Free Republic

SACRAMENTO -- California schools could face painful mid-year spending cuts of a $1 billion or more as a weakening economy lowers tax revenue forecasts, reducing the Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee. Non-partisan Legislative Analyst Liz Hill said last month that school funding in the current year was about $400 million above the Proposition 98 guarantee. She suggested that lawmakers look at cutting the "over-appropriation" as one way to begin closing a huge budget shortfall now reportedly estimated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to be about $14 billion over the next 18 months. Hill's estimate was made when the shortfall was believed to...

Disaster looms in land built for peace and harmony Politicians fear civil war as Musharraf's regime is battered by suicide attacks, civilian revolt and American threats Declan Walsh in Islamabad Thursday August 2, 2007 The Guardian (UK) Lawyers celebrate after the Pakistani supreme court threw out President Perveaz Musharraf's case against the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Photograph: T Mughal/EPA Decorum was abandoned as accusations ricocheted between the wood-panelled walls of Pakistan's national assembly on Monday night. "Murderers! Murderers of innocent people!" screamed an MP from a religious party, his yellow turban shaking as he wagged a finger towards the...

PHOENIX — State lawmakers are setting the stage for yet another battle at the ballot over border security and illegal immigration. On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a measure to ask voters to approve a law making it a state crime for someone who entered this country illegally to be anywhere in Arizona. That would include not just public places but even private ones. HCR 2022, which now goes to the full House, would make a first offense punishable by up to six months in jail. But repeat offenders could find themselves facing 2 1/2 years in state prison....

SACRAMENTO — Healthcare for millions of uninsured Californians looms as a top concern for the state's employers as Sacramento gears up for another session of the Legislature. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said this month that cutting healthcare costs and providing better care for the uninsured were top priorities for 2007. ... --snip-- Business groups say they are wary and wonder whether employers would be asked to cover much of the cost. In particular, they ask, who is going to pay the upward of $9-billion bill to guarantee care for the 1 out of every 6 adults and children in California who...

CORVALLIS, Ore. It may seem a mere tangle of pipes and instruments to the untrained eye. To nuclear engineer Jose Reyes, it's a sign of a coming nuclear-power plant revival in the United States with electricity produced more safely and for less money than the atomic behemoths built in the 20th century. This jumble of technology is a one-quarter-scale model of the Westinghouse AP1000 power plant. Reyes heads a team at Oregon State University that built the model to test the AP1000's so-called passive safety systems, under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy and Westinghouse. "We've conducted 20 tests...

TOMSK, Russia - The leaders of Russia and Germany urged Iran to fulfill its international nuclear obligations Thursday, a day before a U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that no one could make Tehran give up its nuclear technology, and he warned that the United States and its European allies will regret their decision if they "violate the rights of the Iranian nation." "The Iranian nation has acquired nuclear fuel production technology. It didn't get assistance from anybody and nobody can take it back," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico's indicted state treasurer resigned Wednesday shortly after lawmakers began considering whether he should be impeached. Robert Vigil's resignation came more than a month after he was arrested and charged with extortion in a federal investigation into an alleged kickback scheme involving state investments. Vigil, 52, announced his resignation, effective immediately, in a letter to Gov. Bill Richardson and Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron. "I have committed no crime, and the allegation made by the federal government are false," Vigil wrote. "I look forward to the day when a jury will hear all of...

