| Rezoning proposal may result in retail shopping center
The 10-acre property on the 1,000-block of W. 4th Street in Benson might become a retail shopping center in the future if the rezoning request is approved in an upcoming Planning and Zoning Commission.Mark Fenn, of Fenn Homes is looking to purchase the property from Las Vegas Company WM10 LLC. Fenn, who is also the mayor of Benson, said the land is in escrow right now and whether or not he follows through the purchase is contingent on the city approving the rezoning. .
After hours of waiting in lines, deal-seekers swarm stores
Bargain hunters wait for the stores at the Tanger Outlets in Rehoboth Beach to open for "Midnight Madness," one of the state's first Black Friday events. Crowds and full parking lots continued throughout the day at the outlets and other shopping centers across Delaware. (Buy photo) Special to The News Journal/CHUCK SNYDER .
Rising seas: Updates and archive
They will swamp the locations of big city airports and major interstate highways.Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians: the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on Spring Break.That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps reviewed by The Associated Press. The maps, created by scientists at the University of Arizona, are based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey.Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. Some believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100, and still others say 150.Sea level rise is "the thing that I'm most concerned about as a scientist," says Benjamin Santer, a climate physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California."We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris.
The Other Women to Watch
But with more mouths to feed as the population grows, there are growing worries about the long-term sustainability of farming for fuel instead of food. Ms. Woertz envisions expanding ADM's biofuels production beyond corn and beans. Already, she has signed a deal with oil company ConocoPhillips to develop "biocrude" from non-food feedstocks like wood or switchgrass. Riffing off the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers, Ms. Woertz also is developing more "green" products, including industrial chemicals that come from living plants instead of fossil fuels. --Lauren Etter * * * .
Competitive intelligence 101
Going through a legitimate retail experience process, purchase process, after sales support process and/or facility tour can tell you an immense amount about how competitors operate, price, treat customers, etc. Here are some less obvious examples: - you want to know how much a financial services company will negotiate, say on rate, with customers: call their sales centre and attempt to negotiate but do it 3-5 times on different days. This will tell you how much wiggle room corporate gives front-line sales, and how uniform the process is. - you want to know how stringent a competitor is on quality: go on a facility tour and look for control charts or visible process metrics, observe the condition/age of the equipment and cleanliness of the facility, chat with the tour guide and employees asking questions about commitment to 'right-the-first-time' and waste or scrap.
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