Tightening Credit What with a worsening housing crisis and the recent corrosion of Wall Street, lenders have been tightening their purses, making it very difficult for consumers and businesses to acquire credit.

Raising Tent Cities Reno has a new internal suburb of sorts—a tent city. The shutting down of the winter shelter, the hike in foreclosures, Hurricane Ike and the generally feeble economy have left a slew of people in both the area and country homeless. Tent-cities have been cropping up throughout the U.S., and Reno has been the site of one of the nation’s largest. More than 150 people in Nevada have flocked to the city, setting up tents in a dirt-filled area scheduled to become a parking lot and thus only a temporary “haven.”

California’s Unemployment Rate Soaring The effects of a sick economy have been felt nationwide. After Michigan and Rhode Island, California has the largest unemployment rate in the country (tying the rate seen in Mississippi). We’re at a whopping 7.7 percent (”up three-tenths of a percentage point from July’s adjusted level,” the Los Angeles Times has reported from figures determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Stalemate in Zimbabwe If it seemed too good to be true that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangarai could come to a smooth, peaceful agreement regarding a balance of power, that’s because it was. A mere three days after their seemingly historic and very public collaboration, Mugabe put progress on hold by demanding he retain control over Zimbabwe’s security forces as well as most of the more potent ministries.

Dread and Hunger in Afghanistan A severe winter and thus unyielding harvest has found food supply woefully short for nine million Afghanis (more than a quarter of the country’s population), leaving many desperate and British charity Oxfam to admit that “time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis.”

Tags: afghanistan hunger, california's unemployment rate, lender crunch, reno, tent cities, zimbabwe