FIRST homebuyers are using boosted government grants to snap up properties – in one instance for just $41,000.

Having recently completed the purchase of LaSalle Bank, Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis is expected to be in Detroit today bearing gifts: $450,000 in grants from the bank’s charitable foundation for metro organizations and individuals.

Cleveland BioLabs cut its third-quarter losses by more than half because of Defense Department grants that the Buffalo-based life sciences company won earlier this year.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. & MIAMI—-The Alpha-1 Foundation announced today that it has awarded two new research grants for projects at the University of Florida and Brandeis University.

Five Newark area organizations including the University of Delaware were recently awarded state grants to help them develop or expand their recycling programs.

Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher has announced that 87 communities were awarded more than $21 million in homeless prevention grants from the Homeless Assistance Grant Program.

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With the financial crisis increasing pressure on the Washington area’s social safety net, the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region has decided to award $526,000 in emergency grants to shore up charities that provide food, clothing, shelter and other vital services to vulnerable…

Indianapolis The School of Informatics at Indiana University has won three new grants worth $1.7 million. The money from the National Institutes of Health and Eli Lilly and Co. will support life sciences research in protein identification, human microbes and lipidomics. (Star report)

The College of Education offers two types of grants to students who wish to pursue jobs as educators. The grants are classified as Transition to Teaching Grants and include Consortium for Excellence in Rural Teacher Preparation (CERT- Prep) and CERT-Prep Ell.

The Oregon Wave Energy Trust has awarded two grants to help accelerate development of wave energy projects at Coos Bay and Reedsport.

Increases in social grants will reportedly be backdated to October.

TIFFIN — Grants totaling more than $110,000 have been approved through the state attorney general’s office for the Seneca County Prosecutor’s Office 2008-2009 Victim Assistance Program, according to Seneca County Prosecutor Ken Egbert Jr.

The Cole County Sheriff’s Department was awarded $28,750 in traffic grants for 2008-2009. Breaking it down, $11,500 will fund five sobriety checkpoints, $8,250 will be used for overtime costs and $9,000 will go towards purchasing radar guns.

Increases in social grants will be backdated to October, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said on Thursday. “I am well aware that our people will want to see these increases immediately.

The Plymouth Canton Symphony Orchestra and the Plymouth Historical Museum have been awarded grants which will be used to fund educational programs.

A pair of farms on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket have received a total of $330,000 in federal grants for wind turbines.

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