Strategy

A public briefing on the progress of Delaware County's still-forming local economic development strategy will be held Wednesday by the County Council. Once complete, the strategy will be a 10-year plan to promote job growth, opportunity, and community vitality, according to county spokeswoman Trish Cofiell. The Redevelopment Authority of the Delaware County Commerce Center has been working with the Delta Development Group Inc., a Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based planning firm hired for about $107,000, to conduct the study to form the strategy.

Producing master plans to combat blight and revive rundown neighborhoods has practically become a cottage industry in Philadelphia. But comebacks, when they happen, rarely turn out the way planners script them. So it is with Point Breeze, which begins south of Washington Avenue on the west side of Broad Street, and extends well past Snyder Avenue. Once a working-class area of stalwart brick rowhouses, dramatically punctuated by cathedral-size churches that seem worthy of Rome, Point Breeze began coming apart at the seams with the '80s crack epidemic.

WASHINGTON - When he won a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey was part of a wave of Republicans who surged into office vowing to battle an expansive government and fears of rising taxes and debt. A willing combatant deeply versed in fiscal policy, he rose to national prominence as budget issues invigorated the GOP. But as Republicans try to rebound from a stinging defeat in last year's presidential race, party leaders such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor are arguing for a softer touch.

WASHINGTON - The United States is at risk of becoming a second-rate power if automatic budget cuts go into effect, plunging the armed forces into the most significant readiness crisis they have faced in more than a decade, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Thursday. Panetta, who is retiring soon from his post, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that if the reductions are allowed to stand he would have to throw the country's national defense strategy "out the window. " But he also assured lawmakers the Pentagon would take the steps necessary to deal with possible threats in the Persian Gulf region after he approved the Navy's request to halve its aircraft carrier presence in the area.

WASHINGTON - There's a growing sense of resignation that the country's political leaders will be unable or unwilling to find a way around looming automatic spending cuts, despite fresh signs the trims would threaten the recovering economy. On one side are conservative Republicans, outnumbered and frustrated, who see the painfully large cuts as leverage in their battle to force Democrats into concessions on the budget. On the other side are President Obama and his Democratic allies, who are pressing to replace some of the cuts with new tax revenue.

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The idea seemed sudden, immediate, the way so many of Chip Kelly's do. Truth is, the running of the bulls, the heart-in-your-throat panic-fest held annually the second week of July in Pamplona, Spain, was something the new Eagles coach always wanted to do, but never had the time - or for most of his 23-year college coaching career, the cash. But last summer, as the well-compensated head coach of the University of Oregon, neither was a problem. Not for him. And, by association, not for the tight-knit group of high school teachers, coaches and restaurant owners who have provided the grounding to his high-voltage profile and career, who have vicariously lived his rapid and improbable ascent from a college assistant coach earning $62,000 in 2006, to a man who just signed a 5-year, $32.5 million deal to be the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.

If you don't pick stocks, or don't want to pick stocks, then a hedged equity index strategy might be the ticket for you. Many investors want to put money to work in "the market," and we can do it very simply: buy an index fund, either based on the Standard & Poor's 500 benchmark, or the Dow, the Russell, or some other basket of equities. That reduces the risk of picking just a few stocks, and ideally you earn no more and no less than the market - before fees, of course. Local money manager Thomas McKeon, an options trader on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange floor from 1980 to 1991, says his investment idea goes one step further.

It is a scathing takedown of bureaucratic excess. Every year at Thanksgiving, lawyers at Dechert L.L.P.'s structured finance group issue their Golden Turkeys, a compendium of what they view as the year's most wrongheaded financial practices. They have gone after proprietary trading rules, bumbling European financial regulators, and dead-beat commercial debtors. Commentary on the Dechert blog tends to be withering: "European Union politicians are still having fun beating up bankers; this has and will drive capital formation out of Europe," wrote Dechert blogger Rick Jones, cochairman of the firm's structured finance and real estate group.

By Jeffrey Goldberg There are many lies being told about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Here are seven things that are true: 1. This most recent outbreak of violence represents the opening round of the third Palestinian intifada. The first was an uprising of stones and Molotov cocktails. The second was an uprising of suicide bombers. The third, inevitably, was going to feature rockets and missiles. I don't care to think about what weapons and tactics will feature in the fourth intifada.