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Georgia parole board hearing last-ditch appeal from death-row inmate

September 19, 2011 admin No comments

Parole Board of Georgia called Monday morning to hear a last-minute appeal to Troy Davis, who is set to die by lethal injection for the murder 21 years ago, a Savannah police officer.

A jury convicted Davis’s murder in 1991, paving the way for his execution was delayed three times and is now scheduled for 19 am on Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia.

Georgia Board of Paroles and the forgiveness of the press release said Sunday, is “the sole authority to grant clemency to inmates in Georgia.” Options include onboard commuting the death sentence without parole, the prisoner’s life, or deny the grace – which in this case would be the way for Davis execution.

In addition to Davis and his followers make their appeal, the victim’s mother, Anneliese MacPhail, told CNN this weekend, also plans to attend.

Many supporters of Davis, who believe it was wrongly convicted and demonstrated in recent days to demand their release, they are not allowed to enter, but in a statement Sunday, the leaders of Amnesty International NAACP and Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Death, issued a new call for people to join them on Monday for prayer, musical performances and speeches in front of the building where the board meets.

These groups were about 300 demonstrations, vigils and demonstrations around the world last week. Moreover, they say that more than one million people signed a petition supporting the candidacy Davis’ to be released.

Since 1991 his conviction, seven of nine to testify against him have recanted their testimony or contradict. There were questions on physical evidence – and according to some, the lack of it – in combination with Davis for the killing.

But the mother of Mark MacPhail, was killed by the police that night, said that the rally did not understand all the facts. He is convinced that Davis shot his son, and that the jury’s decision was right to condemn.

“I’m not after blood, I’m for justice,” said Anneliese MacPhail, who added that she intends to attend the execution. “I want my child rest in peace.”

In 2008, the declaration, then Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton described by Davis, Savannah was the pool party, when he shot another man, Michael Cooper, in the face. Davis was then pushed near the mounted gun store where the homeless, Larry Young, who had just bought a beer.

Soon after, prosecutors said MacPhail – who was working in uniform, off duty at the bus station nearby and a restaurant – has arrived. That was then, the jury determined that Davis fired three times the official, once as a face while she was on him.

Davis’s lawyers, in a petition a U.S. District Court, insisted that “no physical evidence linking” to kill Davis Macphail. They note, “the banal conclusion” of a ballistics expert who testified that he could not find definitively that the bullets that struck and killed MacPhail Cooper were the same.

Georgia Attorney General, and the description online, says expert said the bullets came from the same type of weapon, and discovered that the intestines are shooting pool party approved – was the same as a weapon – can be found at the crime scene is MacPhail .

Two decades ago, a jury convicted Davis, two counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm in a crime, to prevent a law enforcement officer and murder. This resulted in the payment immediately after his death sentence.

During the examination of claims of innocence Davis last year, US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia found that Davis “greatly overestimates the value of his evidence of innocence.”

“Some of the evidence is not credible, and we consider it a reasonable juror,” Judge William T. Moore, wrote a 172-page opinion. “Further proof that Davis has brought forth is too generic to offer anything smoke and mirrors “, the court said.

The Rev. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, who is set to testify before the parole board on Monday, said he “can not begin to imagine the pain (MacPhail’s family) must feel.”

MacPhail “was to protect society, and there is no pain greater than when a parent loses a child,” said Warnock.

However, he believes “there is no doubt in this case too, the execution”.

“I met with (Davis) on death row,” said Warnock. “I think he is innocent.”

The odds do not seem to be in favor of Davis. The Parole Board denied clemency once. And the Board has never changed his mind – all cases – in the last 33 years.

The California Unemployment Rate Hit 12.1% Of Employers Bar Work

September 17, 2011 admin No comments

Disturbed by signs that the recovery is stumbling, California employers cut jobs in August for the second consecutive month, helped to raise the unemployment rate to 12.1% against 12% in July.

Compensation fell 8400 jobs last month, according to figures released Friday by the development department of the State for employment.

It is a troubling sign for the labor market in California, which has almost paralyzed. California gained 98,500 jobs in 2011, but almost all of the hiring took place earlier this year. Employers in the state has added only 11,000 jobs since March.

