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PHILADELPHIA - The financial benefits of Hillary Clinton’s solid victory in the Pennsylvania primary became evident yesterday, as her campaign estimated that it would reap $10 million in new contributions in one day, even as her supporters and Barack Obama’s debated whether the Pennsylvania result would change the trajectory of the Democratic race.
Governor Ed Rendell, Clinton’s top Pennsylvania surrogate, called the outcome an “earthquake.” A public memo from Obama’s campaign declared the race “fundamentally unchanged.”
Nonetheless, the boost in funds helped stabilize Clinton’s campaign at a time when it was running a deficit and struggling to find the resources to compete with Obama in the next two states, Indiana and North Carolina. Clinton’s $10 million windfall, from 60,000 donors who contributed online after appeals from Clinton and surrogates in their election-night remarks, will be enough to cover a debt that the campaign acknowledged earlier this week.
“They needed a cash infusion,” said Chris Kofinis, a former campaign aide to John Edwards. “It allows them to be more competitive and viable in Indiana and North Carolina and beyond, but it doesn’t change the overall dynamic. When you step back and analyze it, nothing changed.”
Clinton’s victory, by just under 10 percentage points, gives her, by current estimates, a nine-delegate gain, leaving her still lagging by at least 131 convention votes, according to the Associated Press.
The Pennsylvania result also did little to immediately alter the plans of the candidates. Both Clinton and Obama quickly moved on to Indiana, which will vote along with North Carolina in two weeks. The two states together offer nearly as many delegates as the 158 assigned to Pennsylvania. After that, seven other contests, the decisions of uncommitted superdelegates, and possible resolution of disputes over votes in Florida and Michigan remain to determine the party’s nominee.

boston.com

Today we are going a little farther afield than usual - to St. Lawrence Island in the middle of the Bering Sea. St. Lawrence is a part of Alaska. It’s about 130 miles from Nome, but it’s only 40 miles from Siberia.
I was there in August 1994, and again the next year. I was working on a project for the N.C. Zoo.
This remote island is home to great colonies of seabirds. The most familiar of these are two species of puffin: horned and tufted. Puffins are the northern counterpart to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere. They are ocean-going birds that live mainly on fish. Like penguins, they have an upright stance and live in vast colonies. The biggest difference is that penguins can’t fly.
St. Lawrence is a large island encompassing 1,800 square miles. It is about 90 miles long and ranges in width from eight to 22 miles. Its ecology is mostly tundra. A few low mountains reach just above 2,000 feet in elevation. The island doesn’t have any trees. The only woody plant is the Arctic willow which grows to a maximum height of only a foot.
But there are lots of wildflowers in bloom in August. The tundra is spattered with daubs of saffron, magenta and cobalt blue. Acres of white wildflowers that look like tufts of cotton sway in the persistent breeze.
The island is one of the last portions of the land bridge that once connected North America with Asia during the Pleistocene epoch, which lasted from 1.8 million to 11,550 years before the present. The land bridge probably enabled human migration from Asia to North America about 25,000 years ago.
St. Lawrence Island has a population of about 1,300 that is evenly divided between two villages: Barrow and Savoonga. These people are Siberian Upik Eskimos and are mainly subsistence hunters. Savoonga, where I spent my time on the island, calls itself “the walrus capital of the world.”

journalnow.com

The lottery systems in most states were set up for additional money to be poured into the school systems in the state. When lottery numbers drop, however, it causes big problems for individual school districts.
The state of South Carolina has always funneled money from their lottery sales into the school system in the state. The lottery sales, however, have not been strong as of late, causing concern among local school districts.
The sales numbers from July through January were down $5.5 million from the same time period last year. Because of that, public schools will receive no money from the lottery next month.
Since local school districts have teachers that are paid directly from the lottery fund, it will be up to them to find a way to have those teachers paid.
College scholarships are the priority in the state. they must first be paid before any money can go to any high, middle or elementary schools.
While the problem is perceived as only temporary, it does put local districts in a predicament at the current time. The state is hoping the sales will return back to where money can once again be distributed.
Posted By Terry Goodwin

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