SAVANNAH, Ga. -- A single-mom soldier who says she refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she had no family able to care for her young son will be discharged from the military instead of facing a court-martial, the Army said Thursday.

Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, was arrested in November after skipping her unit's deployment flight.

Haitian immigrants and Immigrant-rights advocates hailed a decision by the Obama administration, in response to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti, to halt all deportation proceedings for an estimated 100,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants in the US. "I screamed. I got on my knees. And I cried: Lord, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you," said one woman, a Haitian immigrant living in Takoma Park, MD.  "Nine years I have been waiting for this." The order allows undocumented Haitian immigrants to remain in the U.S. for another 18 months, and was advocated for by many immigrant-rights groups, including WNPJ member group Voces de la Frontera.

Two hundred environmental, peace, consumer, religious organizations and small businesses -- including WNPJ and eight other Wisconsin groups -- have joined together to blast the newly introduced Kerry-Lieberman “climate” bill, called the American Power Act, as a taxpayer bailout of the nuclear power industry and other dirty energy interests that would be ineffective at addressing the climate crisis. The groups pledged to oppose the bill unless substantial changes are made, including removing all support for nuclear power.