Law enforcement officials predict at least a few Iowans will make a show of carrying their handguns openly in public and challenge anyone who tries to stop them when a new weapons permit law kicks in Saturday.

Authorities are getting a lot of inquiries from public officials and private business owners about their authority to stop people from bringing weapons onto their properties.

Iowans for years have been able to tote a gun visibly while in public, as long as they had a valid “permit to carry.” However, sheriffs often wrote notes on permits saying the gun owner had to keep the gun concealed, or couldn’t carry while drinking alcohol, or setting other limitations.

Under the new law, sheriffs can no longer place any restrictions on permits, and some believe this will embolden a few gun owners to carry their weapons more flagrantly. Read the rest of this entry »

Rallies were staged in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta after Friday prayers.

The government has distanced itself from a bill to change the law, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone who insults Islam.

Rights groups say the law is often used to persecute religious minorities.

The legislation returned to the spotlight in November when a Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death.

Although no-one convicted under the law has been executed, more than 30 accused have been killed by lynch mobs. Read the rest of this entry »

Assaulting someone by attempting to strangle them will be a felony in New Hampshire starting Saturday.

The law is in memory of a young Manchester woman who was fatally shot by her estranged husband two days after he was released on bail for choking her. The law treats attempted strangulation as a second-degree assault and carries a sentence of 3 1/2 to seven years in prison.

Victims’ advocates and law enforcement supported its passage. They say abusers use strangulation as a tactic to silence, coerce and control victims. They say it is frequently used, but not always easily detected.

The law gives police the power to detain suspected abusers to keep the violence from escalating.

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Six years after applying to sponsor her sister for emigration from the Philippines, Eunice Jones of Salt Lake County, Utah, was ecstatic to receive a letter last year saying the State Department finally approved her sister’s eligibility.

But that didn’t mean Emerald Guerra, 39, could come anytime soon. The State Department cautioned that no visas were currently available for Filipinos in her sister’s category of siblings of U.S. citizens seeking to immigrate.

“We found out that Filipinos who were then getting those visas had first applied in 1987″ or 22 years earlier, said Jones, a naturalized U.S. citizen and real estate agent. Because of tight quotas on visas, legal immigration for Guerra might require another 16 years of waiting.

Many Americans believe the country’s laws allow for orderly immigration, and wonder why some jump the line instead of doing it legally. Long waits suggest one explanation.

“I called immigration attorneys. I wrote to Sen. Orrin Hatch … I was told that is just how our system works,” Jones lamented, adding that her sister had unsuccessfully applied four times for a tourist visa.

“They said that because she is single, there was too much chance she would just marry someone and stay here,” Jones said. “This is what happens to us who try to play by the rules, while those who cheat the system enjoy benefits.”

For instance, some Mexicans arriving legally now first applied 18 years ago, according to the State Department. The U.S. legally admits about 90,000 Mexicans annually, while another 300,000 to 500,000 come illegally.

“Do we have law breakers, or do we have broken laws? I’d say that most immigration attorneys would say that we have broken laws,” said attorney Roger Tsai, president of the Utah chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, whose 40 years in the House have come under a cloud because of an ethics scandal, announced Tuesday he has established a new defense fund to help pay off past legal expenses and to deal with pending and new complaints.

Rangel (D-N.Y.) was censured by the House earlier this month for financial and fundraising misconduct and had to stand on the chamber’s floor to listen to Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the censure resolution, which passed 333-79.

The new fund, called the Charles B. Rangel Legal Expense Trust, was approved by the House ethics committee, Rangel announced in a prepared statement.

“I have received authorization from the Committee on Standards and Official Conduct to begin raising funds for the Charles B. Rangel Legal Expense Trust, which I have sought to create so I can retain counsel for ongoing activities related to the recently concluded ethics investigations and other ongoing matters,” Rangel stated.

Supporters will be able to contribute up to $5,000 a year to the fund. Former New York state Comptroller. H. Carl McCall will serve as the fund’s trustee.

Rangel still faces complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission by the National Legal and Policy Center, a group that has regularly complained about Rangel, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

“I continue to draw satisfaction from the recently concluded ethics committee investigations that established that, while I committed serious violations of the rules of the House, none of those violations included corruption, intent, self-dealing, self-enrichment or quid pro quos involving any official action,” Rangel said.

“I am confident any continuing or subsequent investigations will find a similar lack of any intent to violate any rules or any actions designed in any way to personally benefit me or my family,” he said.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Revamped gun measures and tougher rules for payday lenders are among the laws set to take effect around the country on Jan. 1. But some of them may not be on the books for long.

This January, the statutes will kick in just as freshly elected governors and legislators arrive for work. And if new GOP majorities succeed in getting legislation repealed, the result may be sudden U-turns on issues that were only recently debated.

Before the November election, Democrats controlled legislatures in 27 states, with Republicans in charge of just 14. But after the nationwide Republican sweep, the GOP will soon control 26, the Democrats only 17. Control of others is split between the parties. The election also increased the number of Republican governors from 23 to 26.

With the switch in party control could come abrupt changes in the way some states handle government regulation, privatization and other matters.

