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SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California may speed up the release of some inmates while allowing other inmates with a violent history to become firefighters, under a proposal to cut crowding in state prisons filed by Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday night. Brown filed the plan "under protest," said Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard. Brown warned that the options he presented to the court would undermine public safety, and Beard reiterated that the state plans to appeal in an attempt to avoid going through with the measures. The governor's plan calls for increasing early release credits for inmates and paroling elderly and incapacitated prisoners, while...

WACO, Texas - President Barack Obama, standing before a line of flag-draped coffins, consoled family and friends on Thursday at a memorial service for firefighters killed in a massive explosion last week at a Texas fertilizer plant. The deaths of 14 people, nearly all of them emergency responders, ripped a hole in the heart of the town of West, where farming is a way of life and where many people volunteer for the fire department in their spare time. "To the families, the neighbors grappling with unbearable loss, we are here to say you are not alone. You are not...

This is a northeast suburb of Atlanta in Gwinnett County SUWANEE — Five Gwinnett County firefighters are being held hostage at home in Suwanee. Gwinnett County police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter said that, as of 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, a gunman was holding the handful of firefighters hostage at a home at 2440 Walnut Grove Way, not far from the intersection of Collins Hill and Taylor roads. "It appears that the fire department responded to this residence for some type of medical call," Ritter said. "I have very little information on the motive at this time." The police department's SWAT team...

A gunman was barricaded in a home in Georgia on Wednesday with four firefighters he took as hostages after they responded to what appeared to be a medical emergency call, officials said. The man initially held a fifth firefighter captive in the home, in Suwanee, about 35 miles northeast of Atlanta, but let that person leave to move a fire truck, police and fire officials said. Officials were not releasing details about what happened inside the house or a possible motive but said the hostages did not appear to have been harmed.

They coulda' been contenders — and now they have a second chance. Nearly 300 black and Latino firefighter candidates who didn’t score high enough to join the FDNY in 1999 and 2002 are getting a rare opportunity take their entrance exams again. They’ll sit for the FDNY written exam Friday, and an intense physical fitness test will follow later. If they can rack up passing grades on both, the job with generous pension, sick pay and other benefits could be within their grasp. The break is part of a controversial ruling from Brooklyn Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who in July found...

WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) — Residents of a suburban Rochester, N.Y., neighborhood gutted by a fire set by a man who gunned down four volunteer firefighters have been allowed to return to their homes. Local media outlets report that authorities began letting homeowners return to their properties in Webster on Tuesday, a day after 62-year-old William Spengler shot four firefighters, killing two, after setting the pre-dawn blaze that destroyed seven homes along Lake Ontario and damaged two others.

Webster, N.Y. -- 13WHAM News has learned several people have been shot at the scene of a fire on Lake Road in Webster. The fire is at 191 Lake Road near Bay Road. A source tells 13WHAM News that at that scene, an unknown gunman opened fire on fire crews on the scene. The victims have been taken by Mercy Flight to area hospitals. The fire has now spread to a second house. 13WHAM has several crews converging on the scene and will provide updates at they're available.

Two days after Anonymous and other hacker groups announced their intention to destroy the Westboro Baptist Church over the group's plan to picket the funerals of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, firefighters and police in New England worked together to shield the funerals from the WBC.

A bedbug infestation at a Northwest Washington fire station left firefighters sleeping in their personal vehicles or in the firetrucks to avoid being bitten by the bugs in their bunkrooms, a report on the conditions at D.C. firehouses found. The 180-page report by the Office of the Inspector General details a wide swath of problematic conditions at D.C. fire stations across the city, including a lack of working smoke detectors, leaking roofs, flooded basements, rodent infestations and inoperable heating or cooling systems. Among the findings, 19 stations had significant rodent problems with one reporting that dead mice had been found...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A former Los Angeles mayor leading an effort to change pensions plans for newly-hired public employees says he has evidence that a low-level union member is behind an alleged illegal counter-campaign. KNX 1070′s Bill Polish reports Richard Riordan is hoping to amass enough signatures to put a plan to transition newly-hired city workers away from taxpayer-guaranteed pensions and towards 401(k)-style accounts before voters in May. Download: 2-fraud-bpo-w-rick-riordan-fmr-la-mayor.mp3 According to an email obtained and released by Riordan, an employee with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 721 sent out an email calling on members to sign...

