State Center for Health Statistics

Staff reporter, Amy Dominello sent me the following research resources:

Vital Statistics:
North Carolina Reported Pregnancies for 2005

North Carolina Vital Statistics, Volume 2: Leading Causes of Death,
2005

North Carolina's total and cause-specific deaths at the state and county level.
Child Deaths in North Carolina 2005

North Carolina Vital Facts for 2005

Detailed Mortality Statistics, North Carolina Residents, 2005

Deaths of residents classified by cause, age, race, and sex.
Infant Mortality Statistics 2005

Basic Automated Birth Yearbook (BABYBOOK) - 2005
Statewide and county counts for 2005 resident live births classified
by selected infant and maternal characteristics.

BRFSS:
2005 BRFSS Data for Adults in North Carolina Enrolled in Medicaid
Health Risks Among North Carolina Adults: 2005

Central Cancer Registry:
NC Cancer Projections for 2006

These tables include projected new cancer cases and deaths for selected sites.
PRAMS:
2004 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) Survey Results

Special Studies and Reports:
Statistical Brief 30: Hospice Care in North Carolina

Searching for Videos on the Web

Wall-Street Journal article: Finding Tom Cruise(Not Cruise Missiles)
As Web Video Grows, Search Engines Race to SolveProblem of Locating Content That Has No Text
By JESSICA E. VASCELLAROO ctober 12, 2006; Page D1

This article explains the new technologies and lists a few of the new Web sites that will search videos. You can also upload your video.

Blinkx searches 6 million hours of content
Pure Video searches billions of videos and 100s of sites (it is still in Beta)
Pixsy searches millions of photos and videos
Meta Cafe searches video hosted on its site

My favorite: Search for Video

Baby Boomers and Housing Trends

Census data was used to compile this special report on Housing Trends Among Baby Boomers by the Research Institute for Housing America. This is a 76 page PDF, so don't hit print without specifying what page you want to print.

Greensboro Public Library Resources

Michelle Jarboe just told me about a great resource through the Greensboro Public Library. Business reporters will love it, but anyone writing on downtown development will find it useful. Below Michelle describes how to get access. She also tells us about some other resources at the Library that you might not know about. - Thx Michelle!

It’s a new marketing tool that can give you a detailed look at area consumers by generating reports on market data. It’s free for anyone who has a library card, and includes information like demographic and income profiles, consumer spending and market segmentation profiles. You can also obtain more specialized reports for a discounted fee through the library. To get there:

Go to www.greensborolibrary.org
Click on Premium Information Resources
Enter your library card number
Scroll down and click on Marketing and Demographics link
Follow the instructions to enter Business Decision
The library’s user ID is “gsolibrary” and its password is “greensboro.” You can use this, or you can create your own account under the library’s account by entering some personal information, including your e-mail address. The advantage of having your own account is that you can get your reports e-mailed to you and you can keep your searches private – the site archives searches for a time, so if you’re using the library’s login, other people can see what you’ve searched.

Right now this is limited to the local MSA (Greensboro-High Point Metropolitan Statistical Area) in terms of the starting address you use to generate a report, but the library is looking at expanding to a nationwide service.

Other interesting services I didn’t know the library offers include:

Mergent Online: A database of public companies in the U.S. and internationally. Accessible using a library card number.
ReferenceUSA: A database offering general biz info about nearly every U.S. business. Good for b2b-type research. Accessible through NCLive with library card info.
Morningstar.com: Stock analysis and mutual fund performance info. Accessible through the Investment section of online resources using a library card.

Census Bureau Releases Housing Data

"The 2005 ACS data released today include housing characteristic information such as occupancy, units in structure, year built, rooms, occupants per room, vehicles available, house heating fuel, value, mortgage status, gross rent, selected monthly owner costs and other characteristics. Additional subjects covered in this release include means of transportation to work by workplace geography, geographic mobility by selected characteristics, characteristics of households and families, grandparents and the foreign-born population. Also surveyed are disability characteristics, work status in the past 12 months, occupancy and financial characteristics. The data are available for nearly 7,000 areas, including all congressional districts and counties, cities and American Indian/Alaska Native areas of 65,000 population or more. This survey is a first look at key housing information for many communities since Census 2000 – including 75 of the top 100 fastest growing cities."

See the entire news release or go directly to American FactFinder at http://www.census.gov.

Click here to see other news releases.

Small Business Profile for North Carolina

North Carolina had an estimated total of 734,000 small businesses in 2005 according to a report by the U.S. Small Business Administration. See how we compare with other states.

The phone number for the North Carolina District Office in Charlotte is 704-344-6563.

