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In 2007, nearly a third of American families — 31 percent — lived in either an affluent neighborhood or a mainly low-income one, up from just 15 percent in 1970, according to the study conducted by Stanford University, and released in partnership with the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University.

Meanwhile, 44 percent of American families lived in middle-class neighborhoods in 2007, down from 65 percent in 1970.

In its monthly report to Congress, the Treasury Department now says it expects to lose $23.6 billion, up from its previous estimate of $14.33 billion.

The Treasury now pegs the cost of the bailout of GM, Chrysler Group LLC and the auto finance companies at $79.6 billion. It no longer includes $5 billion it set aside to guarantee payments to auto suppliers in 2009.

Wells Fargo bank asked 1,500 Americans who earned between $25,000 and $99,999 and ranged in age from 20 into their 70s questions about retirement, savings and Social Security for its seventh annual retirement survey.

Three-fourths of those surveyed said they expect to work in their retirement years. One quarter said they will “need to work until at least age 80” to live comfortably in retirement.

Of Americans who will work in retirement, “47 percent said that they are going to continue in the same job or a similar job of similar responsibility,” Joe Ready, Well Fargo’s director of Institutional Retirement and Trust, told Reuters Insider.

Over the past year, as the Federal Reserve massively increased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and entities in China marginally decreased theirs, the Fed surpassed the Chinese as the top owner of publicly held U.S. government debt.

In its latest monthly report, the Federal Reserve said that as of Sept. 28, it owned $1.665 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities. That was more than double the $812 billion in U.S. Treasury securities the Fed said it owned as of Sept. 29, 2010.

Meanwhile, as of the end of this September, entities in mainland China owned $1.1483 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, according to data published today by the U.S. Treasury Department. That was down slightly from the $1.1519 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities the Chinese owned as of the end of September 2010, according to the same Treasury Department report.

The increase reported Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo., reflects current low interest rates and a healthy farm economy. But the higher land values will make farming more expensive.

“It makes it difficult for early farmers or farmers who want to expand their operation,” Nebraska Farm Bureau President Keith Olsen said. “The other big concern is that as ag values go up, property taxes are going up.”

Land values increased despite widespread flooding and drought that many farmers in the region struggled with this year. Several hundred thousand acres of farmland along the Missouri River spent much of the summer under water because of flooding, and southern Plains states have been battling severe drought.

But as long as the weather in their area cooperated, farmers did well. Corn prices hit a record high of $7.99 a bushel in June because thin supplies prompted fears of a shortage. Wheat prices also have been high, and some farmers have used the extra income to buy land.

“If you had the moisture to raise a crop, it’s going to be a good year,” said Ron Meyer, who farms near Superior in southeast Nebraska.

She said about 250 US Marines would arrive next year, eventually being built up to 2,500 personnel.

A team of engineers has created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries — rechargeable batteries such as those found in cellphones and iPods — that allows the batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology. Batteries with the new electrode also can charge 10 times faster than current batteries.

The researchers combined two chemical engineering approaches to address two major battery limitations — energy capacity and charge rate — in one fell swoop. In addition to better batteries for cellphones and iPods, the technology could pave the way for more efficient, smaller batteries for electric cars.

The technology could be seen in the marketplace in the next three to five years, the researchers said.

International prices for some light rare earths, like cerium and lanthanum, used in industries like the polishing of flat-screen televisions and oil refining, respectively, have fallen by two-thirds since August and are still dropping. Prices have declined almost as quickly for highly magnetic rare earths, like neodymium, needed for products like smartphones, computers and large wind turbines.

Big companies in the United States, Europe and Japan have been moving operations to China, drawing down inventories, switching to alternative materials or even curtailing production to avoid paying extremely high prices that prevailed outside China over the summer, executives said at an annual conference in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

As demand for rare earths has wilted outside China, speculators have been dumping inventories, feeding the downward plunge. Cerium peaked at $170 per kilogram, or $77 a pound, in August but now sells for $45 to $60 per kilogram.