Word: florida
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...South, long synonymous with hyper economic growth, is going through a harrowing recession. Currently, 8 of the 15 states with the highest unemployment rates are in the South: North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida are all reporting the highest rate in their state's history. South Carolina posted the nation's third-highest unemployment rate for March - 11.4%, after Michigan and Oregon. (Read "When Joblessness Becomes Homelessness...
...miles away. Allendale County's unemployment rate stands at 23.4%. Ronnie Jackson, the mayor of the town of Allendale, population barely 3,700, says the town's decline started in the 1970s, when the old Route 301 was replaced by I-95 as the main connector to Florida. The town lost motels and restaurants, says Jackson, the mayor since last November. But the more recent closure of a nearby carpet factory, with the loss of some 200 jobs, deepened the problems in the town and the entire county...
...Cuba sure know how to hold a grudge. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, relations between the two countries quickly devolved into bitter arguments, political grandstanding and the occasional international crisis. And while Cuba lies less than 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Florida, the two nations have had no diplomatic relations since 1961 and use Switzerland as a mediator whenever they need to talk. But maybe - finally - things might change. On April 13 President Barack Obama announced that he would lift some longstanding restrictions, allowing Cuban Americans to visit and send remittances to their families...
...through its northwestern port, Mariel Harbor. Over the next six months 125,000 Cubans clambered onto boats and made their way to the U.S. in a mass flotilla. Castro also released criminals and mental-hospital patients, of whom as many as 22,000 landed on the shores of Florida; Cuba refused to take them back...
More important, getting Cuba right could resonate for Obama well beyond the Florida Straits. "Obama has made it very clear to the world that he cares about how U.S. foreign policy is perceived around the globe," says Erikson. "Given that the embargo is one of the most unpopular policies the U.S. practices in the world, with the United Nations voting 185 to 3 last year to condemn it, he risks making his Administration look a lot like the Bush Administration if he hangs on to it." That may not be the conclusion Obama comes to this week...