| German carmakers lead in reducing CO2 emissions
BMW AG, Volkswagen AG and other German carmakers cut carbon-dioxide emissions more than European rivals last year as they struggle to reach planned European Union targets. German brands sold domestically had 2 percent lower CO2 output last year, a greater reduction than French and Japanese models sold in Europe's largest economy, said Matthias Wissmann, president of the VDA German automobile manufacturers' association, at a briefing today in Berlin. The European Union plans a cap on carmakers that will force them to reduce CO2 emissions, a gas linked with global warming. The draft proposal, which is being negotiated this year among European lawmakers, will reduce the carbon emissions to an average 130 grams per kilometer (0.6 mile) for a manufacturer's fleet by 2012, with an additional 10 grams coming from improvements in tires, air conditioning and other vehicle parts.
Business spotlight: Colonial Hardware
Jeff Allen, one of the new owners of Colonial Hardware, can tell you just what he liked so much about the South Knoxville store when he was a customer. It was the way owners Roy and Gerry Garnett went out of their way to help customers get what they needed. Like the way they would let Allen take a part or piece of hardware home to make sure it fit, then come back and pay for it. "Or, if I didn't know which one I needed, they'd put both on my ticket and let me bring back the one I didn't use," he said. So when he and his wife, Sooky Allen, bought the store in December, he knew that's the way things were going to have to stay. Colonial Hardware, on Chapman Highway behind Kay's Ice Cream store, has been a South Knoxville fixture since 1978, when the Garnetts opened it.
NBA: LeBron leads East to All-Star victory
They beat up on us pretty bad last year," James said. "As the East, we didn't want to allow that to happen. We wanted to try to win." Ray Allen was on that Western Conference team that beat up on the East in Las Vegas. Traded to the Boston Celtics last summer, he helped his new All-Star teammates atone. His three 3-pointers in the final three minutes and 12 seconds kept the East ahead after a West rally had wiped out a double- digit lead. "Ray hit some big shots," James said, "some of the biggest shots of the game, and he kept it flowing. We put the finishing touches on it, and it was a dunk." It was a monster dunk authored by James that truly finished things. He powered the ball through and over Dallas Mavericks 7-footer Dirk Nowitzki with 55.5 seconds remaining.
The incredible, edible ice cube?
When Kyle Burkhalter gets up in the morning, he goes into the kitchen and fixes himself a nice cup of ice. The 24-year-old director of research for a Web site chews the ice in the car on his way to work in Atlanta. He downs two or three more cups before lunch. He orders ice from drive-thru windows and dips into the office ice machine. Sometimes, his tongue gets so numb he can barely talk to clients. Still, he munches on. "It's something that you want to do and you think about doing on a constant basis," he says. Ice isn't just for chilling drinks anymore, or for packing fish and treating sprains. It's a hot snack. Some Sonic Drive-In franchises sell it in cups and in bags to go. Ice-machine makers are competing to make the best chewable ice, with names like Chewblet, Nugget Ice and Pearl Ice.
Hotels joining in green wave
In case you haven't noticed, hotels are going green, doing their part to be ecologically friendly. You might call it the Al Gore effect, although the movement began before An Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award and its star won a Nobel Prize this year. The green efforts go further than asking guests to use towels and bed linens more than once (as they do at home), to conserve water and avoid flushing more detergent-laden water into sewers. It's also more than replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs in guest rooms. Other green initiatives are more subtle - things a guest might never notice: recycling, low-flow faucets and showerheads, water-saving toilets, and the use of products that don't harm the environment or contribute to global warming.
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