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But figures for the first 11 months of the year showed a drop of over 3% (1,721 cars) - the weakest sales volume in five years, said Ulster Bank economist Richard Ramsey. |
"New car sales growth in Northern Ireland stalled in 2015 and 2016, and has gone into reverse since 2017," Mr Ramsey warned. |
"During the last two years (January to November), new car sales have fallen by a cumulative 8%. That equates to 4,440 fewer vehicle sales." |
Mr Ramsey also stressed that "squeezed incomes" and rising living costs would continue to put pressure on new car sales. |
"Consumers' disposable incomes have been squeezed by inflation, and rising food and utility bills are set to see this trend continue into 2019," he said. |
"Talk of an end to austerity - as indicated in October's Budget - is premature. With the freeze in most working-age welfare benefits continuing and some welfare benefit cuts still to take effect, the average consumer isn't expected to see a notable improvement in their personal finances in the year ahead. |
"Consumer confidence is expected to remain subdued, particularly for large discretionary purchases such as a new car." |
While welcoming dips in the price of motor fuel, Mr Ramsey maintained that "driving home this Christmas is still going to be more costly relative to last year". |
"Despite falls, petrol is almost 4% higher per litre than last year, with diesel 9% higher," he said. |
For the whole of the UK in November, car sales were down by almost 3%, the new SMMT survey revealed. |
Scotland experienced the highest growth in new car sales in the UK for the month, up 7.10% on last year. |
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) -- The Florida State football schedule wasn't impacted last week due to Hurricane Michael as they were on their previously-scheduled bye week, but one Seminole was severely impacted by the storm. |
Defensive end Janarius Robinson's mother's house in Panama City was completely destroyed. Robinson is now in his hometown helping his family rebuild. |
On Monday, FSU head coach Willie Taggart said if Robinson needs anything, his 'Noles family is there for him. |
"JRob and his family lost their home, so you can only imagine how he's doing and how he's feeling," Taggart said. "He's with his family and supporting them the best way he can. We told him we're here for him and whatever we can do to help, we will." |
Despite all Robinson and his family have been through this past week, Taggart said he expects Robinson to be back to practice later this week and expects him to play on Saturday against Wake Forest. |
With a month to go until Christmas Eve, Plaid Cymru has launched a campaign encouraging people to do as much Christmas shopping as possible in local shops. |
Durung Lent, Christian Ecology Link is asking supporters to think and act on food sourcing in their local church communities and further afield. |
This week sees the launch of a global Ethical Fashion Calendar to bring together the various events, campaigns and products which seek to take an ethical approach to fashion. It promotes shows, exhibtions and talks around the world. |
A Filipino Mennonite pastor, concerned at how coffee processing corporations had long short-changed indigenous people in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, has launched a Fair Trade initiative. |
Sales of products in the United Kingdom carrying the Fairtrade mark reached an estimated retail value in excess of £700 million by the end of last year, research into the latest trends has demonstrated. |
As one who lives in Falkirk, I was very interested in the Accounts Commission recommendations that Falkirk Council “must do better”. |
The commission’s report includes recommendations that savings of £46 million must be made over the next three years – a monumental goal to achieve. |
And the story over the past few years under the Labour/Conservative coalition at Falkirk has seen the council make some savings at the expense for our vulnerable citizens who are now being charged for or have experienced increased costs to public services on which they depend on a daily basis. |
Yet, while imposing charges, or increasing charges for vital, sometimes lifesaving, services, our council has just approved a spend of a whopping £21 million! |
The chairman of the Accounts Commission reported that a more ambitious financial plan of spending, which clearly sets out its priorities, needs to be put in place. |
I wonder if a £21m spend on a new council headquarters can be seen as priority spending, and was this spend in mind by the Accounts Commission when it recommended prioritising spending? |
The Amarillo High boys soccer team is the only team still standing from District 3-5A on either the boys or girls side after a rough bidistrict round Friday. |
The Sandies played a great match during a 2-0 shutout over Aledo in the Class 5A bidistrict round at Wichita Falls, improving to 13-7-5 overall. AHS will take on a very talented El Paso Bel Air (22-1) team in the area round at 3 p.m. today at Ratliff Stadium in Odessa. |
