| Mike Woods column: Tucker should be player of the year
MADISON - Were here today to campaign for the hometown guy, promising to put all personal and territorial prejudices aside. Alando Tucker should be the guy. When its time to pick college basketballs national player of the year in a few weeks, youve got to go with the guy who pound-for-pound is the best player in the country. Thats Tucker.
The man other Big Ten teams game plan to stop dropped in 21 points Saturday - the fifth straight game he has topped the 20-point plateau - and in the process became only the second Badger with more than 2,000 career points, as No. 4 Wisconsin disposed of Iowa 74-62 at the Kohl Center.
They list him at 6-foot-6 but put it this way, Im 6-3 and Im practically looking him in the eye when weve chatted. Hes only 205 pounds, and probably a little less than that now that February has rolled around.
Nursing home census falls amid uncertainty
PONTIAC -- The uncertain future of Livingston Manor is affecting the number of people choosing the county-owned home for their loved ones.Scott Gima, vice president of Management Performance Associates, said the census has dropped to 68 — about half of what the facility is licensed to hold.Gima, whose company manages the facility, said a new marketing director has been working on recruiting more residents but without success.“People are not going to be coming to Livingston Manor until this issue is resolved," he said. “There have been no inquiries at all. All of the legwork is for naught if the issue is not resolved. The public thinks it is going to close."On Tuesday, members of the County Board will have a work session to discuss the home's future, which has been debated for about three years.
Calls for Afghan cooperation with its neighbors
BRUSSELS: Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht has expressed optimism that the fight against drugs in Afghanistan can be won. "It cannot be that we are stabilising Afghanistan for drug production to flourish. The fight against drugs in Pakistan and Turkey has shown that this is a war that can be won," Gucht told a conference on Afghanistan in Brussels. Noting that relations between Kabul and Islamabad are strained, De Gucht called for better cooperation between the two Muslim countries. Afghanistan also needs to improve cooperation with its neighbors Iran, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, said the Belgian foreign minister, noting that a major part of narcotic traffic makes its way through these three countries. He said that NATO's ISAF mission in Afghanistan cannot and should not stay for decades.
Wall Street wants to be Grandma's landlord
Not the memory-lapse kind. Rather, the kind where big investors go wild over senior housing, pumping billions into buying and expanding companies that house and care for aging Americans. Nobody's forgotten how the sector was swamped with bankruptcies after the last wave of Wall Street overinvestment, in the late 1990s. Or have they? "It was irresponsible growth because Wall Street was pushing them to grow," recalls Dan Madsen, president and CEO of Seattle-based and privately held Leisure Care, which runs 40 senior communities. "They were just popping (new projects) out like 7-Elevens." As before, Pacific Northwest companies are in the thick of the recent investment action. The granddaddy of deals was quietly unveiled right before Christmas when hard-charging hedge fund Fortress Investments agreed to pay an estimated $6 billion for one of the nation's largest operators of senior housing projects, Holiday Retirement of Salem, Ore.
|
