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National

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday. The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February. The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
RELATED: Pentagon probe fills in blanks on Iraq war groundwork
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-feith6apr06,0,6994322.story?coll=la-home-headlines
RELATED: Hussein-Qaeda Link ‘Inappropriate,’ Report Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/washington/06qaeda.html?ref=washington

More Iraq war news in NATIONAL/GOVERNMENT, NATIONAL/FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL/MILITARY, COLORADO/GOVERNMENT, COLORADO/MILITARY

ICRC Chief Faults Rights Protection at Guantanamo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501950.html
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that the United States has inadequate procedures to protect the human rights of foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and called for a "more robust" system to determine whether to release hundreds of men who probably will never face trial. Jakob Kellenberger said he is concerned that the processes set up at Guantanamo to assess whether detainees are enemy combatants and whether they should remain there indefinitely infringe on the rights of men who have no clear way of challenging their detentions. Kellenberger said he raised his concerns in meetings with senior Bush administration officials this week, and found them open to discussion. "I felt that the present safeguard mechanisms are really not strong enough," Kellenberger said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors, adding that the detainees should be able to appeal their detentions in a fashion similar to the use of habeas corpus. "These people are four or five years deprived of their freedom, and despite investigations, no crimes came about."

More detainee policy news in NATIONAL/CIVIL LIBERTIES

Justice Department In New Fight Over Papers on Firings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502374.html
The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's hold on his position. The Senate Judiciary Committee, whose investigators have been allowed to view, but not obtain copies of, the records in question, is preparing subpoenas for those papers as well as for all e-mails or documents from the Justice Department and the White House connected to the dismissals of the prosecutors.
RELATED: Senators demand details from Gonzales
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/06/senators_demand_details_from_gonzales/
RELATED: Fired prosecutor: Special counsel investigating
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050634apr06,1,6443176.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Giuliani, campaigning in S.C., defends abortion stance
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-giuliani-sc_N.htm
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Thursday defended his record favoring the use of public money for abortions, saying he wouldn't try to undo a Supreme Court ruling allowing the procedures. "Ultimately I believe it's an individual right and a woman should make that choice," the former New York mayor said during a Statehouse news conference where he picked up three endorsements. Support for abortion rights is unpopular with conservatives who dominate the GOP in South Carolina, an early voting state. "I tell people what I think. I tell them (to) evaluate me as I am and do not expect them to agree with me on everything. I don't agree with me on everything," Giuliani said. "If that's the most important thing, then I'm comfortable with the fact you won't vote for me."
RELATED: Giuliani Reaffirms That He Would Not Seek Abortion Changes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/politics/06giuliani.html

More 2008 Presidential race news in NATIONAL/ELECTION

Top

Colorado

Droughts cast on Southwest
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604339
Southwestern droughts soon will become a permanent feature of life here - not just an occasional disaster to weather, according to a new study. The Southwestern droughts of the past several dozen years are totally different from those that will occur as the planet warms, scientists discovered in a study published today in the journal Science. "The future changes, they are something we haven't seen before," said Jian Lu, co-author of the study and a researcher with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
RELATED: Southwest May Get Even Hotter, Drier
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501180.html
RELATED: Permanent drought predicted for Southwest
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-swdrought6apr06,1,1875684.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Lobbyist faces ethics investigation
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604345
It is legal for groups to run ads about legislation and lawmakers, but the complaints cite a legislative rule that prohibits lobbyists from attempting to influence lawmakers "by means of deceit" or threats. Although the bill in question had not been filed when the calls were made last month, Borodkin said she tied the phone calls to the homebuilder legislation after talking to her constituents, who said the calls talked about raising taxes on homes and making things easier for trial lawyers. If found guilty of violating legislative rules, [lobbyist William] Mutch could face possible censure or suspension of lobbying privileges. The last time a lobbyist was investigated for ethics violations was in 2003 for lobbying on the same issue, construction-defects legislation.
RELATED: Probe to target lobbyist
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5468370,00.html
RELATED: Ethics investigation launched
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/ethics-investigation-launched/

