Author: Jonathan Serrie

Federal officials have ordered commercial fishing vessels to cease oil recovery operations in Louisiana’s Breton Sound. The action came after four crew members aboard three vessels reported health problems including nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains.

Medics transported the four crew members to a hospital for evaluation. None of the other commercial fishermen involved in oil recovery operations in Breton Sound reported symptoms. However, officials directed all 125 commercial vessels equipped for oil recovery in that area to return to their staging area so that the remaining crew could receive precautionary medical evaluations.

“We are taking this action as an extreme safeguard,” said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Robinson Cox.

On Wednesday, FOX News freelance photographer Joe Vasquez experienced a minor version of this while traveling with a National Wildlife Federation team out in the Gulf of Mexico. Twelve miles off the Louisiana coast, their boat encountered a thick plume of oil.

“My tongue began tingling,” Vasquez said. “It was like biting a pepper, but without the taste.”

Vasquez put on a respirator and said the symptoms quickly went away.

Researchers on the boat lowered remote devices into the water to collect data. The devices returned covered in thick layers of oil with the consistency of melted chocolate.

Meanwhile, BP continues its “top kill” operations to block the flow of oil from a damaged well on the ocean floor. According to the company’s Twitter site, “There are no significant events to report at this time.”

What could be the turning point in BP’s efforts to stop a broken oil well from gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico remains on an uncertain schedule.

This morning, company officials had hoped to begin pumping heavy drilling mud into the well to block the oil flow, a procedure known as “top kill.”

While the method has a good track record on land, it has never before been attempted offshore at a depth of 5,000 feet. Engineers are still trying to determine how the extreme water pressure at that depth will affect the process.

In the pre-dawn hours, BP was still conducting tests on the failed Blowout Preventer (BOP) on top of the well to determine whether the company could successfully execute a top kill.

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“The tests involve pumping drilling fluids into the BOP to measure pressures and flow paths,” BP Press Officer Robert Wine explains in an email to FOX News producer Dan Gallo. “This work may take up to another day and, when complete, a decision will be made on the execution of the top kill procedure itself.”

Company officials have given the operation a 60 to 70 percent chance of success. They say the entire procedure could take up to two days.

After considerable discussion and controversy, BP agreed to continue providing a live video feed to the general public, showing the site of the well on the ocean floor during the top kill process.

The company is telling viewers to expect “significant changes” in the oil flow during the procedure and says these changes “will not provide a reliable indicator of the overall progress, or success or failure, of the top kill operation as a whole.”

With pressure mounting on Washington to hold BP accountable for the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, politicians and Obama administration officials are ramping up the tough talk and, in the case of one senator, a little name calling.

“In my mind, BP no longer stands for British Petroleum. It stands for Beyond Patience,” said Senator Dick Durbin.

The Illinois Democrat was part of a bi-partisan Senate delegation that toured the Louisiana coast with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

“We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done,” Salazar said.

The metaphor seems to suggest the interior secretary is resigned to an uneasy, but permanent, partnership with BP in the oil spill cleanup — contrasting with his comment over the weekend:

“If we find that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately.”

At a Monday White House briefing, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said, “To push BP out of the way would raise a question: To replace them with what?”

Allen acknowledged the federal government lacks BP’s expertise and deep sea equipment to handle an oil spill 5,000 feet below the surface.

But a report today from the Associated Press is raising questions about BP’s track record in handling massive spills. According to the AP, BP led the Alaska oil industry consortium responsible for handling the failed initial containment efforts during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Visiting oil-contaminated Fourchon Beach, BP’s chief executive officer acknowledged he had underestimated the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

“I’m as devastated as you are by what I’ve seen here today,” Tony Hayward told reporters. “We are going to do everything in our power to prevent any more oil from coming ashore and we will clean every last drop up.”

Louisiana’s governor and coastal parish leaders are criticizing BP and the federal government for moving too slowly in addressing a growing oil spill that has already contaminated 65 miles of the state’s coastline.

“We met today to take action, to take matters into our own hands,” said Gov. Bobby Jindal. “We know we’ve got to do that if we’re gonna win this fight to protect our coast.”

