| Metro apartment vacancies remain high
That's despite a reduction in the number of landlords offering concessions to attract tenants and despite increases in average rental rates of up to 4 percent for efficiency units. The overall vacancy rate for 20,012 Des Moines-area apartment units in the January survey was 8.5 percent, up from 8.1 percent a year earlier, the survey by Carlson, McClure & Associates Inc. found.
The area with the highest vacancy was the south side, where nearly 4,300 units are located with 12.6 percent of them open. The western suburbs, where nearly 8,800 units are located, had a vacancy rate of 8.7 percent. The area in and around downtown, where roughly 1,200 units are located, half of which are high-rise, had a vacancy rate of about 5 percent. Hubbell's Heath Bullock said the trend in the office market is toward owner-occupied space.
McAllen cracking down on garage sales
McALLEN — The Saturday afternoon garage sale is no longer as easy and emptying your closets and hammering a sign onto your front lawn. A new city ordinance in McAllen restricts residents to selling only "used merchandise or personal property" — not new items, as is allowed under the former code. The regulation is set to go into effect this week. The more stringent regulations follow city officials’ discovery that residents were selling gift baskets and tourist merchandise out of their homes under the auspices of a garage sale, said McAllen Planning Director Juli Rankin. "Frankly, before this came to light I didn’t think it was that active," she said. "Around holiday times we do get people who make things, like figurines and gift baskets. "This last Valentine’s Day we had people make up Valentine’s baskets with candy and flowers and then sell them from their residence." Such activity disrupts the quality of life in the city’s neighborhoods, officials say.
The tiger kidnapping
A "tiger kidnapping" is the term given to the taking hostage of bank or security employees, or their families, to carry out a robbery, as happened at the Securitas depot in Tonbridge. It gets its name from the predatory nature of the crime. Such kidnappings are growing and will increasingly involve "softer banking sector targets as well as cash-rich businesses", according to Control Risks, the security and business intelligence consultants. In 2006, the latest year for statistics, there were 20 tiger kidnappings in the UK, up from seven in 2001, with many more aborted attempts left unrecorded, Control Risks said. "As physical security has improved at the traditional heist targets such as major banks, criminals have focused on the human element," said James Lewry, a senior consultant at Control Risks.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond
Pregnancy and Childbirth are sensitive subject to most of us. We spend a good part of our day thinking, researching and planning for an event that will change our life. Whether you come to this blog in hopes of exploring your options for childbirth, or with experience to share, come with an open mind, an open heart, and most importantly; open eyes. Birth Matters Tidewater is a local chapter of the statewide non-profit organization; Birth Matters Virginia. We are committed to providing support, guidance and information for women and families, helping them achieve a safe and empowering birth experience.This blog is about more than the mechanics of pregnancy and childbirth. It is a place to talk about the subject you may find yourself fascinated by as you prepare for the arrival of your baby, or have come to realize a powerful sense of experience that you have to share with other women and families.
Couple studies attitudes toward state's wolves
Today as many as 600 wolves roam the state, with packs as far south as the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin. Recently, a wolf was seen playing with a dog in Iowa County in southwestern Wisconsin. Treves said wolves have been a surprise because they are living in areas much closer to humans than was expected. "These are flexible, intelligent animals, " Treves added. And, for the most part, Treves added, wolf packs have existed side-by-side with humans with few problems. Though there has been predation on livestock, those incidents have been limited to fewer than one percent of the state 's wolves. Residents, the surveys show, favor compensation payments for farmers who lose livestock to wolves, although they are less in favor of paying bear hunters for the loss of hunting dogs to the wolves.
CITIES OF STYLE GET ON LINE
To my right an electronic screen detailed the time, destination, outside temperature and travelling speed of the train in bright red figures.
Overhead, a dubbed Hollywood movie flicked into life. The whole thing was about as nerve-racking as opening a pint of milk.
I shunned a Spanish-speaking Kevin Spacey in favour of the window, playing out scenes of the largely undiscovered region between Barcelona and Madrid flashing past at nearly 200mph.
For the next two-and-a-half hours the primarily agricultural landscape displayed its unusual beauty to the full, moving rapidly from conifer forest, to rocky hillside and vast open plains under cloud cover so low I felt I could reach up and touch it.
Yet the overwhelming feeling was one of immense stillness, thanks to the almost unnerving flatness of the farmland and rocky scrub stretching over the horizon in all directions.
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