"Bel Air is a very talented team," AHS David Daily said. "They are one of the premiere teams out of El Paso, so it will be a battle. I like how we're playing right now. We're getting healthy and getting better. We feel like it's clicking for us and we've had some young guys stepping up for us." |
Class 4A saw a very successful bidistrict round with both Dumas and Pampa's boys and girls teams coming away with first round wins. Pampa will play a doubleheader against San Elizario in the area round on Tuesday at Ratliff Stadium. The Demons and Demonettes each draw an area bye. |
District 3-4A champions Canyon will open its postseason after a first round bye. The Canyon soccer teams will play a doubleheader with Clint Tuesday at Grande Communications Stadium in Midland. |
The New Jersey Senator asked the actress out over a series of adorable tweets. |
LOS ANGELES: New Jersey senator Cory Booker asked Mindy Kaling out for a dinner date on Twitter and the actress happily accepted. |
It all began when Booker commented on Kaling's show, 'The Mindy Project' in which the main character, Mindy Lahari, dissed the city of Newark, New Jersey, reported abc News. |
"Ouch! @MindyKaling, heard Dr Lahiri dissed Newark last night... @VogueMagazine and I disagree. I still (heart) you," he wrote with a link to a Vogue magazine article raving about the New Jersey city. |
To which Kaling, 37, replied, "Senator, if Mindy Lahiri shades it, it means we know it's cool. Thanks for the (love). It's mutual!" |
Booker, 47, then said her response was "making my day! Thanks for the clarification." |
"And If the (love) is really mutual... Come have dinner with me in Newark? #PleaseSayYes," he boldly added. |
It did not take long for the actress to say 'yes' to Booker's dinner proposal as she said, "@CoryBooker yes. Now let me get the PATH train schedule." |
And, PATH train has already sent the schedule. |
Hyacinth and I are siblings, so you adopt both of us, or just one of us. |
VERO BEACH — Hyacinth forgot to tell you that I’m her brother. I must admit that I’m a bit shyer than my sister and don’t warm up to people quite as quickly. But give me time and I promise that I’ll be your best buddy. And while we’re siblings, you could adopt one or both of us. Either way, we’d be happy. |
US President Donald Trump arrives in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 3, 2017. |
One day, President Donald Trump speaks in a presidential tone at an address to Congress; four days later, he launches a pre-dawn Twitter blitz to accuse his predecessor of bugging his New York base during the election campaign, with no apparent evidence. |
If you are feeling discombobulated by the new order, help is at hand. Over the last six months, I have polled some forty thousand Americans and spoken to voters across the country for my Ashcroft in America research. The findings give us some clues as to what is happening and what to look out for. |
Things might seem shambolic, but the White House is sticking to its strategy. Trump’s election campaign may have looked ill-disciplined, but his message was consistent: Things need to change, and I’m the man to change them. The same is true of his Administration. His moves to begin dismantling Obamacare, withdrawing fr... |
Trump voters are happy (for now). Listening to some of the commentary, you would think the world was coming to an end. But as my post-election research has shown, the voters who put Trump in the White House think he’s doing a great job in the face of furious criticism — which helps to boost their already high expectati... |
The President’s opponents are helping him by picking the wrong fights. Examples abound: the media rumpus over Trump’s refusal to take a question from CNN during a January press conference, the fuss over potential conflicts of interest in his business affairs, complaints about the ethnic and gender balance of his cabine... |
In the “fake news” war, there can be only one winner. The media will continue to accuse the President and his team of uttering falsehoods. He will say they publish fake news. None of it will make any difference. If voters thought his erratic relationship with facts was a deal breaker, Trump wouldn’t have won in the fir... |
For Democrats, things could get worse before they get better. Losing parties have to learn the lessons from defeat before they can start winning again. But my polling found that Democrats blame the election result on the voters, for not understanding the issues; the media, for spreading “fake news” and not holding Trum... |
If it’s Trump vs. Congress, the President’s voters will be rooting for him. Republicans in my poll thought more highly of Donald Trump than they did of the GOP as whole — let alone Congressional Republicans, whom they saw as part of the reviled Washington establishment. As far as the voters are concerned, America now h... |
