JPMorgan cuts investment banking jobs: sources (Washington Post)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co is cutting 10 percent of its investment banking staff -- about 3,000 jobs -- as the economic slowdown starts to bite into its earnings, people familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

Aerial Firefighting Conference in Athens, Greece, Addresses International Concern (Topanga Messenger)

This year Northern California experienced a wildfire siege with a record number of more than 2000 wildfires burning at one time. Firefighters from local, county, state and federal fire agencies deployed thousands of firefighters, and hundreds of firefighting aircraft to battle the wildfires.

Southport wants to build bigger, better fire station (The Wilmington Star-News)

Southport's fire department is getting too big for its decades-old building. Bright red firetrucks sit squeezed tightly in a three-bay garage attached to a structure Fire Chief Greg Cumbee calls inadequate.

Milk Cast Spills: Penn Calls Prop 8 "Manslaughter" (Gothamist)

James Franco as real-life gay rights activist Scott Smith, Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. Photo: Phil Bray/Focus Features. Gus Van Sant’s new film Milk tells the story of Harvey Milk, who in 1977 became the first openly gay man to be elected to a major public office in the United States, only to be assassinated within his first year of serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. At ...

National Affordable Housing Organization Links Community Development with School Improvement, Calls for Policy Changes (PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance)

Enterprise Community Partners announced today it is calling for a policy agenda to explore the benefits of integrating school improvements with community development efforts in distressed inner-city areas.

ACLU calls state police spying files 'a joke' (The Capital)

The files shed some light on how individuals in anti-war, anti-death-penalty and environmental groups were described in a police database.

Beshear unveils energy plan (Louisville Courier-Journal)

It calls for coal to remain central to the state's energy needs while also encouraging renewable energy sources and considering nuclear power.

Tough times: Barbour: Economy calls for ‘responsible’ budget (McComb Enterprise-Journal)

JACKSON (AP) — Gov. Haley Barbour, who has blocked efforts to increase tobacco taxes over the past few years, now proposes paying for part of the Mississippi budget next year with a two-tiered increase in the cigarette tax — adding 24 cents a pack on name brands and 43 cents on cheaper off-brands.

Defiant Bloomberg Refuses to Promise Rebates (New York Times)

At a news conference Wednesday, a Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg described the $400 rebate checks promised to hundreds of thousands of homeowners as "up in the air."

Liberia: No Relief as Most Monrovians Go Without Toilets (AllAfrica.com)

With just one in 25 Liberians having access to a toilet, most use the nearest bush or beach, unwittingly committing what the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) calls "the riskiest sanitation practice".