By Michael Allen

Philadelphia officials are closing almost two dozen schools and decimating the budgets of the remaining schools under a so-called “doomsday” education plan.

However, amid all these cuts for education, the state of Pennsylvania is building a new $400 million prison for Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania’s School Reform Commission voted on March 7 to close 23 schools, reported the New York Times. Read More

Despite an increasing level of uncertainty surrounding his conviction, Valentino Dixon continues to be imprisoned at the Attica Correctional facility in upstate New York for a 1991 crime that another man has confessed to.

Dixon told the Associated Press he was near a street corner on the East Side of Buffalo, New York when he heard someone firing a gun into a crowd. Four people were sent to the hospital but Torriano Jackson, 17, was killed after being shot 27 times. Read More

An 18-year-old high school student from the greater Boston area has been arrested and charged with making terroristic threats after police were alerted to “disturbing verbiage” on his personal Facebook page.

Authorities have set bond at one million dollars for Cameron B. D’Ambrosio of Methuen, MA following a Thursday afternoon arraignment one day after he was apprehended at his home around 30 miles north of Boston. Read More

An American lawyer representing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has been found dead in an apparent suicide.

The body of Andy P. Hart, a 38-year-old US federal public defender, was found last week with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to Truthout, an investigative blog, news of the attorney’s death came only this Wednesday from an investigator working on Guantanamo detainees’ habeas corpus petitions. That investigator requested anonymity. Read More

The parents of the two brothers accused of detonating explosives near the finish line of the Boston Marathon last week are expected to come to the United States to assist with an investigation into the terrorist attack.

The mother and father of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have been cooperating with US authorities from their native Russia in the days since a pair of homemade bombs blew up in Boston last Monday, killing three and injuring more than 200 others. Read More

The governor of California and other leading authorities will be held in contempt of court in 20 days unless they find a way to release thousands of prisoners from the overcrowded state corrections system.

A panel of federal judges gave Gov. Jerry Brown and the state’s top corrections officials an ultimatum this week, ordering they come up with solution to the rampant overcrowding epidemic Read More

A Colorado-based white supremacist has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the fatal shooting of a prison chief, which investigators believe may be the work of a dangerous prison gang.

James Lohr, who authorities have called a “known associate” of the white supremacist prison gang 211 Crew, was captured by the Colorado Springs Police Department Thursday night. The 47-year-old man was pulled over by police and then tried to escape on foot. Read More

By Sofia Perpetua

A New Orleans parish released a shocking video on Tuesday that shows inmates doing drugs, gambling, waving a hand gun and drinking beer. It was the second day of a federal hearing on the Orleans Parish Prison spending money to fix and refurbish jails. It is not clear when the video was recorded. Read More

RT.com

The US Southern Command (Southcom) has requested $49 million to build a new prison building at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba “for special detainees” as well as carry out other “necessary” renovations, US media reveal.

The proposed facility is an apparent replacement for Camp 7, which was constructed to hold 14 “high-value” detainees – including the self-described 9/11 attack architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – who had been in CIA custody, but were handed over to the military in 2006. Read More

By Brendan I. Koerner

Alfred Anaya took pride in his generous service guarantee. Though his stereo installation business, Valley Custom Audio Fanatics, was just a one-man operation based out of his San Fernando, California, home, he offered all of his clients a lifetime warranty: If there was ever any problem with his handiwork, he would fix it for the cost of parts alone—no questions asked. Read More

The federal trial against alleged computer criminal Barrett Brown has been delayed by six months. Now the activist once called the “spokesperson” of the Anonymous hacker movement will wait in prison for one full year before being tried.

Brown, 31, was scheduled to stand trial later this month for a slew of charges that have handed down in three separate indictments filed by the government since last September. Read More

Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to one year in jail after a wiretap trial linked to a 2005 banking scandal.

The ex-premier is accused of violating secrecy laws after making public a police wiretap concerning his political rival in 2005. They were published in Il Giornale, a newspaper run by his brother, who was also sentenced to over two years and three months in prison. Read More

It was announced on Wednesday morning that Barrett Brown, a man who became a very public talking head for AnonOps (the brain trust that is arguably the cortex of the hacktivist group Anonymous, even though there technically isn’t one) is facing up to 100 years in jail for three separate indictments. The most recent two indictments—the threatening of an FBI officer in a YouTube video Read More

By EMILY DONOHUE

A village man is charged with 13 felonies and six misdemeanors that all stem from a string of domestic incidents that culminated with him allegedly breaking into a girl’s home and assaulting and raping her.

Zachary W. Currier, 19, of 651 Geyser Road was indicted on the following felony charges Wednesday: first-degree rape, three counts of second-degree burglary, first-degree sexual abuse and eight counts of first-degree criminal contempt. Read More

The first Central Intelligence Agency officer to face prison for disclosing classified information was sentenced on Friday to 30 months in prison by a judge at the federal courthouse here. Read More