Signs of economic pulse

• The Mexican grocery chain Pro's Ranch Market is expanding in Arizona -- opening a store in Mesa which will employ 400 people (seems like a lot of employees). ~ link

• Intel plans to beat the economic downturn through innovation --

This is a shrewd move by Intel. The economic downturn means potentially reduced consumer spending on electronics. So instead of pushing out its planned line of CPUs in bulk, and running into the recession headlong, Intel's simply revised and consolidated its efforts to bring next-gen technology to the market even sooner. And that also places it well ahead of rival chip-maker AMD, whose own 32nm chips aren't due until 2011. ~ link

• 8 tuition-free colleges ~ link