Too Early for Chesnuts: So Here's a Peek at the News Back East!
Posted: Saturday, October 18, 2008
by Walter Rhett
Charleston Perlo
(What's going on in small towns and big cities? Read it here!) Community News and Economic Digest: A Searchwarp Round Up!
Saturday is a good day to catch up on current events. Here's a digest of news from local communities across the country. Enjoy!
South Carolina's Office of Regulatory staff recommended approval for two new nuclear power generating plants for SCE & G, citing stable fuel costs and supply, acceptable design plans, and increasing demands for electricity by retail and wholesale users. The 10 billion dollar project has stiff opposition from various environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth. Projected to be online by 2016, the two plants will operated at a Fairfield County site that has had a nuclear power plant in operation since 1984.
South Carolina's lawmakers agreed to cut 488 million dollars from the state's budget, with cuts affecting the state's colleges and universities, corrections, natural resources, and an uncertain number of state workers who face lay offs or unpaid leave.
In the capitol area of Columbia, sales of homes $150,000 dropped a dramatic 21 percent this year. Total number of sales for all homes in the region are 7,729, down from 9,721 during the same period last year.
With lower prices, skilled craftspeople in their sales force, Atlanta-based Home Depot is going after market share.
Ismael Ahmed, Director of Michigan's Department of Human Services, and his wife lived on food stamps for five days-- something nearly 1.3 million Michigan residents do every month. Ahmed and his wife feed themselves on $5.87 a day, as part of an to raise public awareness of the challenges of those who participate in the federal food stamp program. Gov. Jennifer Granholm and executives such as United Way President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Brennan, also took the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge. For one week, participants spent a total of $29.35 for food or meals -- or $5.87 a day.
Detroit's new mayor is working to assemble volunteers to fight the city's tradition of arson on Angel's night-Halloween.
A Detroit worker reports seeing an art class and a couple dancing in the building where he works-all ghosts!
Chicago law firms have been laying off lawyers, since May over a hundred have been let go.
Among recent transitions is astrophysicist Beth Brown, a graduate of Howard University and the first African-American to receive a PhD in astronomy from University of Michigan.
Interested in politics and like visuals? The Christian Science Monitor offers Patchwork Nation, a demographic map of 11 distinctive voter communities, for example Tractor Country, Campus and Careers, Monied 'Burbs, and others. Touch the icons, and the US map changes to show these weighed locations. The border has a menu that describes each of the community types. The blogs analyzes trends and shifts and campaign stops as the candidates sharpen their appeal to voters. By penetrating under the simple divisions of red and blue, Patchwork Nation let's you see the common themes and diversity across regions and state borders, and actually the makes more sense than the usual contrasts. Click here: http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworknation/ .
And Warren Buffet is rolling all of his personal investments into US stocks!
(Also see: What the Media doesn't tell you about Obama--Now on... ) Thanks for reading!
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Excellent job on presenting reality. We just had a local firm lay off hundreds outsourcing offshore and tell me they are an all America company.
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