via buzzom.com
Friday, July 8, 2011
Former first lady Betty Ford dies at the age of 93 - CNN.com
(CNN) -- Betty Ford, the widow of late President Gerald Ford and a co-founder of an eponymous addiction center in California, has died at the age of 93, according to the director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.
Ford died Friday evening with family at her bedside, according to a family member.
Elaine Didier, the director of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, museum, confirmed Ford's death to CNN.
No other details were immediately available.
Born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer in Chicago, she grew up in Grand Rapids. At the age of 21, she moved to New York City to work as a dancer and model before heading back to the Midwest two years later.
via cnn.com
Unemployment rose to 9.2 percent as hiring stalls - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hiring slowed to a near-standstill last month. Employers added the fewest jobs in nine months and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent.The economy generated only 18,000 net jobs in June, the Labor Department said Friday. And the number of jobs added in May was revised down to 25,000.
The latest report offered stark evidence that the recovery will be painfully slow. It also raised doubts that the economy will rebound in the second half of the year after hitting a spring slump.
Businesses added just 57,000 jobs last month— the fewest in more than a year. Governments cut 39,000 jobs. Over the past eight months, federal, state and local governments have cut a combined 238,000 positions.
Stock futures plunged after the report's release.
"June's employment report doesn't have a single redeeming feature," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics. "It's awful from start to finish."
Two years after the recession officially ended, companies are adding fewer workers despite record cash stockpiles and healthy profit margins.
Companies have pulled back on hiring after adding an average of 215,000 jobs per month from February through April. The economy typically needs to add 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. And at least twice that many jobs are needed to bring down the unemployment rate.
Economists have said that temporary factors have, in part, forced some employers to hold back on adding workers. High gas prices have cut into consumer spending. And supply-chain disruptions stemming from the Japan crisis have slowed U.S. manufacturing production.
In June, hiring was weak in most sectors: Manufacturers added only 6,000 jobs; Education and health care, which added jobs through the recession, was flat; and professional and business services, which include accounting, legal and engineering jobs, grew by only 12,000.
Construction and financial services cut jobs.
The weak economy and slow hiring is causing more people to simply give up looking for work. More than a quarter-million people stopped their job searches in June. That kept the unemployment rate from rising even further. When laid-off workers stop looking for work, they are no longer counted as unemployed.
Including discouraged workers and those working part time, but who would prefer full-time work, the "under-employment" rate jumped from 15.8 percent to 16.2 percent.
Unemployment has topped 8 percent for 29 months, the longest streak since the 1930s. It has never been so high so long after a recession ended. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.
And those who do have jobs are earning less. Average hourly wages declined last month. After-tax incomes, adjusted for inflation, have been flat this year.
The average work week declined to 34.3 hours, from 34.4, which means employers demanded less work from their existing staffs. Usually companies demand more hours from their existing staffs when they are preparing to hire more workers.
Temporary employment fell 12,000. Businesses generally hire more temporary workers before taking on permanent ones.
The number of unemployed workers rose almost 175,000 to 14.1 million, pushing up the unemployment rate.
There are signs that economy could improve in the second half of the year. Gas prices have come down since peaking in early May at a national average of nearly $4 per gallon. Prices averaged $3.59 a gallon nationwide on Friday, according to AAA.
And manufacturing activity expanded in June at a faster pace than the previous month, according to the Institute for Supply Management. That suggests the parts shortage caused by the March 11 earthquake in Japan is beginning to abate.
More jobs are needed to boost incomes and consumer spending, which fuels 70 percent of the economy. Without more hiring, the economy may not be able to accelerate from its current weak pace of growth.
The government said last month that the economy grew only 1.9 percent in the January-March quarter. Analysts are expecting similarly weak growth in April-June quarter.
The economy is expected to grow at a 3.2 percent pace in final six months of the year, according to an Associated Press survey of 38 economists. But the latest report could prompt some economists to revise their forecasts.
Growth must be stronger to significantly lower the unemployment rate. The economy would need to grow 5 percent for a whole year to significantly bring down the unemployment rate. Economic growth of just 3 percent a year would hold the unemployment steady and keep up with population growth.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Campaigning In South Carolina? Bring Your Appetite : NPR
Credit: Produced by Dave Anderson/Oxford American; Narrated by Debbie Elliott/NPR
You better bring an appetite if you plan to court votes in South Carolina. And not any namby-pamby taste for sprouts and watercress. We're talking greasy fare, like you might find at The Beacon Drive-In in Spartanburg.
And know what you want when J.C. Stroble, 70, meets you at the counter with his signature "Call it!"
