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The Huntington Planning Commission had a major item on their desk last week. It was a new proposed signage ordinance. The first ordinance was established in 1984. The new proposal had business owners showing up at the meeting, causing the vote to stall. Because of the outcry, the vote has been set to take place in December.

Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) city ruins have been discovered in Wuyuan County, Hetao Plain, China's Inner Mongolia. It's said that the scale of the city ruins is rarely seen in Hetao Plain. The city ruins are located in Taal Town of Wuyuan County, Bayannaoer City in China's Inner Mongolia and once covered with grassland. The city wall was about 2 km long and 1 km wide and is made up of compressed earth. The east wall is 2 meters high and remarkably preserved, while, the south wall has already collapsed and is now a road base 80 centimeters high...

KIRO Team 7 Investigators have discovered a career criminal, nicknamed "the obituary burglar," is out of prison and into a new job. It's one that has victims, police and taxpayers alike shaking their heads in disbelief. Now, Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne reveals who hired a 22-time felon to work around senior citizens. Terry Lee Alexander gained notoriety a decade ago by ransacking the homes of elderly victims while they were away attending funerals. With that resume, the City of Kent thought Alexander would be a good employee and handed him the keys to the publicly-funded Senior Activities Center. It's Saturday...

The city that was once one of the wealthiest in America is a decrepit, often surreal landscape of urban decline. It was once one of the greatest cities in the world. The birthplace of the American car industry, it boasted factories that at one time produced cars shipped over the globe. Its downtown was studded with architectural gems, and by the 1950s it boasted the highest median income and highest rate of home ownership of any major American city. Culturally it gave birth to Motown Records, named in homage to Detroit's status as "Motor City". Decades of white flight, coupled...

Monday night, the citizens entered the GAR room to voice their opinions on a proposed increase in the local LOIT tax. Over the preceding week, the forum style had changed a bit. At first, any comments to be made by citizens, were to be in writing before....

Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday. The real story is what's missing," said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

The mayor of Mount Vernon has made it official. Mayor Bud Norris says he will give the key to his city to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on September 26. Norris says Beck will deliver a short talk that night and become the first person to receive a key to the city in the six years Norris has been mayor. Protesters from the Skagit County Young Democrats walked outside city hall Tuesday with protest signs, one reading "Change the locks!"

A council is urging allotment holders not to lock their sheds in case thieves damage the structures while breaking in.Tenants have been warned that padlocks can lead to thieves forcing their way through doors and windows of the council-owned sheds to steal garden equipment. Bristol City Council claims its 'Don't Use a Padlock' initiative will save taxpayers' money because fewer sheds will have to be repaired or replaced. Its guide reads: "Don't padlock your shed; it can save the shed being damaged if someone does try to get into it.....

We’ve heard this story before [1]: America’s metropolitan areas are losing out to its rural areas [2] when it comes to getting stimulus dollars. What we didn’t know is by how much. “The 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money” and they “contribute three-quarters of the nation’s economic activity,” according to today’s New York Times. The Times tells you that this trend will continue. That may or may not be the case. States had a June 29 deadline to obligate, or decide how to spend, 50 percent of...

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. -- A Florida city has written common sense into its employee dress code: Wear underwear to work. The Brooksville city council recently approved a revised dress code as part of its effort to update existing policies. The revision instructs employees to observe "strict personal hygiene," including the use of deodorant. It lists "the observable lack of undergarments and exposed undergarments" as "unacceptable attire." It also prohibits clothing with foul language or messages promoting drug use, "sexually provocative" garments, halter tops and piercings anywhere except the ears. Repeat offenders can be fired. The city council approved the dress code...

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2009 – Having been part of their tightly knit community all her life, Teresa Vance always has had an interest in military families. Her father made a career out of the Army, serving in World War II and Korea. Her husband was a career surface warfare officer in the Navy, and her son spent four years in the Marine Corps. The city commission of Enid, Okla., has appointed Teresa Vance as the city’s official ambassador to military families. Vance was born into an Army family and married a career naval officer. Courtesy photo   (Click photo for...

