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The bill initially would have allowed Georgians to decline service for same-sex weddings if doing so violated their religious beliefs. But, sensing the coming storm, Mr. Deal urged lawmakers to make substantial changes to the legislation before passing it.“I know there are a lot of Georgians who feel like this is a necessary step for us to take,” Mr. Deal said during deliberations over the bill. “I would hope that in the process of these last few days, we can keep in mind the concerns of the faith-based community, which I believe can be protected without setting up the situation where we could be accused of allowing or encouraging discrimination.”
When Becky Guidry of Gulfport emailed freshman Rep. Karl Oliver, R-Winona, expressing her concerns about the tax breaks being considered by the Legislature, she was shocked by his response. "It is irresponsible of our leadership to suggest eliminating income and corporate franchise taxes when: revenue projections are already down, budgets for various services are being cut across the board, funding for public education and other critical services such as child care, foster care and roads/bridges are underfunded," Guidry wrote in an email she said she sent to most representatives. "... If and when this bill reaches the full House for a vote, again, I urge you to vote No."Cutting taxes in a red state!? Who ever heard of such a thing? Needless to say, Oliver had a fitting response:
A 25-year-old black woman was shot and killed by police officers in Virginia on Saturday after threatening them with what turned out to be a fake handgun, police said. Investigators with the Norfolk Police Department's Vice and Narcotics Division were conducting a surveillance operation when they came across a fight in a parking lot, police said.
Long before the Meitivs of Silver Spring clashed with Montgomery County over their young children’s walk home alone from a park, other parents across the country were at odds with authorities over similar questions: How much supervision do children need, and when are they truly at risk?
In Austin, Kari Anne Roy, 38, a children’s author, was investigated for neglect after her children walked the dog one day in August and her 6-year-old lagged behind, playing on an outdoor bench a few houses down the street.In Port St. Lucie, Fla., Nicole Gainey, 35, a mother of two, was arrested for letting her 7-year-old son walk alone to a park and play there, about half a mile away from their home in the town where she grew up.
One of most the most publicized recent cases involved Debra Harrell in North Augusta, S.C., who allegedly allowed her 9-year-old daughter to play at a park while she worked at a McDonald’s as a shift manager.
If the Marines were called today to respond to an unexpected crisis, they might not be ready, a top Marine general told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.Gen. John Paxton, assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, testified to lawmakers that the Marines could face more casualties in a war and might not be able to deter a potential enemy.
“I worry about the capability and the capacity to win in a major fight somewhere else right now,” he said, citing a lack of training and equipment.
Paxton, along with the vice chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, spoke to the Senate committee on the readiness challenges facing each service after 15 years of war and recent budget cuts.
Aside from the wonkiest of Washington circles and the most progressive corners of the left, no one’s heard of Tom Perez. He isn’t young or handsome. He has zero foreign policy experience. The highest office he’s been elected to is a suburban county council. Yet the labor secretary has emerged as a sleeper pick for vice president, with chatter building among top Democrats — including Elizabeth Warren.
I'm enjoying the irony of American Sanders supporters lecturing me, a former Soviet citizen, on the glories of Socialism and what it really means! Socialism sounds great in speech soundbites and on Facebook, but please keep it there. In practice, it corrodes not only the economy but the human spirit itself, and the ambition and achievement that made modern capitalism possible and brought billions of people out of poverty. Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism. Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely. But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd.
Republicans in Butler County honored former Speaker John Boehner three days before residents across Ohio's 8th District will vote on his replacement in Congress. But on Saturday, Boehner was more interested in talking about the presidential race. One day before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to speak in West Chester, Boehner endorsed Ohio Gov. John Kasich for president.
Just 50 feet in front of the podium where Trump was scheduled to appear at any moment, Nathaniel Lewis, a 25-year-old African-American graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, had established a beachhead of sorts: a pocket of about three dozen college students and activists. They were ready, too. What Lewis and dozens of his UIC classmates had planned was perhaps bigger—and better organized—than any protest Trump had faced to date. It had been a week in the making, and now everyone was in place: with roughly 2,500 on the street outside and hundreds more inside, including dozens working directly with Lewis. As they waited, the crowd growing loud around them, a few were starting to feel doubts about what they were hoping to do.
Former employees say spending has skyrocketed since Steven Nardizzi took over as CEO in 2009. Many point to the 2014 annual meeting at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs as typical of his style. "He rappelled down the side of a building at one of the all hands events. He's come in on a Segway, he's come in on a horse." About 500 staff members attended the four-day conference in Colorado. The price tag? About $3 million.
It will soon be legal for adults in West Virginia to carry hidden handguns with no training and without a permit, after the Legislature acted swiftly, and against the wishes of law enforcement, to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s veto of the legislation. Tomblin held a rare veto-signing ceremony Thursday, surrounded by dozens of police officers, to try to convince legislators to let the veto stand. “I urge you to look around this room for a moment and see that law enforcement are concerned about this bill,” Tomblin said Thursday. They didn’t listen.
Navy SEAL teams don't have enough combat rifles to go around, even as these highly trained forces are relied on more than ever to carry out counterterrorism operations and other secretive missions, according to SEALs who have confided in Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. After SEALs return from a deployment, their rifles are given to other commandos who are shipping out, said Hunter, a former Marine who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. This weapons carousel undercuts the "train like you fight" ethos of the U.S. special operations forces, they said.According to Hunter, money is not the problem, and citing one reason for the problem, a SEAL explains that the slow-moving bureaucracy can take as long four years to approve new combat rifle purchases.
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