SACRAMENTO – Four years after electricity prices soared and blackouts rolled across California, the state is in danger of another energy crisis – this one involving gasoline and natural gas as well, said a draft report Friday. The state is a captive of its own geographic and regulatory isolation, separated by miles and mountains from many refineries and fossil fuel sources. Moreover, the state sets stricter fuel standards to trim air pollution, driving up prices and limiting availability as is evident in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, said the California Energy Commission. "California's way of life is threatened by its...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - With time running out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders are engaged in delicate negotiations to see if compromise is possible on all or some of the governor's special election initiatives. The Secretary of State identified midnight Thursday as the last time the Legislature can put any new measures on the ballot. But both sides said that deadline can be extended, perhaps as long as another two weeks. Talks have been ongoing for months but appeared to be headed nowhere because neither side seemed motivated to find common ground. Recent days have seen an infusion of energy,...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named an industry lobbyist Tuesday as his pick to be the state's top air pollution regulator, angering environmentalists and provoking a confirmation fight with Senate Democrats. Cindy Tuck, who serves as top attorney for the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance - an advocacy group representing mostly energy companies and unions - is the governor's choice to become chair of the California Air Resources Board. The leader of the state Senate, which can reject the appointment, quickly announced his opposition. "As a lobbyist for major oil companies and the power plant industry, who...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's renewed call for greater cooperation between Democrats and Republicans will be tested in the coming days as the administration tries to forge a budget agreement before next week's start of the fiscal year. It may not be easy. Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature, said Wednesday they have given ground on a variety of issues and will be reluctant to compromise further. At issue is nearly $1 billion in spending that separates the two parties. Democratic leaders said they are looking for the governor to bring the two sides together. "We are...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A tranquil beach fringed with nothing but tropical forests, cattle ranches and turquoise seas is at the center of a looming battle between environmentalists and developers who plan two resorts along one of Puerto Rico's least disturbed stretches of coastline. Investors in the Marriott and Four Seasons resort projects chose the undeveloped swath near the eastern town of Fajardo for its striking beauty, a site seemingly so untouched that a film crew recently used the spot to re-enact Christopher Columbus' landfall in the Americas. Mountains covered in lush rain forests rise in the distance, and...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst warned Wednesday that while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $111.7 billion budget plan solves next year's problem, the state still faces big deficits in the future because spending remains out of balance with tax income. But Analyst Elizabeth Hill also advised against Schwarzenegger's proposed long term solution to the problem - a constitutional amendment that would trigger accross-the-board cuts when revenues fail to meet spending obligations. Hill said the measure, which Schwarzenegger wants to put before voters in a special election this year, would put even more spending "on cruise control" while undermining the Legislature's...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

US Saudi hostage ultimatum looms People in Mr Johnson's hometown are rallying round his family Saudi authorities are stepping up their search for a US hostage whose captors have threatened to kill him on Friday if their demands are not met. Paul Johnson, 49, was seized in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last Saturday. The group said on Tuesday he would be killed within 72 hours if al-Qaeda members in Saudi jails were not freed. Mr Johnson's Thai wife, Thanom, pleaded for his release on Arabic TV, as the US and Saudi Arabia insist they will not negotiate with hostage-takers. Door-to-door...

<p>In August 1996, the California Legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 1890, which provided for electric utility restructuring within the state. One of the primary goals of the bill, which was signed into law in September 1996, was to give customers a choice of electricity providers and to make available to them the expected price- reducing and service-enhancing benefits of competition.</p>

Australia watches as death looms in Nauru asylum camp By Kathy Marks in Sydney 16 December 2003 Two years after Australia introduced its so-called "Pacific Solution" for asylum-seekers, eight Afghans on the remote island of Nauru were taken to hospital yesterday after refusing food and water for almost a week. The eight are among 284 people, including 93 children, being held in a detention camp on the South Pacific island in conditions condemned as deplorable by refugee advocates. Campaigners claim that several protesters are urinating blood, and fear they may be close to death. Twenty-four men - 23 Afghans and...

<p>In a little-noticed provision of his initial budget proposal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is asking the Legislature to deny welfare recipients a cost-of-living increase that would have been triggered by his rolling back of the state car tax.</p> <p>The proposal came to light Wednesday as lawmakers started asking questions about the budget package Schwarzenegger unveiled the day before and held a strained first meeting with the governor's finance director.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Gray Davis, after months without filling a single judicial vacancy, began churning out appointments the day the election to recall him was certified, state records show. Davis has appointed 15 judges since July 23, the day the secretary of state announced the recall question would go to voters. The appointments, along with one other made two days before the special election became official, were the governor's first since April 3.</p>

<p>Some of the tens of thousands of Mexicans who were forced to renounce their nationality upon becoming U.S. citizens are scrambling to reclaim it this month at the Mexican consulates in San Jose and San Francisco.</p> <p>Faced with a March 20 deadline, some of these American citizens are applying for Mexican nationality so they can obtain a Mexican passport and take advantage of certain benefits should they or their children decide to return to their birth country.</p>

<p>The campaign for the top board post at the nation's largest and most influential public pension fund pits one of California's most powerful politicians against a state labor leader.</p> <p>On Thursday, the 13-member California Public Employees' Retirement System governing board is expected to elect as its president either San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown or Sean Harrigan, a vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.</p>

<p>Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, urged Democrats to "think hard" before passing the vehicle bill because there will be times they need bipartisan support, a sentiment echoed by Gov. Davis.</p> <p>The Senate approved a bill Monday that would allow state vehicle license fees to triple, setting the stage for an almost-certain veto by Gov. Gray Davis and a setback in efforts to address the state's fiscal crisis.</p>