More Colorado ethics news in COLORADO/GOVERNMENT

Concealed weapons bill advances in Senate
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/concealed-weapons-bill-advances-in-senate/
A proposal to continue a database of the state's concealed weapons permit holders advanced in the Senate Thursday after a Western Slope Democrat switched her vote to support it. The database is set to expire July 1. The measure (House Bill 1174) would extend it for another four years and require the state auditor to study whether the information is accurate and whether it is helping law enforcement and public safety. Bill sponsor Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, said the database will help law enforcement know whether someone with a restraining order has a concealed weapon. Freshman Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, first voted against continuing the database but then changed to a yes vote in a second vote on the measure. She said she had previously told Bacon she would support it and switched back to supporting it when she realized the bill would have died otherwise.
RELATED: Bill would retain concealed-weapons list
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20922&template=article.html

Health plans would benefit state's uninsured
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468298,00.html
Almost all the low-income uninsured in Colorado would get basic or comprehensive health coverage under two plans presented Thursday to the state's Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform. Whether those proposals become reality depends greatly on whether the state can afford the costs, whether the feds deem the plans legal and whether employers and insurers back the plans or fight them. About one in six Coloradans - some 770,000 people - don't have health insurance, and that number seems to be growing. Kaiser-Permanente, one of the largest health insurers in metro Denver, proposes a gradual phase-in of coverage, starting with children and moving toward covering most uninsured adults.

More health care reform news in NATIONAL/HEALTH

COLORADO NEWS

Top

Election

Measure to let parolees vote passes
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20950&template=article.html
A broad electionreform bill that would allow paroled felons to vote was given final approval by the Senate on Thursday. Senate Bill 83, sponsored by Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, mostly aims to correct technical problems in the state’s election laws. But the bill has provoked controversy by granting parolees the right to vote. Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, said the change violates the state constitution, citing GOP Attorney General John Suthers’ agreement. Suthers told the House Republican Caucus on March 27 that “we believe the Colorado Constitution says you can’t have your right to vote restored until you’ve served your full term of imprisonment.” “Parole is a contingent condition of your release,” Penry said. “When that’s satisfied, your sentence is over. The vast majority of states don’t allow parolees to vote.” In a July 2006 opinion, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution allows the General Assembly to deny parolees the right to vote. But the decision in Danielson vs. Dennis did not say that the constitution requires the Legislature to do so.

Developers build campaign coffers
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5468294,00.html
If money talks, Denver developers are aiming to have a big voice in city government. Political contribution reports reveal that developers involved in major projects in Denver have become important backers of campaigns. Many of the developers likely will ask the mayor and City Council to approve rezoning for their projects in coming years. Developers shepherding the redevelopment of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Union Station and a major high-rise complex on the former Mercy Hospital site all gave generously. The Home Builders Association of Metro Denver also is heavily involved in the Denver election, helping fund several City Council candidates. Whether the donations buy influence when developers go before the council is subject to debate. "When I was on council I raised a lot of money, but everyone knew I wasn't going to vote with you because you gave me money," said former Denver City Councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt. "I have to assume that's true of the present council."
RELATED: Council's one-horse races in money
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5468267,00.html

HAMMERED AND SICKLED (EXTRA!, April 6)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468368,00.html
The mayoral race in Aspen has gotten weird as both the city's newspapers got a sheaf of bumper stickers saying, "Anybody but Mick Ireland for mayor of Aspen" and sporting a Soviet hammer and sickle on an aspen leaf. Ireland's opponents, Tim Semrau and Torre - who goes by only one name - denied knowing the source of the anonymous mailing. Ireland, a lawyer, doesn't seem like the Soviet comrade type: He noted that he owns his home and represents investors and capitalists.
RELATED: Aspen land swap on the ballot
http://aspentimes.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104060076

Black Forest cityhood legal bills pile up
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20898&template=article.html
Hefty legal bills have cost Black Forest incorporation advocates nearly $40,000, according to campaign finance records released Wednesday. That’s about $10,000 more than they’ve raised through donations, records show. The Black Forest Incorporation Committee has raised $30,730.51 in donations, and the opposition group Keep Black Forest Free has raised $8,650, records show. State law requires both groups to report campaign contributions and expenditures to El Paso County twice before the April 24 incorporation election. The reports, which were due Tuesday, document money received and spent through the end of March. Records show incorporation advocates are paying $39,166 to the Denver law firm Collins, Cockrel and Cole.

