A Violent Year In NEPA

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Luzerne County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The bodies fell with alarming frequency in Luzerne County last year.

People here died at the hands of another at a rate of about every 2½ weeks through the year, leaving behind 20 corpses and grieving families.

The homicides didn’t discriminate: Three of the victims were children under 3 years old. One was a 97-year-old woman.

Thirteen of the killings took place in Wilkes-Barre, which was also hard-hit by robberies and drug offenses. That was a city record, making 2013 the deadliest year since 10 murders took place in 2009.

Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/a-violent-year-in-nepa-1.1610233

Penn State Football: Assistant Coach Larry Johnson To Oversee Nittany Lions During Search For Bill O’Brien’s Replacement

Counties constituting the Happy Valley Region of Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State assistant coach Larry Johnson has agreed to oversee the team as the university searches for Bill O’Brien’s successor, the Centre Daily Times has learned.

A Penn State source said Johnson, who coaches defensive linemen, will work with the players currently on the roster and will maintain contact with recruits, and said the university will move quickly to name the next Nittany Lions head coach.

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2014/01/01/3966060/penn-state-football-assistant.html#storylink=cpy

Unemployment Benefits End For 86,900 In Pennsylvania

The year is starting with a social safety net disappearing for 86,900 unemployed Pennsylvanians.

Congress allowed the legislation authorizing emergency unemployment compensation, the federal extension of unemployment benefits, to expire as of Monday.

That means that the unemployment compensation debit cards issued by the state department of Labor and Industry will not be reloaded for people who have exhausted their original six months of unemployment payments.

According to the National Employment Law Project in New York City, the cuts will affect 1.3 million Americans immediately, 86,900 of them from Pennsylvania, which has the fourth-highest total of unemployed workers collecting the emergency long-term benefits.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2014/01/01/Unemployment-benefits-end-for-86-900-in-state/stories/201401010094#ixzz2pAS5blvw

Duggan To Take Bankrupt Detroit’s Oath Of Office

DETROIT (AP) — When Mike Duggan is sworn in as Detroit’s mayor shortly after 11 a.m. on New Year’s Day, he’ll begin a four-year term with limited powers in an insolvent city whose finances are controlled by a state-appointed overseer.

He plans to start work immediately, holding initial staff meetings Wednesday at City Hall. But Duggan already has been busy on Detroit’s behalf since voters elected him in November.

The former Detroit Medical Center chief has attended a meeting of new mayors hosted by the White House, put together his own administration and lobbied with emergency manager Kevyn Orr for a greater role in the city’s immediate turnaround.

“He’s been engaged on issues and has been preparing to hit the ground running,” former Detroit Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said of Duggan.

Read more: http://timesleader.com/news/news/1094513/Duggan-to-take-bankrupt-Detroits-oath-of-office

Highest-Ever CO2 Levels Killing Coral Reefs

This image depicts all of the areas that the Millenium Coral Reef Landsat Archive covers. Red dots indicate coral reef data at the website: http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/landsat.pl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many people are by now familiar with the Keeling curve, a graph showing the steady increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured over decades by the Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s longest-running CO2 monitoring station.

The research, started by renowned climate scientist Dave Keeling in 1958, is considered one of the pillars of the scientific consensus that human activity is the main driver of climate change. This year, the data revealed a troubling milestone: CO2 concentrations had passed 400 parts per million for the first time since the dawn of human civilization.

Less familiar, but every bit as troubling to climate scientists, is a parallel slope on a different track of climate data: the increase of CO2 in the world’s oceans, which has been climbing almost in lockstep with the Keeling curve. The rising carbon level is cranking up ocean acidity with astonishing speed—probably 10 times faster than at any point in about 50 million years, according to scientists.

Among other concerns, scientists are now increasingly worried that the acidification of the oceans is likely to cause one of the first abrupt, severe and probably irreversible consequences of global climate change: the loss of tropical coral reefs.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/Loss_of_Tropical_Coral_Reefs_May_Be_1st_Irreversible_Climate_Consequence.html#FGL2gFlgtb5lKOZc.99

Two Camden Killings End Year On A Fatal Note

English: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Camden suffers from unemployment, urban decay, poverty, and many other social issues. Much of the city of Camden, New Jersey suffers from urban decay. 日本語: ニュージャージー州カムデンのスラム. Svenska: Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Kiswahili: Camden, New Jersey ni moja ya mataifa maskini zaidi katika miji ya Marekani. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CAMDEN, NJ — Two men were killed Tuesday in Camden in what authorities said appeared to be a drug-related shooting.

They became the city’s 56th and 57th homicide victims of 2013, pushing the homicide rate to the second-highest level on record and the number of victims to its third-highest level. In 2012, 67 people were slain.

Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to a house on the 700 block of Division Street, also known as Ramona Gonzalez Street, in the Bergen Square neighborhood.

They found Jorge Chavis, 31, and James Anderson, 23, dead from gunshot wounds, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140101_2_shot_dead_in_Camden.html#uxyK08fKAQjQsho0.99

New Jersey Minimum Wage Rises By $1.00

Map of New Jersey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Effective Wednesday, New Jersey’s minimum wage will rise by $1 to $8.25 an hour, boosting the paychecks of more than 250,000 New Jerseyans and bumping up costs for businesses with low-wage workers.

While the wage increase is immediate, the reaction by businesses may take longer to assess – especially in light of the automatic annual increases voters approved in November, guaranteeing minimum-wage workers future raises.

Businesses will “over time decide how they’re going to deal with it,” said Thomas Bracken, president of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. “I don’t think there’s going to be any huge impact in 2014 on employment statistics or anything of that nature.”

New Jersey is one of 13 states that will raise their minimum wage Wednesday, according to the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for raising the wage.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140101_N_J__minimum_wage_to_rise_by__1_on_Jan__1.html#3TmFBGTdz1KdCXTH.99

Parks Director Loss Mourned In Pottstown

POTTSTOWN — When New Year’s Day revelers gather this morning in Riverfront Park and take a moment to mourn the unexpected passing of borough Parks and Recreation Director Eileen Schlegel, they will become part of a much larger group of people who have expressed shock and sadness at her passing.

Schlegel died unexpectedly Saturday at her home in the borough.

She was 65.

“This is truly a loss to the Pottstown community,” Crystal Williams, former director at the Ricketts Community Center, posted on The Mercury Facebook page.

Read more: http://www.pottsmerc.com/general-news/20131231/parks-director-loss-mourned-in-pottstown

Snow, Then Cold Expected Thursday Night

A snowstorm chased closely by a frigid cold snap is expected to blow into Berks County on Thursday night.

Forecasters expect the storm to hit just as evening commutes start and be at its heaviest after dark. They expect 3 to 6 inches of snow to be dumped on Berks before Friday morning.

“If you do have to do any traveling (Thursday), definitely the morning is the better time,” said Kristina Pydynowski, a forecaster with AccuWeather near State College.

Even though the snow will likely stop falling by Friday morning, she said, heavy winds could blow it back onto roads that have already been plowed.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article/20140101/NEWS/301019943/1052#.UsQ6EvRDsxI