The departing of the North Carolina Governor Easley, has a trail of awards for Pre-School education, but, also severe criticism for concerns surrounding mental health facilities in the state as well as potentially failing probation programs due to tight budgets and early prisoner release.
As the nation is gripped with higher unemployment rates, stressed state budgets, falling contributions from federal supports and difficult choices in making spending cuts, the reality is that there are dynamics at work that dictate a burgeoning economic depression that will require the full commitment of the Obama Economic Team.
Trends will need to be tracked for success, widening tax bases and possible corruption that will thwart the forthcoming economic depression. Rebuilding the nation's infrastructure will serve as a place for returning war veterans and released prisoners to find jobs that will prevent issues with recidivism and personal depression.
A closed door (click title to entry - thank you)
Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue must open more records across state government. Secrecy is suspicious
Published: Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 12:30AM
Modified Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 01:20AM
In the past year, nearly 600 reports on various cases at the hospitals were released with only the patients' names left out. The reports were cross-referenced by The N&O with other state records where the names of the dead are public, such as autopsy reports and death certificates. In March of this year, the newspaper reported the stories of 82 patients who had died in state mental hospitals and homes for the developmentally disabled, including those stories where people were beaten to death or had suffocated because staff members had erred in restraining them....
N.C. jobless rate rockets to 7.9% (click here)
Manufacturing, professional and transportation sectors are hit hard as recession grips state
Jonathan B. Cox - Staff Writer
Published: Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 04:31AM
Modified Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 04:30AM
North Carolina lost jobs at a record pace last month, pushing unemployment to a 25-year high as the outlook for the state darkened amid a deepening recession.
Employers slashed 46,000 jobs in November, more than in any state except Florida, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Factor in startup companies and the self-employed, and total employment in North Carolina dipped by 58,621 -- the biggest monthly decline in records dating to January 1976..
Those job cuts pushed the unemployment rate to 7.9 percent from 7.1 percent in October, according to figures from the N.C. Employment Security Commission. The jobless rate is now the highest since October 1983....
Released prisoners face a daunting future (click here)
Former inmates have little help staying on track and avoiding offending again
Mandy Locke - Staff Writer
Published: Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 12:30AM
Modified Sat, Dec. 20, 2008 06:05AM
RALEIGH -- Steve Berryman stepped into freedom Tuesday, a foggy, misty, bone-chilling return to a world he left 10 years ago.
Berryman, 48, smiled, awkward in a donated gray suit as he passed beneath a prison's barbed-wired gate.
He'd been here before: a fresh start that often proves a false start. This is the ninth time he's tried to begin again. Since age 18, he had been locked up more years of his adult life than he'd been free, racking up convictions for theft and drug use....