Top

Effective and Ethical Government

Joseph Wilson set to talk on politics, truth
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/conference-on-world-affairs/
Conference on World Affairs officials said Thursday that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson will speak at the Boulder event next week, adding to the list of well-known guests. Wilson became embroiled in a scandal after his wife, Valerie Plame, had to leave the CIA because her identity as an agent was published in the media. Wilson said members of the Bush administration revealed her identity because he spoke out against the push for the Iraq war.
RELATED: No Ebert, but welcome Wilson
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/c_u_and_boulder/news2.txt

Musgrave schedules several Weld, northern Colorado visits next week
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104050113
A local member of Congress is keeping busy during Easter vacation. U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan, has several northern Colorado visits planned for next week, including several in Greeley. She will walk along 9th Street in Greeley Monday morning, and other events will follow later in the week. On Tuesday, Musgrave will hold a public listening session in Greeley about the upcoming Farm Bill.

House opposes Iraq surge
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5601932
The Colorado House voted today to express its displeasure with the worsening war in Iraq, but lawmakers stopped short of specifically condemning President Bush's decision to send more troops. The House removed stronger language approved by the state Senate, which criticized Bush and said lawmakers expected a cohesive strategy from national leaders "before, not after, putting the lives of our brave service members in harm's way." Instead, the House voted to oppose the escalation in Iraq, not specifically the escalation of troops in Iraq. Minority Republicans said there was little difference between the two resolutions and called them a disservice to soldiers. "The message to troops is that we are of the mind of cutting and running," said Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud.
RELATED: House passes war resolution
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5467718,00.html
RELATED: Dems rewrite anti-war legislation, Reps balk
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/8

Amended budget sent to Senate (Under the dome, 4/6)
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604346
The House approved the state budget on a 44-20 final vote, sending the $17.8 billion spending plan back to the Senate with several changes. Specifically, the House eliminated the Senate's most significant budget amendment: a maneuver to spend $45.9 million on campus-construction projects at the expense of road work. Following the customary process, the Senate probably will reject the House changes and send the bill to a conference committee composed of members who wrote the annual spending plan in the first place. Lawmakers will vote again on the budget next week before sending it to the governor.
RELATED: House OKs Long Bill (Legislative briefs)
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/21

Scholarships start to flow
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_5467782,00.html
Amber Spencer, a senior at Englewood High School, and Jaleese Dawn McIntosh, a mezzo-soprano at Denver School of the Arts, also were honored Thursday during a surprise announcement at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South. That's right in the heart of state employee territory - a symbolic place to make the announcement because Amendment 41 threatened to put these kinds of scholarships beyond the reach of cash-strapped government workers and their children. Among its mandates, the ethics law approved by voters last fall made it illegal for elected officials, government workers and their families to receive gifts of $50 or more. But a Denver district judge ruled that the Daniels Fund scholarships are exempt. Fisher's mom, Mary Arneson, is a public health accounting technician and earns $32,000 a year to support four children. Fisher's annual tuition at Arizona State is pegged at $30,000.

Renfroe, Vaad to host town hall meeting Saturday
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104050111
Two Weld lawmakers will host a meeting with residents this weekend. Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Eaton, and Rep. Glenn Vaad, R-Mead, have scheduled a town hall meeting for Saturday morning at the Cache Bank in Greeley. Topics are likely include health care, the state of charter schools in Colorado and transportation issues, along with other issues in the Colorado Legislature.

Blog sparks controversy
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/c_u_and_boulder/news3.txt
A 23-year-old recent CU-Boulder graduate sits in the center of a controversy that sparked the resignation of the state House of Representatives education chairman and is now forcing prominent Democrats to question if ethics rules were violated by the young alum. Brad Jones, a 2005 CU graduate and former chairman of CU's College Republicans, posted on his right-wing political blog, facethestate.com, an e-mail written by House Education Committee Chairman Mike Merrifield, a Democrat, in which Merrifield says there's a “special place in hell” for supporters of K-12 charter schools. Jones obtained the e-mail through a state open records request. Merrifield stepped down as education chairman shortly after the e-mail was made public. But some state Democrats question if taxpayer-funded resources were used to uncover and distribute Merrifield's damning e-mail. Colorado law prohibits using state-funded equipment or staff for partisan political ends.

