Word: tolls
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...FIRMS HAVE been widely shunned by most investors. In the past fours years, the industry has had to pay $28 billion in damages, including $7 billion in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo and the San Francisco earthquake. So far this year, insured losses have totaled a record $13 billion. The toll from Hurricane Andrew alone has already exceeded $9 billion. So who would want to buy into an insurance company? Try Sanford Weill, chairman of Primerica, the New York City concern best known for its Smith Barney brokerage subsidiary. Weill agreed to invest $550 million for a 27% stake in Travelers...
...that's big stuff," says economist Sinai. "Instead of 3.3%-a-year rises in defense spending in real terms, we're going down in defense 5% a year." Besides letting huge clouds of steam out of the overall economy, the military build-down will take a huge personal toll on displaced workers. Says labor expert Lacey: "The people who are being jettisoned by the U.S. defense industry form a particularly tragic group in the U.S. work force right now. Some are high-wage production workers, roughly analogous to ex-autoworkers. As a result, the odds of their finding commensurate...
WHAT'S THAT? CARS ZIPPING PAST TOLLBOOTHS ON the New York State Thruway without stopping? Ordinarily such apparent lawlessness would be followed by flashing red lights in the rearview mirror. Not this time. New York is the latest state to test an electronic toll-collection system that lets motorists pay up without having to stop and fumble for cash or tokens. If adopted, the automated system promises to save time for motorists, improve safety at toll plazas, cut pollution and possibly reduce tolls. Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas currently use automated toll collection. New York is jointly testing two technologies...
...both cases, passing cars, the time of day and toll amount are identified electronically and registered in a central computer that automatically charges a prepaid account. The systems can process up to 1,250 vehicles an hour, compared to 350 an hour for conventional tollbooths. And the machines can handle a car traveling as fast as 100 m.p.h. -- though that is likely to draw some flashing lights...
...world's poorer countries, the fight against infectious disease is already a disaster. Malaria, tuberculosis, cholera and dysentery may claim more than 10 million lives each year. While inadequate medical care and sanitation are mainly responsible for the death toll, increasing microbial resistance to drugs is making a bad situation worse. The antimalarial drug chloroquine is no longer broadly effective, and even the newest substitute, mefloquine, is encountering resistance from some strains of the malarial parasite...