A friend, who's a US commercial airlines pilot, sent this video to me, and it's just amazing. The skill of a water take-off, water-dump on fires, a water landing and re-filling, and taking-off again, probably dozens and hundreds of times, is absolutely amazing. Looks like 3+ -aircraft involved. The photography/video is beautifully done. This is the Spanish AF, though I've not see any USAF videos of this, but a few films of private firms dumping a reddish fire retardant on the western fires this past summer. I can't even begin to imagine the skill this takes. Anyway, enjoy it and...

Created for OMG! For America, join the fun on Facebook here, or get involved in their grassroots efforts at the main website here.

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Justice Department sued the city of Jacksonville, Florida, on Monday, claiming its use of written tests to determine promotions in the city's fire department discriminates against African-Americans. The lawsuit followed a more than two-year investigation examining Jacksonville's record of promoting African-Americans for the ranks of lieutenant, captain, district chief and engineer dating back to 2004. It came after a separate lawsuit filed last year by two dozen Jacksonville firefighters challenging the city's promotional process. In the lawsuit, the firefighters alleged union officials unfairly shared exam questions with white workers but not with black workers ahead of...

A new employee compensation study by Clark County administrators shows average firefighter compensation dipped to $175,000 in 2011 from about $189,000 in fiscal year 2010. Almost all of the decline stems from a drop in overtime pay to firefighters. During the last two years, overtime compensation for firefighters fell from $17.4 million in 2009 to $10.5 million in 2011. In 2009, overtime made up 24 percent of a firefighters' wages; in 2011, it made up 15 percent.

The last time this happened, our thread ran for more than 1,100 comments. To refresh your memory: The city charges a $75 fee up front for firefighter services throughout the year. Pay the fee and the F.D. will show up and douse the flames that are consuming your home. Don’t pay and the F.D. will show up and … watch it burn. I can understand a policy in which paying the fee gives you priority over a non-payer if your house and their house are on fire simultaneously and the department has to choose which to respond to. And I...

Retired Portland police and firefighters sue city to keep pension overpaymentsBy Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian Updated: Wednesday, September 07, 2011, 11:15 PM More than 500 retired Portland police and firefighters and their spouses have brought a class action lawsuit against the city, arguing that Portland's public safety retirement fund breached their contract by trying to recoup nearly $3 million the fund mistakenly overpaid them in pension benefits. The lawsuit, filed initially by five plaintiffs in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeks to stop the Portland Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Fund from withholding pension payments that the fund's board says...

They pedaled through intense heat, pouring rain and pounding hail, but nearly a dozen firefighters who left on bicycles from Los Angeles six weeks ago made it to New York just in time. "They've been unstoppable," said Erik Scott, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. "I think some of the amazing things they've done is the terrain they've gone through," Scott said. "They are exhausted but in good spirits." As part of the national "Ride for 9-11," firefighters from Los Angeles city and county and other stations across Southern California cycled cross-country to raise money for charity and honor...

One hundred and ninety motorcycles, driven mostly by Chicago firefighters, are on their way to New York for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The motorcycles left on Tuesday morning from US Cellular Field and will make stops at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where flight 93 went down, and at the Pentagon, before reaching Ground Zero on September 11th. Tom Maloney, a Lieutenant for the Chicago Fire Deparment, started the Chicago to New York motorcycle ride after the 9/11 attacks. Maloney and several other Chicago firefighters traveled to New York after the attacks to help the New York firefighters dig through the rubble....

Chicago will hire 111 bypassed black firefighters by March 2012 and pay at least $30 million in damages to some 6,000 others who will never get that chance, under a court order expected to be approved Wednesday by a federal judge. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that African-American candidates did not wait too long before filing a lawsuit that accused the city of discriminating against them for the way it handled a 1995 firefighter’s entrance exam. A federal appeals court affirmed that ruling in May and remanded the case back to the trial court to implement a...

WASHINGTON - The cops, firefighters and rescue workers who toiled at Ground Zero will not be invited to take part in the 10th anniversary ceremony, a city official told the Daily News Friday. First responders will instead be asked back to the site at another day for a separate commemorative ceremony, city officials said.