U.S. Dept. of Labor and Women

The U.S. Dept. of Labor has some new reports about women's employment issues. Click on the links below for the reports:

Employment Status of Women and Men in 2005-- NEW
Women in Nursing -- NEW
20 Leading Occupations of Employed Women 2005 -- NEW
Hot Jobs for the 21st Century, 2004-2014 -- NEW
Older Women Workers, ages 55 and over -- NEW
Women in the Labor Force in 2005 -- NEW

GOORIP

Beth Comptom - N&R Interactive - pointed me to this image ripper, powered by Google. It is called Goorip. So easy to use, and you can restrict your results to a certain number. You won't be using this at home if you have dial-up. Even with a T-1, you'll be waiting if you ask for 200 photos.

Advertising Revenue Down????

Yahoo! shares are down over 12% today after issuing a third quarter advertising sales warning The whole market is down, but is that because Yahoo is down or because of the coup attempt in Thailand? Hey, it's the stock market, no reason needed for it to plunge, especially if you just turned long.

North Carolina trains getting safer?

A nod to Docuticker - for pointing out a press release from DOT that has a state-by-state list comparing the train accident data from the first six-months of 2006 to the first six-months of 2005. North Carolina had 2 fewer accidents in 2006 compared to the same period for 2005. There is a net reduction of 262 accidents for all states combined.

TRAC and FOIA

Click here for a compilation page of TRAC’s FOIA activities. The latest is a ruling by Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Court judge, which significantly expands the range of data that the DOJ is required to provide TRAC.


About TRAC's FOIA Activities in Federal Court
TRAC's core purpose is to make information about the federal government's staffing, expenditures and enforcement efforts more accessible to the public. An essential step in this process is TRAC's systematic and informed use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Net Democracy Guide

The Center for Democracy and Technology, with funding from the Carnegie Corp. has developed a guide to help citizens understand campaign finance rules.

The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.

Fall Colors and Fishing

On September 20, VisitNC.com will begin featuring weekly fall fishing and fall color reports. .

Hewlet-Packard obtains journalists phone records

From the Washington Post:

HP Investigators Got Reporters' Phone Records
By Ellen NakashimaWashington Post Staff Writer - Friday, September 8, 2006; Page D01
Hewlett-Packard Co. said yesterday that private investigators it hired to find out who leaked confidential corporate information to the media had accessed private phone records of nine journalists who covered the company, without obtaining their permission.

More from the Wall-Street Journal

NCAA Financial Reports Database

Belinda Harris, our sister (Roanoke Times) Librarian has pointed out this public database created by The Indianapolis Star. The database tracks the revenues and expenses of sports departments of NCAA schools. You can sort your search by category and conference, and can compare two schools.

Getting started with NC Live

The first thing you have to do to get started using the resources at NC Live is to get your NC Live password. Your must have a North Carolina public library card to obtain the password. If you already have your library card you can call your local library, or visit their web site to get your password. The phone number for the Greensboro Public Library is 373-2471.

Click here for the Greensboro Public Library's Web page. Next click on Premium Information Resouces; enter your library card number and hit "Go". Your NC Live password will be returned.

Now you are set to use the resources at NC Live. NewsBank, whose interface you all know and love (and just one of many vendors) has 15 North Carolina newspapers.

GOOGLE NEWS ARCHIVE SEARCH

Today Google launched an archive search feature on Google News. Mike Grossman has been working with the folks at Google to get our archive content included in this new search feature.

Here is how Google describes the search:

* As the name suggests, it contains content that is primarily historical in nature.
* The archive search feature on Google News includes both paid content as well as content that is freely available on the web. By including both, we believe that more people will use this feature and discover your content.
* We have developed some new functionality to suggest key dates in which a particular term or story has a significant number of results, and we have added new time-based navigational tools to help users find the articles that are most relevant to their searches.

Using the Advanced Search you can restrict your search to a certain source.

Is Spam Free Speech?

VA. APPEALS COURT
Anti-Spam Conviction Is Upheld
N.C. Man Flooded AOL Customers With Unsolicited E-Mail
By Candace RondeauxWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, September 6, 2006

Briefs filed in support of the defendant invoke "free speech":
"...John Whitehead, president of the conservative Rutherford Institute, who along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia filed a brief in support of Jaynes's appeal, agreed, saying yesterday's ruling would have a "chilling effect" on free speech."

Premature Death Knell

"The death knell of newspapers sounds premature" is an insightful piece by Jack Fuller, a former editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

"....Nobody gets all his news from media other than newspapers, simply because newspapers originate most of the information that finds its way into all media."