Top 10……Poverty in Our Major Cities City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level 1. Detroit , MI 32.5% 2. Buffalo , NY 29.9% 3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8% 4. Cleveland , OH 27.0% 5. Miami , FL 26.9% 5. St. Louis , MO 26.8% 7. El Paso , TX 26.4% 8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2% 9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1% 10. Newark , NJ 24.2% U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007 What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common? Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate...

(IsraelNN.com) Iranians have turned a huge excavation site in the city of Shush, site of "Susa," the ancient city of Shushan -- center of the events in the Purim story -- into a garbage dump. Culture heritage backers put a stop to construction of a hotel on the site, according to the Tehran News, which added that residents of the Shush municipality are now filling the huge, gaping 300-foot by 300-foot hole with rubbish.

An old friend of mine, who is on the city council in my hometown, has given me the February 2009 copy of Risky Business, a newsletter put out by the Miami Valley Risk Management Association. He was concerned over comments made on the second page. Though the article is subtle, it is clearly an advocacy piece about a ruling with which they are unhappy. MVRMA seems to be bothered that the Ohio Supreme Court found for the citizens of Ohio in their desire to exercise their right to keep arms for self-defense, and not for home rule by the cities....

"It's morning in America". Those words, defined greatness, and conservativism for a generation. "Mr. Gorbachev... tear down this wall!". What if Republicans, and conservatives, simply were to reject the gloom and doom of the socialist left - and be about real hope. Liberals are such pathetic whiners. It won't take long for Americans to tire of them, if presented a real contrast.

Yup, the Healthy Penis campaign is back in San Francisco and organizers claim it is better than ever. Not since the Sexual Harassment Panda or Larry the Lobster has a mascot been so confusing.

An invitation from Cooper City Church of God. South Florida Israel Awakening Weekend.

THE CITY HAS always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains. (Yuko Shimizu for the Boston Globe) And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in quiet Provence. While the modern city...

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

Hey, Cuomo, stand up and fight. I’m talking to Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York. Stand up and fight. For the last two weeks, as the Caroline Kennedy coronation has been going on, the man whose career she is destroying has been silent. It’s as if he fell off the face of the earth. The story is that Caroline Kennedy has announced that she wants to be a U.S. senator from New York. She has no experience, no preparation, no training. She has never stood before the voters. She has never even visited vast stretches of the state...

In 1963, an inhabitant of Derinkuyu (in the region of Cappadocia, central Anatolia, Turkey), knocking down a wall of his house cave, discovered amazed that behind it was a mysterious room that he had never seen, and this led him room to another and another and another to it ... By chance he had discovered the underground city of Derinkuyu, whose first level could be excavated by the Hittites around 1400 BC Archaeologists began to explore this fascinating underground city abandoned. It managed to forty meters deep, but is believed to have a fund of up to 85 meters. At...

The presidential candidates have staked out very different positions on housing, schools, crime, infrastructure and other issues key to urban America.

The U.S. military’s top-ranking officer encountered one of Iraq’s most dangerous areas July 7 and saw first-hand the improvements Iraqi and U.S. forces have made during recent months. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received a glimpse of the success that has seen attack levels in Iraq fall to their lowest in four years - a 90 percent decline in attacks during the past year alone. The progress in security has allowed Coalition forces to focus more on other issues, military officials in Baghdad said. Less than 60 days ago, the streets of Jamilla Market...

The US Conference of Mayors on Monday passed a resolution calling for a phasing out of bottled water by municipalities and promoting the importance of public water supplies. (snip) The mayors, meeting in Miami, approved a resolution proposed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom along with 17 other large-city mayors to redirect taxpayer dollars from bottled water to other city services.

Archaeology - Hidden City Provides Fascinating Insight into the Structures of Hellenistic SettlementsSix centuries of Hellenistic culture lay hidden under the sand. The site has provided a unique insight into the structures of settlements at that time. (Excavations as at 2007, © A. Schmidt-Colinet) The discovery of an ancient city buried beneath the sands of modern-day Syria has provided evidence for a Hellenistic settlement that existed for more than six centuries extending into the time of the Roman Empire. The site provides a unique insight into the structures of a pre-Roman Hellenistic settlement. The project, funded by the Austrian Science...

