Wind energy advancing across Iowa

Don Sandell's land is one parcel scattered across 1,400 acres south of Fort Dodge that will see 157 wind turbines erected in 2012, according to Shanelle Evens, landowner and community coordinator supervisor with enXco.

"As we had anticipated, our met towers have confirmed the project area has a tremendous wind resource," Evens said. "The great wind resource will be one of the variables which will ensure a very economical project."

The company is on schedule to begin erecting turbines as early as 2012, she added, depending on weather conditions and customer negotiations.

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Credit card delinquencies drop to 17-year low

Consumers are paying off their credit card debt, with the delinquency rate dropping to 0.6 percent in the second quarter, the lowest level in 17 years.

The number of delinquent bills — those that are 90 days or more past due — dropped for the sixth straight quarter, hitting the lowest point since 1994, credit agency TransUnion reported Wednesday.
Although rates were expected to decline, delinquency rates are improving by more than at any other time since the recovery began in 2009, down nearly 19 percent from the first quarter and 35 percent from the second quarter of 2010, according to TransUnion.

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Free meals for all Detroit school children in fall

All Detroit Public Schools students will receive free breakfast, lunch and snacks in an effort to remove the stigma of being from a low-income family.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture program chose Michigan as one of three states to participate in the pilot program. Charter schools and districts in Michigan can participate if at least 40% of students are eligible for public assistance.

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Connecting WIC participants with farm-fresh produce

At the Prime Time Nutrition store in El Monte, a store that stocks the foods provided monthly to recipients of a federal mother-and-child nutrition program, shoppers can pick up formula and cereal, cheese and bread and other basic groceries. This summer, they also can take home peaches from Sweet Home Ranch in Dinuba.

In Salinas, there's a farmers market in the parking lot outside the offices of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC. And in Nevada County in the Sacramento area, a grant helps pay for WIC clients to take part in a community-supported agriculture program that provides them with weekly boxes of farm-fresh produce.

"The idea is to make the healthy choice the easy choice," says Yelena Zeltser, who was staffing an information table at the Prime Time store in El Monte one recent morning.

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