Free Republic

AFitchburg man who faced the greatest number of looting-related criminal charges for a riot Downtown last year that followed a protest over the police custody death of a Minneapolis man pleaded guilty Tuesday to all eight of the felony charges against him as part of an agreement that placed him in a deferred prosecution program. Under the agreement between Anthony M. Torres, 21, and District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, Torres could come away with no felony convictions if he completes requirements of the Deferred Prosecution Program, which is run by the DA’s office. Five of the eight felonies would be dismissed...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government announced Thursday that it has suspended the deportation of 552,918 undocumented young people since the Deferred Action program went into effect a year ago. The government has received a total of 573,404 requests under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an immigration program implemented by the Obama administration on Aug. 15, 2012, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The program suspends for two years the deportation of qualified undocumented youths and young adults who entered the United States as minors.

'Back then, I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day." Thus spoke Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, or at least a whimsical version of him brought to life by Burt Lancaster in the 1989 baseball—some would say cornball—film "Field of Dreams." "One day, you're on top of the world. Next day, you've got to pick yourself up." So says Adam Greenberg, 25, a baseball player presently without a team, not yet sure if the one day he spent on a big-league field last year will turn out to be his only day. Greenberg...

California's Legislative Analysts Office recently reported that the state faces an unfunded liability of $40 billion to $70 billion (and growing) for state employees' retiree health costs, which would require $6 billion a year for 30 years to fund. This comes on the heels of the Los Angeles Unified School District's doubling its estimated unfunded liability for such costs to $10 billion. Those reports ratchet up the magnitude of the state's deferred-compensation disaster from a September review that found California's biggest government agencies faced over $100 billion in unfunded liabilities for existing pension, health care and workers' comp commitments (itself...

...Talking about health care, Vice President Dick Cheney noted that his opponent set up a personal corporation that allowed him to avoid paying $600,000 in Medicare taxes.... Senator Edwards responded that he had paid all the taxes he owed -- which was never in dispute -- and that he favored the closing of all such loopholes. "They ought to be closed whether they're personal, and they ought to be closed whether they apply to a corporation," he averred.... Democrats have made much out of the fact that Vice President Cheney still receives deferred compensation from his former company, Halliburton, even...

<p>Three-quarters of the states 21 bargaining units have agreed to postpone wage increases in a bid to reduce pending layoffs, the Davis administration said.</p> <p>The agreements will trim $195 million from the state payroll this fiscal year, still far short of the $1.1 billion in layoffs or deferred salary increases called for in the budget.</p>