Fee hike promises smoother DMV trip
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604758
The price for specialty license plates would double and the cost of driver's licenses would increase 34 percent under a bill approved Thursday by a Senate panel. The increases are part of a plan to cover the costs of reopening three driver's license offices in Adams, Jefferson and Larimer counties and hiring 28 employees to staff the new offices and 25 workers who would be added to existing offices. Senate Bill 241 would increase the driver's license fee to $21 and the cost of specialty license plates, such as those commemorating Columbine or supporting state universities, to $50 from $25. Sen. Steve Johnson, R- Larimer County, the bill sponsor, said the goal is to reduce long lines and to relieve overburdened state workers. "We closed 30 driver's license offices around the state," Johnson said, "and that resulted in the remaining offices being overloaded."
RELATED: Panel OKs DMV expansion, license hikes
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5467784,00.html
RELATED: County’s plan for DMV office survives debate
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20902&template=article.html

YIPPEE! IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE (Roll Call, April 6)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5467745,00.html
33 Number of days left before the Colorado legislative session must adjourn on May 9. The session opened Jan. 10. Lawmakers are taking today off.

Boulder official needn't resign
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604344
Two lawyers have told Boulder leaders that City Council member Richard Polk doesn't have to resign as the result of his conviction for reckless driving. In a report released Thursday, the two outside lawyers said that a provision in Boulder's charter requiring council members to step down if convicted of a "crime or felony" does not include the misdemeanor to which Polk pleaded guilty. "The Council reasonably could determine that the drafters of the charter must have intended the word 'crimes' to include 'serious crimes,"' the report states. "Reckless driving is not a 'serious crime."'
RELATED: City lawyers say Polk can stay
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/city-lawyers-say-polk-can-stay/
RELATED: Case in Council's court
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/05/news/c_u_and_boulder/news1.txt

Criminal charge in probe ruled out
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20951&template=article.html
No criminal charges will be filed as a result of an investigation into “irregularities” at a maintenance district in Fountain, prosecutors said Thursday. The investigation, initiated by Fountain police, apparently focused on former Fountain Councilman Al Lender, who worked at the Heritage Special Maintenance District. “We didn’t find anything that rose to the level of criminal conduct,”4th Judicial District Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Miles said.

Youths pile into council chambers to support skateboard park proposal
http://postindependent.com/article/20070406/VALLEYNEWS/104060042
Glenwood Springs Middle School seventh-grader Jake Edwards never had attended a City Council meeting before Thursday night.

Top

Civil Liberties and Equality

Flag-burning school project inflames vets
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1A_Flag_follow.html
All that remains of a Wednesday evening flag burning are a few scorch marks outside the downtown Wells Fargo Bank, but local veterans said students’ incendiary social experiment was unnecessary and disrespectful. More than a dozen veterans, gathered at the Veterans of Foreign War Post 1247 at 1404 Ute Ave., said the boys’ experiment, intended to inflame passers-by, did not appreciate the significance of the U.S. flag or the lives lost defending what it represents. Ken Lergent, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1973, said the two Fruita Monument High School students, 17-year-old Jordan Lister and 18-year-old Kenny Coles, were “killing the honor of the veterans” when they burned the Stars and Stripes Wednesday evening. “I think it’s a bunch of bull,” Lergent said, sitting at the post’s bar. Lister and Coles said Wednesday they torched American, Confederate, British and French flags at various locations around the city as part of an experiment for their psychology class. The point of the experiment, they said, was to perform a socially abnormal act and document the reactions of passersby.

Board lifts restrictions on displays at library
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1a_library_displays.html
Bill Hugenberg won over the Mesa County Public Library Board of Trustees on Thursday. Hugenberg, a retired Grand Junction attorney who objected to an anti-gay public display in the library earlier this year and accused the board of violating Colorado sunshine laws, urged the board to trust the public with the content of exhibits displayed at the library. Board members met Thursday to discuss the library’s public-display policy and were considering requiring future exhibits to be reviewed for obscenity and other objectionable forms of speech not protected by the First Amendment prior to them being displayed. Hugenberg convinced the board otherwise.

Top

Marriage and Family Issues

Child-support services in peril
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604347
State and county officials overseeing court-ordered child- support collections say a federal law set to go into effect this fall will cut funds to run their programs and may cripple operations in cash-strapped counties. The reduction is expected to range from $3.2 million to $9.6 million in Colorado, according to John Bernhart, the state's director of child-support enforcement at the Department of Human Services. If the law isn't repealed before its October start date, the officials say, collections could dwindle as tight-budgeted counties struggle to replace the funding. Families who rely on support payments - many of them staying off welfare as a result - will be the victims, officials say.