State, parish and city officials have arranged daily coastal surveys and identified people and equipment ready to jump into action on short notice. But their ultimate plan of dredging protective sand berms along Louisiana’s barrier islands still awaits a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is studying the project’s potential impact on the environment.

“As you can see, our worst nightmare has come true,” Plaquemines Parish President BIlly Nungesser said as he pointed to a recent photo of pelicans in a nearby rookery saturated with oil. “Had we started the dredge project when we first demanded an emergency permit, a lot of the areas that we’re all here to talk about would have been protected. And I believe 80 to 90 percent of this oil could have been kept at bay on the barrier islands.”

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The theory behind the plan is that oil is easier to clean on the sandy beaches of barrier islands, but difficult — if not impossible — to remove from wetlands. Proposals to burn or flood the oil out of marshes could also destroy these important wildlife habitats.

“We can fight this oil on the barrier islands 15 to 20 miles off our coast or we can face it in thousands of miles of fragmented wetlands,” Jindal said. “Every day we’re not given approval on this emergency permit to create more of these sand booms is another day that choice is made for us, as more and more miles of our shore are hit by oil.”

Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle said there is a dredge sitting idle just off the coast of his community. “Boy! You don’t know how bad I want to go as a pirate and take that thing and start blowing sand,” he said.

The mayor was, of course, joking. But his statement reflects the increasing frustration of many coastal Louisiana residents.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has started voicing its own frustration over the pace of BP’s response to the oil spill. “If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

Today, Salazar and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano are scheduled to lead a bi-partisan Senate delegation to the region to monitor the oil spill and the response.

Fish gasping for oxygen flapped helplessly around George Arnesen’s shrimp boat off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana. Arnesen said he’d never seen anything like it in his 15 years working on the Gulf.

“It’s real emotional for me being a commercial fisherman knowing that my livelihood, way of life altogether, is in great danger of being destroyed,” Arnesen said. “A whole industry is in danger of being destroyed.”

Arnesen dipped a large bucket into the water. When he pulled it back into his boat, the bucket was filled with thick, black sludge.

Echoing the sentiments of other fishermen, Arnesen complained about a lack of adequate protective measures along the coast.

“We just rode the whole beach and there’s no boom,” he said. “There’s no absorbent. They’re not out there trying to close off any of the gaps. We’ve seen one spot that had some sand bags in it.”

In addition to the effects of the oil, federal regulators had raised concerns about potential hazards associated with the record quantities of chemical dispersant BP has been using to break down the oil near the site of the spill. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a directive instructing BP to seek less toxic alternatives.

But BP officials said some of the other chemical dispersants are not available in the amounts they need, or haven’t been fully tested for effectiveness in the type of setting of this deep water spill.

In a letter to the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard, Douglas Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production writes:

“Based on the information that is available today, BP continues to believe that COREXIT was the best and most appropriate choice at the time when the incident occurred, and that COREXIT remains the best option for subsea application.”

BP has applied a total of 715 thousand gallons of dispersant on the Gulf oil spill, including 85 thousand gallons underwater.

Today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson returns to Louisiana to monitor the response to the oil spill. This marks Jackson’s third visit to the region since the oil spill in the Gulf began just over one month ago.

“We’ve got to do something, man! It’s just criminal,” said Billy Nungesser. The president of Plaquemines Parish was visibly upset after a local wildlife officer showed him two sea turtles covered in oil and clinging to life.

Nungesser has proposed an ambitious plan utilizing the U.S. dredge fleet to build an 80 mile “sand boom” along coastal Louisiana’s barrier island chains to protect against the BP oil spill. But the parish leader is growing impatient with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has yet to issue a permit to carry out his plan.

“We prepare for the worst for hurricanes and hope for the best,” Nungesser said. “Damn it! We’re not preparing for the worst. We’re sitting here hoping something doesn’t happen that we see happening in front of our eyes and we aren’t doing a damn thing about it.”

Oil has already breached some of the traditional barriers that were installed to protect beaches and wetlands in this ecologically fragile area.

“We’re putting boom out that washes ashore every day,” Nungesser said. “What are we gonna do — just keep doing this until everything’s dead?”

Frustration over the oil spill is being felt from Louisiana’s wetlands to the White House.

