Word: bleakness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Finch added that the university will increasingly rely on philanthropy in a decade that he said would be extremely difficult for higher education. "It is our one ray of light in an otherwise bleak decade," he said...
Even for someone as optimistic as Mikhail Gorbachev, the news from the front lines of perestroika these days has been decidedly bleak. The patience of Soviet consumers has become completely shopworn, oil-industry workers are threatening to go on strike, and even army officers grumble publicly about low living standards. While a record harvest lies rotting in the fields, bread -- that staple of Russian life -- has joined the growing list of scarce goods. Meanwhile, pressure mounts for the government of Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov to resign. Most worrisome of all for the Kremlin, the once monolithic Union of Soviet Socialist...
...other regions of the U.S., the outlook varies from bleak to rosy. The Southeast is edging close to a recession. Building construction in Atlanta is off, while furniture manufacturers in the Carolinas have been struggling to survive. Demand is falling for real estate in some Florida retirement havens as homes in the Northern states become more difficult to sell. Since the Southeast has relatively few energy resources, rising oil costs will mostly hurt the region. "Before the Iraqi invasion, I thought we would escape the recession. Now it will be close," says economist Al Smith of NCNB, a banking company...
...water-supply picture may not be entirely bleak. Mohamed El-Ashry of the World Resources Institute estimates that around the world 65% to 70% of the water people use is lost to evaporation, leaks and other inefficiencies. The U.S. has a slightly better 50% efficiency, and El-Ashry believes it is economically feasible to reduce losses...
...Honolulu neighborhood is seedy, the building rundown and the second-story room bleak. When a drug user comes in, drops a dirty needle into a plastic bucket and receives a fresh sterile syringe and needle in exchange, no name is given, no questions are asked. This is the start of the nation's first state- approved program for providing addicts with clean needles in the hope of curtailing the spread of AIDS. Under the two-year pilot project, an addict can swap a used needle for a new one, supplied by the nonprofit Life Foundation, up to five times...