user: News: Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Thursday a measure making it a crime for prisoners to be caught with cellphones, saying he hoped to “break up an expanding criminal network” that uses the devices from behind bars.

Thousands of smuggled cellphones have been found in California's prisons in recent years, a growing problem highlighted when notorious inmate Charles Manson was found with an LG flip phone. It has previously not been a crime to have one behind bars.

Brown also signed an executive order Thursday to mobilize corrections officials to try to stop the inflow of phones and collect the phones already in prisoners' hands.

In signing the new legislation, authored by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), Brown said that "when criminals in prison get possession of a cellphone, it subverts the very purpose of incarceration."

"They use these phones to organize gang activity, intimidate witnesses and commit crimes," he said. "Today's action will help to break up an expanding criminal network and protect law-abiding Californians.”

Debt now accounts for 7.8% of state budgetGov. Jerry Brown expands auditor powers in wake of Bell scandalNew state law will require booster seats for children under 8 years old

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

Photo: Inmates watch television at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center, in Elk Grove, Calif. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

Title: Gov. Jerry Brown signs measure outlawing prisoner cellphones


News: No matter where in the world you live, New Year’s Eve is a time to celebrate!

Thanks to the time differences around the world, celebrations welcoming 2017 are already underway. Pacific islands including Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati entered the new year at 5 a.m. ET, while celebrations for much of Australia, including the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge fireworks from The Royal Botanic Gardens, occurred at 8 a.m. ET on Saturday.

While preparing for your New Year’s Eve party and waiting for the clock to strike midnight in the United States, tune in to the livestream above to see how different countries are saying farewell to 2016 and hello to 2017.

Watch a concert ring in the new year in Hanoi, Vietnam, at noon EST, Greece launch fireworks at the Acropolis in Athens at 5 p.m. EST and London serve as the picturesque setting for a fireworks display at 7 p.m. ET.

And the celebrations don’t end after you’ve sang “Auld Lang Syne” with your pals. The last places on Earth to see in the New Year are minor outlying United States islands like Baker Island and Howland Island. Although these are uninhabited, they still warrant celebration (even if it is at 7 a.m. ET).

Title: New Year's Eve Celebrations Around the World: Video


News: Jessica Simpson Working on Her Post-Baby Weight Loss

Seven weeks after giving birth to her daughter Maxwell,

was spotted hard at work trying to get her body back to her pre-pregnancy weight.

The 31-year-old new mom threw on her post-partum workout leggings and sneakers and hit the gym in L.A. on Thursday.

Jess should be back to fitting into her mom jeans in no time.

Title: Jessica Simpson -- Working on Her Post-Baby Weight Loss


News: The House of Representatives budget committee chairman, Paul Ryan, on Sunday accused the Obama administration of “perpetuating poverty” with a benefits programme that does not help the poor find a way to a better life.

Expanding on the anti-poverty programme he proposed this week, the Wisconsin Republican said the way benefits are currently administered was “counterproductive” and told NBC’s Meet the Press that people affected by poverty needed individual solutions at a local level.

“Poverty is a complicated problem and it needs to be customised,” he said.

Challenged to respond to situations in which Republican governors of impoverished states have refused to expand Medicaid healthcare assistance for those on low incomes, under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Ryan denied that such examples would make people sceptical of his plan to devolve benefits administration to the states.

“We basically have a poverty management system from the federal government, a safety net programme that is not getting people out of poverty,” he said.

Earlier this week, Ryan unveiled a proposal to transfer the allocation of benefits to state level. He wants to consolidate 11 anti-poverty benefits now run by the federal government, ranging from food stamps to public housing assistance and childcare aid, into one anti-poverty programme, administered locally.

“We can customise a benefit to a person based on their needs which helps them get out of poverty in the long term,” he said. “We currently spend $800bn a year on 92 different programmes and what you have is the highest poverty rates of a generation.”

Ryan, who was the GOP's vice-presidential candidate alongside Mitt Romney in 2012, wants trained state benefits officers to work with families “to try to give them a path up”. He would increase flexibility and accountability in the system in order to “focus on outcomes”, rather than the amount of money being handed out.

The current federal anti-poverty benefits system is no more than a “poverty management system that perpetuates poverty”, he said.

“We need to listen to the people on the ground who are fighting poverty person to person and give them more flexibility and accountability,” he said.

Ryan said the current welfare system “disincentivised” people from getting a job.

“Able-bodied people should go to work and we should have a system that helps them do that so they can realise their potential,” he said, adding that taxpayers were not getting “the results they deserve”.

Title:

assistant: Paul Ryan says Obama administration is 'perpetuating poverty'