Posted February 8th 2012

(PHOTO: ATTORNEY FRED NANCE, GENERAL COUNSEL CLEVELAND BROWNS)

Cleveland City Council passed an ordinance accepting a $5.8 million loan from the Cleveland Browns to make repairs to the stadium.

The Browns, who lease Cleveland Browns Stadium for $250,000 year, asked city council during a meeting of the finance committee Monday afternoon for $5.8 million.

City council passed the issue with a vote of 16-2 Monday night, agreeing the city will repay the Browns with the city’s sin tax, which expires in 2015. There is no interest on the loan.

The team said repairs to the seats, ramps and concrete of the 12-year-old stadium need to be made immediately.

Clevelanders approved the original sin tax in 1995 that generates money from the sales of alcohol and tobacco. About $13 million a year collected from sin tax goes toward repaying the $300 million-loan on the original construction.

By Michelle Simakis

Posted February 7th 2012

The city will get about $250,000 more and will likely use it to pay for street and water line maintenance.

By Chris Isidore

Posted February 7th 2012

Almost 2 million more people say they’ve got jobs now than in August, driving the unemployment rate sharply lower during that time.

NEW� YORK (CNNMoney) — Companies are saying the job market is getting better. Workers are saying it’s already kicked into high gear.

Friday’s jobs report showed a gain of 243,000 jobs. But a separate survey of households used to determine the unemployment rate shows much, much stronger job gains.

The number of people saying they were employed increased by 631,000 in January alone. That’s the biggest one-month gain since just before the Great Recession started in late 2007.

And the three-month and six-month increases are similarly impressive — 1.1 million more say they have jobs compared to October, and nearly 2 million more people say they’re working since July’s reading.

That is the best six-month job gain since August 2005, when the unemployment rate was a healthy 4.9%. January’s unemployment rate is still a painfully high 8.3%. But the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.1% in the last six months on the strength of the increasing number of those saying they have found work.

So the spike in Americans saying they’re working could be an early sign of much stronger-than-expected economic growth ahead.

Typically economists pay more attention to the jobs number produced by the survey of employers than to the households survey. But the employer survey can miss hiring by very small businesses, start-ups and self-employed workers.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says the household survey serves as a better sign of where the economy is heading at turning points like when it’s going into recession and when it’s ready to take off.

He said one reason job growth has been so disappointing since the official end of the recession in June 2009 is that there has been weaker than expected new business start-ups during that period.

He and other economists said this employment reading, and other data showing a pick-up in demand for credit by small businesses, makes them hopeful we’re finally getting that long-overdue business creation.

The jump in those saying they found work “probably represents people finally feeling good enough, and credit is flowing freely enough, to start businesses,” Zandi said. “That augers very, very well.” 

By John Hull, Yahoo Contributor Network

Posted February 6th 2012

(PHOTO: BY STUART SPIVCACK,  REMAINS OF YOUNGSTOWN IRON SHEET AND TUBE)

Youngstown, Ohio, was established in 1797 by New Yorker John Young, for whom it was named. It was incorporated as a village in 1848, then a city in 1867.

The story of the naming of Youngstown is pretty straightforward: Young’s Town. It is the many nicknames the city has received over the years that make for an interesting story.

The nicknames “Steel City” and “Steeltown, USA” describe Youngstown’s key role in America’s steel industry. Key players in the steel industry were Youngstown Iron Sheet and Tube and Republic Steel, among others.

Strikes at these mills, such as the “Little Steel Strike of 1939,” garnered national attention. During what was known as “Woman’s Day” on the picket line outside Republic Steel, the women took offense to Youngstown Police Captain Charley Richmond, who told them to go home where they belonged.

Richmond stated the women began cursing him and approaching, at which time a gas canister was deployed to disperse the crowd. The women’s husbands, members of the heavily Communist Committee of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor union, then attacked the police. A melee occurred, including a firefight that left six dead.

Martial law was declared by Democratic Ohio Gov. Martin L. Davey, with the approval of President Roosevelt, and the National Guard was sent in to bring order.

Another strike in 1952 gained national significance when Democratic President Harry S. Truman seized control of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in order to avoid a strike during the Korean War. Out of this decision came the Supreme Court decision Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company et al. v. Charles Sawyer, Secretary of Commerce, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), which reaffirmed the limits on presidential power as established by the U.S. Constitution.

The eventual closing of the steel mills in the 1970s and ’80s led to the nickname “Rust City,” and the area became known as the “Rust Belt.”

Other dubious monikers given to Youngstown include “Mobtown,” ” Little Chicago,” “Crimetown, USA,” and “Bomb City” due to its extensive Cleveland and Pittsburgh mafia connections. The term “Youngstown tune-up” described the all-too-common method of assassinating mafioso, the car bomb. Check out AmericanMafia.com for more information.

