Brandon Piekarsky, 18, and Derrick Donchak, 19, were charged in the July 2008 beating death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez in the town of Shenandoah. A separate indictment charges three police officers with obstructing the investigation into Ramirez's death.

Judge Malachy Mannion ruled that Piekarsky and Donchak should remain locked up pending trial, calling them dangers to the community. He set a March trial date.

A Schuylkill County jury acquitted the teens in May of the most serious state charges against them — including third-degree murder in Piekarsky's case — angering Hispanic leaders and civil-rights groups. Gov. Ed Rendell then asked the Justice Department to pursue civil rights charges.

Mannion noted that it is extremely rare for the federal government to pursue charges in a case already decided in state court.

Court clerks said 20 more federal lawsuits were filed in Knoxville on the final day before the Monday deadline, most of them seeking damages for multiple plaintiffs.

TVA has filed motions that contend the nation's largest public utility was providing a government service and is immune from such damage claims.

An attorney with clients seeking damages in 28 lawsuits, John Agee of Clinton, said Tuesday that instead of a court fight, some sort of administrative agency should be set up to deal with the claims. They stem from the Dec. 22, 2008 spill and TVA's continuing cleanup at the coal-fired plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville.

The governor's supplemental budget for the 2011 fiscal year that begins July 1 does not call for wholesale layoffs or an increase in the number of furlough days state workers are already taking.

It does call for a big increase in the tax that insurance salespersons pay on their commissions and the elimination of dozens of positions in agencies that focus on mosquito control, adult mental health, family health and agricultural statistics.

But her proposal to swipe roughly between $99 million and $111 million in county hotel taxes in each of the next three fiscal years is likely to face opposition from the state's counties, which rely on the tourism-driven assessment.

Honolulu County, where the bulk of the state's tourists visit, would lose almost $45 million in the 2011 fiscal year; Maui would lose nearly $23 million; the Big Island, $18.6 million; and Kauai, $14.5 million. The Legislature must approve the transfer.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl hopes the contributions from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University or Highmark Inc. will serve as a catalyst to get other nonprofits to help the city financially.

Ravenstahl had called for the 1 percent tuition tax on the city's 65,000 college students as a way of getting money to help pay for some $15 million a year for the city's pension obligations.

Nonprofits are exempt from most taxes, but represent many of Pittsburgh's major employers and hold about one-third of the city's property value.

Neither the mayor nor the three institutions would disclose how much they would give, but Ravenstahl said he was optimistic the money would help resolve the city's long-standing financial problems.

Citadel, the nation's third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in a move meant to restructure its heavy debt load. In court documents, the Las Vegas-based company listed its total assets as of Oct. 30 at $1.4 billion and total debt at $2.46 billion.

The company has an agreement with more than 60 percent of its senior secured lenders as part of a pre-negotiated financial restructuring that will eliminate $1.4 billion of its debt.

Citadel said Monday that having access to the funds will let it keep satisfying financial obligations as it restructures its business. The company received court approval to pay wages, salaries, health benefits and other obligations it has to employees as it restructures. The court is allowing it to keep honoring current customer programs as well, Citadel said.

Citadel owns and operates 224 radio stations and produces radio programing for 4,000 station affiliates and 8,500 program affiliates.

The court granted a request from the state attorney general's office Friday afternoon, shortly before Alford Jones and Faye Brown were set to go free.

The ruling gives state attorneys another chance to make their arguments after two lower courts sided with the inmates. Gov. Beverly Perdue has said that she's disgusted with the state's legal system for saying the inmates should go free.

State courts previously determined that life sentences imposed during a period in the 1970s could be no more than 80 years long. Two dozen inmates could be freed immediately because of sentence-reduction credits applied to their terms.

The coalition of lawmakers said Tuesday immigration reform can protect American workers as well as bring into the mainstream economy productive immigrant workers who have lived in the shadows because of their illegal status.

"For those who say that given the state of our economy, given the unemployment rate, this is not the time, I would say to you there is no wrong or right time. There is a moral obligation," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has become a leader of a multiethnic coalition of immigration reform backers, said immigration reform opponents "will use it as a wedge issue and will blame everything from unemployment to rising health care costs on immigrants."