By 2020, there has to be change. Trump voters think the President is on their side and speaks their language. But above all, they expect him to make things happen. While some are enjoying the show, many see the apparent chaos as the cost of doing business. “Because he’s in office, that’s what you’re going to get,” one ... |
Trump has some tough circles to square. The President has his work cut out. Most of his voters want to see the end of Obamacare, but not until another scheme is ready to take its place — one which costs less but still covers pre-existing conditions. More broadly, he has to please different parts of his voting coalition... |
Lord Ashcroft is a businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. His book Hopes And Fears: Trump, Clinton, The Voters And The Future is available from BitebackPublishing.com. His research is published at LordAshcroftPolls.com. His Twitter handle is @LordAshcroft. |
Earth Burger offers a vegetarian menu in a fast-food environment. Its namesake burger is served on a whole wheat bun with secret sauce, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions. Cheese can be added. |
San Antonio is just weeks away from the opening of its second Earth Burger location. Owner Mike Behrend said in a text to the Express-News that the new vegan-based fast food restaurant at 2501 Nacogdoches just outside Loop 410 should be up and running by June 1. |
Behrend said in a previous story that second location would open in late January. The building used to house a Church’s Chicken franchise, and has required extensive renovation. |
Earth Burger made its debut in 2014 inside the Park North Shopping Center. The menu features vegan-plays on popular fast food menu items such as the spicy “chik-n” sandwich, burgers that feature a “beefy” patty, and a take on barbecue that replaces pulled pork with jackfruit. |
Sides include fries, edamame, apple slices, hummus with carrot sticks and a kale salad with sunflower seeds and carrots. |
Behrend said business has been so good at the original location that he has plans to eventually make Earth Burger a national chain. There are two other Earth Burger locations in the construction process, a restaurant in San Marcos and another inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. |
Earth Burger, 2501 Nacogdoches Road. Online: eatearthburger.com. Facebook: EatAtEarthBurger. |
LANCASTER -- Mr. Frank Ghent, 88, of 2190 Flat Creek Road, died Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, at Springs Memorial Hospital. The funeral will be 11 a.m. Thursday at Hyde Park Baptist Church by Dr. Darrell Thompson, with burial at Lancaster Memorial Park. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Hartley Fu... |
■ Bob Kelly and Sarah House Tate, and the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Clay Lancaster Heritage Education Award. Architects Kelly and Tate prepared research and presented lectures on the Ernst Johnson buildings that are being demolished on the University of Kentucky campus; and the Herald-Leader provided news coverage, ... |
■ Providence Montessori school board, The Friends of the Kentucky Theatre, and Marc and Cindy Ford, Community Preservation Award. The award is given to a non-governmental group for service to the preservation movement. |
Providence Montessori bought the former Florence Crittenton Home at 519 West Fourth Street in Lexington, to be used as a middle school. |
The theater group raised $750,000 as part of a $1.5 million campaign to install digital projectors and replace seats in the theater. |
The Fords have been the stewards of Colby Tavern on Becknerville Road in Clark County since 1998. In its heyday in the mid-19th century, this roadside inn and tavern hosted Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay among countless others. From 2007 to 2014, the Fords renovated the structures and added to them. |
■ Jess and Angela Correll, Barbara Hulette Award, for numerous restoration projects in Stanford and Danville. The Corrells led the team in the purchase of the Willis Green House in Danville. The award recognizes preservation of Central Kentucky heritage, built environment, landscape, archaeological resources, sense of ... |
■ Town and Garden Club, Lucy Shropshire Crump Volunteer Award, for its maintenance of the Hunt Morgan House garden. The award is for exemplary service to the Blue Grass Trust throughout the year. |
■ Don and Barb Wathen, and Lester Miller and Aumaine Mott, Lucy Graves Advocacy Award, given for exhibiting advocacy leadership in supporting the historic preservation movement in Central Kentucky. |
The Wathens developed Nick Ryan's restaurant on Jefferson Street in Lexington. Miller and Mott developed Al's Bar on North Limestone and Stella's Kentucky Deli on Jefferson Street. |
■ Elvis and Geneva Donaldson, Betty Hoopes Volunteer Service Award, for their service as volunteers to the Antiques and Garden Show Committee. |
■ County Club, Belle's Cocktail House and BC Wood Properties, Clyde Carpenter Adaptive Reuse Award. |
County Club is a restaurant in a little building on Jefferson Street that once served as a storage facility for various bread manufacturing companies starting in the early 1900s, before being acquired by the West Sixth group. |