Two top Obama administration officials claim BP has “fallen short” on its pledge to keep the American public and government informed about the spill.

In a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson write, “The public and the United States Government are entitled to nothing less than complete transparency in this matter.”

The letter requests all records of sampling, monitoring and internal investigations — as well as any videos related to the spill.

Under pressure from federal lawmakers, BP has made public a video feed from the ocean floor that shows the spill site in real time. The live images have led independent researchers to conclude the oil spill is much larger than originally thought.

BP officials say an insertion tube is capturing oil from the leaking well at a rate of 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) per day — a figure equivalent to original estimates of the spill. However, the live video feed shows additional quantities of oil still billowing into the Gulf.

“BP’s numbers just don’t add up, and the video proved it,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass) said in a press release. “The whole world could see that there must be much more than 5,000 barrels per day coming from BP’s spill. That is just what we saw today, who knows what we will see tomorrow?”

In an interview with FOX News Radio reporter Eben Brown, BP spokesman Mark Salt insisted the original 5,000 barrel per day estimate of the total spill came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and not his company. However, the new revelations of additional oil have prompted BP’s critics to suggest the company has been less than forthcoming with bad news.

Neither the oil company nor federal officials would speculate on a new estimate of how much oil has spilled into the Gulf.

BP has been trying to mitigate the effects of the oil spill using record amounts of dispersants — chemicals that break the oil into small droplets. The company has already deployed approximately 655 thousand gallons of dispersant (600 thousand gallons on the surface and 55 thousand gallons underwater).

Chemical dispersants carry risks, but are generally less toxic than the oil they break up. Nevertheless, federal regulators have raised concerns about the potential impact the large quantities of chemicals could have on the environment. The EPA has issued a directive instructing BP to seek a less toxic dispersant than the one currently in use.

On Sunday, BP plans to begin efforts to plug the rest of the leaking well 5,000 feet below the surface by filling the site with heavy mud and encasing it in concrete. The so-called “top kill” method has never been attempted at such a great depth.

But as with the Plaquemines Parish president’s plan to build an artificial barrier island, extraordinary measures may be required to control a catastrophic oil spill.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal says heavier oil is now contaminating his state’s coastal marshes. Before, contamination was limited to a light, oily sheen.

Traveling with the governor, Billy Nungesser, the president of the coastal community of Plaquemines Parish said the oil has “laid down a blanket in the marsh that will destroy every living thing there.”

As the BP oil spill begins to creep into coastal wetlands in Louisiana, scientists are also monitoring its potential impact on the Florida Keys.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that a “small portion” of the oil spill has reached the Loop Current — a large flow of warm water in the eastern Gulf of Mexico that feeds into the Florida Straits and, eventually, the Gulf Stream.

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Researchers caution that the Loop Current is difficult to predict and it’s still unclear whether any oil from the BP spill will reach the Florida Keys. If it does, it would take at least a week, which experts say would allow time for both chemical dispersants and natural evaporation processes to mitigate the oil’s effects on the keys.

Earlier this week, several tar balls washed ashore in the Florida Keys. But the Coast Guard has determined they are not related to the BP oil spill. The origins of these tar balls remains a mystery.

ORANGE BEACH, ALA — Fishing charter operator Randy Boggs watches from his boat as BP contractors position floating oil containment booms to protect beaches and environmentally sensitive barrier islands from the massive oil spill, still offshore.

“With the wind and the currents, we’re thinking this oil spill is gonna go toward Louisiana and the marshes over there,” he said. “But just to be on the safe side, we’ve got our protection out here and are getting ready in case it did come this way.”

Boggs’s Reel Surprise Charters is part of the booming tourism industry of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. The region’s fishing and beaches draw more than 1.3 million visitors a year. And the busy summer tourist season kicks off this weekend.

“Anything that could impact our island or impact our visitors is certainly a concern,” said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing for Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism. “At this point, we don’t think it’s a real pressing concern. But quite honestly, we’ve taken a lot of measures already.”

To provide residents and visitors with updates on the oil spill, the official gulfshores.com website has posted a link to its “crisis page” — which is normally used during hurricane season.

