News Tracker

Several local contractors say the demolition of the building by Interstate 81 could be a nightmare. Contractors are scheduled to submit their bids today to demolish a building that has closed the highway for two weeks. One local contractor, Welch & Sons, says it will not be submitting a bid. 

“If a job starts bad, it’s going to end bad, and this one has started bad,” Charlie Welch, who owns the company, said. “Whoever gets that job, I say good luck to them.”

The superintendent of the Kansas City, Missouri school district is defending the decision to close many of the districts schools. John Covington said the district was operating too many schools, and closing schools was the right thing to do.

“Closing schools and making the remaining schools much stronger academically is unquestionably the right thing to do for kids,” Covington said.

Forbes released their list of richest men in the world and Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecommunications billionaire tops the list. His net worth is $53.5 billion dollars according to CNN.com, which is half a billion more than Bill Gates.

This is the first time since 1994 that a non-American tops the list of richest men. There are also more than 1,000 billionaires, up a little more than 200 from last year. 

New York State's highest paid employee made almost $1 million this past year, and it wasn't Governor David Paterson. After adding in overtime and extra pay, Dr.Stephen Onesti, a doctor at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, made $958,047 in 2009 and came out on top of the state almost 300-thousand employees. 40 other Downstate Medical employees were among the top 50 wage-earners in the state. As for Governor Paterson? There are 900 other state employees who made more than his $178,509 last year. Paterson isn't even the highest paid in the state's executive branch.