we at thornburgh have used laddering for the last 20 years with our most popular fund and i think it's most effective if you use it over a number of years so that you get the yield of a long-term bond or an immediate-term bond and the risk of a somewhat shorter-term bond as the ladder ages and the bonds move closer to maturity. >> tom: we've noticed about the questions of quality of bond ratings. guys, how does that affect really how people should look at individual bonds for instance, john? >> actually, individual bonds and bond funds carry the same credit risk and one of the concerns our buyers have and why they buy individual bonds is bond funds they go to buy a a.a. bond fund. 5% of the securities in that fund may only be a.a. it's up to the discretion of the fund manager. in many cases they're purchasing lower credits to enhance the performance of the fund. >> tom: interesting you say that. george, how about that issue, about maybe lower quality bonds perhaps within that bond fund? >> well, i can't speak for all bond fund managers, but we look beyond the rating agencies and i thin

the victim has been identified as 57-year-old leslye thornburgh. all we know right now is that she caught fire in the backyard and ran inside for help. that is when the -- her 84-year- old father tried to put out the flames, but also got hurt in the process. there was some kind of flyable what -- a flammable liquid in the backyard. lopez has announced that he is no longer representing gary g. radogno. -- giordano. giordano maintains that his wife never returned from snorkeling and he did not kill him. law officials there have decided they do not have enough evidence to keep him and he will soon be released. mayor stephanie rawlings-blake is not backing off the bottle tax. instead, she is pushing a plan to increase the tax from 2 cents to 5 cents. it would help renovate area schools, the mayor says. the bottle tax has been quite controversial from the start and raising it is expecting -- is expected to raise even more controversy. >> we caught up with the mayors for the after she posted the pit -- the proposal on line. she says it will help pay for