Americans migrate back to the cities By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 2:23AM BST 19/06/2008 Americans are choosing to abandon the suburban sprawl in favour of a more comfortable, cheaper and greener life in the city centre. Americans flocked to the suburbs after the WWII. Soaring energy prices and the sub-prime crisis are driving them back to the cities The mass migration of America's middle classes from urban areas to the suburbs amounted to a demographic revolution in the years after the Second World War. But the so-called "driveable suburb" is becoming increasingly unfeasible as soaring fuel costs...

Sunken City' a reminder of an ill-fated residential area By Josh Grossberg, Staff Writer Article Launched: 06/11/2008 01:00:00 AM PDT Jessica Bagwell of Walnut photographs the ruins at Sunken City as a school project on landscape architecture and plant resilience at Cal Poly Pomona. (Sean Hiller/Staff Photographer)But the property also features a less-savory aspect of life in Southern California: treacherous and unstable terrain. Now ominously known as "Sunken City," the 6-acre parcel overlooking the cliffs at the southernmost tip of Los Angeles, in San Pedro, was once dotted with homes - a community of bungalows owned by Harbor Area developer...

A cloud-to-ground ligtning strike from a severe thunderstom hit a large gasoline storage tank at the Magellan Petroleum tank farm in Kansas City, igniting 2 million plus gallons of unleaded gasoline, rapidly growing into a huge inferno of flame belching over 200 feet in the air. Local authorities have elected to let the fire burn itself out, which is anticipated to take a day or more. The fire is presently contained to the burning tank. Authorites and company officials feel confident the fire poses no danger to other large storage tanks nearby. Video from local news helicopters shows tank walls...

Jiroft is the ancient city of Marhashi: U.S. scholarWednesday, May 7, 2008 Tehran Times Culture Desk Jiroft is the ancient city of Marhashi: U.S. scholar TEHRAN -- Piotr Steinkeller, professor of Assyriology in Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Harvard University, believes that the prehistoric site of Jiroft is the lost ancient city of Marhashi. He developed the theory in his paper during the first round of the International Conference on Jiroft Civilization, which was held in Tehran on May 5 and 6. Marhashi, (in earlier sources Warahshe) was a 3rd millennium BC polity situated east of Elam,...

Commodities are offloaded from ships at the UMM Qasr Port, from all over the world to be distributed throughout Iraq April 11. These goods will be transported to different provinces through out the country. The Port of Um Qasr, is a small port city southeast of Basra. DoD photo. UMQASR — UmQasr, a port city southeast of Basra, is filled with daily activities, as Iraqi workers load export and unload imports last week.“The estimated flow of goods into Iraq is 60,000 tons with 15,000 passing through UmQsar,� said Todd Stratton, Task Force to Support Business and Stability Operations in Iraq.“The...

Mayor Livingstone stakes re-election bid on hefty tax for big vehicles LONDON - As New York commuters brace for possible charges for driving into the midtown area, they can at least be thankful they don't live in London, where Mayor Ken Livingstone has staked his re-election hopes on boosting the "congestion tax" to as much as $50 a day. The New York State Legislature still needs to approve Mayor Michael Bloomberg's pricing plan this month or the city stands to lose $354 million in funding to help kick-start the project. The proposal involves raising tolls for entering New York via...

As police sped toward West San Jose on Wednesday night where Homer Bejarano Resendez lay fatally shot, the city of San Jose was accelerating through one of its bloodiest stretches in years.

CAMP BUCCA — Sewers, water, electricity, trash and fuel are services vital to any city in the United States, and urban populations simply cannot function effectively without proper city management oversight. Approximately 30 members of Oklahoma’s 1st Battalion, 160th Field Artillery, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team face these same challenges in the middle of a desert in southern Iraq. The Guard members manage a facility with a population of more than 26,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, contractors, Department of Defense civilians and detainees at Camp Bucca, Iraq. The camp sits starkly in the middle of the desert -- all commodities and...

