Southwest Florida businesses, homeowners may want to forget 2008 (Naples Daily News)

The only place to go from rock bottom is up.Certainly, Southwest Florida retailers, Realtors, restaurants and others whose businesses struggled because of a shaky economy in 2008 hope that 2009 brings better news. A summary of five of the top businesses stories from the past year:

Daly - I've hit rock bottom (Daily Telegraph)

BIG John Daly has told how he was at the lowest point of his life after being thrown out of golf for six months for bringing the game in to disrepute.

Coal industry backs slurry safety planning (Lexington Herald-Leader)

The coal industry will back a requirement for emergency action plans at slurry impoundments where a break would cause flooding that could kill downstream residents. The decision is a break from the industry's past stance and should make it easier to require such plans for scores of impoundments, mostly in Eastern Kentucky, that are rated as highly hazardous. That would also help protect ...

Plenty of excitement in 2008 (Douglas County News-Press)

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a year where each week had something to talk about from this area that was sports related.

Dining Guide (Grunion Gazette)

Editor’s Note: Once a month, we present an abbreviated compilation of restaurant listings.