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STURGIS, Mich. — A few gas stations in our area have some of the cheapest fuel in the country. 

Three stations in Sturgis, Michigan are selling gas at $3.24 per gallon. So how are they able to do it?

Two Admiral stations and one Speedway station have the price for regular unleaded at $3.24, nearly 50 cents a gallon cheaper than almost every other station in the area.

“I wanted to be sure to fill up here before I got to Elkhart, because I don’t believe it’s that price there,” Cindy Mann said as she filled up at the Admiral station on West Chicago Street.

The prices caused constant in-and-out traffic with lines of cars pouring into the streets.

“For this much money if you have to fill up, definitely worth the line,” Beth Klemoff said as she waited in line.

“They’re losing money on each gallon of gas that they’re selling unless they’re somehow able buy gas in other parts of the country,” said Thomas Gresik, Notre Dame economic professor.

Greisk says gas stations usually only make a few cents to every gallon of gasoline sold. He

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Thanks to the recession, the wealth gap between whites and minorities is at its widest level in 25 years. Census data show that the median wealth of white US households was $113,149 in 2009: Thats 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households , the AP reports. One big reason: Predominantly younger minorities likely lost value in their main asset, their home, when the housing market crashed. Older white people, on the other hand, are more likely to have holdings in the stock market, which started rebounding in mid-2009.

The wealth gap was at its narrowest in 1995, at 7 to 1 for both blacks and Hispanics.

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A shot of politics with your coffee? Starbucks workers across the globe are standing with their striking Chilean counterparts in a “global week of action,” the Wall Street Journal reports. From Los Angeles to London, members of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union are picketing and distributing fliers explaining the plight of 200 Chilean baristas, who say that at $2.50 an hour, they make too little to buy lunch. The pay rate hasn’t increased in 8 years.

The Chilean workers are calling for lunch stipends, full health care coverage, and other concessions. “Doing this is the only way we can reach the company,” said the hunger-striking president of Chile’s union. But a Starb

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Budget airline Ryanair is to charge passengers 10 euros for seats with extra legroom in a bid to boost profits.

The carrier, one of the biggest operators at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, has started trials of “reserved seating” for 21 extra legroom seats on selected routes which could be rolled out across the network.

Ryanair, which has a fleet of 272 planes, yesterday highlighted the pressure of rising fuel costs on the industry after posting flat profits for its spring quarter.

It said its fuel bill rose by 49% or £123m on a year ago to £375.8m in the period between April and the end of June, depressing growth in first quarter profits to 1% at £122.6m.

The costs offset a 29% rise in revenues to £1bn, which reflected an 11% rise in average fares and an 18% jump in passenger numbers to 21.3m. Compari

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Many small businesses in the UK are optimistic about growth prospects and plan to create thousands of new jobs, research reveals.

A survey carried out among more than 1,000 European SME’s for GE Capital’s ‘SME Employment & Optimism Pulse’ found that small businesses plan to create 470,000 new jobs in the coming year. 38% of businesses said they plan to increase the number of full time employees over the next 12 months, compared to 7% who plan to reduce the number.

Almost half of all businesses surveyed are optimistic about growth prospects in their sector but there is a marked difference between small and medium sized companies.

There were 56% medium-sized businesses that felt positive about their prospects while 47% small or micro-sized businesses said they felt positive about the future forecasts. Further

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Wall Street semantics: Yesterday, Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress and mentioned the word “stimulus.” His remarks were widely interpreted to mean that the Fed was poised to take action to bolster the economy, and the markets rose in response. Today, Bernanke resumed testimony and made clear the Fed wasnt considering stimulus measures anytime soon, reports AP. Markets, which had been up 90 points, immediately tumbled, and the Dow was down about 50 points in its final hour.

Verizon Wireless said Thursday that they have activated 4G LTE technology on 12 permanent cell sites and one mobile cell site in the Saratoga Springs area.

Speed on this network is alleged to be up to ten times faster than on the company’s 3G network. Users should experience average data range of five to twelve megabits per second on the downlink and two to five megabits on the uplink, Verizon says.

Verizon aims to deliver 4G LTE to its entire 3G wireless footprint by the end of 2013 and says that 4G LTE will soon be available in Ithaca and Syracuse.

Some 30% of unemployed workers across the US—about 4.4 million people—had been jobless for more than a year as of last month, Labor Department data shows. Long unemployment periods were especially pronounced in New Jersey , Georgia , Michigan , South Carolina , North Carolina , Illinois , and Florida , the Wall Street Journal reports.

“It really is going to take a concentrated effort of employers to give people a chance who havent worked in a while,” says a Labor Department official. “I dont want us to say this is the new normal and move on.” But those who are jobless for a long stretch often have a harder time getting back to work, the Journal notes, adding that older, highly educated Americans tend to experience the longest periods of joblessness. That could

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