SPECIAL REPORT:    Northern Laundromats for Southern Fat Cats
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ROME, Aug 20  (IPS) - In the world of high finance, PEP is not a  stimulant to keep you awake on the trading  floor; it means  "politically exposed person." Handling a PEP bank account  is big,  though risky business.
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By Valerie Lovett, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.  Mar.
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By Terry Lee Goodrich, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas  Feb.
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By By Wade Rawlins, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.  Sep. 21--A Bobcat tractor scooped a load of computers, office telephones and keyboards off a factory floor at Research Triangle Park and dumped them onto a conveyor belt.
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DOTHAN, Ala. - A new crime has reared its stinky head in southeast Alabama: Potty tipping. Someone has been overturning portable toilets at four construction sites in the Dothan area, with one company reporting that four or five were flipped in a week. Several firms have complained.
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FORT PIERCE, Fla. - One of two hooded seals that washed up in Martin and Palm Beach counties over the weekend was flown Wednesday to a marine mammal center in New Jersey that is better equipped to care for the cold water animals.
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By Kris Hundley, St. Petersburg Times, Fla.  Sep.
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One recent Saturday morning, I woke with one seemingly simple thing in mind: cleaning out and organizing the closets in my bedroom. If my closets were a database system, the contents would be stored as BLOBs (binary large objects) of varying sizes with no defining structure â just a dumping ground for stuff. As I began dragging things out of the closet, I found items as varied as a backpack, a pair of old ski gloves, about 10 square feet of foam padding, and pocket change in three different international currencies (anyone need Thai bahts?). Faced with a mound of the messy detritus of my own life, I did what most people would probably do: I went to the store to buy even more stuff to organize the stuff I already had.
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Florida's got the South Beach diet. Now Minnesota's got the "Northwoods Diet."
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By Alison Trinidad, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville  Dec.
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CROSS LANES, W.Va. - Ruth Ferrell learned a valuable lesson when she donated one of her husband's shirts to Goodwill: Always check the pockets. Ferrell said she never liked the red-and-black checkered flannel shirt, which her husband Walter received as a gift.
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By By Melanie Sill, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.  Jun.
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Florida's got the South Beach diet. Now Minnesota's got the "Northwoods Diet." That's what University of Minnesota professor David Bernlohr came up with as the solution when he noticed his waistline expanding. After all, he's an obesity researcher.
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By Shawntaye Hopkins, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.  May 29--There are signs of improvement in Lexington mobile home parks: sealed skirting, repaired porches and mounds of trash that have been replaced by litter and light debris.
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By David Nivens, High Point Enterprise, N.C.  Feb.
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By SAMIRA JAFARI  KIMPER, Ky. - Several times a day, Roger Thacker hauls 5-gallon buckets of water about 50 yards uphill to his mobile home so his family can bathe and do laundry.
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By Hannah Mitchell, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.  Jun. 24--Trash dumps used to be for garbage and vultures.   But Catawba County is developing the next generation of landfills: places where garbage and sewage become commodities with little left over to clutter or pollute.