The name change is official, but the Waldorf Astoria Naples is still evolving.
Formerly known as the Naples Grande Beach Resort, the luxury resort soon will get a big “W” at the top, where there was once an “R” for Registry Resort, its original name.
The resort, with 474 rooms on 23 acres overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, first opened in 1988. It has changed hands twice.
When the new “W” sign goes up in a few weeks, there will be a ceremony for local leaders.
London’s Metropolitan Police Service “graded” reporters on their coverage of the agency, a senior crime journalist for The Sun tabloid said Thursday. The claim was denied by the officials involved.
Crime Editor Mike Sullivan told a judge-led inquiry into Britain’s media ethics that he had been told “that there is a system whereby reporters are graded in terms of whether they are favorable to the Met Police or not.”
Sullivan’s testimony could not be verified. He didn’t name the source for his information, and a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan police service, sometimes abbreviated to MPS, said his allegation didn’t appear to be true.
“The MPS has no such system,” she said, speaking anonymously in line with force policy. “As far as we’re aware, there has never been a grading system of this type.”
Sullivan, who was arrested earlier this year as part of a police investigation into bribery, insisted that he had been reliably informed “perhaps three or four years ago, could be five years ago, that there was such a system.”
“I don’t know how they do that, on what basis they make their judgment,” he said.
(AP) — Spikes in gasoline prices occur so regularly that ways to combat them should be almost second nature to car owners.
But the latest surge brings worries of the highest price yet at the pumps, underscoring the urgency of really following up on those money-saving moves this time.
The average price for regular gasoline has jumped to $3.76 a gallon nationwide, up 28.5 cents since Feb. 1, and already tops $4 in some markets. It may be on pace to shatter the all-time record of $4.11 in July 2008 by next month, according to some experts.
Could $5 gas loom in the not-too-distant future?
If higher prices stick, drivers may have to take more drastic steps. Using public transportation is one option to consider. Making the long-term investment to buy a high-mileage hybrid car is another.
“People can cut their gasoline bills by a lot by moving to fuel-efficient vehicles,” says Brian Castelli, executive vice president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes energy efficiency. “
President Barack Obama laughs with an employee during his visit to Daimler Trucks North American in Mt. Holly, N.C., Wednesday, March, 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
MOUNT HOLLY, N.C.
Developers and other business interests are gearing up for a legislative fight in an attempt to change one of Connecticut’s key environmental protection laws that they say is being abused and makes the state one of the most unfriendly places to do business.
The law, known as 22a-19, is part of the landmark Connecticut Environmental 
Protection Act and allows any individual to intervene in an administrative proceeding if they have concerns that a development will negatively impact the environment.
The intervention status allows development opponents to become a “full party” to any regulatory proceeding, like a wetlands commission hearing, and challenge permitting decisions to the courts, which can tie up proposed projects in the judicial system for years, creating tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and delays that derail developments.
With much of the world in economic turmoil, Canada makes an alluring safe haven. Yet at the very moment when wealthy foreigners are coveting our relative stability, they’re finding our doors more tightly barred—and the admission fee jacked up.
Canada is one of many developed countries willing to let rich foreigners buy their way in. Back in 1986, the federal government introduced the Immigrant Investor Program, which offered permanent residency in exchange for a three-year investment of $150,000. “If you have the money and you want to get into Canada quickly, this is a way to avoid the notorious waiting lists,” says Jeffrey Reitz, a sociology professor at University of Toronto. The U.S. and Britain subsequently established competing programs, and today such initiatives are found in many developed countries.
The thinking was the same everywhere: that nations benefit not only from interest-free loans, but from attracting an elite class of immigrant who would spend lavishly, and who might set up new businesses to boot. But rel
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