What Happens When City Hall Goes Bankrupt? by Eric Weiner New York City didn't actually declare bankruptcy in the 1970s, but it came close. When the city appealed to Washington in 1975 for a bailout, President Ford balked, prompting this famous New York Daily News headline. New York Daily News Moments in Municipal Bankruptcy 1975, New York City: The Big Apple teeters on the verge of bankruptcy but is rescued at the last minute, thanks to a loan from the federal government and other measures. 1991, Bridgeport, Conn.: The city, population 140,000, declares bankruptcy after a dispute with the state....

Eighteen stone pillars have been excavated (Pics: Sanjib Mukherjee) Indian archaeologists say they have found remains which point to the existence of a city which flourished 2,500 years ago in eastern India.The remains have been discovered at Sisupalgarh near Bhubaneswar, capital of the eastern state of Orissa. Researchers say the items found during the excavation point to a highly developed urban settlement. The population of the city could have been in the region of 20,000 to 25,000, the archaeologists claim. The excavations include 18 stone pillars, pottery, terracotta ornaments and bangles, finger rings, ear spools and pendants made of...

Underwater city could be revealed Sonar, underwater camera and scanning equipment will be used Britain's own underwater "Atlantis" could be revealed for the first time with hi-tech underwater cameras. Marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon and Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, will explore the lost city of Dunwich, off the Suffolk coast. Dunwich gradually disappeared into the sea because of coastal erosion. "It's about the application of new technology to investigate Britain's Atlantis, then to give this information to the public," Professor Sear said. Mr Bacon, director of the Suffolk Underwater Studies, first located the debris of the lost...

Ancient "Lost City" Discovered in Peru, Official Claims Kelly Hearn for National Geographic NewsJanuary 16, 2008 Ruins recently discovered in southern Peru could be the ancient "lost city" of Paititi, according to claims that are drawing serious but cautious response from experts. The presumptive lost city, described in written records as a stone settlement adorned with gold statues, has long been a grail for explorers—as well as a lure for local tourism businesses. A commonly cited legend claims that Paititi was built by the Inca hero Inkarri, who founded the city of Cusco before retreating into the jungle after Spanish...

Norwich: the second largest medieval city Norwich was the second largest city in Medieval Britain: why? In recent years a number of major sites covering more than 20 acres in all have been excavated in medieval Norwich, which between them have revolutionised our knowledge of this crucial medieval city. Let us take a look at these excavations in order to throw new light on this question of why medieval Norwich was so big, and so successful. The origins of Norwich Norwich was not a Roman settlement, nor does it owe its origins to the early Anglo-Saxon invaders. Settlement along the...

Stashed in 700 feet of boxes tucked away at the University of Texas at Austin lies a detailed look at the case of Timothy McVeigh. He's the Gulf War veteran executed in 2001 for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh lead counsel Stephen Jones of Enid, Okla., donated transcripts, FBI reports, correspondence, videotapes and other materials to UT a few years ago, but the archive didn't become public until a federal court ruled this month that Jones couldn't claim a charitable tax deduction for the gift. The archive sits in the University's Center for American History. It's a...

NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2007 – For thousands of servicemembers and their families, the “75th Celebration of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular” at New York’s Radio City Music Hall last night lived up to expectations and then some. Air Force Capt. Scott Perkins, a C-5 pilot, and his wife, Shelly, get their photo taken in front of Radio City Music Hall in New York City, Nov. 12, 2007. Perkins and other servicemembers received free admission to the 75th Celebration of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Adam M. Stump, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available....

and your wisdom. You know how businesses work. You know what your family needs,” the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (ePRT) leader told the sheiks of the Hawr Rajab City Council. “We need you to teach us ways to do it so we can help.” John Smith, the ePRT leader, and Coalition forces recently met with the sheiks in Hawr Rajab to discuss the changes taking place there. Such cooperation is vital, Smith said, because success depends on all parties banding together and sharing knowledge. Working together with the council, Smith and Ferrell said...

