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State officials are appealing a judge's order to pay $1.2 million that they have withheld from a construction contractor who gave a consulting contract to former Gov. John G. Rowland in 2004 and then resisted a legislative investigation into it.
Superior Court Judge Joseph M. Shortall ruled last month that officials weren't justified in withholding the money from C.R. Klewin Northeast LLC on the basis of its resistance to a legislative committee's probe of the $5,000-a-month consulting job it gave Rowland after his 2004 resignation.
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One Lexington County Council candidate wears comfy Dr. Scholl's shoes as he putt-putts around the sprawling district in a golf cart, while the savvy incumbent quietly targets voters with a strategic game plan. With both candidates playing to conservative voters in largely rural District 2, style is where incumbent Billy Derrick and challenger R.L. "B. Jay" Julius differ most. This is the only contested race for Lexington County Council on the Nov. 7 ballot. Incumbent Todd Cullum of Cayce had no opposition, and Irmo's John Carrigg defeated his opponent in the June GOP primary. Democrat Derrick, 54, is seeking a third term and has a six-generation claim on this western region of the county. Julius, 63, was born in Pennsylvania and moved to South Carolina in 1964 after being discharged from the Army.
Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- China Construction Bank Corp., the nation's four-largest state lender, has halted some of its transactions with North Korea as China seeks ways to pressure its ally to abandon further nuclear weapon tests. Luo Zhefu, vice president of China Construction Bank, declined to elaborate on which businesses were halted, when asked today at a banking conference in Beijing. Officials at four Chinese commercial banks, including China Construction Bank and Bank of China Ltd., said that in recent days they stopped moving funds across the border with North Korea, a ban that may have serious consequences for Kim Jong Il's regime, the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 20. Li Lihui, president of the Bank of China, the country's second-biggest state lender, declined to comment.
An Army effort to count the number of contractors working or living in Iraq has foundered, and a spokesman acknowledged that the census, when complete, will not meet the standards set out when it was requested. The Office of Management and Budget in May forwarded agencies a call for data from the Army Central Command and the international forces in Iraq. It asked that they collect survey information on contractor personnel based in Iraq, including data on the camp or base at which contractors are located; the company and agreement under which work is performed; services such as mail, emergency medical care or meals obtained from the military; and whether the contractors carry weapons. The initial data request gave a June 1 deadline. But since then, the Pentagon has repeatedly said the data was not yet available, and on Friday, an Army spokesman acknowledged that the information is not likely to be reported as originally requested.
LOGAN - The completion of the latest "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" project marked a new beginning for the Pauni family of Logan on Sunday afternoon.
Ati Pauni Velasquez, the oldest daughter of Danny and Janet Pauni, remained in Logan last week while her mother and siblings cruised the Virgin Islands. With her husband and 14-month-old daughter by her side, Ati, 19, watched a miracle unfold.
"I have no regrets at all," she said Sunday afternoon just minutes before her family urged the ABC crew to "Move that bus." "It's been crazy, hectic, exciting and unbelievable."
Ali was among thousands of spectators who rehearsed scenes using energetic Pauni relatives as stand-ins. During one of the practice runs, the step on the limousine cracked and had to be removed before the family could be delivered.
A quarter of all housing in Immokalee is considered substandard. Sloping floors, broken windows and leaking roofs are common in many rental units. It won't get fixed overnight. So say Collier County and state officials who spent this summer weeding out some of the worst units before farmworkers flood the eastern Collier County town for the harvest season. Elected leaders hoped to remove the housing stock while units were empty. County commissioners set aside $75,000 to hire four more state health inspectors in May. State inspectors shut down nearly 500 beds in about 240 units in Immokalee, including a longtime flophouse, from July through September. Code enforcement efforts led to 25 structures being demolished, county officials said. “I think we can make a difference and do it well but it needs to be steady and ongoing," said Nancy Frees, head of the health department in Immokalee who has been working in the town 25 years.
Kansas City-based Alternative Energy Sources Inc. said today it plans to construct a third ethanol plant, though it continues to seek construction financing for all of the facilities. Alternative Energy said it has taken an option on 100 acres at a business park in Greenville, Ill., which is 45 miles east of St. Louis. The site is served by the Illinois Western Railroad on tracks adjacent to the acreage. It also has easy access to the interstate highway system. Alternative Energy's announcement said construction on this third plant would begin within the next year, with the plant in operation in late 2008. Like two others the company announced, the Greenville plant would produce about 110 million gallons of ethanol a year. This is the third site on which Alternative Energy has acquired an option with plans to build an ethanol plant.
Summary: A mid-40s woman faces eviction from Punta Gorda's FEMA park on Oct. 31 after Hurricane Charley turned her life upside down. Ellie Cousino is a portrait of tortured pain. The 47-year-old mother of four grown boys now resides in Punta Gorda's Federal Emergency Management Agency's mobile home number 349, in the park off I-75 and Airport Road. She knows she has only 11 more days to find another place to live. Just thinking of it brings tears from heavily lined eyes. They spill down hollowed cheeks in salty trails. Her long, slender fingers trace patterns on her facial skin as she scrapes and rubs and shields herself with her hands. Her speech is halting, nervous. Ellie Cousino has so many problems. There is no trace in her neat mobile home of the woman who before Hurricane Charley was a fitness instructor with the Lady of America chain, a woman who with her boyfriend moved here and bought a houseboat, a woman who once was confident and filled with laughter.
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