A mafia-owned night club on Youngstown’s east side is said to have been frequented by Frank Sinatra. The bar is no longer there. Comedian Richard Pryor also stated in his concert performance “Live on the Sunset Strip” that he worked as an emcee at a mafia-owned night club in Youngstown, presumably the same one frequented by Sinatra.

Youngstown also became known as “Murdertown, USA” and “Yompton” (a play on words referencing Compton, California) due to the heavy presence of street gangs, with the 51/50 Bloodz being the dominant national gang set.

Youngstown also topped the list of dangerous cities as released by Quitno Press in 2001 and 2002.

But all of this takes away from the rich history of the city.

Youngstown is the birthplace of the Good Humor ice cream bar and inventor Harry Burt; Cream of Wheat icon model William H. Calbreath; and musical groups The Edsels, Glass Harp, The Human Beinz, and Billy Beck of the Ohio Players.

Also from Youngstown are the Warner Bros., who opened the Warner Theater downtown in 1931; the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Jim Cummings; Joe Flynn of “McHale’s Navy;” and “Married With Children’s” Ed O’Neill.

Sports figures include IBF lightweight champion Harry Arroyo, lightweight champion of the world Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, and former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik; and the NFL’s Jerry Olsavsky, Sherman Smith, and Brad Smith.

This list can go on ad nauseum, but we’ll stop here.

Posed February 5th 2012

COLUMBUS: Ohio’s higher education chief has asked community colleges to consider making their class schedules more convenient for busy students who also work and have families.

Chancellor Jim Petro wants the state’s public, two-year schools to explore the idea of block scheduling. The Columbus Dispatch reports classes would be offered back-to-back in clusters.

Petro says that would make it easier for students juggling job and home responsibilities to finish their studies and get their degrees.

Right now, only about 9 percent of Ohio community college students are able to graduate within three years.

Executive Director Ronald Abrams with the Ohio Association of Community Colleges says block scheduling is already used in nursing and some technical programs and could be expanded.

Posted February 5th 2012

(PHOTO: GANGSTER DISCIPLES, CHICAGO)

The 320-page report says the Windy City now has more than 70 gangs with more than 150,000 members!

A new book on crime reveals a scary statistic: Chicago has more gang members than any other city in the United States.

The information comes from the Chicago Crime Commission’s gang book  which provides the most intensive look at gangs in Chicago in more than five years.

The 320-page report says the Windy City now has more than 70 gangs with more than 150,000 members. Commission president Jody Weiss said members and leaders are younger now and they’re recruiting aggressively in elementary schools.

Weis said social media has become a big component of recruitment and intimidation.

“We’ve got actually, like, screen prints of conversations between gang members, so it’s kind of neat that people will see how these young men are actually using this to communicate with each other, and I think that will be a good takeaway,” Weis said, according to CBS Chicago. “And you know what? At the end of the day, if we can learn something new, it will make us better at combating this problem.”

The book is intended to be a training tool for law enforcement, parents and community leaders. An electronic version is in the works for next year.

By Tim Molloy

Posted February 3rd 2012

Bounce TV will honor Don Cornelius with a seven-hour “Soul Train” marathon Saturday.

The marathon will begin with the show’s first episode and conclude with his final episode as host. It will be hosted by TLC‘s Chilli.

Cornelius, 75, was found dead of a gunshot wound this morning at his home in the Sherman Oaks district of Los Angeles.

Bounce, which airs “Soul Train” weekdays at 6 p.m., is also adding the series to its prime-time lineup beginning Monday. Monday Night Soul will feature four classic episodes of “Soul Train” back to back from 8 p.m. to Midnight ET every week.

Saturday’s marathon will begin at 7 p.m. Here is a list of the episodes, as described by Bounce:

Also from TheWrap: Don Cornelius, Creator of ‘Soul Train,’ dies

7 p.m.: The very first episode of “Soul Train,” featuring Gladys Knight & the Pips, 1971

8 p.m.: Al Green is the showcased artist, 1972

9 p.m.: The Commodores are featured in their prime, 1977

10 p.m.: Kool and the Gang highlight the show, 1983

11 p.m.: Janet Jackson in her first big music year, 1986

Midnight: En Vogue star in their debut year, 1990

1 a.m.: Cornelius’ last show as host, 1993

Bounce TV is available on free local station WUAB Channel 43.2 in the Northeast Ohio area. (Consult your Satellite or Cable guide for their WUAB 43.2  location)

Posted February 3rd 2012

R&B star Ne-Yo has begun his search to discover the next music superstar as a new top executive at Motown Records.

The singer/songwriter will sign up-and-coming talent and mentor new acts as part of his role as senior VP of the artists and repertoire (A&R) division at the label. The hitmaker has also been signed to the firm’s roster following his departure from Def Jam, and will make his Motown debut this summer when he releases his fifth studio album.