The debt crisis, recent stock market slide and the number of slow economic growth has alarmed employers who hold off hiring until they feel more confident for the future, analysts said.

“It seems that the labor market is only a setback,” said Esmaeli Adibi, an economist at Chapman University. “The big question is: is taking a break or are experiencing a fundamental change in direction?”

Strong disagreement in Washington over whether and how to stimulate the economy has added to uncertainty, Adibi said. The public sector is dragging down the labor market, state and local agencies, reduce costs by cutting positions. The government lost 3,600 jobs in California in August.

Construction activities, and financial information has also lost jobs last month, according to the Employment Development Department.

California has the second highest unemployment rate highest in the nation, after Nevada, which saw its unemployment rate to 13.4% against 12.9% in July. There are 2.2 million unemployed people in California, many of whom have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits months.

These include Rayan Simmons, 25, who was browsing recently in the work of Glendale Verdugo Job Center. She was accompanied by her 4 year old girl, who grabbed a toy box of beauty with pink ribbons and a comb. Simmons, who said he worked in customer service before being sacked in January, recently moved with her son in a homeless shelter.

“To be honest, it seems that there are many jobs, but not to hire more,” said Simmons.

Chronic unemployment in California is taking its toll on families in the state. The Census Bureau said this week that 16.3% of Californians had incomes below the federal poverty level in 2010, 15.3% last year.

Approximately 2.2 million children in the state lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, a number that refers to analysts. Children raised in poverty are much less likely to attend college than their wealthier counterparts. They also tend to have poorer health and are more likely to engage in criminal activity and becoming victims of crime.

“All the research … points to the adverse effects of life of children raised in poverty,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project. “These children are the future workforce of the state.”

Some areas of the state created jobs in August, but this is unlikely to help most unemployed state and the poor economists. While Los Angeles and Orange counties and the Inland Empire lost jobs in August, the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Mateo County and Marin, had 8300 posts.

Companies like Twitter, Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. are dozens of positions in advertising in the Bay Area. But these positions require skills that most workers lack, said Michael Bernick, former director of the Department for employment development.

“She has a very mixed, you have this field, which is very good, but it is also the sector, which is the hiring of nationally and internationally, and has not hit the vast majority of employees in California,” he said.

By contrast, the aerospace giant Boeing Co., the maker of networking equipment and Cisco Systems Inc. Ball Corp. packaging company laid off workers in California last month. Ball mill closed 45 years, the manufacture of aluminum in Torrance, which employs 120 people as it moved operations elsewhere.

Statewide, manufacturing gained 1,600 jobs in August, and there are signs that the activity is recovering. The average weekly hours in manufacturing rose to 41.2 last month from 40.9 in July.

A Los Angeles County, however, manufacturing has lost jobs in 1400, part of the 10,300 jobs lost in the county last month. The unemployment rate in the county increased to 12.5% against 12.3% in July, with the government led to the decline. Leisure and hospitality, financial activities and construction have also lost positions.

Obama to call for urgent steps on economy

September 08, 2011 admin No comments

President Barack Obama will lay out a jobs package worth more than $300 billion on Thursday, staking his re-election hopes on a call for urgent action to revive the economy and challenging Republicans who have consistently opposed his initiatives.

With his poll numbers at new lows amid voter frustration with 9.1 percent unemployment, Obama will make tax cuts for middle-class households and businesses the centerpiece of the plan and will press for new spending to repair roads, bridges and other deteriorating infrastructure.

He will use his televised speech before a joint session of Congress, at 7 p.m. EDT, to urge passage of his “American Jobs Act” by year-end.

If it succeeds, his plan might provide an economic boost quickly enough to help Obama’s re-election prospects. If it fails, his strategy will be to paint congressional Republicans as obstructionist and blame them for the stagnating economy.

Already on Thursday morning, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley went on the offensive against what he described as a do-nothing climate on Capitol Hill.

“It’s time for Congress, after a five-week vacation, to come back and do something and not just say ‘no’ to everything that gets proposed in this town,” Daley said on CBS.

Surprisingly weak jobs data has heightened fears the United States may be headed for another recession. The Federal Reserve is considering ways to bolster demand but has said the onus for recovery mainly lies with lawmakers who control spending.

