(WisBusiness) FRI News Summary — 17 Apr. 2009

From WisBusiness.com …

— Midwest high-speed rail got a boost as President Obama unveiled a plan to develop high-speed rail in a number of key transportation corridors using some $8 billion in federal stimulus money.

One of the projects, which the president on Thursday called “near and dear to my heart,” is the Chicago Hub Network. That network features a series of rail lines stemming from Chicago, one of which would include stops in both Madison and Milwaukee.

The full Chicago network would allow passengers from the Badger State’s largest cities to reach cities as far away as St. Louis and Detroit.

See details: http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Content=174

— Wisconsin’s unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent in March. That’s up 0.6 percentage points from the month before and higher than the national March rate of 9 percent.

The state Department of Workforce Development says the March rate was 4.4 percentage points higher than the rate of 5.0 percent for Wisconsin in March of 2008. From February to March, total Wisconsin non-farm jobs decreased by an estimated 8,700 to 2,724,500, compared to 19,400 jobs lost in the January to February report.  

Across the state from February to March, goods producers shed nearly 11,000 jobs, while service providers gained some 2,000 jobs over the month. Over the year, March 2009 showed goods producers were down more than 64,000 jobs. Service sector jobs declined by nearly 48,000 jobs over the year.

See more: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=155672

— Thanks to a drop in fuel prices, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin has approved an $18.5 million refund for electric customers of Wisconsin Electric Power Company. The average WEPCO customer using 600 kilowatt-hour (kWh) per month can expect to see a one-time refund of approximately $5.50 on their May 2009 electric bill.

See the release for more: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=155722

— Compass Group, which operates Chartwells food services on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus, is planning to close down at the end of May. The closure affects 239 jobs: 146 part-time student positions, 80 unionized positions, eight managers and 3 office/clerical workers.

See the state filing for details: http://www.wisbusiness.com/1008/090416chartwell.pdf

— The ritual of watching TV has improved over the years as technology has helped transform TVs from black-and-white, snowy screens with “rabbit ears” for reception to big-screened liquid crystal displays with high definition capability. FLEx, a Chicago-based company with hopes of moving to Wisconsin, is looking to improve on that technology while keeping prices low.

All LCD TVs are equipped with a backlight to illuminate the pixels of the screen, which provides a clear, sharp picture. Television manufacturers have used fluorescent bulbs for that backlighting over time, but are switching to LED-based backlighting (light-emitting diode) to provide longer bulb life, richer colors and mercury-free components. But LED-based lighting comes at a cost. The new method required hundreds and even thousands of LEDs to light the screen, which can cost up to five times as much as the original fluorescent lights.

Technology developed by FLEx aims to lower costs without sacrificing picture quality. The company’s founders, Mike Casper, Tony Nichol and Shawn Pucylowski, have created a new film-based light-guide technology for LCD TVs that will require only four LEDs.

Read more in a new WisBusiness story: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=155726

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