Lansing State Journal
As students graduate from college, many will also become uninsured.

While some graduates may have already landed a job with benefits, others enter professions that don’t offer health insurance or are still job-hunting. People ages 19 to 29 represent the largest and fastest-growing group without health insurance, according to The Commonwealth Fund.

“Most college students feel they are bulletproof,” said David Marlett, chairman of the finance, banking and insurance department at Appalachian State University. “When they are faced with the choice to spend 80 bucks on health insurance rather than have a great weekend, it’s not a hard decision.”   Read full story

Afrikanet.info
They range from surgeons and scholars to illiterate refugees from some of the world’s worst hellholes – a dizzyingly varied stream of African immigrants to the United States. More than 1 million strong and growing, they are enlivening America’s cities and altering how the nation confronts its racial identity.

Some nurture dreams of returning to Africa for good one day. But many are casting their lot permanently in America, trying to assimilate even as they and their children struggle to learn where they fit in a country where black-white relations are a perpetual work-in-progress.

“The conditions at home often make it difficult to go back,” said Nigerian native Ike Udogu, a professor at Appalachian State University who came to North Carolina 36 years ago.

“Here, there are great facilities,” he said. “You simply want to do your work in a society where your life is not in danger.”   Read full story

Charlotte Observer
In just 23 years, according to a new projection, some old favorite beaches — Holden, Sunset, Topsail — may lose up to half their width. And by 2080 more than a dozen mainstays of North Carolina’s family beaches will be gone, my colleague Wade Rawlins reported the other day in the N&O. The beachfront may be an asphalt road in some places.

These are scary statistics, but maybe it won’t happen. After all, as the report’s authors at Duke, Appalachian State, East Carolina and UNC Wilmington note, the projections were made on some assumptions — not the worst case and not the best case, but a moderate level of adverse impacts. They didn’t try to forecast all impacts, but attempted to inform the public what might happen if sea levels continue to rise and if storms continue to hit the coast. Read full story

Raleigh News and Observer
Fourteen of the 17 beaches from Brunswick County to Carteret County could be eroded away by 2080, leaving beachgoers no place to plant their umbrellas and translating into a loss of $3.9 billion, researchers reported Wednesday. [more]

Independent Weekly
When state lawmakers proposed a $7.5 million budget appropriation for the State Energy Office, earlier this year, director Larry Shirley had reason to be hopeful. The amount would help buttress waning federal funds for his office, which had a $7.3 million budget for 2006-07.

Then Shirley learned last month that the governor’s office is rethinking the SEO’s mission: The SEO should no longer be in the grant-making business, because in doing so, it’s crafting policy, which shouldn’t be the office’s prerogative. And by changing the SEO’s mission to focus on energy efficiency in state buildings, the money for grant-making is gone.

The Senate’s proposed budget contains no state money this year for the SEO’s grant work. Many of those grants go to three university energy programs – N.C. Solar Center in Raleigh, Appalachian State and N.C. A&T. Read full story

ENERGY OFFICE  

Raleigh News and Observer, Letters to the editor
The choices we should make
Our General Assembly must fully fund the State Energy Office and our university research and learning centers: the N.C. Solar Center, Appalachian State University Energy Center and the N.C. A&T University Center for Energy Research and Technology. Their valuable work in energy efficiency, renewable energy, green building, industrial processes, bio-fuels and job training will help grow green businesses in the state and train tomorrow’s leaders. Proposed funding cuts for these offices will leave North Carolina playing catch-up to other states.

Wisconsin’s Office of Energy Independence’s proposed $30 million budget will build on the annual $63 million that is used to support energy efficiency, renewable energy and environmental research. The state also has goals of generating 25 percent of all electricity and transportation fuels from renewable sources by 2025; capturing 10 percent of the national market of renewable energy sources by 2030 and becoming a research leader in affordable alternative energies.

This effort will create tens of thousands of jobs and bring in $13 billion annually to the Wisconsin economy. Minnesota follows a parallel path by investing $35 million on a plan approved in May. The choice is ours. We can either invest in our future or let it slip awa
Robert Rodriguez
Member, N.C. Interfaith Power and Light
Raleigh

Read full story  

Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE – As students across the country become college graduates this spring, many will also become uninsured.

The end of college means students are no longer covered by their school’s insurance plan, and since they are not in school full time, they may not be covered under their parents’ plans, either.

While some graduates may have already landed a job with benefits, others enter professions that don’t offer health insurance, and some are still job hunting.

These graduates must make a decision to fork over the money to get their own health insurance or become one of the 46 million uninsured Americans.

“Most college students feel they are bulletproof,” said David Marlett, chairman of the department of finance, banking and insurance at Appalachian State University. “When they are faced with the choice to spend 80 bucks on health insurance rather than have a great weekend, it’s not a hard decision.”   Read full story