G7 finance ministers meeting in France on Friday are set to encourage countries that can afford it to do more for growth. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on Thursday efforts to create U.S. jobs could help the world economy regain speed.

At home, Obama is desperate to change perceptions that he is a weak leader. His economic stewardship has been criticized by both Republicans and fellow Democrats, casting a shadow over his prospects for re-election in November 2012.

“It’s a major leadership moment for Obama,” said Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “He’s running out of months before voters settle in on whether his presidency has failed.”

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll this week showed Obama was no longer the favorite to win next year.

‘SHARED RESPONSIBILITY’

The White House said Obama will describe in stark terms the difficulties the U.S. economy faces and argue Washington must do all it can to help the labor market heal — a message he will press throughout the autumn as the 2012 race heats up.

A renewal of payroll tax cuts for workers and tax cuts to encourage businesses to hire are the biggest elements of the jobs plan. Media reports have estimated it will cost $300 billion or more.

Obama will send his ideas in legislative form to Congress next week, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told Reuters Insider. She said Thursday’s speech was designed to encourage “shared responsibility” for the economy’s woes.

“It’s not just up to the president. It’s up to Congress, it’s up to the business community, it’s up to the American people. Everyone has to get involved in this,” she said.

Obama’s goal is to get legislation passed this year to make a dent in unemployment by spring 2012. To bolster his chances for re-election, he needs to be able to point to economic improvement by the middle of next year.

If Congress, which controls the nation’s purse strings, does not act, the White House is prepared to paint Republicans as obstructing his efforts to solving the jobless problem.

The bruising battle in July over the country’s debt levels that led to a Standard & Poor’s ratings downgrade highlighted a wide chasm between Obama’s Democrats and Republicans who control the House of Representatives.

Republicans see a $800 billion economic stimulus package Obama pushed through in 2009 as wasteful and want immediate cuts in the deficit. Democrats say while long-term deficits must be trimmed, the economy needs a fiscal boost.

The White House has said the jobs package will be paid for with future cuts but has not offered details. Obama will urge the congressional “super committee” that convened on Thursday to find more than $1.2 trillion in budget savings, but not unveil his suggestions until next week or later.

House Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor have signaled they were open to some infrastructure spending and to a program Obama will pitch to help train unemployed workers.

But Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said the president’s readiness to accuse those who don’t support his ideas of being overly partisan was a political smokescreen.

“There is a much simpler reason to oppose the president’s economic policies that has nothing whatsoever to do with politics — they simply don’t work,” he said. “This isn’t a jobs plan, it’s a re-election plan.”

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, said that Republicans also had their eyes squarely on the 2012 vote.

“The other side seems convinced that a failing economy is good Republican politics. They think if they kill every jobs bill and stall every effort to revive the economy, President Obama will lose,” Reid said. “Republicans aiming at the President have caught innocent Americans in the crossfire.”

Wildfires rip through sun-scorched Texas

September 05, 2011 admin No comments

Firefighters southeast of Austin, Texas, battled strong winds Monday as they struggled to gain ground against a fast-moving wildfire that has so far scorched some 25,000 acres and destroyed close to 500 homes.

Another fire in eastern Texas killed a mother and her 18-month-old child when flames engulfed their mobile home Sunday near Gladewater, the Gregg County Sheriff’s Department said.

“We got a long way to go to get this thing contained,” Gov. Rick Perry said about the fire raging near Austin. “I have seen a number of big fires in my life. This one is as mean looking as I’ve ever seen.”

Gov. Perry returns to Texas

Earlier Monday, the governor issued a statement in which he called the wildfire situation in Texas “severe” and said that all state resources were being made available to protect lives and property.

“We will pick up the pieces. We always do,” Perry told reporters.

Dozens of fires are burning across the parched state, the Texas Forest Service said Monday.

Texas is battling its worst fire season in state history. A record 3.5 million acres — an area roughly the size of Connecticut, Perry said — have burned since the start of the season in November as hot and dry weather, coupled with a historic drought, made conditions ripe for rapid fire growth.

“It’s a very serious, scary situation,” said Jan Amen, a Texas Forest Service spokeswoman. “The drought has gone on so long — it’s just bone dry. Anything that catches fire takes off.”