“This isn’t something like a hurricane that lands and goes away,” said Marie Curren of Brett Robinson, a vacation rentals company. “This is gonna be on our shores for a good couple of weeks at the least. And so we’ll be watching it. We don’t want it to interfere with our industry.”

Curren added that she is “cautiously optimistic” it will not.

Click here to watch Jonathan’s exclusive Kyte video of the ongoing oil spill preparations.

The economic crisis and scandals in the corporate sector have prompted the nation’s business schools to take a more serious look at the study of ethics.

“I think some of the recent events — Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Toyota Corporation — have really highlighted the importance of ethics in leadership,” said Maryam Alavi, vice dean and professor of information strategy at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

B-schools around the country are renewing their focus on existing ethics programs as well as adding new ones. The lessons go beyond the obvious warnings against cheating and embrace responsibility to employees, customers, communities and the environment.

“Obviously, we can’t be parents,” said Mark Dillard, director of leadership programs at Goizueta. “Clearly, values are taught in the home. But we can address it from what actions you can take, what options are available to you if you are confronted with an ethical breach.”

“Principled leadership and ethical judgment have to exist at all times — good or bad,” Alavi said. The vice dean added that pushing these qualities aside for even minor decisions can create a slippery slope.

“I don’t believe many people wake up one day and say, ‘You know, today I’m going to do something bad or criminal or unethical.’ It’s poor judgments that add up and box these individual decision makers in a situation that becomes problematic,” Alavi said.

According to Dillard, the Emory program is less about debating broad ethical issues and more about what a manager should do when faced with an ethical breach, or an ethically ambiguous situation.

“If someone doesn’t take action when they see these things, it can snowball and you can end up in a situation like you have with Toyota,” Dillard said. “You’re gonna end up on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.”

Peter Roberts, an associate professor of organization and management at Goizueta, tries to inspire his students with role models — entrepreneurs who make money while benefiting society.

“A real estate developer who wants to make his money in Nicaragua by developing sustainable coffee farms — and not just by buying land, cutting it up and selling it — will do better than his neighbors at the end of the day, and the country is better off for it,” he said.

Roberts also uses the example of GrayGhost Ventures, an Atlanta-based investment firm that finances emerging businesses and private schools in poor regions around the world.

While the current economic climate has pushed ethics to the front of people’s minds, some fear the trend will be temporary — or, at best, cyclical.

“When everything is booming and the economy is doing well, who’s thinking about ethics?” said Max Stetsefko, a first year MBA student at Emory. “It’s hard to really think about these things during those times. But I think in light of the recession and latest scandals, that kind of really brings the point home that this is very important.”

Professor Roberts hopes the continued teaching of ethics will curb, if not prevent, future disasters in the world of business and finance.

“I’m optimistic coming out of this place that what we’re going to see is enough individuals that are doing positive things that are going to end up, sadly not making these big events disappear, but I think put them in their proper context,” he said.

Georgia’s elected insurance commissioner says he will not help the Obama Administration implement the first phase of the new federal health care law.

John Oxendine, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, declining her request to create a pool of high-risk people to receive federally subsidized health insurance. He is the first state insurance commissioner in the nation to publicly refuse to participate in the program.

In his letter, Oxendine writes, “It is my position as Commissioner of Insurance that I cannot commit the State of Georgia to implement a federal high risk pool program that is part of a broader scheme which I believe the Supreme Court will hold to be unconstitutional, leads to the further expansion of the federal government, undermines the financial security of our nation, and potentially commits the state of Georgia to future financial obligations.”

Oxendine’s letter is in response to Sebelius’s April 30 deadline for states to indicate whether they will participate in the high-risk pool program. The Department of Health and Human Services plans to offer a national backup program to cover residents in states that choose not to adopt their own high-risk pools.

“If Secretary Sebelius wants to create her own high-risk pool and offer it to the citizens of Georgia, that’s well within the purview of the federal government,” Oxendine said. “I can’t prevent that. But I don’t have to go and do it for her.”

Nearly a year after researchers identified the 2009 H1N1 virus, federal health officials are trying remain one step ahead of this unpredictable disease.

“It’s spring break. That’s when we had a lot of problems last year,” said Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “We have lots of international travelers. The southern hemisphere may be gearing up for their season.”