Top

Health Care and Public Safety

DISASTER LOANS (Briefing, April 6)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468297,00.html
Low-interest disaster loans will be available to homeowners, renters and businesses and nonprofit organizations whose property was damaged by the Holly tornado, the Small Business Administration said Thursday. The SBA's declaration is separate from any broader federal disaster declaration that would bring emergency funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A total of 164 homes were damaged, 48 of them beyond habitation. FEMA officials said their initial survey found that as many as half were insured, reducing the need for federal assistance.
RELATED: State seeks FEMA trailers for Holly
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/1
RELATED: Collegians rally for Holly cleanup
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/19

Top

Crime and Penal Reform

Senate bill could up court fees, enhance security
http://montrosepress.com/articles/2007/04/05/local_news/4.txt
A bill up for vote next week could help local courts enhance security. Colorado Senate Bill 118 would create a cash fund by increasing surcharges imposed on various criminal convictions and civil court filings. Eligible counties could then apply for grant funding for security staffing, equipment and training. Chief Judge Steven Patrick told other members of the local 7th Judicial District at a meeting Monday the projected increase of $5 per surcharge was expected to generate $2.5 million per year.

Prison term upheld in judge threat
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604895
The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the six-year prison term of gun-rights advocate and 2002 U.S. Senate candidate Rick Stanley for threatening two Adams County judges. Stanley was convicted of two counts of attempting to influence a public servant after he threatened to have a militia force arrest the two judges who heard a gun case against him. The judges were protected by police and SWAT teams after the threats.
RELATED: Appeals court: Threat to arrest judges is not free speech
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5466381,00.html

Lawyer demands DA keep dealing
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20949&template=article.html
A defense attorney Thursday asked a district judge to hold the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in contempt of court for failing to engage in court-ordered plea bargaining in a first-degree murder case. Rick Levinson, who is representing Robert A. Rodriquez on first-degree murder charges, asked 4th Judicial District Judge Ronald Crowder to force the district attorney’s office back to the negotiating table. Doug Miles, chief deputy district attorney, told Crowder his office made a plea offer, but prosecutors don’t intend to make another one and they are disputing Crowder’s authority to order them into mediation.

Dozens caught in Internet sex sting
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1a_predators.html
Nearly 30 people will face criminal charges in Mesa County in an Internet sex sting that caught suspects engaging in sexually explicit conversations and soliciting sexual encounters with police posing as young boys and girls, authorities announced Thursday. In the first investigation of its kind in Mesa County, police and prosecutors have arrested and charged three people and plan to arrest and charge 25 more. In all, authorities said 64 suspects from 12 states and “several” countries made sexual overtures to people they believed to be children, suggesting investigators merely scratched the surface of what they said is a burgeoning national problem.

DNA prompts ex-spouse's trial in 1987 murder
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604896
DNA collected from sexual contact is the key evidence prosecutors will use to try to convict a 49-year-old Longmont man accused of murdering his ex-wife 20 years ago. Thursday, a sheriff's deputy rolled Kevin Franklin Elmarr into a courtroom in a wheelchair to face a preliminary hearing in the strangulation death of Carol Murphy. Yvonne Marie Woods, a DNA analyst with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said a DNA sample she examined, which had been saved during Murphy's autopsy, puts Elmarr in close contact with the victim within 12 to 16 hours of her death.
RELATED: DNA key to cold case
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/dna-key-to-cold-case/

DNA test results in arrest
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468223,00.html
DNA testing resulted in the arrest of an Arizona man this week in the 1976 slaying of an Englewood woman.

He's dodged a bullet two times
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5467688,00.html
It was the recipe for disaster - an uncooperative suspect in a high-crime area and a single cop with no backup. Officer Rick Beall was on a routine traffic stop in the 3300 block of Holly Street in September 2006 when he found himself in a potentially deadly situation. He was among the members of the Denver Police Department praised for valor or promoted to higher ranks during Thursday's quarterly award ceremony. Beall was given the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions.

GJ gets police training site
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1b_POST_academy.html
Grand Valley residents wanting to train for a career in law enforcement will no longer have to travel to Delta to do so.

