Free Republic

Not long after I posted a reply to another post, that in considering what The Republic of Texas is looking to in reference to Governor Abbott and the winter storms disaster declarations, power grid woes and plans to repair / restructure, the word "nuclear" fairly popped into my mind. I wasn't thinking about it. I was musing as to why my stomach was growling after such a bodacious and filling breakfast. And whether I should take a nap before that. How to build a sleet/snowman with a plastic coffee container and whether if it formerly contained a "robust, bold roast",...

MIDDLEBURY — Two 14-year-old Middlebury Union Middle School students have been indefinitely pulled from classes and face juvenile court citations after allegedly cooperating on a plan to shoot a fellow student and possibly others on campus today, Tuesday, Dec. 18. • “There may be some other charges down the road, but right now it’s the treatment issues we’re dealing with.” • “It was between a couple of kids. It may have been some bullying or that kind of stuff. We’re still trying to pull (the investigation) together. There have been a lot of interviews and statements given.” • “We’ve talked...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has helped pull the U.S. economy back from the "abyss" with aggressive efforts to spur growth and stabilize financial markets, a top White House adviser said on Monday. Defending policies that Republicans have attacked as ineffective, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers argued measures put in place by the administration, including a $787 billion stimulus package, had helped turn back the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression. "Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a...

In one of the highest-profile instances of a central bank coming directly to the rescue of a commercial bank in the current credit crisis, the Bank of England agreed to provide emergency funding to Northern Rock PLC, the United Kingdom's fourth-largest mortgage lender. Northern Rock shares plunged at the opening of the trading session, falling 21% after the lender confirmed it will get a short-term credit line to offset a "severe liquidity squeeze" that cut off its access to capital. (See related article.) If current conditions persist through year-end, "there will clearly be an impact on Northern Rock's 2007 asset...

A labor showdown between the California State University system and its faculty union was averted Tuesday with a tentative accord on a new contract that provides a guaranteed pay hike of 20.7 percent over four years for professors, lecturers, coaches and librarians. Negotiators for the CSU administration and faculty reached the agreement after 23 months of labor talks and mediation, as well as a series of threatened strikes on the system's 23 university campuses. The California Faculty Assocation plans to put the proposed contract to a vote of its 12,000 dues-paying members later this month, union president John Travis told...

It all seemed so eerily familiar: a plan, a list and a school threatened by troubled teens By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News April 16, 2005 FORT COLLINS - There were more than enough clues: A shotgun pointed at a sleeping girl's head. Constant threats of violence. Gruesome drawings of

German unions and government negotiators reached a pay deal yesterday for the country's three million public service workers, heading off a strike that could have damaged the weak economy. Under the deal, hammered out in talks that included a 31-hour negotiating session, both sides agreed on a gradual pay rise of 4.4 per cent over a 27-month period, Otto Schily, the Interior Minister, said. "I think this is an acceptable compromise for the employers, [but] a compromise that as far as the financial capacity of the public purse is concerned goes to the limit of what is acceptable," Mr Schily...

NEW YORK -- Transit and union negotiators reached a tentative agreement Monday that would spare the nation's largest city a strike shutting down subways and buses and stranding 7 million daily riders, a spokesman for the union said. Union spokesman Chris Fleming would not confirm details of the deal, but government sources familiar with the talks said it would include a lump-sum payment to workers in the first year, with 2 percent to 3 percent raises in each of the next two years tied to productivity. The lump sum would be equivalent to just under 2 percent, according to the...