Responsibility for overseeing regulatory activities under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Indiana counties of Lake, Porter, and a portion of LaPorte will move to the Corps’ Chicago District effective October 1,2009. These areas were previously served by the Corps’ Detroit District.
Continue reading
Jewel-Osco, a leading Midwest food and drug retailer, and FOX Chicago, are teaming up during September’s “Hunger Action Month” to help generate awareness as well as raise much needed food and funds for food banks across Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana.
Throughout September, Jewel-Osco will be collecting cash and food donations from the public at all of its 183 stores under the “Give a Little, Feed a Lot” campaign, with a goal of raising enough donations to provide 2.5 million meals that will feed over 220,000 needy families. Customers who donate $1 more to the campaign will receive valuable coupons from participating vendors as a “thank you” for contributing.
The partnership, now in its second year, will benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository, the Northern Illinois Food Bank, the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, the Midwest Food Bank, and the River Bend Food Bank.
Continue reading
Debate continues over proposed changes to Indiana’s laws governing the sale of alcohol.
NIPSCO is cutting jobs and planning furloughs in 2010 as lower demand for electricity reduces revenues.
Zoning variances in Chesterton will now be subject to a one-year time limit.
La Porte Cinema may close in October.
Kankakee Valley REMC donated $5,000 to the LaPorte County fair’s 2010 season.
Porter County is on course to hold the November referendum on the regional transit authority.
Online advertised vacancies rose by 169,000 to 3,464,800 in August, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series (HWOL). Since April 2009, online job demand is up by 300,000, with many of the largest States now showing stable trends following about two years of losses that began in May 2007.
With the August data, there are now three States (New York, Maryland and Virginia) where the job demand trends have turned positive. The August increase included strong gains in several of the largest states, including California (26,700), Texas (21,900), Florida (15,700) and New York (11,100).
“The August increase is good news showing what we hope will be a continued improvement in job demand this fall,” said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. August job demand data are in-line with The Conference Board’s recently released Consumer Confidence Index which also rose in August, largely reflecting consumers’ feelings that jobs were becoming easier to find.
“While all of this is good news, the gap between the number of unemployed and the number of advertised vacancies still remains at about 11 million, with over four unemployed for every online advertised job vacancy,” said Levanon.