Top

Economy

Anschutz: Nacchio wanted to quit
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604791
Joe Nacchio uncharacteristically asked Qwest founder Philip Anschutz for a private meeting in January 2001, around the time the former chief executive allegedly sold stock illegally. "I could tell he was agitated," Anschutz testified Thursday in Nacchio's criminal insider-trading case. "He had never asked for a private meeting with me." After closing the office door, Nacchio "broke down in tears" and told Anschutz that one of his sons had attempted suicide. "Phil, I want to resign," Nacchio said, according Anschutz's testimony. Nacchio later changed his mind. Anschutz, who handpicked Nacchio to lead Qwest, made a rare public appearance as the first witness to testify in Nacchio's defense.
RELATED: Some say Nacchio won't testify
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604439
RELATED: 'Phil, I want to resign'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5468413,00.html
RELATED: Shy Anschutz recounts path to former CEO
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5468406,00.html
RELATED: Special coverage: Nacchio on trial
http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/business/nacchio/

Top

Housing and Homelessness

Metro home sales improve
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604438
Metro Denver's housing market is improving with the weather. Home sales and prices rose last month, compared with February. The number of homes sold was up 38 percent to 4,274, which was 3.6 percent over the same month last year. The number of homes on the market was 26,430, compared with 27,309 last year. "As the grass gets greener, the market gets better," said Chris Djorup, owner of Metro Centre Metro Broker. During the first quarter, about 11,000 units sold for $2.9 billion, said independent real estate analyst Gary Bauer.
RELATED: Home prices slip in March
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/real_estate/article/0,1299,DRMN_414_5467683,00.html
RELATED: Home prices, sales fell in March
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20921&template=article.html

Mortgage market tightens for buyers
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/07/news070406_4.htm
A national tightening of mortgage lending requirements is hurting some local mortgage brokers and prospective home buyers. Durango mortgage brokers say deals have dried up for subprime mortgage customers, and potential home buyers with marginal credit and no money for a down payment are being shut out of the market. "People without good credit quality and good income are not able to get 100 percent financing, and they're unable to purchase homes that three months ago they could have purchased," said Peter Prit-chard, president of Animas Mountain Mortgage in Durango.

City sets aside $500,000 for affordable housing
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1b_affordable_housing.html
The city of Grand Junction will allocate nearly $500,000 to the Grand Junction Housing Authority to help acquire land where the Housing Authority plans to build roughly 150 affordable units.

Hunter Creek condos test $1M mark
http://aspentimes.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104060074
Sales at the Hunter Creek Condominiums, long regarded as an enclave of affordable living in Aspen, are poised to top the million-dollar mark.

Reverse mortgages in overdrive
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604792
A growing number of seniors - even wealthy ones - are using their homes as ATMs by taking advantage of a type of mortgage once viewed as a last resort for financially strapped seniors. Reverse mortgages have emerged as one of the fastest-growing products in the mortgage industry, but some financial planners question the wisdom of some seniors who are using the money to fund lavish lifestyles. Reverse mortgages allow home owners to tap into their equity while continuing to live in their homes. The number of government-insured reverse mortgages jumped 77 percent to 76,351 nationwide during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. In Colorado, the increase was smaller, but the rise was still 29 percent, to 1,947, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For Louis J. King, a retired Denver mechanic, a reverse mortgage provided enough cash to travel and make home improvements. "When I want to buy something, I buy it," said King, 73, who is considering using the money to install new windows in his west Denver home. "I don't have any (heirs), so I might as well spend (the money) now."

Top

Media

Dish TV operator reports CEO pay
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604473
Charles Ergen, founder, chairman and chief executive of satellite-television provider Echo Star Communications Corp., received a compensation package the company valued at $1.4 million last year, according to an analysis of a regulatory filing stated Thursday. Ergen earned $550,000 in salary and additional compensation valued at $858,171 for such items as personal use of the company jet and tax-preparation services, the Dish Network operator reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ergen declined to accept distributions that he otherwise would have qualified for under a 2006 cash incentive plan and did not receive a bonus.

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Education

Penley, Ritter meet, move forward
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070406/CSUZONE01/704060326/1002/NEWS01
Colorado State University President Larry Penley was in Denver on Thursday hoping to soften the hard feelings following CSU's eleventh-hour attempt last week to gain an additional $34 million in funding. In a quiet, informal meeting with Gov. Bill Ritter, members of the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee and the state's top higher education official, David Skaggs, Penley discussed CSU's funding problem and possible solutions. "The governor and I fundamentally place the same value on higher education and education in general," Penley said after emerging from the closed-door meeting. "I'm very appreciative that the governor was willing to sit down and talk, and I am really happy to have his time today." Last week, CSU pushed a failed Senate amendment to the state's budget that would have allowed the university to collect an additional $34 million in tuition.

