Cities

Poland and Ukraine have earned the endorsement of soccer's officials -- again -- for the 2012 European Championship after months of speculation that they'd lose the tournament. Recent visits to host cities, however, reveal the giant task that lies ahead. The jubilation that erupted in Poland and Ukraine after the Union of European Football Associations' decision in April 2007 to award them European soccer's showcase event turned to fear last year as false starts on the construction of stadiums, roads, airports and hotels in both countries fueled speculation UEFA could dump the eastern Europeans and move the tournament to a backup host -- possibly Italy, Germany or Scotland.

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido said today that mayors from across the country have reached an agreement with key members of Congress that will likely take as much as $150 billion of the federal economic stimulus package that would have gone to states and route it directly to city governments. In his third lobbying trip since last month, Pulido joined a score of other mayors, including L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in Washington on Wednesday to lobby key members of Congress to give cities a share of the funding.

Federal agents in Little Rock seized guns, ammunition and Molotov cocktails from the truck and apartment of Abdulhakim Muhammad, the suspect in the killing of one soldier and the wounding of another, and cautioned that copycat attacks could not be ruled out. An FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment obtained by the Associated Press suggested Muhammad, 23, a Muslim convert formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, may have considered targeting other...

Bombings and shootings killed more than 30 people across Iraq, including high school students on their way to final exams, part of a new round of violence ahead of next week's deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from urban areas. The attacks pushed the three-day Iraqi death toll over 100, shattering a recent lull and adding fresh doubt over the ability of government forces to protect people without U.S. soldiers by their sides. American combat troops have already begun moving from inner-city outposts to large bases outside Baghdad and other cities.

Re "Bulldozing our cities may wreck our future," Opinion, June 22 Gregory Rodriguez does a service by calling attention to the important public policy issue of the decline of many of America's once-great cities. However, his take on bulldozing abandoned neighborhoods misses the point of these initiatives. When cities have lost half their populations, a large percentage of their economic base and are facing massive amounts of infrastructure decline, changes in business as usual are essential.

Reversing a decade-long trend, many of America's largest cities are now growing more quickly than the rest of the nation, another sign of an economic crisis that is making it harder for people to move. Census data released today highlight a city resurgence in coastal regions and areas of the Midwest and Northeast, as the housing crunch, recession and higher gas prices have slowed migration to far-flung suburbs and residential hot spots in the South and West. The 2008 population figures show New York and Chicago made gains from higher births, while Philadelphia stanched population losses.

Amid the Michael Jackson mania that has sent fans into mourning and the superstar's music to the top of the charts worldwide, producers of the U.K. stage musical "Thriller Live" announced that they are taking the show on the road later this month. The musical -- essentially a two-hour tribute concert that employs Jackson impersonators to showcase many of the singer's best-known songs -- will begin traveling across Europe on July 21 and will be performed in several American cities at some point in the next 12 months, an announcement said.

To the woes caused by bad traffic and bad air, Los Angeles can now add a new concern: uncharitable neighbors. A new study from the Corporation for National and Community Service has found that Los Angeles ranks 45th out of 51 large American cities in the percentage of people who volunteer their time to help their neighbors or communities. The winners, as in so many other municipal honors, were Minneapolis-St. Paul (ranked No. 1) and Portland, Ore. (No. 2). More than 35% of residents in those cities volunteer their time, compared with 21% in Los Angeles.

Interesting question from Bill Bergfeldt in "On the Spot" ["Worldly Wisdom," Aug. 9]. I have four additional suggestions for sources of travel information: travel books and concierge service, local chamber of commerces or visitors bureaus, and AAA. On our first visits to Chicago last year and Seattle the year before, I bought some local guide books. I usually buy a Fodor's and Frommer's and others. I made notes and underlined items we might find interesting. Then I called the hotel and spoke with the concierge about our choices.

A massive power failure blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of the nation, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. Paraguay was also affected when the Itaipu dam straddling the two nations' border stopped producing 17,000 megawatts of power, resulting in outages in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and at least several other big Brazilian cities, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. The cause of the failure had not been determined.