All Things Considered on WAMC

In addition to choosing a president and members of Congress, voters in several states will weigh in on high-profile social issues on Nov. 6. Here are some of the key voter initiatives on ballots:

Tax increases will join political candidates on the November ballot in several states struggling to plug some big holes in their budgets.

One of the most closely watched measures is in California, where Gov. Jerry Brown has staked his reputation on closing his state's multibillion-dollar budget gap.

On Wednesday in Sacramento, Brown officially kicked off his campaign to get voter approval to raise taxes via the Schools Public Safety Protection Act, also known as Proposition 30.

A recent Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory life terms for juveniles has touched off a flurry of activity across the country, especially in Pennsylvania, where lawyers are advising about 500 prisoners to file requests for new sentencing hearings before the end of next week.

Bradley Bridge with the Defender Association of Philadelphia has received more than 200 letters from prisoners in the past two months asking about the Supreme Court ruling.

Some kids go to band camp; others go to swim camp. But for the children of the world's digital rabble-rousers, there is hacking camp. It's called DefCon Kids.

This camp, held in Las Vegas, encourages kids to take a hard, skeptical look at the machines that surround them, and teaches them to hack apart everything they can lay their hands on.

One of the most popular activities is lock-picking.

"I had fun with some of the harder locks," says 16-year-old Alaetheia Garrison Stuber.

But did she learn any new tricks?

In the past two weeks, seven Afghans in uniform have opened fire on Western forces. The most recent incidents occurred Friday. First, a newly recruited policeman in western Afghanistan turned his gun on U.S. military trainers, killing two and wounding a third. A short time later in southern Kandahar province, an Afghan soldier shot and wounded two foreign troops.

The plane went down in Gull Lake in the Herkimer County town of Webb,  about 60 miles northeast of Syracuse.

State police say the two people on board weren't seriously hurt.

Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports that two New York Air National Guard Blackhawks were on a training mission when mayday calls came in about the accident at about 9 a.m. Thursday and helped rescue the two people.

 The helicopters took them to the U.S. Army's Fort Drum to be checked out.

The town of Bennington, Vt., is looking at boosting the amount people can borrow under its business loan program.

The proposed change would allow people to borrow from $25,000 to $100,000 to start or expand a business.

Officials tell the Bennington Banner the language and requirements of the existing municipal loan program date back to the late 1990s. They said commercial banking and lending requirements have changed a lot since then.