On what should have been a carefree day of reconnecting with friends and settling into new classes recently, more than two dozen students at the University of California, Berkeley, sat in uneasy silence outside the financial aid office.

The airy room on the second floor of Sproul Hall took on the desperate feeling of an unemployment office, with students waiting their turn to plead for emergency loans.

“I want to have enough money to pay for school,” Daniel Seman, a junior majoring in English and music, said as he waited to see a financial aid counselor last Wednesday. “My mom is really worried.”

Mr. Seman, 23, said he had already spent an emergency loan of $500 from the university on books and food. But faced with about $7,230 for tuition and fees this semester, roughly $1,000 more than the fall semester last year, he was back in line trying to get another loan.

The Environmental Protection Agency has doled out nearly $100 million in grants to foreign groups and governments over the past decade, according to a new congressional report.

The report from Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee shows the pace of foreign grants has quickened under the Obama administration, with $27 million in EPA funds going abroad since early 2009 -- not counting projects in Canada and Mexico.

The report said an unknown amount of EPA grant money has also gone overseas "indirectly" via grants to U.S. universities and organizations doing work in other countries.

Social-service advocacy groups are fighting legislation to require Pennsylvanians to provide proof of U.S. citizenship before receiving government benefits because they believe the bill would deny critical services to the poor, the elderly and domestic-vi

After meeting with federal immigration officials yesterday, Nassau County's top cop agreed that his police department would work with them in future raids, nearly two weeks after saying that it wouldn't.

Students all over the state are pressuring the Governor to sign a bill to help undocumented immigrants get through college. The California Dream Act would enable immigrants who went to high school here to qualify for some state financial aid.

Paterson, NJ -- Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that seeks to improve border security, reduce immigration rates and stop illegal immigration, opposes the DREAM Act and in-state tuition bills.