Praise Reports

Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Fay are alleviating a drought that has bedeviled the Southeast for years, and another storm on the horizon could help even further, National Weather Service experts said Monday. Further relief could come from Tropical Storm Gustav, which was forecast to roll over Haiti today, Oravec said. Little rain has fallen during winter and spring across much of the South in the past three years. For two years, no tropical storms delivered rain in summer and fall to northern Georgia and the western Carolinas. Lakes went dry and streambeds dropped to 20% of normal levels.

This year, as gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, the traffic death toll — according to one study — appears headed to the lowest levels since John F. Kennedy moved into the White House. The number of fatalities is being pulled down by a change in Americans' driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan. Over the previous 10 months, monthly fatalities declined an average of 4.2% compared to the previous year. Then, fatalities dropped 22.1% in March and 17.9% in April of this year. If the pattern continues for the rest of this year, it would lead to "an unheard of improvement" in motor vehicle fatalities.