Budget pact in California
Sacramento, Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed Tuesday on a state budget that adds money for schools and road projects without resorting to the deficit spending that has plagued California in recent years.
“This is a terrific budget,” the governor said. “It’s a budget that moves California forward.”
The agreement on the roughly $116 billion spending plan comes five days after the start of the new fiscal year and after a weekend of negotiations between the governor and leaders of both major parties.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said Schwarzenegger had brought Republicans and Democrats together, forcing compromises from both sides.
Running mate of Perot dead at 81
Washington Retired Vice Adm. James Stockdale, a former prisoner of war and Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, has died, the Navy announced Tuesday. He was 81.
The Navy did not provide a cause of death but said he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He died at his home in Coronado, Calif.
In the 1992 presidential election, Stockdale became independent candidate Perot’s vice presidential running mate, initially as a stand-in on the ticket but later as the candidate.
Stockdale gave a stumbling performance in the nationally televised vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle and Al Gore and later said he didn’t feel comfortable in the public eye.
Last Beltway farm to be a strip mall
Capitol Heights, Md. The last known working farm inside the Capital Beltway has been sold to a North Carolina developer planning to build a strip mall.
The 35-acre Prince George’s farm has been in Duane Dickerson’s family since the 1880s.
But the 62-year-old said he is leaving because of a lack of profitability, along with increased population and crime inside the Beltway – a freeway that encircles the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
“This used to be the country and years ago even the family name was on the old road maps, the area was so sparse,” Dickerson told The Washington Post. “This was all farms – close to D.C., but it was all farms.”
Minnesota workers get unwanted holiday
St. Paul, Minn. With parts of Minnesota government closed for a fifth day, top legislators vowed Tuesday to complete a state budget by the weekend – and get 9,000 locked-out employees back to work even sooner.
Nearly one in five state workers have been idled since Friday, when the deadline for enacting a new budget passed without key components in place. Unlike some other states, Minnesota has no law that keeps the previous budget in force if a new one isn’t passed.
Bay Area faces transit shutdown
Oakland, Calif.
Transportation officials urged commuters Tuesday to consider forming car pools, riding ferries, working from home and even taking vacations to keep the freeways moving if there is a strike by Bay Area Rapid Transit workers.
The unionized BART workers who operate and maintain the trains that carry about 310,000 riders each weekday are set to walk off the job at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Negotiators for the transit system and its unions met throughout the night Monday and were scheduled to return to the bargaining table Tuesday afternoon. The two sides remain at odds over how big a raise workers should get and how much BART management should pay for retiree medical benefits.