I don't think everyone knows this to be true.

Read the entire commentary.

Congratulations Lynn Dombek - AP researcher!

An announcement from the News Research Center at the Associated Press:

The staff of The Associated Press News Research Center is thrilled to announce that our director, Lynn Dombek, has been honored with a $10,000 Gramling Achievement Award for 2006, one of the most prestigious and much-coveted awards bestowed on AP employees.
Lynn was recognized for "transforming her team of researchers into an integral part of AP journalism across all platforms and departments."
The NRC team nominated Lynn ourselves, and her win is very gratifying for all of us. This recognition helps raise the visibility and perceived value of research as a news component, and honors all the hard work of the News Research Center team. Kudos have been pouring in from all around the AP, and it has been a very exciting time for all of us to suddenly be in the spotlight. Lynn says she feels lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with such an outstanding group of researchers, and that she was able to accomplish what she did only with the cooperation and hard work of the entire department.
Fame is fleeting, so we wanted to share the moment with our Newslib colleagues. We’re honored to be a part of an organization that sees so clearly the value that strong research brings to our journalism.
For more about the other recipients, and information on the Associated Press Gramling Award, see:
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_083006a.html
The AP News Research Center team members are:
Judy Ausuebel, Jennifer Farrar, Randy Herschaft, Monika Mathur, John Parsons, Julie Reed, Barbara Sambriski, Rhonda Shafner
Deputy Director -- Susan James

State Plans for Containment of Pandemic Influenza

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Policy Review:
This review assesses differences and similarities of the states in planning for pandemic influenza. We reviewed the recently posted plans of 49 states for vaccination, early epidemic surveillance and detection, and intraepidemic plans for containment of pandemic influenza.

North Carolina's Plan

"N.C. State Health Director, Leah Devlin (919-707-5001 or leah.devlin@ncmail.net) is to be the primary spokesperson during an influenza pandemic."

Beyond EDGAR

OK, so you already know about EDGAR and how you can get company filings. But have you seen EDGAR's newest (Beta Version) full-text search option? You can view the most recent, real-time filings as they are processed by the SEC. Future updates will be based on user feedback. So check it out and let them know what works for you.

TRAC

TRAC has released May 2006 statistics on
- White Collar Crime
- Immigration (criminal immigration prosecutions)
- Drugs
- Weapons

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University.

Move over telephone and cable monopolies

From Governing.com: Online Via Power Line
Small towns and cities are finding high-speed Internet access is as close as their electric grid.
Read the whole article.

Government Eligibility Services

From INPUT: Reston, VA – August 23, 2006 – An estimated $1.3 billion will be spent by states to bring integrated eligibility services to the Web for use by state and county workers as well as citizens, according to a report released today by INPUT, the authority on government business. The upturn will be driven by new administrations looking to capture savings and make their marks in terms of improving citizen service.
Read the whole article here.

Women

The Women's Bureau, under the U.S. Department of Labor has just release several interesting reports:

Employment Status of Women and Men in 2005-- NEW
Women in Nursing -- NEW
20 Leading Occupations of Employed Women 2005 -- NEW
Hot Jobs for the 21st Century, 2004-2014 -- NEW
Older Women Workers, ages 55 and over -- NEW
Women in the Labor Force in 2005 -- NEW
Saving for Retirement
Women in Nontraditional Jobs

Best for Business

North Carolina is listed Forbes Magazine's Top 10 Best States for Business.

"..we ranked all 50 states on 30 metrics in six main categories: business costs, economic climate, growth prospects, labor, quality of life and regulatory environment. The data produced a clear No 1. The commonwealth of Virginia takes the crown in our first-ever ranking of Top States for Business."

Transportation Plan

The Proposed Greensboro Urban Area 2030 Transportation Plan includes maps and charts.

George Bush grants pardons

According to a DOJ press release yesterday, President George Bush granted pardons to 17 individuals.

Police Department

Ever wonder what an ideal police department would look like? This month the DOJ released a report titled, "Guidelines for Starting and Operating a New Police Department" (64 page PDF).

Here is a list of other publications under the office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) department of the DOJ.

Local company's stock up on acquision proposal

Yahoo Finance reports: BURLINGTON, N.C., Aug. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TriPath Imaging, Inc. today announced that it has received a proposal from BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX) to acquire the approximately 93.5% of the outstanding shares of TriPath Imaging, Inc. (Nasdaq: TPTH -News) that BD does not currently own.