Florida city proposes ban on goods from China By Tom Leonard in New York Last Updated: 1:54am GMT 29/10/2007 A Florida city may become the first in America to ban Chinese products amid mounting national concern about the Asian giant's effect on the US economy. Made in China: In 2006 the US imported goods worth $288 billion from China John Mazziotti, the mayor of Palm Bay, proposed the ban after the latest spate of safety-related recalls of Chinese-made toys and pet food. He not only cited the goods' questionable quality and safety but also China's human rights abuses, its pollution...

BAGHDAD, Oct. 24, 2007 – When students at the Yarmook Girls' School in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood returned from summer vacation last month, they found that their school had received an extreme makeover thanks to the government of Iraq and the U.S. Army. U.S. soldiers and Iraqi National Police officers talk to students at the Yarmook Girls School in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood during a visit to the school to see improvements made during a recent renovation effort sponsored by the Iraqi government, Iraqi police, and the U.S. military. From left to right: Army Capt. Alex Carter, a civil...

Mesopotamian city grew regardless of kingly rule 19:00 30 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi Changes in pottery over the years allowed researchers to develop a timeline for the Tell Brak's expansion Contrary to the assumption that ancient cities always grew outwards from a central point, the urban site of Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria appears to have emerged as several nearby settlements melded together, according to researchers' analysis of archaeological evidence. Experts say that the findings lend support to the theory that early Mesopotamian cities developed as a result of grassroots organisation, rather than a mandate from a...

The tale of a city The discovery of the eastern fortress of the New Kingdom military town of Tharo in North Sinai charts the military quarters used by the ancient Egyptian to protect Egypt's northeast border, says Nevine El-Aref From top: a worker brushing the sand off the newly discovered water channel; a bird view of the Tharo foundation; the inscription of king Seti I engraved on a wall of Karnak Temples photos courtesy of SCA The fortified city of Qantara East (Sharq) in North Sinai is often hailed by historians as Egypt's eastern gateway to the Nile Delta. Its...

SIERRA VISTA — Fort Huachuca Garrison Commander Col. Melissa Sturgeon briefed the City Council and staff Monday, regarding the fort’s interpretation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion released last month. This new biological opinion, compared to the last one published in 2002 or the ones prior, better accounts for the post-9/11 military landscape and the ongoing war in Iraq, with regard to the fort’s mission in terms of personnel flux, Sturgeon said. Therefore, it can more accurately estimate and predict the fort’s water use, Sturgeon said. The new opinion consists of studies conducted by the U.S. Army...

Hidden City Found Beneath Alexandria Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience LiveScience.com Tue Jul 24, 4:45 PM ET The legendary city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great as he swept through Egypt in his quest to conquer the known world. Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world. Alexandria was founded in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean in 332 B.C. to immortalize Alexander the Great. The...

When Paris Hilton was sprung from jail early, few were as outraged - and as outspoken - as the prosecutor who put her there. But City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's complaints of a two-tiered jail system where "the rich and powerful receive special treatment" have come to back to haunt him. Among other things, he also admitted sticking the taxpayers with the bill after his wife crashed his city-issued car in 2004, and acknowledged that staffers have occasionally run personal errands and baby-sat his children. The disclosures have led the California bar and the city Ethics Commission to open investigations of...

Airport officials are debunking a story posted on the Internet. The story from WorldNetDaily.com claims that Kansas City International Airport built foot-washing basins for Islamic taxi drivers. The article alleges that airport police are afraid of Middle Eastern men who congregate near the wash areas. KCI spokesman Joe McBride said the story isn't true

US artist Spencer Tunick will fill Mexico City's Zocalo square - the centre of the ancient Aztec empire and the heart of modern Mexico - with thousands of naked Mexicans next week for his latest mass nude photo shoot. Tunick, who was refused permission to stage his nude photo shoot at Mexico's famed Teotihuacan pyramids outside the capital, has been granted permission to use the Zocalo for his shoot next Sunday (local time), local media reported. The Mexico City Government was not available for comment. One of the world's biggest and most imposing squares, the Zocalo is framed by the...