Free Republic

LEOMINSTER — About 50 full-time jobs will be eliminated at the HealthAlliance Hospital — Leominster Campus, and one of two planned expansion projects may be cut back. Mary Lourdes Burke, chief communications officer for the hospital, said yesterday the job cuts do not mean 50 layoffs, because some were vacant positions that will not be filled, and some were positions that had hours reduced. Also, she said, some union contracts required moving employees into other posts. The cuts were made from the main Leominster Campus, the Burbank Campus in Fitchburg, and the HealthAlliance Homehealth & Hospice on Tucker Drive in...

No matter how bad the news, no matter how grim the headlines, you could always count on a smile from at least one corner of the daily newspaper: the comics. But in this day when we could use a laugh more than ever, the reality facing the comics section is anything but funny. With the newspaper business hemorrhaging readers and money, newspapers are slicing the number of strips they carry. Artist and filmmaker Mark Tatulli said he has seen 30 newspapers drop his strip "Lio" in the last 18 months. "Newspapers are saving money wherever they can, and they are...

The Bee announced another round of staff cutbacks today due to what its publisher called "a prolonged period of revenue declines." The paper said 25 jobs will be eliminated as of Jan. 29, and the paper hopes almost all of the cuts can be achieved through voluntary buyouts within specific departments. If the paper can't get enough workers to agree to buyouts, then it will resort to layoffs to reach the goal. The cutbacks are the fourth and smallest to hit the newspaper in the last 18 months, and the first since last March. They will affect 2.7 percent of...

If the holiday shopping sea son gets off to a bad start today, maybe we should blame all the blessings we were thankful for yesterday. It's heresy to say this -- what with retailers looking to sell Americans a lot of stuff this Christmas -- but sometimes people just have enough things. So, as families sat down at their Thanksgiving table yesterday, the decision-makers probably looked around the room and saw gadgets galore that were bought during better times. And since said decision-makers are petrified about the job market -- and are about to be even more scared next week...

For all of his lavish new spending plans, President Obama is making one major exception: defense.

Untouchable or expendable? Most still shell out for Internet -- but not posh purses Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:25 AM By Margaret Harding THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Hard times, choices In tough times, consumers are willing to chop some expenses, but not others, according to a survey by BIGresearch. A look at what people said they had to have or were willing to give up, and the percentage of those surveyed who said so: Must-haves Internet service: 80.9 percent Cell-phone service: 64.1 percent Basic cable/satellite: 60.5 percent Discount apparel: 43 percent Haircuts, colors: 40 percent Expendables Luxury handbags: 92.2 percent Satellite...

By BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau Published: 1/16/2009 9:56 AM Last Modified: 1/16/2009 5:59 PM OKLAHOMA CITY - Lawmakers will have about $600 million less to spend on the state budget for fiscal year 2010, Gov. Brad Henry said. “There are going to be some cuts,” Henry said Friday. “State agencies need to be aware of that. They need to brace for the cuts. It is going to be a very challenging fiscal environment and many tough decisions will be made.” The governor said he will do everything he can to preserve jobs and avoid layoffs or furloughs. The state...

U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson wants to curb government spending by halting federal hiring. If elected, Thompson said, he would stop government agencies from acquiring new personnel for one year and his administration would perform senior-level assessments of agency priorities. “This will give a new administration time to assess its personnel requirements in order to ‘right size’ the federal workforce,” according to a statement posted earlier this week on Thompson’s campaign Web site. Two other candidates have promised to reshape the federal workforce. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he would not rehire half the positions that will...

Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer have been complaining for a week now about an $80 million cutback in New York City's anti-terrorism funding by the Department of Homeland Security. But it turns out that they both voted to make substantial cuts in the city's terrorism funding last year. According to Newsday, the Democratic duo backed a $95 million cut last December in funding from the Centers for Disease Control for bioterrorism programs around the nation. Of that amount, approximately $3 million would have gone directly to New York City. Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic co-hort actually wanted to cut...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's plan for the Navy calls for buying fewer ships, while China, a potential security hot spot, is increasing and repositioning its fleet. It's a prospect that concerns some lawmakers. The plan is contained in Bush's 2006 budget proposal, which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday defended, saying the military was closely watching China's moves but that the U.S. Navy remains the pre-eminent fleet. "The United States Navy ... is the Navy on the face of the Earth that is a true blue water navy," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "On the other hand,...

National NFRA: US Government Votes to Raise Oil Prices in OPEC CIA AND OTHER U. S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES HELP OIL CARTEL OPEC IN OIL PRODUCTION CUTBACKS TO SKYROCKET OIL PRICES WORLDWIDE By Carl Olson U. S. intelligence agencies have a duty to assist occupied Iraq and its oil cartel Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. "The President and Congress should reveal what help American spy agencies have provided to OPEC in causing skyrocketing oil prices," stated Carl Olson, Chairman of State Department Watch, a nonpartisan foreign policy watchdog group headquartered in Washington, D. C. "The American public does not deserve to...

<p>Welfare-to-work grants, therapy for developmentally disabled people and projects to relieve traffic congestion would all take cuts under a proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to submit to the Legislature today.</p> <p>Overall, the Republican governor's proposal would save the state $1.9 billion this year and about the same amount in the following fiscal year.</p>

<p>Nellie Plank, 96, was forced out of a nursing home by Medicaid cuts and now lives with her son, James Hosier. "I've called a bunch of politicians and that was really a big help," Hosier said sarcastically. "I've voted my last vote — there's no point to it. You call when you need help and all you get is a bunch of bull, blaming it on somebody else."</p>

<p>Educators bracing for financial disaster were somewhat relieved that the Senate budget plan -- which slashes about $2 billion in school funding -- isn't as damaging as they expected.</p> <p>The Senate plan passed Sunday preserves voter-approved minimum funding for schools and largely mirrors Gov. Gray Davis' budget blueprint issued in May. But the bill, which the Assembly was expected to consider as early as Monday evening, still cuts deeply into specific programs that provide summer school, reading assistance and textbooks for students.</p>

Sacramento's fiscal woes damage quality of life and public optimism. By D.J. Waldie Like a bulldozed hillside above Los Angeles waiting for more tract houses, optimism in California is starting to erode. We don't know exactly what's happening, only that we're finally at the end of a year of public dissimulation about the readiness of the state's $35-billion budget shortfall to consume large parts of the way of life that we've wished into existence since 1945. Our California — imperfect, heedless and lovely — is our home, and it's beginning to feel awfully neglected.

<p>More than 250 school employees in Rapides Parish could be out of a job next school year if the latest budget-slashing suggestions are adopted.</p> <p>Suggested personnel cuts include 171 certified teachers, librarians and counselors, 13 Central Office workers and 31 custodians.</p>

MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian navy has decided to scrap about one-fifth of its ships because of a lack of funds to maintain them, its commander said in an interview published Sunday. "The navy will decommission those ships that to keep results in unreasonable expenses," Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov told the military official daily Krasnaya Zvezda, or Red Star. "I regret to say that it will reduce the number of navy ships by about one-fifth of their current number." Kuroyedov did not say how many ships the navy currently has, but Western experts have put their number at about 300. Kuroyedov...

<p>BOSTON (AP) At a time of deep cutbacks in state services, there is at least one area where spending will increase next year: legislative pay.</p> <p>Massachusetts' 200 lawmakers will automatically receive a pay increase an amount yet to be determined under a constitutional amendment approved by voters four years ago.</p>

<p>DENVER, Colo. — Twenty Denver judges are donating part of their salary to bailiffs, clerks and other court employees who have been ordered to take three days off without pay to help ease a state budget crisis.</p> <p>Each judge is giving $600 toward a fund for the furloughed workers to show support for what they say are underpaid employees who keep an overloaded system running. Each worker will get $100 before the holidays.</p>