SC unemployment agency paying $106M toward debt

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's unemployment agency is paying down $106.5 million of its debt to the federal government, leaving a remaining debt of $676 million.

Director Abraham Turner says the agency is on track to pay back every dime by October 2015. Business leaders hope the timeline will be shorter, saving employers money because of new state laws that mean fewer people are receiving benefits.

The payment Friday will be two months ahead of schedule, saving the state $8,800 daily in interest, according to the Department of Employment and Workforce.

Raped, pimped out and jailed: The painful saga of Sara Kruzan

(FinalCall.com) - Sara Kruzan has spent almost two decades in a California prison for killing the man who molested her at 11, and raped and pimped her at 13.

Now she and supporters are waiting to find out if her fate will change on Sept. 18.

Paul Zellerbach, district attorney for Riverside, Calif., is expected to announce then whether she will be freed from the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla or face a new trial.

FreeSaraKruzan.org

On July 20, the California Supreme Court ordered State Attorney General Kamala Harris to show why her office felt Ms. Kruzan was not a victim of domestic violence.

The Attorney General’s Office had argued Ms. Kruzan was not entitled to a domestic abuse defense but reversed its position and asked the California Supreme Court to send the case back to Riverside where it was tried.

Officials in Riverside, Calif., which denied a request for new trial in 2010, received a 60-day extension to make a decision.

S. African Police Claim Self-Defense in Mine Shootings

A member of a South African police crime unit investigates the scene of the shooting of miners at the Lonmin mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, August 17, 2012.


South Africa's national police chief says her forces opened fire in self-defense against striking mine workers, in violence that left 34 people dead and 78 injured.

Riah Phiyega said Friday that police used force to protect themselves after coming under attack by the strikers Thursday.  The mining company said after the incident that some of the strikers were armed.

Phiyega said police had earlier used water cannon and stun grenades to get the workers to disperse, but that they did not heed the calls.

Two reports expose city Housing Authority’s management as being more dysfunctional than problem-plagued housing projects

Beleaguered NYCHA boss John Rhea admitted for the first time that NYCHA has a backlog of 338,000 maintenance orders. And they won’t get to some of them for two years.

Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News

NYCHA board chairman John B. Rhea speaking with the Daily News Editorial Board on Thursday.

Two withering reports expose the city Housing Authority’s management as being more dysfunctional than the problem-plagued housing projects — and its boss finally admits he runs a deeply troubled agency.

The scathing twin critiques — one internal, the second by an outside consultant — ripped NYCHA officials for bungling virtually every aspect of their $3-billion-a-year operation.

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