Free Republic

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A key player in the state's powerful education lobby on Friday criticized a Democratic compromise proposal on the state budget, throwing a last-minute curve into talks that both sides said were progressing toward a possible deal. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature's Democratic majority have been separated for weeks on spending differences that total less than 1 percent of an estimated $116 billion annual spending plan. The divide, however small, is as much philosophical as fiscal, illustrating the Republicans' desire to pass a budget that doesn't add a single dollar in deficit spending. At issue is money...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Since being founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the American Philosophical Society has collected just about every kind of trinket, piece of Americana and oddity imaginable. The problem is, much of it has never been on display. So after trolling through its vast collections, the group has assembled and put on exhibit a broad array of artifacts, historical documents, inventions and other items, many of which have been tucked away for decades. "It's extremely broad in that way," curator Sue Ann Prince said of "Treasures Revealed: 260 Years of Collecting at the American Philosophical Society," which opened...