While battling the virus, doctors are also trying to dispel common perceptions of H1N1 as a mild flu. Seasonal influenza kills an average of 36 thousand people in the U.S. each year. H1N1 is blamed for 12 thousand deaths. However, H1N1 has a disproportionate impact on children.

“We think about five times more people under 65 died from the H1N1 virus than would typically die from seasonal flu,” Schuchat said. “In terms of people whose lives were really cut short unexpectedly, that was a theme of this pandemic.”

CDC officials are urging people who have not been vaccinated, to get the shots now. Finding vaccine should be easy, given the current surplus — estimated to be in the tens of millions of doses.

“We say that you need to have more than enough vaccine to have enough vaccine, because you want to have enough vaccine at every place in the distribution system,” Schuchat said. “I do expect that we’ll be discarding a lot of vaccine at the end of this season. And I think that’s better than running out.”

Current manufacturing technology in the U.S. grows flu vaccine inside chicken eggs. The product is safe and effective, but the process is slow and unpredictable — forcing public health officials to anticipate demand months in advance.

Researchers are working on technology to speed up the process by producing vaccine inside cells, or even at the molecular level. But they caution that such improvements could still be years away.

The biggest change Americans will notice this year, is the fall flu vaccine will combine H1N1 and seasonal flu strains. So, most people will only require one shot this year, instead of two. (Children under 10 receiving their first H1N1 immunization will likely still need two separate doses).

Federal health officials say lower vaccination rates may be behind a recent uptick in H1N1 activity in the Southeast.

Georgia, which has reported an increase in influenza-related hospitalizations over the past few weeks, ranks near the bottom of a list released today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showing state by state statistics on the proportion of residents who received the H1N1 vaccine. An estimated 22.7 percent of Georgians in the initial target groups (children and other high risk individuals) got vaccinated.

Mississippi ranked lowest in this category with 19.4 percent, while vaccinations for target groups exceeded 50 percent in some New England states and reached as high as 57.5 in Rhode Island.

Overall vaccination rates (for persons aged 6 months and older) were 23.9 percent nationwide, with Rhode Island ranking highest (38.8 percent) and Mississippi lowest (12.9 percent).

The discrepancy may have more to do with the timing of the disease rather than any cultural factors. In Southern states, where the school season starts early, H1N1 activity peaked earlier than in many other parts of the country.

“They actually started to see flu increasing in August,” Schuchat said. “Then things were fairly quiet in October and November when the vaccine came around… And perhaps because they had early disease, there wasn’t as much interest in vaccination when the vaccine became available.”

While the earthquake in Haiti may have faded from the headlines, international relief organizations continue their work — often finding creative ways to overcome shrinking funds and difficult logistics.

“So many people have forgotten about Haiti, and we’re still going,” said Christina Porter, program director for Childspring International.

The small, faith-based medical charity continues to rely on a scrappy network of small aircraft pilots to deliver relief supplies to remote areas of Haiti (see my related blog). But for areas with accessible ports, Childspring has turned to an unusual method of delivering supplies in bulk: a two-masted sailing ship.

As I write this blog, the schooner Halie & Matthew is en route to Haiti with nearly 45 thousand pounds of food and medical equipment on board.

Capt. Jared Talarski, who has already delivered 10 thousand pounds of relief supplies to Haiti for other non-profits aboard the schooner Liberty, said he decided to charter the larger vessel after its owners agreed to rent out the Halie & Matthew at a nominal cost to cover dock fees, food and other basic expenses.

The delivery of supplies is far from the only challenge for relief workers in Haiti. There is also the human element and raw emotions.

Atlanta plastic surgeon Alan Larsen, who volunteered in Haiti last month, choked up as he described treating Roovens Monchil, an 11-year-old earthquake victim whose crushed leg had become seriously infected.

“Even though he had a big problem — and his problem was huge — when I brought him crayons and paper, he just had this incredible big smile,” Larsen said.

Holly Frew, communications manager for MedShare, an Atlanta-based non-profit, shot the video that appears at the bottom of this blog as the young boy was loaded into the back of an SUV and eventually transferred to the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship.

Frew and Larsen lost contact with the boy. They say US privacy rules and military protocols made it difficult to get information on his status.

