employees/workers. CenturyLink is now the fourth largest communications company in the country. Not bad for a little telephone company that started in someone’s living room back in the ’30s.

Governor Bobby Jindal announced today that CenturyLink has agreed to stay in Monroe through 2019 and will add 350 jobs. The announcement couldn’t come at a better time for the region. Unemployment in the region hovers around 10%, well above the state average. and traditionally, this has been one of the poorest parts of the country. Almost everyone I talked with today mentioned how devastating it would have been if CenturyLink were to have relocated. It’ll be interesting to see how the company grows from here. Walk around CenturyLink headquarters and it feels more like a family business than a future Fortune 500 company. Employees greet each other like they’re at church and call out to one another by first name. They all turned out for the governor’s announcement in the atrium and then celebrated with a lunch of turkey and all the fixings. It may be just a tiny blip of good news in a sea of bad economy stories, but it’s happening in a place where they can really use it.

By FNC Reporter David Lee Miller

If you are reading this online you know at least something about the Internet. Chances are however, you don’t know the Internet is running out of addresses.

I don’t mean domain names like Fox News.Com Internet address are the numerical designations assigned to each Web site. They operate invisibly behind-the-scenes. After all, computers don’t understand English. They speak numbers.

The address shortage could end Internet expansion. No new Web sites for schools, businesses and the government. Forget the hope of one day connecting your toaster oven to the Net.

When the current system called IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) was created decades ago no one could imagine the explosive growth of the Internet. In addition to computers, nowadays phones, cars, and even household appliances are connected to the web or soon will be.

The computer scientist nicknamed the father of the Internet, Vint Cerf,  said when he helped create the current address system decades ago, he never imagined it’s 4.3 billion addresses would not be sufficient.   If someone made the suggestion a larger system was needed, Cerf said he would have thought they were “out of their gourd.”

Cerf is now advocating a new address system called IPv6. According to the experts who administer the Internet the number of potential address is a number so large it is hard to fathom. To put the expansion in perspective, if the current system is a golf ball, the experts say, the new one is almost the size of the sun.

As Cerf might explain, in order to imagine a number this big, it helps to be out of your gourd.

“If you mess with America’s feelings, America will hurt you.” A line delivered by Richard Heene’s Defense attorney, David Lane, when asked by someone in the crowd of reporters what he’s learned from the case unofficially known as Balloon Boy.

The Heenes did not make a statement today and were clearly not interested in the flurry of media attention this time around. Instead, Mayumi, the mother of the Heene clan, quietly listened as Judge Stephen Schapanski explained the charge against her of false reporting to authorities. It’s a misdemeanor offense and a lesser charge than she may have faced had her husband not plead out to a class 4 felony.

According to the attorneys in this case and affidavits filed in the Larimer County Courthouse, Mayumi admitted in a videotaped interview with a police officer that the events of October 15th, when people around the globe watched in terror (and curiosity) as a giant saucer shaped balloon drifted in the Colorado sky supposedly carrying her son, was a hoax. The family had been planning it for two weeks, Mayumi said. This admission, attorneys say, could have cleared the way for authorities to charge the 45 year old mother of three with a felony.

This was a risk the family says it could not afford. You see, if Mayumi Heene were convicted of a felony, as a Japanense citizen, she would be deported to her native country. In a statement released by David Lane, Mayumi’s husband Richard chose to “fall on his sword,” and plead guilty to a more serious charge, so that his wife would not have to. It was a package deal, said Lane. After both Heenes voluntarily admitted to the charges against them, Judge Shapanski let both know that restitution would be sought and that jail time was a possibility. The cost of the four hour chase last month, that involved the cops, sheriff’s deputies, the national guard and the Federal Aviation Administration, is till unknown, but estimates start around 60-thousand dollars. Judge Shapanski will make the final decision during the Heenes sentencing hearing in December.

I’ve covered enough high profile search and rescues to know that if the missing would have had some kind of a GPS locator beacon they probably would still be alive. James Kim, the San Francisco techie who got stuck in the Oregon mountains during a snowstorm could have been saved by technology. He left his family in the car while he went for help only to die of hypothermia while teams looked for him. Cases like that, led many people to buy the latest locator gadget. And now authorities are starting to see some abuse of the products by people who have little experience in the back country. They call it Yuppie 9-1-1.

Mostly it’s people hitting the S.O.S. when they’re tired or cold and don’t want to work to get out of the woods. Another abuse takes the cake. A father and son were camping in Arizona. They initiated a search three days in a row. The last time was because they drank water from a stream that tasted salty. Irritated rescuers finally yanked them out of the woods. Over a 15 year period search and rescues in national parks alone cost taxpayers more than $58-million. Beacons can actually reduce the cost of legitimate emergencies by giving rescuers an exact location to pinpoint the search. But abuses are frustrating sheriff’s departments and the many volunteers who conduct these operations. There’s no substitute for preparation. And if these novice outdoorsmen continue to be the ‘hiker who cried wolf’ they could end up getting charged for their ‘rescue’. Currently New Hampshire is the only state that allows for a rescue bill, but if the Yuppie 9-1-1 trend accelerates look for other states to follow.

By FNC Reporter Anita Vogel

It’s hard to look at the video of 19-year-old Patty Phommannyong.  She was vibrant with her whole life ahead of her until her tragic accident.

Patty was taking part in a high-flying cheerleading stunt when something went terribly wrong, causing her heart to stop.  She fell into a coma and is now paralyzed and lives in a nursing home.  Her parents are devastated and drowning in medical bills.

What happened?  A lack of supervision say officials involved in the cheerleading industry.

Cheerleading has become the single most dangerous girls sport – responsible for more than 60 percent of women’s sport’s-related injuries.

What can be done?  One recommendation is for coaches to become certified by the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators.

Right now, only 13 states require that coaches have any sort of certification at all and there’s also a movement to make cheerleading an actual sport in the NCAA so far no movement on that.

Another simple thing parents can do is to ask questions about whether the cheers squads will be using mats and spotters like private cheer clubs.

They can make the difference between a safe routine and life-changing accident.