Belle's Cocktail House, named for famed Lexington madam Belle Brezing, is at Market and Church streets in a building that once housed a law firm. |
BC Wood Properties, 321 Henry Street, in what originally was Central Kentucky Bluegrass Seed Co., built by renowned entrepreneur James Ben Ali Haggin. "The interior and the stunning reuse of this building ... (created) an office building with great respect for its National Register Status and historic nature," the Trus... |
■ Marcia Farris and Jim Krupa, Landscape Preservation Award. |
Farris recently retired as the first director of the Arboretum on Alumni Drive after 15 years of service. |
Krupa has cultivated more than 350 species of plants and trees in the garden of the Mathews House on South Limestone near the UK Law School. |
■ James and Martha Birchfield, John Wesley Hunt Award, given to individuals for lifetime service to the preservation movement in Kentucky. When they arrived in Lexington in the 1980s, the Birchfields immediately began preservation efforts on their house on West Third Street. Over the years Jim Birchfield has served as ... |
In a win for environmental groups, a federal judge in Austin has rebuffed an effort by Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush to lift habitat protections for the golden-cheeked warbler, a Central Texas songbird found in Travis County and roughly two dozen other counties. |
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks affirmed a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reject a petition to take the bird off the endangered species list in 2016. |
In his federal lawsuit, Bush argued that the federal agency had not fairly considered the petition to delist the species. |
The decision was welcomed by environmental groups. |
Bush’s lawsuit had argued that special habitat protections, including development restrictions, are no longer necessary because the golden-cheeked warbler's population has recovered since the bird was listed as endangered nearly three decades ago. |
If successful, the lawsuit could have opened a broad swath of Central Texas — including western Travis County — to increased development and road building. |
Filed in Austin federal court, the lawsuit sought an order invalidating the warbler's designation as an endangered species, arguing that a 2015 Texas A&M University study concluded that there are 19 times more warblers spread over a habitat that is five times larger than was known when the bird was listed as endangered... |
The study shows that warbler protections are based on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the bird's population, the lawsuit said. |
The A&M study also formed the basis of a 2015 petition that sought to remove endangered species protections for the golden-cheeked warbler that had been filed by former state Comptroller Susan Combs and property rights organizations. |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, rejected the petition in 2016, saying an agency analysis determined that the warbler is not recovering and that 29 percent of the bird's nesting habitat had been lost from 1999 to 2011. |
"Due to ongoing, widespread destruction of its habitat, the species continues to be in danger of extinction throughout its range," the agency said at the time. |
Other biologists have criticized the Texas A&M study, finding methodology mistakes that led federal regulators to conclude that it overpredicted the number of warblers by as much as tenfold. |
The lawsuit was prepared by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Austin, on behalf of the General Land Office, which oversees state property that includes warbler habitat. |
The General Land Office's original complaint said the value of property owned by the state near San Antonio had suffered because it includes warbler habitat. |
Bush did not return a request for comment, but his office sent a joint statement from the General Land Office and the Texas Public Policy Foundation that said, in part, "The removal of the golden-cheeked warbler would restore the rights of land owners to effectively manage our own properties, without oversight from the... |
Combs, who, as state comptroller had once described proposed endangered species protections as "incoming Scud missiles,” was named last year to a Trump administration post overseeing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. |
Henneke said that, despite the change in administrations in Washington during the dispute, the Fish and Wildlife Service's position has not changed. |
He said the matter of an appeal is under discussion. |
Robert Langford Montgomery, Jr., Harvard ’50 mcl, Ph.D. ’56 died on February 26, 2013 in Newport Beach, CA. A navy veteran of World War II, he was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California – Irvine from 1967, just two years after its founding, until his retirement in 1994. Earlie... |
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