Richard Bergold, State Executive Director for USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Delaware announced Wednesday that the USDA has designated the entire state of Delaware as a primary natural disaster area based on damages and losses caused by drought that occurred from June 15, 2008, and continuing.

Delaware is ranked fourth among the list of states that are leading an economic transformation in adapting to an increasingly global, entrepreneurial, digital, and knowledge- and innovation-based "new economy," according to the 2008 State New Economy Index, released Wednesday by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The news comes on the heels of a grim state budget forecast, however.

Thirty guidance counselors from southern Delaware high schools were briefed on the enhanced University of Delaware Commitment to Delawareans during a meeting held Oct. 31, at Delaware Technical and Community College, in Georgetown. Originally announced in 2006, the UD Commitment to Delawareans is an academic road-map designed to inform students and parents throughout the state of the courses and level of academic performance recommended for admission onto the Newark campus.

The Delaware Poker Room is now open in Mill Creek and with a dozen tables and nightly cash games beginning at 7 p.m., it’s a player’s paradise. And not only is it legal, it’s for a good cause.

Salesianum High School’s soccer team had a battle on their hands for all 80 minutes, but
the Sals came away with a 1-0 victory over Middletown High Monday night to win the 2008 state soccer championship at the new Appoquinimink High School’s Jaguar Stadium. Salesianum won the crown for the fifth consecutive year, and for the sixth time in seven years.

Governor-elect Jack Markell announced Tuesday that he has selected co-chairs to lead his transition team's committees, which will be focusing on key areas of state government, including economic growth, education, health care and the environment.

The 2009 Little  League Senior Softball World Series for girls 14-16 will once again take place at the Lower Sussex Little League Complex, in Roxana, beginning Aug. 9, and the Aug. 15 championship will be televised on the ESPN family of networks.

Donald S. Welsh, Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s mid-Atlantic Region, today presented Sussex County, Del. with EPA’s regional environmental excellence award for their outstanding operation and maintenance of the South Coastal regional wastewater treatment plant.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reported more than $660,000 in undeliverable refund and economic stimulus payments and is presently looking for Delawareans who are missing these checks.  After spear-heading an initiative with the IRS to help qualifying Delawareans fill out the necessary paperwork to obtain their stimulus checks, Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) wants to ensure all Delawareans who filed their taxes receive their payments.

Tickets for Sussex Central's Saturday evening Division I home playoff semifinals bout with either William Penn or St. Mark's will be pre-sold at the school's main office on Thursday and Friday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Delaware’s House Democrats have filled their three leadership positions as the newly elected majority party.

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner announced Friday that the 15-member Fox Point State Park-Glenville Project Team, a partnership between the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT), is the 2008 recipient of the Governor’s Team Excellence Award.

What will it take to get the U.S. economy going in the right direction again? Only time will be able to deliver a conclusive answer to President-elect Barack Obama and an anxious American public.

Women entrepreneurs have greatly leveled the playing field since the 1970s, when only 4 percent of U.S. firms were owned by women, but there is still a long way to go in Delaware before women entrepreneurs receive the same opportunities and respect as men. This is the second in a two-part series highlighting some of Delaware's great businesswomen and the challenges women are still working to overcome in the workplace.

With pointpoint passing and aggresiveness on both sides of the field, Tower Hill School shut out Brandywine High School for the second straight year in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Asssociation Field Hockey State Tournament championship Saturday. It was Tower Hill's fourth straight championship and state record 18th overall.