| Local Gas Station Charging Over $4 Per Gallon Near OIA
ORLANDO, Fla. -- There was a break for the holidays, but gas prices are ready to rise again. One local gas station, though, is already charging customers much more than others. RAW INTERVIEW: Manager Defends $4.49 Per Gallon Customers at the independent gas station near the Orlando International Airport are paying $4.49 a gallon. Some of the customers don't know the price they're paying until it's too late. There are no large signs showing the prices at the station. Most customers are tourists returning rental cars before catching flights at Orlando International Airport. Not all believe it's an honorable way to conduct business. "It's not fair. It's definitely price gouging during the holiday season," said tourist Les Lazarus. Even at $4.49 a gallon for regular, most of the pumps were busy at Suncoast Energys on Friday morning.
OIA receives go-ahead to charge new rental-car tax
It's about to get more expensive to rent a car at Orlando International Airport.
Board members of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, the agency that runs OIA, voted Wednesday to adopt a $2.50-a-day tax on car rentals. The "customer facility charge," which would be capped at five days, could add as much as $12.50 to a customer's bill.
Backers said the tax will raise money for $102.6 million worth of rental-car upgrades planned at the airport during the next few years, including additional parking spaces, fueling stations and car-wash bays.
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Monitor Picks
During the 2004 presidential election, the geeks at super-popular tech blog Slashdot.org (motto: "news for nerds") created a subsite for politics (motto: "politics for nerds"). Since then, the editors have refined a product that was strikingly good to begin with: clean presentation, uncluttered interface, and an understated delivery are all hallmarks. If you're tired of the talking heads, or the noise on the Drudge Report, log on to http://politics.slashdot.org/ instead. The war years Grammar school, for most of us, was a time of heightened anxiety – the crumpled love letters, the trial by battle on the soccer pitch, the looming prospect of academic failure. So Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules, a graphic novel based on the life of fictional seventh grader Greg Heffley, rings especially true.
PG, 1 hr., 29 min.
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Any Advice About Visas?
Requiring the interview forces the applicant to travel to the few cities where the interviews are conducted often adding hundreds and even thousands of dollars to the cost of an education in the US. That is on top of the none-refundable $231. a student visa applicant must pay, without any assurance they will even be granted the visa. William Fish, President at Washington International Education Council, at 9:35 am EST on February 8, 2008 .
The Real Reformer
We started during the Clinton administration to transition the VA system to a paperless system. . . . The VA is leading the way in reducing medical errors, improving patient safety, and delivering high quality care; now this is a lesson about what can be done when we have a plan. A plan that is evidence-based, a plan that uses what we know works, and a system that we can actually get to respond to that evidence-based planning. In fact, as a government audit discovered, the VA's paperless system has created a huge bottleneck, losing track of 53,000 veterans. Last year, Obama introduced legislation requiring the VA to treat each returning vet in 30 days. Yet, the VA already had such a requirement, and, according to internal VA audits, 25 percent of all vets wait more than 30 days for their first exam.
Every School Every Thursday -- Johnston
First place, Becky Cooper, Johnston High.
Middle School Flight-Balsa wood gliders: First place, Matt Ruebbelke, Johnston Middle; second place, John Koopah, Summit Middle.
Technology Quiz Bowl-Middle School: First place, Johnston Middle, Keo Corak, Kofi Manteaw, Matt Ruebbelke; Technology Quiz Bowl-High School: Second place, Johnston, Mike Traxel, Cody Catron and Alex Stanbrough; third place, Johnston, Kate Dickey, Trevor Haden and Rachel Stanley.
Structural Engineering-Middle School: First place, Johnston Middle, Matt Ruebbelke and Kofi Manteaw; second place, Johnston Middle, Melinda Thomas and Vicki Lee Thomas.
Structural Engineering-High School: First place, Johnston, Becky Cooper and Linda Brown.
Middle School-Dragster Challenge: First place, Jordan Hansen, Summit Middle; second place, Jarid Ingrebrand, Summit Middle; third place, Zea Zhu, Summit Middle.
Guantánamo and back: an interview with Moazzam Begg
Today, Begg is releasing a book, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey To Guantánamo And Back, about his experiences. This happens by chance, he says to coincide with the release of Michael Winterbottom's new film, The Road to Guantánamo, about the three other British detainees, the "Tipton Three". The timing seems good: criticism of the Guantánamo detention centre is intensifying within the US, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for it to be closed, and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called it an "anomaly" that would have to be "dealt with sooner or later", after one of his ministers backed Merkel's call. So, might the detention centre be closed? "I don't think so. Closing it would be a huge embarrassment to the US, after almost five years of telling the whole world that these dangerous people need to be kept there," said Begg, speaking in London last night.
Public has its say today on Sanibel tolls
Avoiding rush hour on the Sanibel Causeway could save drivers money with lower tolls during nonpeak hours.
That is just one of the tolling alternatives the Lee County Department of Transportation is looking at to relieve rush hour bottlenecks on the bridge.
The department will hold a workshop this evening to gather public input on the alternatives and take suggestions.
The program is not aimed at increasing or decreasing toll revenue.
Its to do with improving congestion on the causeway and therefore on the island, said Michela Meucci of Cella Molnar & Associates, public information consultant.
Lee DOT has found that weekday peak hours for traveling onto the island appear to be 7 to 9 a.m. and for traveling off the island 3 to 6 p.m., but those hours are still being analyzed.
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