Ohio students sue school over energy-saving course

Ohio students sue school over energy-saving course

OREGON, Ohio — An attorney for Ohio’s school-board association says a group of adult students faces a big challenge in the lawsuit they’ve filed against a school district over a course on energy-saving.

The class to provide training in solar-panel installation and wind technology was offered at the Oregon Career and Technology Center outside Toledo. The students say teachers did not receive basic instructional materials until early this month, weeks after the scheduled end of the course.

Half the 24 students in the class have filed a lawsuit in Lucas County Common Pleas Court seeking monetary damages. They accuse the Oregon district of breach of contract, negligence and fraud.

Ohio School Board Association Director of Legal Services Hollie Reedy says schools generally are protected from such lawsuits.

Federal budget deficit sets record for December

WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high for December, and the red ink for the first three months of the current budget year is rising at a more rapid pace than last year’s record clip.

The massive tide of red ink, reflecting the continued fallout from a deep recession and a severe financial crisis, highlights the challenge facing President Barack Obama as he pledges to get control of runaway deficits.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the deficit last month totaled $91.85 billion, the largest December deficit on record. The figure was in line with economists’ expectations.

For the first three months of the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit totaled $388.51 billion, 16.8 percent higher than the $332.49 billion imbalance recorded during the same period a year ago.

Last year’s deficit surged to $1.42 trillion, more than three times the record of the previous year, an imbalance of $454.8 billion set in 2008.

The Obama administration is projecting that this year’s deficit will climb even higher to $1.5 trillion, which would be 5.6 percent higher than the 2009 deficit.

Top Wall Street bankers apologize for actions

WASHINGTON — Challenged by a skeptical special commission, top Wall Street bankers apologized Wednesday for risky behavior that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But they still declared it seemed appropriate at the time.

The bankers — whose companies collectively received more than $100 billion in taxpayer assistance to weather the crisis — offered no regrets for executive pay that is now likely to increase as a result of their survival. They did say they are correcting some compensation practices that could lead to excessive risk-taking.

The tension at the first hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was evident from the outset.

“People are angry,” commission Chairman Phil Angelides said. Reports of “record profits and bonuses in the wake of receiving trillions of dollars in government assistance while so many families are struggling to stay afloat has only heightened the sense of confusion,” he said.

Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, took the brunt of the questions, especially on his firm’s practice of selling mortgage-backed securities and then betting against them.

Results of Mass. election likely to be weeks coming

BOSTON — Massachusetts’ top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health-care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy’s former seat.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.

Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.

The potential delay has become a rallying point for the GOP, which argues Democrats have been twisting the rules to pass the health-care bill despite public opposition. It’s also prompted criticism from government watchdogs.

Drug violence in Mexico will continue, experts say

TIJUANA, Mexico — It will take more than a few arrests of top drug kingpins to end the vicious cycle of drug violence plaguing Mexico.

Though “El Teo” Teodoro Garcia Simental was the fourth major trafficking suspect to be apprehended or killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a major offensive three years ago, 20 more high-profile drug lords — including billionaire Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the leader of the vast Sinloa Cartel — remain at large.

And the vacuum created by Garcia’s arrest Tuesday in Baja California is expected to fuel even more violence.

“I know that politicians are making a big deal about this arrest, but honestly there is a line of ill-intentioned people waiting to take the place of that man,” said Dulce Gonzalez Armendez, a 25-year-old receptionist in Tijuana. “Not only do I believe this will not bring peace to Baja California, but I also think things will get even worse.”

Oscar J. Martinez, a history professor at the University of Arizona who studies the cartels, agreed.

The transformation of Ciudad Juarez into one of the world’s most dangerous cities began with a fight between cartels. Guzman and Juarez Cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes launched a deeply personal fight over drug routes their organizations had long shared. They have adopted increasingly brutal tactics, leading to more than 2,500 deaths last year in the city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Associated Press