The Ride for 9-11 is officially underway. Southern California area firefighters, both active-duty and retired, departed this morning from the LAFD Historical Society Museum located at Old Fire Station 27 in Hollywood. The 3,308 mile bicycle ride across the United States is being undertaken in order to honor and keep alive the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice 10 years ago and those who continue to fight for our freedom and safety today. The Ride for 9-11 will cross 15 states over the next 47 days with riders slated to arrive in New York at the FDNY Firefighters...

All across America, municipal governments are awakening to the costs of overly-generous public sector compensation. In Orange County, California, the average total pay and benefits package for a firefighter is $175,000 a year. Firefighter unions say that there can be no cuts to fire department budgets without putting the safety of the public at risk. Yet for most of the nation's history, firefighting services were reliably provided by the private sector. Today, one county in Georgia is showing how that can be done again. The history of firefighting is instructive. After the traumas of the Great Fire of London in...

Complete Proof of the $12 Trillion Republican Debt Just below you can see the calculation and the documentation links for the Reagan-Bushes $12 Trillion ($12,049 Billion) national debt as of September 30, 2010. You can download this as an excel spreadsheet by clicking: Download as XLS. Their debt has 4 parts, but the bulk of it is calculated from 4 inputs (yellow and tan) that you can check with the color coded links to the treasury at the bottom. This will verify the $3.4 Trillion Reagan-Bush debt and the $6.1 Trillion G.W. Bush debt. Together that's $9.5 Trillion. Now some...

After introducing his controversial contingency plan, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) is working with majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) to craft a “hybrid” solution that would allow the debt ceiling to rise and include a modest amount of spending cuts: WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top two officials are working on what one aide called a “hybrid,” fail-safe solution to the debt ceiling debate that could garner enough political support to pass Congress. The plan, which is being hatched by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would ensure that over $1.5...

Now that the table is set, here’s how the proposed plan would work: Republicans in Congress would agree to vote to authorize the president to propose three separate incremental debt ceiling increases, spaced over the remainder of his term. He would be required to couple each request with a corresponding set of spending cuts that exceed the dollar amount of his sought-after debt limit hike. These cuts would be of his choosing alone. The first pair of requests would come prior to the August 2 deadline. It would be for roughly $700 Billion. The next requests, for $900 Billion, would...

Media reports today are that a target of $2.4 trillion in deficit reductions is being negotiated to match an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion to get the government funded into early 2013. The 18 months of borrowing from August 2011 through February 2013 works out to an annual rate of $1.6 trillion. That means the current deal allows for more deficit spending than FY 2011 ($1.5 trillion) and much more than the White House proposed earlier this year for FY 2012 ($1.1 trillion).The proposed deficit reductions are spread out over the next ten years and appears to...

Racine - A float commemorating firefighters' sacrifices in the terrorist attacks of 9-11 that had been embroiled in political controversy over the last week drew an enthusiastic welcome Monday morning at the Racine Fourth of July parade. Parade-goers grew silent then stood and applauded as Oak Creek firefighter Matt Gorniak drove the float down Main St. featuring a firefighter erecting an American flag on the smoking remains of the twin towers. Shouts of "there it is" and "is this the one?" could be heard from the crowd as the float approached to the sound of bagpipes. "I was in tears,"...

These days, almost anything can get caught in the blender of Wisconsin's union politics. It can even happen to a Fourth of July parade float honoring firefighters and cops killed on Sept. 11, 2001. "Back then, the public wasn't saying, 'How sad for the union' - they were saying, 'Those were firefighters who died,'" said Matt Gorniak, a Milwaukee-area fire lieutenant who is the driving force behind the float. "That's what this is about. It's above union, nonunion." Or at least it should be. The same float - a re-enactment of the famous photo of three firefighters raising the American...

On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people were killed by terrorists. The terrorists were indiscriminate in their slaughter of lives—while the attacks were an attack on America, the terrorists did not care whether those they killed were exclusively American or not, nor did they care whether or not the victims were carrying a union card. In New York, there were first responders killed on September 11th, 343 of them from the FDNY, many of them who happened to be members of a union, the IAFF. Yet, in Racine, Wisconsin, the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 321 has made this...