Ritter writing to 8th-graders
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/ritter-writing-to-8th-graders/
Gov. Bill Ritter is sending a letter this month to parents of Colorado eighth-graders, alerting them to tougher in-state admission standards that will be in place by the time their children apply for college. Beginning in 2008, the state's higher-education board will require students to complete a set of pre-collegiate courses to get into Colorado colleges and universities. Admission standards will become even more demanding in 2010, when counselors need to make sure that high-school graduates have passed four years of math and two years of the same foreign language. The requirements apply to all public four-year colleges in Colorado.

DPS: Middle schools are in "neglect"
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5605653
Denver's middle schools have become impoverished, underenrolled bastions of abysmal academic performance and "neglect" in recent years, district administrators told school board members Thursday. In the first of a handful of talks to board members, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet and his chief policy adviser, Brad Jupp, gave a grim picture of the city's traditional sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade schools. Some are so underenrolled, sixth- and seventh-graders are taught together in basic subjects. More than half the students in all but three of the 15 traditional buildings do not read at grade level. At nine middle schools, more than 80 percent of students live in poverty. "It's not the failure of the teachers," said Jupp, a former middle-school teacher. "It's the failure of the system."
RELATED: DPS middle schools deficient, report finds
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_5468371,00.html

Student committee says UNC is not as diverse as community
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104060134
For four years in a row, the University of Northern Colorado has failed to meet the level of diversity represented by the U.S. Census in Colorado, a report by the Summit Organizing Committee of UNC said Thursday. The study compared percentages of ethnic groups from U.S. Census data to that of the student and faculty ethnic groups on campus. "The numbers have been rather flat for the groups that we monitor in the report card and of course we are disappointed," said Hermon George, faculty advisor of the summit committee. "We hope that the summit spurs school staff and administrators toward better representation and a better campus climate." Katie Pitzer, a sophomore at UNC, said even though she is not a minority, having a diverse campus is just as important for her education as well as for other students.

Rally set to help support Hispanic girls
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/12
The fifth annual "Soy Unica! Soy Latina!" rally to help Latina/Hispanic girls build and enhance their self-esteem is scheduled April 14 at Risley Middle School. The rally is set from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is open to middle-school age students from the area. "We want to provide young Latina girls with some kind of fundamental skills," said Jeanelle Soto-Quintana, chair of the Soy Unica! Soy Latina! committee.

D-11 pauses power changes
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20905&template=article.html
An initiative to give Colorado Springs School District 11 principals and staffs more power could be scaled back. Board President John Gudvangen said Wednesday it’s up to Superintendent Terry Bishop how a proposal for site-based management will proceed. Bishop must show “he’s got a program and a plan that will actually make a difference,” Gudvangen said. Bishop will bring something forward at the next board meeting, April 11, said district spokeswoman Elaine Naleski. A committee of administrators will meet Monday afternoon to discuss the site-based management project.

Schoolteachers get a boost
http://telluridegateway.com/articles/2007/04/06/news/news02.txt
Telluride schoolteachers may not be sipping Cristal on a Caribbean yacht, but thanks to a new pay structure there is something they have to toast to: one of the highest pay scales in the state. The Telluride School District Board of Education and the Telluride Education Association inked a contract settlement for the 2007-2008 school year that vaults base pay from $32,000 to a little more than $37,000. The top of the pay matrix, at 27 years, now clears $70,000, a jump of $5,000 from years past.

Group funds teachers' ideas
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070406/NEWS01/704060316/1002
The Poudre School District Foundation believes teachers need extra monetary support in order to provide students the best possible education. For that reason, foundation members believe it is necessary to provide funding to help turn local teachers' program ideas into realities. The foundation, now in its sixth year, has sponsored more than 120 teacher-created programs thanks to $375,000 in grants.

Committee formed to provide choice in education
http://montrosepress.com/articles/2007/04/05/local_news/5.txt
A number of Ridgway residents want to provide the area with choices regarding their children’s education and are working toward creating a charter school. Members of the Ouray County Charter School Initiative Founding Committee, formally called the Owl Creek Community School Founding Committee, introduced themselves to the Ridgway District School Board at the March 22 meeting. The goal, founding member Deidra Krois said, was to bring attention to what the committee is trying to do.

