The week that was for 01/09/2011
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Good news: The unemployment rate fell by 4 tenths of a percentage point, to 9.4 percent in December, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the lowest rate in 19 months.
Bad news: The number of people who have left the workforce, discouraged because they cannot find a job, rose by 36,000 to 1.3 million. (Those people aren't included in the total unemployment number since they hadn't searched for a job in the previous month.) The 103,000 jobs created in December fell short of expectations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week sued the owners, past and present, of a Homer City, Indiana County, power plant that just happens to be one of the dirtiest plants in America. The EPA says the plant has been operating for decades without required federal permits or adequate pollution controls, and says the owners should be required to pay fines of up to $37,500 per day per violation. Emissions from the plant, now operated by EME Homer City Generating LP, could "harm public health and the environment, contribute to premature mortality and asthma attacks and generate acid rain," according to the PG.
The financial version of a root canal: Allcare Dental and Dentures chain has closed its offices nationwide, including all of its Pittsburgh-area locations. Allcare, dogged by Pennsylvania's attorney general and investigators in other states, has been fined in the past because it "failed to honor advertised discounts, used confusing information regarding promotions and did not fully disclose the terms of its financing offers," according to the PG's Steve Twedt. Allcare says it is trying to transfer patient records to dentists near the now-closed Allcare offices.
... they will surf the Internet much faster. Construction on the planned 1,700 miles of fiber-optic cable that will bring high-speed Internet service to rural Pennsylvania is scheduled to begin this year, now that a $118.5 million contract to design the network has been awarded to Quanta Services, a Houston-based infrastructure firm. PennREN, the federally funded connectivity initiative, could see its first segments completed by early 2012.
First Published January 9, 2011 12:00 am
