From the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-Review:

…State taxpayers spent $49 million housing inmates beyond the minimum release dates of sentences for misdemeanors and minor felonies committed in 2010, said the review by The Council of State Government’s Justice Center. The researchers are scheduled to present policy recommendations today to a state committee considering changes to the prison system.

“The whole package will include a substantial amount of money that can be saved, and at the same time, we can improve the system,” said Tony Fabelo, the center’s research director…

The state’s prison population climbed from 7,000 to 51,645 since 1980, in part because of mandatory-minimum sentences, longer prison terms and incarceration of less violent offenders, said Katrina Currie, a policy analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation…

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EDITOR: Much of the huge jump in incarcerations is due to the foolhardy War on Drugs.   Many relatively benign drugs such as marijuana should be taxed, regulated and controlled as we do alcohol.  Addiction should be treated as a health, not a criminal justice, matter.

WASHINGTON POST: …The agents are arguing that the agency is making them scapegoats for behavior that the Secret Service has long tolerated, a charge that Director Mark Sullivan may have to address when he appears before a Senate committee Wednesday. He has not spoken in public about the controversy, but according to his prepared testimony, he plans to tell Congress that there was no breach of operational security.

Several of the implicated agents have told associates that the facts of what happened in Cartagena differ from initial media accounts describing a group outing of a dozen men in search of prostitutes. Instead, the men went to different bars and clubs and met women under a variety of circumstances, in some cases resulting in voluntary trysts that did not involve money… 

One 29-year-old field agent assigned to the Washington office, who is single and who resigned under the threat of being fired, told investigators in a polygraph examination that he did not think at the time that the two women he brought back to his hotel room were prostitutes. He is among those seeking to overturn their dismissals, according to three people familiar with his case…  (more)

EDITOR:  Restrictions should be about fraternization with locals.  There is where the danger lies.

HUFFINGTON POST: …The calculations were made through the standard formula for anyone in the State Employees’ Retirement System, according to his family. Paterno never accessed his pension… 

But the formula to calculate the pension could account for no more than $240,000 in salary, the family said. …

Still, Paterno’s total compensation paled in comparison to many of college football’s other well-known coaches, especially since Penn State won two national titles under Paterno. For instance, Alabama pays Nick Saban more than $4.6 million a year, while Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops earns nearly $4 million…. (more)

EDITOR:  Paterno did not draw on his pension so apparently it accumulated over two decades.

USA TODAY:  …Major carriers are investing in ways to unload customers’ data traffic from their airwaves into cheaper and more localized networks, such as Wi-Fi hot spots and small cellular base stations, which are designed for compact, heavy traffic areas such as stadiums and city centers.

Wireless companies say the new approach (“offloading” in industry parlance) will help meet customers’ surging demand for more data bandwidth. Even as they build the next generation of faster wireless networks, called 4G LTE, carriers are discouraging heavy data users by eliminating unlimited data plans and enforcing monthly caps.

Such efforts have done little to slow the hunger for more data from ceaseless waves of users who watch Netflix and listen to Pandora at all hours via over-the-air networks. In North America, video and audio streaming now account for more than half of all domestic wireless data traffic, according to network management company Sandvine…  (more)

HUFFINGTON NEWS:   ….The network had its lowest-rated month in over a decade in April. That prompted stern warnings from the top that CNN has to improve its numbers.

Yet Tuesday brought the dispiriting news that CNN had its lowest-rated week in primetime in a staggering 20 years last week. Just 395,000 people tuned in to watch Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan. The total day numbers were not much better: CNN had its third-worst week since 1997.

Luckily, the network continues to turn a very healthy profit. And, as Morgan can attest, CNN’s ratings have been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride lately:..   (more)

BLOOMBERG:  …The potentially dire repercussions have led many to assume that no responsible European policy maker would allow a Greek exit to take place. By this view, all the talk about letting Greece leave is merely a scare tactic. Europe’s leaders will blink first in their game of chicken with Greece and ease the terms of the country’s austerity program.

This logic underestimates a crucial element of the euro area’s political economy: In a union of partially sovereign members without a supranational authority, concerns about moral hazard — the possibility that lenience toward Greece will encourage other countries to misbehave — still carry a lot of weight. Euro-area leaders are not bluffing when they threaten to cut off support from the European Central Bank and let the Greek government run out of money, leaving it to decide whether to dump the euro or remain as merely a euro-ized country such as Montenegro.

What Europe’s leaders will not countenance is a breakup of the euro. Therein lies the silver lining of a Greek exit. To protect the currency union from the fallout, the remaining members will have to move very quickly toward the economic and financial integration that has always been necessary for the euro’s long-term survival… (more)

FINANCIAL TIMES:  The top securities regulator in Massachusetts has issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley as part of an investigation into whether its analysts communicated revisions of Facebook’s revenue forecasts broadly to all clients ahead of last week’s initial public offering.

In spite of cutting forecasts for Facebook’s revenue growth after the social network group revised its prospectus, the underwriting banks, led by Morgan Stanley, soon afterwards increased the size of the offer by 25 per cent and priced the shares at $38, at the top of a new range of $34-$38…

The subpoena from the US state comes as Facebook shares lost further ground on Tuesday. They closed at $31, 18 per cent below the issue price, as scrutiny of the botched IPO, including software problems on Nasdaq as well as the role of the underwriting banks, intensified…  (more)

Representatives of Lancaster General Hospital and the Lancaster Hospital Authority made a presentation to the County Commissioners at the Tuesday work session.

It was explained that a major finance via the Authority would total over a hundred million dollars, refinance various existing bond issues and raising $20 million towards funding LGH’s new cancer center.  The center is estimated to cost $40 million.

Much of the re-financing will take advantage of the lowest interest rates since the Great Depression to convert variable interest debt to fixed interest rates, thus protecting from a potential increase in interest costs as the economy recovers. 

A representative indicated that millions of dollars will be saved over time and still greater savings will occur if indeed interest rates soar in future years.

While seeking approval from the commissioners, a spokesperson for the Authority made clear that, although issuing the bonds, the Authority (or the county) would not be assuming any liability.

Mentioned in passing by the represenetatives was the improvement in “culture and work place” resulting from the computerization of individual medical records and their accessibility to patients.

HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS Editorial:  But it’s not just costs. For all the money Pennsylvania spends, our crime has not gone down dramatically.

The “lock ’em up and throw away the key” mentality has not produced safer communities. Certainly the most egregious offenders will need to spend their life behind bars, but the vast majority — 90 percent — of offenders spend time behind bars and then re-enter society.

Our corrections system is not preparing people adequately for what happens after they are released. Human services, police, religious and other community groups are rightly asking: Can’t we do better?…  (more)

From the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER:

A survey of Pennsylvania school districts to be made public Tuesday shows many headed toward insolvency in the next few years, and to avoid it they are weighing cuts to music, art, physical education, and electives while increasing class size and raising taxes…

More than half said they anticipated being in financial distress — not being able to meet their obligations — within three years, if local and state revenues don’t increase. Three percent — more than a half-dozen — said they were already broke.

A large part of the financial crisis stems from school employee pension payments, which are expected to triple — from $1.2 billion to almost $4 billion — over the next four years, said Jay Himes, PASBO’s executive director. At the same time, federal, state, and local revenues will be “flat, at best,” he said…

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