The huge Wisconsin auto dealership, Russ Darrow, is so sure it can sell cars that it is hiring dozens of salespeople and technicians. Record sales in January proves Russ Darrow’s favorite saying, “I’m not signing up for the recession.” At 17 locations, receptionists answer the phone, “It’s a great day at Russ Darrow.”
(Listen to the NPR story of the positive thinking car dealer)
A team and a player decided there were more important things than winning and having good stats.
They missed the free throws intentionally to give an opposing player who’d lost his mother earlier that day a chance to work out his grief by playing.
They stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.
“I did it for the guy who lost his mom,” McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It was the right thing to do.”
(Read the full story in Rivals High from Yahoo Sports)
Thanks to Nancy P. for the news tip!
While animal therapy is nothing new and has been used for decades throughout the world to treat disabilities, in Russia it’s still relatively rare. One of the few programs offering help and hope to hundreds of children with mental, physical and emotional problems is to be found in a small Siberian village. Reuters video below may take a moment to load.
Believe it or not, an economic downturn is a good time to start a business. There are openings in competitive markets and breaks on start-up costs and overhead.
Rents, supplies and other costs can be lower, and it’s easier to find qualified and affordable help. This makes it easier to offer a lower price for goods and services than larger, more established companies at precisely the time customers are looking for any way to spend less. (Read the full article on Kiplinger.com)
Not only is it a good time to start a business, but the Obama Administer has plans to beef up the Small Business Administration to rebuild the programs — particularly the loan program — which suffered under Bush Administration budget cuts. (Read that report also at Kiplinger.com)
The Obama Administration launched an accountablility website to be accessed by the American people and used to track where and how the money is spent that was allocated in the massive stimulus bill signed on Monday.
The website, at www.recovery.gov, lets US taxpayers and the media see where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going. There will be more features added to the website in the coming days and months, including a few different ways to search for information.
“The money is being distributed by Federal agencies, and soon you’ll be able to see where it’s going — to which states, to which congressional districts, even to which Federal contractors,” says the White House website. “As soon as we are able to, we’ll display that information visually in maps, charts, and graphics.
Kiplinger.com has an interactive map online with a current breakdown of what transportation projects are likely to be funded in each of the 50 states, and rough estimates for job creation numbers.
Below is a brief video featuring President Obama introducing the website, Recovery.gov.
After selling a majority stake in his Miami bank, Leonard Abess Jr. took $60 million of the proceeds — $60 million out of his own pocket — and gave it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll.
All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall. For longtime employees, the bonus — based on years of service — amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, more than $100,000. Longtime workers’ jaws dropped when they opened the envelopes…
(Read the story of the inspired banker in the Guardian)
Photo, right: (c) 2008 Daniel Portnoy, All Rights Reserved)
Most of the stocks plummeting in 2009 are in financial companies. Meanwhile, 172 of the stocks in the S&P 500 are in positive territory. Many will continue to fare well during a recession...
The fact that investors are not just dumping all equities in favor of safer havens like gold and Treasury bonds is encouraging. The indiscriminate selling that was a hallmark of the market at the end of last year appears to be over…hopefully for good. (Read more at CNN Money News)
For one night, the stands were full and the playing field was level. For one night, the fans — “We have fans?” the Roosevelt girls were surely thinking — convinced a winless basketball team it could do no wrong. For one glorious night, the community laid hands on a high school that has been left — by far too many — for dead. (Full story by Steve Duin, The Oregonian)
It comes as a pleasant surprise — after years when thousands of farmers were driven off their land — to find in the 2007 Census of Agriculture that the number of farms in Iowa has risen to 92,856, a level last seen in 1992. Some 4,000 new small farms have been created since 2002. These very small farms, 9 acres or less, are producing a much wider array of crops than the rest of Iowa, which specializes in corn and soybeans. (From the New York Times Opinion Page)
The UK’s largest retailer Marks & Spencer has signed the biggest renewable energy contract in that country’s retail sector history. The contract with npower will provide M&S with enough renewable electricity over six years to ultimately power all of the retailer’s stores and offices in England and Wales.
Under the landmark contract, which begins in April 2009, npower will supply M&S with electricity from its portfolio of renewable sources, which includes wind and hydro farms. Uniquely the contract also allows for a significant amount of the supply to be purchased directly from independent generators of renewables, meaning that M&S can continue with its pioneering drive to encourage the development of small-scale renewable electricity.
It looks much like any other filling station: Shell-branded gasoline pumps along the shoulder of a busy highway. But this is no ordinary Shell station. It is the hub of one of Iceland’s most ambitious projects: The world’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station.
Power plants like this in the photo, right, produce much of the volcanic island’s green energy. Earth’s heat turns water to steam, which spins turbines.
The largest clinical trial ever to administer genetically altered cells into humans with HIV revealed that the therapy was safe and effective and may lead to a cure for HIV.
The test involving 74 patients at UCLA was hailed as a “major advance in the field” of HIV research.
The polar oceans are not biological deserts after all.
A marine census released Monday documented 7,500 species in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science.
This photo, released by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Census of Marine Life, shows a chionodraco hamatus, one of the Antarctic’s ice fish, which can withstand temperatures that freeze the blood of all other types of fish.
It may be cave art, but it takes high-tech expertise to bring the paintings of France’s Lascaux caves to life again. Artists are rushing to complete a new reproduction of the historic site before it’s too late. (Video from AFP here)
Paris is digging deep — nearly two kilometres deep — to tap into hot water that will provide ecologically clean heating for the city. (Read more at AFP)
Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, from Santa Clarita, CA, has introduced legislation to provide a tax deduction, allowing individuals to deduct the adoption fees of animals from local government and non-profit animal shelters. ( Santa Clarita Valley TV)
Editor’s Note: This is quite a good idea, don’t you think?
A ski session on sand for extreme sports enthusiasts in the natural wilderness of Namibia’s desert. Skiing here is unlikely to spread, though. With no lifts, only the most dedicated will climb the dune in ski boots first!
(WATCH the video below)
A prison project in Houston is helping to turn criminals into legitimate businessmen.
Four years ago Catherine Rohr was a venture capitalist on Wall Street. Then she left her job with its six-figure salary and decided to create the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, or PEP.
A cat was rescued from a six-story concrete pillar below the East Freeway in Houston when a local resident spotted the feline after hearing its frantic cries last week.
Last November, Oregon became the first state to develop standards for a statewide infrastructure of electric-car plug-in stations in terms of performance, safety, and voltage. The stations should be ready for purchase by interested parties, such as cities and private companies, by the end of 2009. Nissan, in turn, announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show that Oregon would be the site for the carmaker’s early introduction of its highway-ready electric cars around the same time. (Read more in Christian Science Monitor)
