| State fares poorly in poverty, income
Tennessee has the eighth-highest poverty rate, and the state's residents are the ninth-lowest income earners in the nation. However, some area economists say the rankings aren't quite as bleak as they seem. That's because the state's cost of living is the fourth-lowest in the nation, according to Jeremy Atack, a professor of economics at Vanderbilt University. .
Cruise explores a harsh universe of thinning ice
It's well past midnight, but the sun is still gleaming just behind jagged peaks, washing the sky with a rosy shimmer. A waterfall gushes from a rocky cleft beneath the downy hood of a glacier. Light glints off the ice floes like sequins scattered on the calm water before us. No one can bear the idea of going to bed. "It's just amazing," says Martina Becker, a German woman clinging to the endless day. "Everywhere you look there's ice pouring down. I think this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen." Someone spots a disturbance in the water ahead, and we dash to the front of the glassed-in deck just in time to see black fins roiling the water. A whale, we suspect. Or maybe not. In this surreal universe north of the Arctic Circle, possibilities seem infinite.
Maine Harvest Lunch 2007
For their first course, diners can choose from Autumn Harvest Corn & Chevre Pudding, Maple Roasted Root Vegetables or Carrot-Ginger Soup. For the main course — make that the Maine course — offerings include Italian-Inspired Pasta with Maine White Beans & Veggies, Chicken Pot Pie with Maine Mashed Potatoes or an organic Barbecue Beef Burger. Sides include Aroostook Wheat Berry Salad, Heirloom Tomato Salsa and Carrot-Raisin Slaw. And for dessert, the mouth-watering lineup includes Pumpkin Snack Cakes, Wild Blueberry Cobbler and Maine Apple Gingerbread. If you think this sounds like a bistro menu, think again. This is a school lunch menu — yes, you read that right — school lunch, better known for such classics as rectangular pizzas, salami Italians on hamburger buns and sloppy Joes (or, as Adam Sandler would sing, "slop, sloppy Joes." But there was nary a sloppy Joe in sight — no hoagies and grinders, either — as Bangor chef Cheryl Wixson led a class for school food service workers last week at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association's Common Ground Education Center in Unity.
Katrina anniversary brings out anger, mourning
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, anger over the stalled rebuilding was palpable throughout a city where the mourning for the dead and feeling of loss for flooded homes, schools, snowball stands, old-time hairstylists and hardware stores doesn't seem to subside. Hurricane Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans at 6:10 a.m. Aug. 29, 2005, as a strong Category 3 hurricane that flooded 80 percent of the city and killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. .
Trying to beat the bell
RATHDRUM -- It almost looks like work is just getting started at Lakeland High School, but in fact it's nearly done.When classes resume on Tuesday, there will still be a significant amount of exterior work to be completed, but inside only details need to be tended to, said Conrad Underdahl, school principal."There are little things, but a lot to do," he said. .
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