Beyond Wis. Union Debate: Five New Rules for Teachers

Given their place as the most powerful public-employee alliance, teachers’ unions are front and center in the debate that is going on in Wisconsin. But beyond the high-decibel clashes between Tea Partyers and public-employees’ unions are contentious education-policy issues that reformers, teachers’ unions and analysts have debated for years.

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Congresswoman: U.S. ties with Xe, formerly Blackwater, must end

A member of Congress Friday called on the State Department to stop doing business with Xe, the North Carolina-based security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whether the State Department had just signed a new $20 million dollar contract with Xe for Iraq, saying she is “very concerned” that the State Department may be signing new security contracts with Xe, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Geithner: AIG must pay back bonus money

Insurance giant AIG will have to return to the Treasury Department the $165 million it just paid out in executive bonuses, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday in a letter to congressional leaders. “We will impose on AIG a contractual commitment to pay the treasury from the operations of the company the amount of the retention awards just paid,” Geithner wrote

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