UA researchers study alternative fuels
FOX6 (Birmingham) – June 26
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – June 26
…According to a mechanical engineering professor with the University of Alabama, ethanol laced gas is environmentally friendly and improves octane performance in most engines. But it can also react negatively with plastic and rubber in 2-stroke engines like push mowers…
Housing rebound may have begun
Montgomery Advertiser – June 27
…According to the Alabama Center for Real Estate, home sales across Alabama increased 14 percent in May compared to April…Dr. Grayson Glaze, director of the center at the University of Alabama, said in his monthly housing report that despite a bloody nose, the Alabama real estate industry still remains standing. “From my viewpoint, the industry will not only live to tell the tale but will become stronger and more sustainable on the other side when overall national and statewide housing conditions begin to improve in the future – and rest assured they will,” he wrote. Glaze said several key items show the possibility of greater momentum and long-term stability in the Alabama housing market, including “an improved credit environment, realistic buyer and seller home value expectations, and the continued improvement in the levels of housing affordability.” He said those factors should attract more buyers into the marketplace, “gradually reducing the overabundance of inventory.” Glaze’s monthly report notes that to a great degree, Alabama dodged much of the sub prime foreclosure crisis. He said that “sub prime lending in Alabama at the end of 2007 represented less than 10 percent of outstanding mortgages, but more importantly, from this total, only 4 percent were in the form of the highly toxic sub prime adjustable rate mortgages compared to 48 percent in the nation.” “Although foreclosures have modestly risen in Alabama, a trend likely to continue in the near-term, national foreclosure reports continue to reveal that Alabama ranks in the top 10 in states with the fewest foreclosures,” he said…
Tuskegee Airman Dryden dies in Atlanta at 87
Associated Press National Wire – June 27
Lt. Colonel Charles “Chuck” Dryden, one of the last surviving World War II pioneering black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, has died in Atlanta. He was 87…Dryden’s autobiography, “A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman” was published by the University of Alabama Press in 1997…
Q&A with Tom Chiarella: Writer, fiction editor for Esquire magazine
Indianapolis Star – June 27
Tom Chiarella is a writer at large and fiction editor for Esquire magazine…Born in Rochester, NY, and educated at Saint Lawrence University and the University of Alabama, Chiarella, 47, has been published in magazines including The New Yorker, Story, and Golf Digest, among many others. He has published a book of short stories, received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and been a finalist in the National Magazine Awards…