But shortly after Frew and Larsen returned home, they discovered Roovens had been transfered to a nearby hospital, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite. Local station WAGA (FOX5) covered their happy reunion (click here to watch).

“It was really wonderful,” Larsen said. “I walked in the room and almost didn’t even believe it was him. His leg was completely closed and he was sitting up in bed. There was a walker on the side of the bed. So, obviously he was learning to walk again and his dad was at his side. I never saw his dad leave his side.”

“The flu season is not over yet,” said US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD. America’s top doctor held a media briefing along with Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Their purpose — to warn Americans against complacency.

Although, influenza activity remains low nationwide, federal health officials have noticed a slight increase in flu-related hospitalizations in the Southeast, and particularly in Georgia where H1N1 vaccination rates were among some of the lowest in the country. Schuchat described the trend as “worrisome” because people who who thought H1N1 no longer posed a significant threat may suffer needlessly.

“With more vaccine available, all Americans can now get immunized,”  Benjamin said.

Nationally, most key flu indicators remained flat through mid-March. Last week, the proportion of outpatient visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) was 1.8 percent , which is below the national baseline (a year-long average for flu activity) of 2.8 percent.

Although no states reported widespread influenza activity during that period, regional influenza activity has been reported in three states: Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia.

Last week, officials with Georgia’s Department of Community Health (DCH) held a similar news conference.

“We aren’t 100 percent sure that a third wave is occurring or will occur,” said Patrick O’Neal, MD, director of the DCH’s Division of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “But if there is a third wave, it may happen in our state first… Residents need to continue taking precautions against the flu and seek vaccination if they haven’t been vaccinated.”

H1N1 continues to be the dominant virus identified in laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza. CDC officials say it remains similar to the virus chosen for the 2009 H1N1 vaccine and, except in rare cases, remains susceptible to the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (TAMIFLU) and zanamivir (RELENZA).

North Carolina’s largest school district has reversed a policy that was once considered a model for schools wanting to maintain diversity based on economics instead of race.

In a heated public meeting in Raleigh, the Wake County school board voted 5 to 4 to approve a new policy that would place students in schools near their homes. That drew angry chants from opponents, who fear the new policy will lead to the “re-segregation” of wealthy, predominantly white, students to suburban schools and low-income children to high-poverty schools.

Tuesday evening’s vote effectively ends a policy adopted in 1999, when school officials moved from a traditional race-based integration policy, to a busing system that attempted to balance the proportion of students from wealthy and poor neighborhoods at each school. The district determined the economics of each neighborhood based on the percentage of children receiving subsidized lunches.

Supporters hailed the economic diversity program as a way to move beyond racial quotas, while still ensuring equal educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. But many suburban parents grew frustrated with the long drives and bus routes required to get their children to economically balanced schools.

Last year, these parents voiced their frustration at the polls, electing a new school board majority that opposed the 1999 policy. Tuesday evening, that majority gave final approval to a new policy focused on placing children in community-based schools.

Security was tight at the contentious school board meeting. Police arrested three people and removed several others for disrupting the public hearing. At times, chants from protesters outside the hearing room were so loud, board members complained they couldn’t hear the proceedings.

Over the next 15 months, Wake County school officials will develop school assignments based on community zones.  Parents hope the end result will be that their children will attend schools closer to home.

When Donald Roberts (photo on the left) undergoes open heart surgery next month to repair an aneurysm, the home improvement store employee will not have to meet any deductible or make any co-payment. The 64-year-old home improvement store employee will be the first to take advantage of a new partnership between Lowe’s and the Cleveland Clinic.

“The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for me,” said Roberts, who works as a coordinator in the installed sales department of the Lowe’s store in Port Orange, Florida.

The elective program, announced February 15, is available to all full-time Lowe’s employees and dependents enrolled in the company’s self-insured medical plan — an estimated 180 thousand people in all. It covers most major heart surgeries performed at the Cleveland Clinic, which U.S. News and World Report has ranked first in the nation for cardiac care for the past 15 consecutive years.

“The thing that excites me most about the Cleveland Clinic is the message that we’re sending to our employees,” said Bob Ihrie, Lowe’s senior vice president in charge of benefits. “We’re giving you the best quality care available in the United States and we’re giving it to you for free.”