Over the weekend, officials said low relative humidity and strong winds from Lee, which made landfall as a tropical storm but has weakened, further fanned the flames.

A red flag warning was in effect for much of east, south and central Texas, with wind gusts of up to 35 mph in places, according to the National Weather Service.

A fire broke out about 45 miles north of Houston Monday afternoon. It was moving between 15 and 20 mph and threatening homes, said Rhonda Reinholz with the Magnolia Volunteer Fire Department.

The outbreak of wildfires prompted Perry to return to Texas from South Carolina, where he was scheduled to participate in a forum for Republican presidential candidates.

Meanwhile, the massive, uncontained fire in Bastrop County, near Austin, was the state’s largest on Monday. It destroyed 476 homes, according to Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald, and threatened about 1,000 others, officials with the forest service’s incident management team reported. About 5,000 residents evacuated as flames approached, officials said.

Lisa Ross learned she needed to leave her Bastrop home when her husband called 911 after realizing a looming fire had darkened the skies above.

“You learn what is valuable in life, and it isn’t the stuff,” she said. “It’s people in your life, and what means something to you.”

Cars crammed with belongings and pets packed a gas station on a highway near Austin, attorney Jonathon A. Zendeh Del said. “I’ve lived in Texas almost all my life, and I’ve never seen a fire that big in central Texas,” he said.

Officials issued a boil water notice for parts of Bastrop Monday. Dark clouds of smoke billowing across the sky could be seen miles from the fire.

Satellite images Monday showed the fire stretching over about 25,000 acres, jumping the Colorado River and a highway, the Texas Forest Service said.

More evacuations are likely as the fire spreads, officials said. Already, hundreds of people are in shelters as dangerous flames keep them from finding out whether their homes survived.

“We have been told already from three people that live in that area that our house has been burnt. I had a gut feeling that it did not, but now it’s looking worse and worse,” said Gisele Vocal, an evacuee. “We just have to wait now.”

Firefighters used Black Hawk helicopters to douse flames with a mixture of water and fire retardant Monday, officials said.

The fire forced parts of state highways 71 and 21 to shut and additional road closures were expected.

At least 63 new fires across Texas on Sunday burned nearly 33,000 acres, the state’s fire service said. Fires were reported in at least 17 counties.

Obama pushes economic compromise as his bus tour nears end

August 17, 2011 admin No comments

(CNN) — President Barack Obama concludes his three-day, three-state bus tour Wednesday with a pair of town hall meetings in his home state of Illinois.

Obama’s first meeting will be at Wyffels Hybrids Production Facility in Atkinson. In the afternoon, he will travel to Alpha for a meeting at Country Corner Farm Market.

The town hall meetings come a day after Obama accused Republican congressional critics of putting partisan political concerns before the country’s interests.

Appearing before farmers and small-business owners Tuesday in the presidential battleground state of Iowa, Obama urged Congress to boost the economy by passing an extension of the payroll tax cut and a new road construction bill, among others.

It is time to “put country ahead of party and put the next generation ahead of the next election,” Obama said. “That’s what I’m fighting for.”

During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday afternoon in Peosta, Iowa, Obama accused his Republican opponents of standing in the way of compromises necessary for stronger economic growth.

The president told CNN that the inability of GOP leaders in Congress to support a recent $4 trillion deficit reduction deal focused more heavily on spending cuts than revenue increases is evidence of a party placing political considerations before national interests.

His remarks Tuesday echoed comments a day earlier when he slammed partisan politics and called on lawmakers to prioritize economic growth.

The Midwestern bus tour aims to promote the administration’s rural economic development initiatives. The president said he will release a detailed plan to boost the economy, create jobs and control the country’s deficit when Congress returns to Washington in September.

Obama began his tour with a town hall meeting at a riverside Minnesota park in Cannon Falls. His trip to Peosta followed stops in Minnesota and Iowa on Monday.

Republicans have blasted the Midwest swing, calling it a campaign event thinly disguised as an extended public policy discussion.

“He’s spending taxpayers’ dollars on a bus tour disguised as some kind of economic event for the country when we all know that it’s a campaign event paid for by the taxpayers,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus said Monday

The first family is scheduled to depart for a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Thursday.