In a statement, Ne-Yo says, “I’m honored that I’ve been given such a prestigious title and trusted with such responsibility; terrified because I know that playing this role in the fashion of one of my career role models, Mr. Smokey Robinson – these are big shoes to fill. But trust, I can handle it.”

Senior VP of Motown Ethiopia Habtemariam adds, “In Ne-Yo, we have both a global superstar and arguably one of the best songwriters in music. His presence on the executive team only strengthens our commitment to be the very best in R&B.”

By Seth Borenstein

Posted February 2nd 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Snow has been missing in action for much of the U.S. the last couple months. But it’s not just snow. It’s practically the season that’s gone AWOL.

“What winter?” asked Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. For the Lower 48, January was the third-least snowy on record, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records for the amount of ground covered by snow go back to 1967.

Last year, more than half the nation was covered in snow as a Groundhog Day blizzard barreled across the country, killing 36 people and causing $1.8 billion in damage. This year, less than a fifth of the country outside of Alaska has snow on the ground.

Bismarck, N.D., has had one-fifth its normal snow, Boston a third. Buffalo is three feet below normal for snowfall this year. Midland, Texas, has had more snow this season than Minneapolis or Chicago.

Forget snow. For much of the country there’s not even a nip in the air. On Tuesday, the last day in January, all but a handful of states had temperatures in the 50s or higher. In the nation’s capital, where temperatures flirted with the 70s, some cherry trees are already budding — weeks early.

For the Northeast it’s one of the warmest and least snowy winters on record, with most of the region’s temperatures the last couple months averaging 5 degrees warmer than normal, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.

“I am disgusted that golfers are golfing on my cross-country ski course,” said New Jersey state climatologist David Robinson, director of the Global Snow Lab.

Matt Dulli, an assistant golf pro at The Golf Club at Yankee Trace in the Dayton, Ohio, suburb of Centerville, said 115 rounds were played Tuesday amid balmy temperatures that reached a high of 60 degrees.

“The first thing you hear out of people’s mouths is, ‘Can you believe we’re playing golf in January?’ They’re just ecstatic that they can get out at this time of year,” Dulli said.

But there is lots of snow and dangerous cold — it’s just elsewhere in the world. Valdez, Alaska, has had 328 inches of snow this season — 10 feet above average — and the state is frigid, with Fort Yukon hitting a record 66 below zero over the weekend.

Nearly 80 people have died from a vicious cold snap in Europe, and much of Asia has been blanketed with snow. January has been the ninth snowiest since 1966 for Europe and Asia, though for the entire northern hemisphere, it’s been about average for snow this season.

The weather is so cold that some areas of the Black Sea have frozen near the Romanian coastline, and rare snowfalls have occurred on islands in the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. Ukraine alone has reported 43 fatalities, many of the victims homeless people found dead on streets. More than 720 other Ukrainians have been hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite.

The reason is changes in Arctic winds that are redirecting snow and cold. Instead of dipping down low, the jet stream winds that normally bring cold and snow south got trapped up north. It’s called the Arctic oscillation. Think of it as a cousin to the famous El Nino.

When the Arctic oscillation is in a positive phase, the winds spin fast in the Arctic keeping the cold north. But in the past few days, the Arctic oscillation turned negative, though not in its normal way, Halpert said. The cold jet stream dipped in Europe and Asia, but is still bottled up over North America.

That’s because another weather phenomena, called the North Atlantic oscillation is playing oddball by staying positive and keeping the cold away from the rest of North America. About 90 percent of the time, the North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations are in synch, Halpert said. But not this time, so much of the United States is escaping the winter’s worst.

What’s happening isn’t just an inconvenience.

Trees and plants budding early may lose their chance to bloom when the inevitable deep freeze returns, said U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Jake Weltzin, who heads a national network that monitors the timing of spring for plants and animals. He said peach trees are budding in Georgia and in Oklahoma forsythia and daffodils have been out for two weeks now, adding “it’s happening everywhere.”

“If you think about plants and animals being kind of biologic thermometers, they are indicating a very early spring,” Weltzin said. “That’s a problem.”

This could mean less fruit available this year, Weltzin said. In New York, it could weaken the grapes used to make wine, added Cornell University horticulturalist David W. Wolfe.

But it is getting people outside more often.

In the heart of the snow belt, Holden Arboretum saw a 32 percent jump in December attendance and a 20 percent jump in January visits. Over the two months about 4,200 people visited the site in Kirtland, Ohio, outside Cleveland, that features gardens, woodlands and trails.

Along Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, a ferry service that carries visitors to islands was beginning winter routes Wednesday for the first time in six years.

“We’ve just had a remarkable run of unusual winters in the past six years globally,” said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Mich. “I have to say that winter hasn’t really hit yet. Certainly not where I live.”

____

JoAnne Viviano and Doug Whiteman contributed to this report from Columbus, Ohio.

Posted February 2nd 2012