WHMA Monday News Update - WHMABIG95 The unemployment rate for Calhoun County rose slightly in May to 7.1 percent up from April’s 6.5 percent despite the addition of jobs in the hotel and restaurant sectors. The May unemployment rate of 7.1 percent was also lower that May’s rate last year which was 7.5 percent. The state unemployment rate dropped slightly to 6.8 percent in May down from 6.9 percent in April mainly because of the addition of 42 hundred jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector which is mainly hotel and restaurant jobs. Unemployment was up slightly in May for all of the counties surrounding Calhoun County. Co-pays for Alabamians who use Medicaid are going up slightly starting next month. The co pay for a doctor’s visit will increase by 30 cents while the cost of a prescription will increase by 90 cents. State officials hope the move will save the state about 1.7 million per year. The amount the state pays for its portion of the Medicaid program has been a concern in the past several years since that amount more than doubled following the recession of 2008 and the economic downturn that has increased the number of Alabamians living in poverty. North American Bus Industries has a new owner as New Flyer a Canadian owned bus manufacturer announced Friday they have purchased NABI for 80 million dollars. Glenn Asham a spokesman for New Flyer says they plan to change very little about the successful company but said the move was made to acquire a very valuable asset. Asham says they will retain the NABI name because of its reputation in the industry and they don’t see any downsizing or other changes to the operation or workforce. Earlier this year NABI was awarded a 210 million dollar contract to build natural gas burning buses for Dallas, Texas. Alabama has become the 38th state to request and receive a waiver of the No Child Left Behind Standards. Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida had already opted out of the program, and Alabama has now come up with it’s own plan for standards a child must meet while in high school. The Alabama plan was approved by the U.S Department of Education who announced the approval Friday. Alabama’s program is called Plan 2020 and is aimed at have more students ready for college when they graduate high school. Gadsden Police today will begin placing more emphasis on parking time limits on Broad Street to help ensure that business patrons have parking spaces when they want to shop downtown businesses. Officers will begin marking tires of vehicles parked along Broad Street and issuing tickets for anyone parked on the street longer than the 2 hour limit which is in place from 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays. The parking fine is 15 dollars for a first offense, 20 dollars for a second, and 25 for a third offense. Piedmont Police arrested 31 year old Parris Clayton Marshall II and have charged him with first degree robbery a felony in connection with the early Friday morning robbery of the Jack’s Restaurant on highway 278 in Piedmont. Piedmont Police Chief Steven Tidwell says Marshall is accused of going the Jack’s around 4:30 Friday morning with a handgun and demanding money from an employee. Marshall left the restaurant with an undisclosed amount of money, with police arresting him later in the day on Friday.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 20:46:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015