Nowhere was the political shift more dramatic than in Wisconsin, where power in the Statehouse will shift wholesale from Democrats to Republicans. Already, incoming Republican Gov. Scott Walker and others would like to head off a law that makes it tougher for payday loan companies and auto lenders to do business in the state.

Until Democrats pushed the law through the Senate and House in 2010, Wisconsin was the only state that did not regulate those industries, and consumer advocates complained that lenders were exploiting poor people by charging exorbitant interest rates.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle shepherded the bill into law. But Walker said the new regulations go too far, and that the outright ban on loans secured by an auto title isn’t what many legislators want.

“My hope is we’re able to go back to that common-sense middle ground” with lesser restrictions, said Republican state Rep. Robin Vos, co-chairman of the budget committee. The new law limits payday loans to a maximum of $1,500. Read the rest of this entry »

LANSING, Mich. — Christmas Day could have a little more kick because of recent changes to Michigan’s alcohol sales laws.

The same legislation that allows Sunday morning alcohol sales in the state also permits sales on Christmas Eve through 11:59 p.m. and on Christmas Day after noon.

Previous law banned sales from 9 p.m. Dec. 24 through 7 a.m. Dec. 26.

Retailers and restaurants can sell alcohol on Christmas without extra permits. But local communities have the option of continuing to ban the sale of alcohol on the holiday.

Michigan lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer Granholm changed alcohol sales laws late this year. The first Sunday morning sales were allowed Dec. 19 for retailers buying necessary permits.

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The lame-duck House of Representatives today accepted a stripped-down Senate version of the America COMPETES Act, a bill to strengthen research, education, and innovation at several federal agencies. Now the bill will go to the president for his signature. But looming fights over the discretionary budget may make the legislative success a Pyrrhic victory.

The sharply partisan nature of the debate on the House floor this afternoon—only 16 of 146 Republicans supported its passage, along with all 212 Democrats who voted—signaled that the new Republican House leadership won’t take kindly to bills that promise large increases in federal spending, no matter how worthy the cause. That attitude bodes ill for the likely impact of COMPETES, which puts Congress on record in support of steady increases in the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the basic science programs at the Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The bill also creates new programs aimed at enhancing science and math education, advanced manufacturing research, and regional innovation and mandates better coordination of them by the White House. And it tweaks the rules governing existing activities, from the fledgling Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy at DOE to long-running training programs at NSF, with the goal of getting a bigger economic payoff from federal investments. (Look for more details in subsequent posts.)

COMPETES doesn’t actually provide any money for any agency. That can has been kicked down the road into the next Congress because legislators couldn’t agree on the 2011 budget in their current lame-duck session. But that didn’t stop Republicans from railing against the increased “spending” authorized in the bill, which would allow up to $46 billion for those agencies over the next 3 years. And that’s after the House accepted Senate changes that sliced the last 2 years off a 5-year authorization and dropped several new programs. Republicans also complained that the bill, which the full House passed in a different form in May and which was vetted by a Senate panel in July, was being crammed down their throats. Read the rest of this entry »

Congress has passed a law that is expected to lead to a higher catch limit for a key fish species and bring some relief to New England fishermen.

The law passed on Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives changes the way the U.S. negotiates with Canada on how to divide the fish that swim between their territorial waters.

The new law allows the U.S. to make a deal without being held to a tight 10-year timeline to rebuild the fish stocks, which applies in other American waters.

That means the catch limit on yellowtail flounder in the Georges Bank fishing area can be raised.

Fishermen say the low existing limit on yellowtail has been a major concern. Current rules require that fishing on all species shut down once the catch limit on even one species is reached.

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Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill Tuesday that caps increases to police and firefighter pay awarded through arbitration, a measure he called the most important of the proposals in his so-called toolkit to help towns control costs.

With Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney looking on, Christie hailed the passage of the bill as a testament to bipartisan cooperation.

“We’ve proven over the last year that Republicans and Democrats can get things done together,” he said. “Mayors have been yelling and screaming for these kinds of reforms for years.”

The bill caps salary awards, including longevity pay and automatic step increases, for police and firefighters at 2 percent when their unions engage arbitrators to settle contracts.

It also fast-tracks the arbitration process by giving arbitrators a 45-day window to rule on disputes and limiting the appeal process to 30 days. In addition, arbitrators’ pay will be capped at $1,000 per day or $7,500 per case, whichever sum is lower.

Christie said Tuesday that some cases in arbitration have dragged on for years, and that fear of excessive arbitration awards has hampered some towns’ ability to conduct effective contract negotiations.

“Arbitration works when it’s balanced,” said Sweeney, who is an organizer for the International Association of Ironworkers. “But the system has gotten out of whack over the last 20 years.”

Pension and health care costs are not included in the cap. Christie said the cap will lapse in April 2014, at which time lawmakers will review its effects and consider modifications.

“This is the most significant individual bill in the toolkit,” Christie said.

Municipalities have been clamoring for tools to help them control costs since the Legislature approved — and Christie signed — a 2 percent cap on annual property tax increases that goes into effect Jan. 1.

Christie said residents could see a difference in their tax bills by August, but that the effect likely won’t be seen until the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012.

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