Dianne Vickery has been working for Girls Inc. of Delaware and its predecessors for nearly 40 years. She remembers the days when girls would fill the organization’s Dennison Branch in Wilmington’s Browntown neighborhood, eager for more instruction in the 3 R’s, etiquette lessons and training in homemaking skills.

The Dennison Branch is still open, albeit with less focus on “readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic,” and not nearly as crowded as in years past. And Vickery, the program director for Girls Inc., is spending more time on the road.

There’s been a flurry of good news lately for Delawareans who like to enjoy alcoholic beverages.

Earlier this month, town leaders in Milton gave the go ahead to an expansion of the Dogfish Head Brewery. On January 5, a bill was introduced to create a special type of liquor license for the Queen Theater in downtown Wilmington, much like the special licenses created by the General Assembly for Dover International Speedway and Frawley Stadium. And the state laws governing beer tasting have become more liberal in recent years.

While things are getting a bit more permissive, the First State is still behind the times when it comes to opening up the booze floodgates.

Diamond Pinkston is 14 years old, a ninth-grade honor student—and a new mother.

On a recent morning, the New Castle teenager brought her six-week-old daughter to school. Diamond placed the baby on a table in the school office, sniffed her ruffled turquoise pantaloons and wrinkled her nose.

“Time for a change,” she said.

At Diamond’s school, the Delaware Adolescent Program, Inc., or DAPI, how to change a diaper is part of the curriculum, along with English, science, math and social studies. Founded in 1969, the private, nonprofit organization is the only statewide comprehensive school-based program in the nation for pregnant and parenting teens and their families.

In his weekly message, Governor Jack Markell discusses the priorities that shaped the proposed fiscal year 2013 budget he unveiled this week. Markell says “encouraging economic growth, making our public schools stronger, and ensuring that we are governing effectively” helped shape a budget proposal he believes is “reasonable, responsible.”

Governor Jack Markell unveiled a fiscal year 2013 budget proposal that features little overall growth in spending but significantly expands spending in certain areas. The governor offered his FY 2013 plan in Dover Thursday.

Gov. Markell’s budget plan is balanced without any increased or additional taxes or fees.

“This budget is very much like what I talked about in the State of the State speech last week,” stated Markell.

The $3.55 billion proposed general operating fund budget is a 1 percent increase over the $3.51 billion FY12 budget.

In his recent State of the State Address, Governor Jack Markell highlighted several accomplishments as well as challenges in the area of “governing responsibly.” The Governor indicated that beyond careful management of its dollars and investments, the state needs to make continued strides toward more transparency, in part by developing online tools that inform citizens who is lobbying in Dover and what they are lobbying for.
During the early working days of the Delaware General Assembly in 2012, legislators are getting the opportunity to deal with other issues related to openness in government and the Freedom of Information Act.

In 1995, six months after starting her own business, Renee Ridenour joined a local chamber. But after nearly 17 years of attending the chamber’s networking meetings and events, she became disenchanted. “None of the existing chambers were meeting my needs as a small business owner,” said Ridenour, president of Pine Mountain Springs in Wilmington. She wasn’t alone and that frustration helped give birth to Delaware Small Business Chamber of Commerce – which launched in December 2011.

More than seven million injuries every year in the U.S. are sports-and recreation-related and more than half of those 7 million injuries involved people age 5 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among 12-17-year-olds, sports-related injuries are the leading cause of emergency room visits. At the Center for Sports Medicine at Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, staff not only wants to help young athletes heal after injury, but to educate athletes, parents and coaches on how to avoid injuries in the first place.

In his weekly message, Governor Jack Markell recaps the key points from the State of the State address he delivered Thursday at Legislative Hall in Dover. Gov. Markell emphasized his belief that Delaware must avoid the temptation to “pause and catch our breath” and instead strive to “act with confidence and imagination” on the issues that face the state.

Jobs, education, and health care featured prominently in Governor Jack Markell’s fourth State of the State address, delivered Thursday to a joint session of the General Assembly.

The speech, titled “Delaware’s Time to Lead,” focused on planning for a strong economic future.

Markell began by encouraging state leaders to work together toward common goals, despite dysfunction and deadlock in Washington, D.C., and continued economic uncertainty.