Dell Recalling Batteries

Dell Inc. is recalling notebook-computer batteries that can overheat and pose a fire hazard. From the recall web page:
Dell has identified a potential issue associated with certain batteries sold with Dell Latitude™, Inspiron™, XPS™ and Dell Precision Mobile Workstation™ notebook computers. In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other regulatory agencies, Dell is voluntarily recalling certain Dell-branded batteries with cells manufactured by Sony and offering free replacements for these batteries. Under rare conditions, it is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could pose a risk of fire.
Potentially affected batteries were sold with the following models of Dell notebook computers or separately as secondary batteries:
Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90
XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710
In addition, these batteries may have also been provided in response to service calls. The batteries were shipped to customers between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006. .

Institute for Analytic Journalism

Institute for Analytic Journalism is a journalism blog that I recently discovered. Tom Johnson, one of the Co-directors of the blog and Professor of Journalism (ret), San Francisco State University, defines analytic journalism:

Critical thinking and analysis using a variety of intellectual tools and methods to understand multiple phenomena and to communicate the results of those insights to multiple audiences in a variety of ways.

The most recent posting is titled, 25 Numbers Journalist Should Know. Listservs were solicited for suggestions for generic numbers journalists should know in order to be responsible, effective reporters and editors. Check out the responses.

ZabaSearch

I am always looking for new (and low-cost) people search engines, and I am pleased to have found this one. A recent search using one of our paid subscriptions returned several hits, but none of them had a current phone number. The ZabaSearch, which is free, returned a current number.

214 Jobs

From Easley's office: RALEIGH - Gov. Mike Easley today announced that High Performance Coatings, a Utah-based company that uses nanotechnology to produce coatings for a variety of industries, will open a facility in Whitsett in Guilford County. The company expects to create 214 jobs and invest $3.5 million during the next three years.

Microsoft Bugs

According to an AP article posted at the Washington Post web site, Microsoft has released fixes for Windows operating system. “All of the patches fix weaknesses that could allow an attacker to take complete control of a person’s computer.” I am sure our IT folks here are ahead of this post, but be sure to check your computers at home. Go to Microsoft Update page if you do not have your computer set for automatic updates.

Greensboro Chamber of Commerce - New phone #

The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce has a new main number for general inquiries: 336-387-8301. Staff members have individual direct numbers.

Aramark Corp.

Would you believe that the company that brings you your sliced ham and swiss on wheat is worth $8.3 billion?

From the Wall Street Journal Online: Food-service provider Aramark Corp. said Tuesday it agreed to a sweetened acquisition offer by an investor group led by its chief executive, a deal valued at $8.3 billion, including $2 billion in debt. The stock price (RMK) is down $.30 this am.

Dept of Labor's Strategic Plan

Just in time for Labor Day: The Department of Labor has released a draft copy of the Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2006 – 2011, and is available for public comment. The final plan will be released in September.

Stock Options

For Biz Reporters: The Wall Street Journal has updated its list of companies that have problems with stock options. I didn’t see any from N.C. but you can check out the list for companies that you might cover.

Energy Report Released

The International Energy Annual (IEA) is the Energy Information Administration's primary report of international energy statistics. . Included are data on energy consumption and production; overviews of petroleum, natural gas, coal, and electricity, as well as carbon dioxide emissions from the use of fossil fuels, petroleum prices, energy reserves, and population ; and data unit conversion.

Free Newspaper Archives

I have posted this before, but it important, so I'll post it again. You can get free newspaper archives (also magazines, journals and more) at the NC Live web site. I know everyone in the newsroom already has a public library card. If not, GET ONE, you'll need it to log-on to NC Live.
Click on "Newspapers" under "Browse by Type"
Click on "America’s Newspapers via NewsBank"

Your tax dollars have paid for this, so use it!

The Labor Advocate

You'll find these topics in the Summer 2006 edition of The Labor Advocate, a quarterly newsletter about DOL issues important to America's working families

• President Bush Signs MINER Act Into Law
• DOL Targets Wage Violations in the Gulf Coast Region
• Secretary Visits New Orleans, Carpenters Training Center
• New SCA Directory of Occupations Released
• Secretary Chao Visits MEBA Training School, Memorial
  OSHA Fines BP $2.4 Million For Unsafe Operations
• Seafarers Receive $2.5 Million Maritime Training Grant
• $134 Million Distributed to Enron Workers and Retirees
• Secretary Chao Honors Merchant Mariners

U.S. Congress voting

The great researchers at the Washington Post created a database that tracks member voting from both House and Senate. You can browse every vote since 1991, and can search by House or Senate member, by state, vote missers, bills, most voted on, vote margins and more. Here is the list (with links) of North Carolina 109th Congressional members.