In addition to avoiding deductibles and co-pays the program covers travel expenses associated with the trip to Cleveland, Ohio for the patient and a companion. Ihrie estimates the program helps the employee avoid $5,000 in out of pocket expenses.

“This really speaks to our employees, most of whom are $15 an hour employees,” Ihrie said. “This operation is one that can bankrupt them if they don’t have insurance. And even if they have Lowe’s insurance, coming up with $5,000 to pay for this is an incredible financial stress.”

“The best thing about the partnership, obviously, is its financial implication,” said heart patient Roberts. “It takes all that pressure off you. I think it really gives you a better chance to recover.”

Lowe’s negotiated flat rate prices on specific procedures with the Cleveland Clinic. “Even with the incentives, it will be a break even in the short run for Lowe’s,” Ihrie said. “In the long run, it will be a better than break even. So, we think this is really the future of where health care is going.”

Based on prior insurance claims, company officials estimate 125 people will be eligible for the new heart surgery program each year. Ihrie said in the future, Lowe’s and the Cleveland Clinic may consider expanding their partnership to include back and spine treatments.

The program, the first of its kind in the nation, was the result of two and a half years of planning and discussions about ways to control rising health care costs, while improving employee access to quality treatment.

In the early days, Lowe’s explored the possibility of “medical tourism” — where patients travel to other countries to receive treatment from US-trained doctors at a lower cost. But company officials ultimately decided they could find a more effective solution at home. (For more on that, please click on the related video).

A new

Despite the jittery economy, the National Restaurant Association predicts the number of food service industry jobs will increase more than 10 percent nationwide. The statistics look even better in Georgia, where the trade group predicts increases above 15 percent.

Experts say the numbers of entrepreneurs seeking to open restaurant franchises in Georgia are disproportionately high, compared to the state’s population, which the US Census Bureau estimates to be 9th largest in the nation.

“Georgia is 5th in the country in terms of the interest that we see from people who want to start a franchise,” said Garth Snider, president of FranchiseOpportunities.com.

A major driver is the large metropolitan area surrounding the state’s capital city.

“Atlanta seems to be a big test market for a lot of concepts because there is a big diverse demographic here,” said Jimmy Davis, a tenant representative with Colliers International.

When a concept does well here, others follow.

“Einstein Bros. does great in Atlanta,” Davis said. “Goldberg’s (Bagel Company) does great. So, Bruegger’s is coming to Atlanta, because they see the success that some of their neighbor competitors have.”

Metro Atlanta, which sprawls across much of the northern part of Georgia, is a region of commuters. Many of these travelers gravitate to familiar brands, compounding the success of restaurant franchises. (See my related blog).

Town Hall Meeting at Kennesaw State University

The down economy is taking its toll on higher education.

The University of Nevada at Reno plans to close its agriculture school. Arizona is considering tuition hikes in excess of 30 percent. In Georgia, lawmakers have asked the state’s 35 public colleges and universities to plan for $300 million in cuts on top of a $265 million reduction already proposed for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins this July.

The proposed cuts come as Georgia legislators attempt to shore up a projected $1.1 billion budget hole. State law prohibits the legislature from deficit spending.

“The (Georgia) Constitution mandates a balanced budget,” said Republican State Senator Seth Harp. “You can’t borrow money like in California like a bunch of drunken sailors.”

In sometimes contentious budget hearings with university officials, another state senator suggested it was time for parents and students to pony up.

“We’re becoming a socialist society when we say that you shouldn’t raise tuition at all,” said Republican State Senator Don Balfour. “My son’s in school at Georgia when he’s here in country. And what he pays for school is embarrassingly cheap compared to what he even paid for a private high school.”

But for state school students who work jobs to fund their education, any tuition increase is cause for concern.

“Many of us are already struggling to make ends meet,” a student told a standing room only crowd at a town hall style meeting at Kennesaw State University. “How then will many of the people in this room be able to support themselves and continue to attend?”

Administrators say it’s unlikely students would have bear the entire burden of the proposed cuts (a scenario that would involve an estimated tuition hike of 77 percent). They say more likely scenarios would involve a combination of smaller tuition hikes, the elimination of certain programs and layoffs of professors, including tenured faculty.