Firefighters union accused of intimidation tacticsUpdated: Jun 28, 2011 1:04 PM EDT Public employee unions in San Diego are accused of using intimidation tactics to slow down signature drives to put a pension reform measure on the ballot next year. The firefighters union has the most to lose if the voters approve pension reform because new hires will lose the lucrative benefits that current firefighters enjoy. They, and others, have taken their cause to the streets. The unions are tracking down the locations of the signature gatherers, and their job is to keep as many people from signing as possible....

A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because they say the sign violates the separation of church and state. The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men. “There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s...

Noticeably missing from San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's lengthy introduction of the city's "official family" at Friday's funeral of two firefighters was public defender and pension reform advocate Jeff Adachi. That's because Adachi, who had been standing with other dignitaries at the memorial outside of St. Mary's Cathedral, was asked to leave before the service started.According to witnesses, a large firefighter in uniform came up to Adachi and asked him to leave, at the request of a member of the fallen firefighter's family.When asked about the incident, Adachi confirmed that he had been asked to leave. "I had gone to...

ORANGE COUNTY, Florida (NBC) -- A Florida firefighter has been fired and another has been demoted in connection with a road rage incident in Orange County. Fire officials said a video was released showing Orange County fire engineer David Jordan driving a 15-ton truck and tailgating a car, whose driver wouldn't move over, last May 1. Investigators said Jordan nearly hits the car several times, even though he has room to go around the car. The car then gets into the left turn lane, which investigators said, by law it should have pulled off on the right shoulder and stopped...

JUSTICE SERVED? The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 black applicants who passed a firefighters entrance exam 16 years ago and pay millions of dollars to thousands more who took and passed the same test. Was justice served? An attorney for the group said that the 111 jobs would be filled from applicants who passed the 1995 test and that their pensions would be adjusted as if they’d been firefighters since 1995. Attorney Joshua Karsh also said that 6,000 other blacks who also passed the test will divide “tens of...

The most dramatic political development (in terms of state governance) so far this year has been the passage of anti-public employee union legislation in the Middle West. Next Tuesday, Wisconsin will give us our first look at the political consequences, when people there will vote in a statewide special election for a State Supreme Court seat. That election has become a de facto referendum on Governor Scott Walker's legislative (and anti-union) agenda. Our sources indicate that the Republican incumbent, who won the February primary vote in a near-landslide, no longer commands a majority in private polling and that turnout will...

I'm surprised they don't include images of dead bodies. No doubt firefighters perform heroic acts everyday - including that awful day in Oklahoma City when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. But to use images from that attack to oppose a law that would affect union collective bargaining procedures? NewsOK: [link] A state senator today blasted a firefighter union television advertisement as "horrific and tasteless" for using images of the Oklahoma City bombing to make a case against his bill. The advertisement by the International Association of Firefighters began airing today. It...

On the day that the bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly effectively ending 50 years of collective bargaining in Wisconsin and eviscerating the ability of public unions to raise money through dues, a new front opened in the battle for the future of Wisconsin families. Bagpipes blaring, hundreds of firefighters walked across the street from the Wisconsin Capitol building, stood outside the Marshall and Ilsley Bank (M&I Bank) and played a few tunes — loudly. Later, a group of firefighter and consumers stopped back in at the bank to make a few transactions. One by one they closed their accounts and...

Los Angeles - Thousands of mourners gathered today for a funeral at the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to remember Los Angeles firefighter Glenn Allen, who was killed battling a blaze in the Hollywood Hills. "Glenn Allen was a beloved husband, father, brother, and son, a 36-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department, who like his father before him, dedicated his life to the most selfless public service there is -- saving other people who find themselves in harm's way," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said during his eulogy. "He was a giant on the force." The funeral...

San Diego, Calif., Jan 31, 2011 / 01:12 pm (CNA).- Members of the San Diego Fire Department have won a sexual harassment lawsuit against the city for being forced to participate in a local gay pride parade in 2007. On Jan. 26, the California Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the city and instead upheld a lower court ruling in favor of the firefighters. The move ends a several-year legal legal battle for four firefighters who lodged a complaint against San Diego for being forced to participate in the city’s gay pride parade in 2007. Although the...

