¶ If there are community activists in Claymont saying "told ya so" these days, it's understandable. More than five years after they began putting together the Claymont Renaissance movement to revitalize their community, their efforts are bearing fruit. In abundance, it would seem.

Emergence of a specific plan to redevelop the Brookview apartment complex -- a sore spot in Claymont for a long time -- has given rise to some other proposals and yet more are believed to be in the offing. Contrary to what some naysayers would have had you believe, Councilman Bob Weiner's oft-repeated promise about Claymont being a place where you can live, work, shop, go to school, play and pray, with or without wheels, appears to be on its way to fulfillment.

To be sure, there are still a few not inconsequential steps to be taken, but the commitment to invest in what no one seriously regards as a pipedream any longer is there. And it would appear that more is coming.

Even before the conceptual plan for redeveloping the Brookview complex has been moved to the preliminary proposal stage in the county's approval process, it apparently has triggered the start of associated communitywide renewal that Claymont Renaissance backers have long said will happen.   MORE

¶ Wawa Inc. has agreed to submit a revised landscape plan for its Claymont outlet to the Department of Land Use by Oct. 7 as an alternative to replacing some  of the brick veneer on the building.  MORE

¶ Forecasters are uncertain what effect Bank of America's acquisition of M.B.N.A. Bank will have on the Delaware economy and the state budget. They are reasonably certain, however, that the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster will have, at worst, minimal impact.  MORE

¶ For many years Delaware has bragged that its liberal business laws and specialized courts have attracted most of the national and international business world's high rollers, along with hundreds of lesser lights. Don't look now, but its claim to being the 'corporate capital' become obsolete. CLICK HERE to read a Delaforum memo.

¶ For the record: An American Red Cross spokesperson told Delaforum that, through Sept. 14, $653.4 million in gifts and pledges had been donated to the Hurricane Katrina relief fund. That compares to $556 million for the east Asia tsunami disaster relief fund and $542 million following the Nine-Eleven attacks in 2001.   

¶ More than 150 world leaders, including an unprecedented number of heads of state and heads of government converged on New York this week for the 60th plenary session of the United Nations General Assembly. Although neither the summit meeting nor the U.N. in general attract much media attention in this country, the issue is important.

No less than the future of the organization formed at the end of the Second World War to bring together the nations of a world that was fast becoming smaller. How much smaller that has become in the years since makes its survival and increased effectiveness all that much more important.

CLICK HERE to access a package of articles from the British Broadcasting Company including the full text of the reform agreement adopted at the close of the session. CLICK HERE to access the texts of the leaders' remarks.

¶ You think it's tough sticking to a diet-and-exercise regimen? Anchorage zookeepers are installing a 16,000-pound treadmill to keep an isolated elephant from getting fat during the long, cold Alaskan winters.  MORE