Poverty and Opportunity

The Brookings Institution recently released a 80 page report (PDF) titled, "From Poverty, Opportunity: Putting the Market to Work for Lower Income Families. From the executive summary:
"In general, lower income families tend to pay more or the exact same consumer products than families with higher incomes....At least 1.6 million lower income adults pay excessive fees for furniture, appliances, and electronics. And countless more pay high prices for other necessities such as basic financial services, groceries, and insurance....Reducing the costs of living for lower income families by just one percent could add up to over $6.5 billion in new spending power for these families."

Top 10 Medical Web Sites

The Medical Library Association lists their top 10, most useful medical web sites for health consumers.

35 ways to use RSS feeds

Marketing blogger, Steve Rubel has compiled a list of ways to use RSS feeds.

Southern Newspaper Publishers Association

This week’s SNPA eBulletin contains links to information on the SNPA First Amendment Summit - Sept 15. Paul Newby, associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, will be the keynote speaker.

Also in this week’s eBulletin are:

How to save $200 per person at the SNPA Annual Convention
News about SNPA people
Links to stories you’ll want to read

NatureServe Explorer

NatureServe is a non-profit conservation organization that collects and manages detailed local information on plants, animals, and ecosystems and is an authoritative source for information on more than 65,000 plants, animals, and ecosystems of the United States and Canada, and they have more than 1,700 species images.

You can search the database for species or ecological communities & systems.

Education reporters

The National Center for Educational Statistics has recently released a report (with stats) showing the relationship between students' degree commitment and continued enrollment.

North Carolina Electricity Profile

Just in time for the megawatt airconditioned season: The Energy Information Administration recently released electric energy statistics for 2004. There is a summary table and additional excel spreadsheets with comparative data from 1990 to 2004.

Your friend - the Census Bureau

Just about any stat you want is at the Census Bureau Web site, but finding it can sometimes be diffiucult.

The American Community Factfinder page is probably the best place to start. You can get quick population, housing, economic, and geographic data by just typing a zip, city, town or county.

Check out the Newsroom . Here are some of the links you'll find there: the latest news releases and links to the stats; a Facts and Features link that has Factoids for holidays, special observances and feature stories; a Media Services link for reporters and editors that has contact information for specialists by subject area.

The Minority Links page has links to the latest data on racial and ethnic U.S. populations.

Google - Government Search

Click here to see Google's newest product that searches federal government Web sites. The search engine will search across government agencies. The home page includes content from government agencies and media outlets such as the Washington Post. You can personalize the page by adding content feeds or topics you are interested in.

Blogging Copy Editors

Style Wars in Cyberspace, an AJR article by Coral Davenport:
"After years of grousing among themselves over matters of grammar and punctuation, copy editors are waging their style wars before a wider audience – in the blogosphere."

Davenport reports on and offers links to some copy editors' blogs.

We've finished paying for the Spanish-American War!

from the Washington Post: "The Treasury Department, conceding that it has no right to continue collecting a 108-year-old tax on long-distance telephone calls, announced yesterday that it will drop its legal battle for the tax and instead refund about $13 billion to callers who have paid the tax in the past three years."

What other hidden taxes are we paying?

High Plains Drifter..er Messenger

Colorado Springs has a new "community" newspaper. 100% online -- no print edition.

Immigration

TRAC's Immigration Project : Find reports focusing on various immigration issues, with facts and figures, a reference library to find more information and a glossary with definitions of immigration terms and acronyms.

"The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University."

Click here to check out other TRAC reports.

Good tips on saving gas

"By changing your driving habits, you can improve fuel economy up to 37 percent right away (depending on how you drive). Combine several tips and perform routine maintenance and you will save real dollars, not just pennies." --From Al Tompkins at Poynter " Testing the Gas Savings Tips

Click here to go directly to the research.

Wikipedia Index

WikiWax is an index to Wikipedia. Just start typing and you choose your term from a drop list.

National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza

In November, the White House released their strategy for dealing with a bird flu pandemic. Here is what you as individuals can do:

• Taking precautions to prevent the spread of infection to others if an individual or a family member has symptoms of influenza.
• Being prepared to follow public health guidance that may include limitation of attendance at public gatherings and non-essential travel for several days or weeks.
• Keeping supplies of materials at home, as recommended by authorities, to support essential needs of the household for several days if necessary.

See the entire report here.

Golf

For golf fans, the United States Golf Association's web site is loaded with everything you ever wanted to know about golf, from rules of the game to turfgrass management. You can search the association's library of over 20,000 books, documenting the history of the game from its beginnings to the present. You'll also find information on the association's history, its leadership and annual reports.