“What’s at stake, or course, is the quality of public education going forward,” said Erroll Davis, Jr., chancellor of the University System of Georgia. “We have to continue to make it accessible, affordable and high quality. And it takes money to do that.”

Senator Harp said he takes no pleasure in asking Georgia’s colleges and universities to make such sacrifices, but that the legislature has already squeezed money from virtually every other source possible.

“There are some areas of the budget that we just absolutely can not cut,” Harp said. “We’ve closed two of the smaller prisons. We have a prison population of 50 thousand people. Are we gonna dump them out on the people of Georgia? I don’t think so.”

How can government best stimulate job growth: Invest in businesses that create jobs, or the people who fill them?

That’s a matter for debate, as 21 states launch job initiatives using federal stimulus funds.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services is teaming up with five non-profit job training programs to create the “Opportunity Project.” Five hundred low-income residents will have a chance to reboot their careers, thanks to $10 million dollars in federal stimulus money.

“We can actually place people in jobs — full-time jobs, part-time jobs — and pay 100 percent of the wages,” said DSS Director Mary Wilson.

Critics of such programs say federal money would be better invested with job creators, in the form of payroll tax breaks for businesses. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) questions what will happen to temporary jobs when federal stimulus funds run out.

“They’re make-do jobs,” Gingrey said. “They’re not jobs that are going to be there for the long-run. And in doing it that way, it’s much more costly than a tax cut.”

But the director of one of the non-profits participating in the Charlotte program says there is a case for investing in both employers and employees.

“Our clients get their foot in the door,” said Steffi Travis of Jacob’s Ladder Job Center. “They network. They build a reliable work history. And that has a benefit for them to become reliable and responsible employees down the road.”

Musicians Hall of Fame, Nashville

After four years in business, the Musicians Hall of Fame is closing its doors.

A judge ruled that Nashville’s Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency could take possession of the property through eminent domain to build the Music City Center, a $585 million convention facility scheduled to open in 2013.

What remains in dispute is compensation for the private museum’s owner, Joe Chambers.

“Pay us what it would cost us to replace what we’ve got where we are,” Chambers said.

Metro has offered Chambers $4.8 million  — the estimated fair market value of the property. But Chambers said he needs nearly twice that amount if his museum is to relocate within Nashville’s bustling tourist district.

“This is a tourist driven venue,” Chambers said. “You can’t put it somewhere that’s not where the tourists are.”

Metro officials said they are sympathetic to Chambers, but also must be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.

“We have to make offers that are based on independent, fair, reasonable appraisals,” said Metro Attorney Brian Jackson.

Project managers and Nashville government officials said they are considering a proposal to house the Musicians Hall of Fame inside the new convention center. Chambers said he has set to see any offers in writing, but remains cautiously optimistic.

“We’ve managed to reach agreement with the overwhelming majority of property owners that are going to be affected by this project,” Jackson said. “So, I’m confident that at the end of the day we’ll reach an agreement with Mr. Chambers as well.”

A teacher reads the Ten Commandments to a classroom of teenagers. It’s not Sunday school, but a Tuesday at Bearden High — a public school — in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Steven Prince has taught an elective course on Bible History for the past 13 years.

“We’re not forcing doctrine. We’re not forcing anything on anybody,” said Prince. “I don’t have any extra speakers come in. I don’t have them read extra books. I just have them stick with the Bible.”

Prince’s “just the facts” approach has helped lay the foundation for new guidelines adopted by the Tennessee Board of Education to help public schools provide Bible classes, but without violating the separation of church and state. State school officials consulted several other experts, including Emory University Old Testament Professor Kent Richards, who serves as executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature.

“You have to be very careful not to be professing Christianity or any other religion,” Richards said. “You also can not be wanting to suggest as a teacher that you should not follow the Bible. So, there has to be a level of neutrality.”

For decades, the “Bible in the classroom” issue has been an all or nothing battle between church/state separationists and advocates of religion in education. What is unfolding in Tennessee and other parts of the country is a common ground approach, where public schools can teach about the Bible’s influence on history, law and literature, while leaving the spiritual aspects to Sunday school. (Click here to see my related blog and video).