Those of us who have worn the uniform and their families know what God, sacrifice, duty, honor and country are all about. I humbly ask my fellow veterans, service personnel, law enforcement, firefighters, first responders and their families to give generously to FreeRepublic so that it might survive and thrive in a world constantly threatened by socialism, communism, totalitarianism and other threats to our freedom and liberty. The recent shootings in Tucson, Arizona and the Left's attempts (before the victims were in an ambulance) to blame conservatives, the Tea Party Movement, talk radio and Governor Sarah Palin just illustrates the...

PASADENA, Calif. -- Thousands of volunteers were hard at work in Pasadena and Irwindale getting the floats ready for the 122nd Rose Parade Presented by Honda, but one float in particular is much more than just a float. "It's a dream come true for me. This is something I've wanted to do for nine years," said Jerry Thomsen, a firefighter specialist. When America was attacked more than nine years ago, a group of Los Angeles firefighters headed to Ground Zero to help, and Thomsen was among them. Now he and his L.A. firefighting buddies are honoring their fallen comrades in...

(CNN) -- A 27-year-old mother surrendered her baby girl to firefighters in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, authorities said Saturday. She told firefighters at Fire Station 46 that the newborn was just six hours old. The firefighters accepted the girl, wrapping her in a blanket. She was healthy and did not appear to have been neglected or abused. Firefighters named the newborn Noel, in honor of the Christmas holiday...

PROVIDENCE — Two management-level firefighters are back among the union ranks, at their request, an action decried by two City Council members who say it was done to increase their pensions. With the lower rank of first-class firefighter, the near-retirement employees can benefit from the 3-percent compounding cost-of-living-adjustments provided to union members hired before July 1, 2010. They will also receive pension benefits based on their higher, management salaries if they retire now. (Pension benefits are based on the highest of the last three years of service.) “It is quite clear that the voluntary reduction in ranks just granted these...

Tennessee house in ashes after homeowner 'forgot' to pay $75 fee Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the...

A vet said Moses was unharmed by the ordeal Firefighters in the US state of Oregon have had to use all their shovelling skills to do a delicate job: dig a camel out of a sinkhole. They were called by the Clackamas County owners of the 1,500lb (680kg) animal, named Moses, who said they were simply unable to free him. The rescuers had to dig for hours to rescue Moses, whose long skinny legs were deep in the mud. A veterinarian later checked the animal and said he was unhurt. The firefighters got a call from the animal's owners late...

In the days after 9/11 I remember reading a poem here on FR about the Firefighters who died in the Towers. Each stanza began with "Up Up"... shouted the Leutenant, bellowed the Captain, the Chief... the final stanza began: Up Up called the angels... can you help me find it? thanks

9 city firefighters, paramedics to jog in N.Y. 5K honoring firefighter killed on 9-11 With the benefit of hindsight, it's not a fair question to ask if other firefighters would do what Stephen Siller did that awful day. We know it cost him his life, along with 342 other New York firefighters and paramedics at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Siller was off duty and on his way to play golf, but when he heard about planes hitting the towers he drove from Brooklyn toward Manhattan. When he found the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel shut down, he abandoned his...

Oakland, California - (Helmet Cam) Firefighters performed rescue breathing on a dog that was found unconscious/unresponsive in a house fire.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Firefighters from two nations took off Thursday on a round-the-clock run from Southern California to New York in remembrance of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Tour of Duty run officially began with a flag ceremony at 8:46 a.m. - the time when the first plane struck New York's twin towers in 2001. Several New York firefighters were running, including James Dowdell. His father, firefighter Kevin Dowdell, was among more than 400 emergency workers killed while responding to the attack. Firefighters feel "a special kinship" with firefighters who died, North Las Vegas fire Capt....

Atlas reader Madeline left this comment:I say this through tears, I really mean it. When your job calls for you to risk everything for something enormous and you rise to the occasion to do it, you are driven by sheer passion for what you do. I saw Robert and Hannity as two forces to be reckoned with, as you have been Pamela. On the morning of 9/11, I was putting my youngest son on his bus to first grade. It was his first day since a week before on the correct first day of school, he woke up with acute...