Dave AndersonA small figurine of famed counterman J.C. Stroble is shown at The Beacon.
There's no paper or computer here — J.C. takes your order, then hollers instructions to cooks in The Beacon's unique lingo. For instance, a chili-cheeseburger a-plenty means your plate is going to be covered with french fries and onion rings.
The place goes through 300 pounds of chili on a Friday night. Just the kind of crowd a campaign is looking for.
"If you want to be elected for president, you better come to The Beacon," Stroble says with a chuckle.
In more than a half-century of working here, Stroble has served up candidates from John Connally to Richard Nixon to Ross Perot. (And he can tell you what they ordered.) He says Strom Thurmond was a regular, and remembers putting peanuts out on the counter to welcome Jimmy Carter.
Stroble lost his eyesight years ago, but still keeps the line moving, Secret Service or not. He recalls when President George W. Bush stopped by for a cheeseburger a-plenty.
"You'd never know he was the president," Stroble says. "I said 'Give me a cheeseburger with a plenty and move on down that line.' That's the way you do it," Stroble says.
Beacon owner Kenny Church says Stroble is very comfortable with politicians. And politicos are apparently comfortable at The Beacon. Church says both the county Republicans and Democrats hold their monthly meetings here. And recently, the Tea Party had a big event, appropriate for a place that sells 6,000 gallons of tea a week.
"We didn't let them throw any of our tea away," Church says. "We kept it all in the store."
South Carolina's "first in the South" primary has a track record. The state has picked the eventual Republican nominee in every race since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Southword
This is the second installment of Southword, a multimedia collaboration between Oxford American magazine and NPR spotlighting the people, places and trends that shape the modern American South. Dave Anderson, filmmaker for Oxford American, teams up with NPR journalists to produce stories about a region that continues to evolve in unexpected ways.
'Don't Dis The Guns'
The parade of contenders for the Feb. 28 contest has already started, and they'll keep coming, particularly upstate around Spartanburg and Greenville, a region rich in conservatives.
Danielle Vinson, chair of the political science department at Furman University in Greenville has a little advice.
"Don't dis the guns, don't assume that all the religious people think alike. Don't assume that everyone likes Bob Jones," she says.
That's Bob Jones University, also in Greenville. The private Christian college has a longstanding reputation as a place to court religious voters. More than half of South Carolina's Republican voters are evangelicals. Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan and Bob Dole all campaigned on campus. But an appearance by George W. Bush in 2000 drew controversy.
"We conservatives, we who stand on conservative principles, have got compassionate hearts for the people who live in this country," he said at the time. But the compassionate conservative stump speech failed to call into question the college's ban on interracial dating (a policy since rescinded).
Candidates can also run into trouble stepping into the flap over the Confederate battle flag at the state capitol, or even raising the starter flag at Darlington raceway. In 1992, Bill Clinton targeted NASCAR voters there, but got booed and heckled.
Country Ham And Grits
Your best bet might be to stick with the food.
Tommy's Ham House in Greenville serves up country ham, grits, red-eye gravy and sweet potato pancakes. In the 2008 campaign, then-Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson joked about the setting.
"They told me we were going to the ham house today," he said. "My eyes lit up, and dog-gone, they brought me in a fruit plate."
Credit: Christina Baird, Alyson Hurt, Nelson Hsu, Allison Lenz, Claire O'Neil, Max Pfennighaus, Debra Rosenberg/NPR
Owner Tommy Stevenson says the politics got a little porky when animal rights activists showed up during George W. Bush's visit in 2000.
"The PETA people came by in a dump truck, and dumped a load of pig manure in front of the driveway," he says. "It was three people in pink pig suits, and it was real comical to see them all in the back of a police car in handcuffs and in pink pig suits."
'You Better Not Spurn That Sweet Tea'
It's not only where you go and what you eat in South Carolina, it's also who you know. For the Republicans this year, Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Jim DeMint are the endorsements to have. But candidates are also calling local officials, like Greenville Mayor Knox White.
"I guess my favorite would be, George Bush Sr. called me when I was in the shower," White says.
Over breakfast at Tommy's Ham House, White says he used to envy all the attention that New Hampshire and Iowa got. But now, he's right in the middle of that same intense political experience.
He's taken a few calls this year, but "I guess I'm like most people," he says. "We're all just understanding the field and keeping our powder dry for now."
As he waits for the right candidate to emerge, White does have a little campaign wisdom to share.
"You better not spurn that sweet tea," he says. "You better at least take a sip or two."
Then smile, and say "thanks y'all."
via npr.org
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