E-mails reveal DeVincentis' anger
http://www2.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/apr/05/emails_reveal_devincentis_anger/?local_news
During his last year as Strawberry Park Elementary School’s principal, John DeVincentis repeatedly attacked Cyndy Simms in e-mail exchanges with a teacher in Mercer Island, Wash. Today, as a member of the Steamboat Springs School Board, DeVincentis has made current Superintendent Donna Howell his target, colleagues say. In the e-mails between DeVincentis and Mercer Island first-grade teacher Joby McGowan, DeVincentis described Simms, a former Steamboat Springs superintendent, as a “pathological liar,” an “idiot,” “crazy” and made references to her divorce saying, “I can’t imagine being married to her. I would have been arrested for battering and abuse!” He suggests she has characteristics of a psychopath and a serial killer, jokes about spitting on her and accuses her of not being a good mother to her daughter.
RELATED: Statement from former chairman of the Parents for Dr. D Committee
http://www2.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/apr/06/statement_former_chairman_parents_dr_d_committee/?local_news

La Veta schools plan to limit enrollment due to crowding
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/17
An influx of students that sent enrollment soaring by 30 percent has prompted the La Veta School Board to close its doors to any more out-of-district students. After years of poor performance at the junior high school in a neighboring district, a large number of students transferred to the La Veta school district for the 2006-07 school year, bringing their siblings with them. "We’d love to take more kids," said Superintendent Dave Seaney. "But we just don’t have the room." After several years of declining enrollment in La Veta schools, the influx of 63 students from Walsenburg was an unexpected surprise.

Aurora teens get taste of mountain life
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070405/NEWS/104050090
Aurora Central High School junior Josue Lara had never skied before this week, mainly because none of his friends at school is into the winter sport. For Magaly Mar, a freshman at the same high school, it was a lack of motivation that kept her off the slopes. Junior Nelson Archelus stayed off skis but for a handful times in his life because it was too much trouble to travel from his home in Aurora up to the mountains. It's kids like these that former Aurora Public Schools teacher and publisher of Boulder-based LáTeen Magazine Ayal Korczak hoped to reach when he planned a free day of skiing or snowboarding at Breckenridge on Monday.

CU alum set for trip to space station
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5467785,00.html
Many of NASA's astronauts have graduated from the University of Colorado. A few even came from Colorado, such as part-time resident Scott Carpenter. But Steve Swanson is one of the few current astronauts who grew up in Colorado. He lives full-time in Houston, but still calls Steamboat Springs his hometown. "It's a beautiful place," Swanson said Thursday in a telephone interview. "It was a wonderful place to grow up and explore. . . . And being a small town, everybody knew each other and there was no traffic." Swanson, 46, is assigned to the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis, currently scheduled for an 11-day mission to the international space station and back. No date has been set, but it is expected to take off in mid-May or June.

Fort Collins teen arrested after bringing gun to school
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5466418,00.html
Fort Collins police arrested a 13-year-old seventh-grader yesterday after he allegedly brought a .357 Ruger handgun in his backpack to Kinard Core Knowledge Junior High School. Fort Collins police spokeswoman Rita Davis said that at about 5 p.m., a school resource officer received information the student had the weapon and showed it to at least one other student. The weapon, however, was never brandished.
RELATED: Kinard student arrested after taking gun to school
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070406/NEWS01/704060327/1002

Top

Military

Mental health bill for vets’ families advances
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20923&template=article.html
A proposed pilot program to offer mental health services to families of recently discharged Colorado Springs combat veterans cleared its biggest hurdle Thursday. The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved SB146, which would create a three-year program in the Pikes Peak region before expanding it to the rest of the state if it is successful.

9/11 focused life on service
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604754
Unemployed and burned out from working in the Texas oil fields, Shane Becker needed a spark to get his life rolling again. He got it on one of the worst days in American history. When planes piloted by terrorists hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, Becker decided to re-enlist in the U.S. Army. "That was a defining moment for him," Becker's stepfather, Bob Jorgen sen, said Thursday. "He was always a patriotic kid, and that got him going again." Becker, a 35-year-old staff sergeant and sniper, was killed Tuesday south of Baghdad while he and his team hunted down insurgents and enemy mortars, according to the Army.
RELATED: Flags at half staff for fallen soldier
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104050116
RELATED: Firefighters set up memorial fund for fallen soldier
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070405/NEWS/104050118

Soldier recalled for travels, advice, love of starry skies
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468224,00.html
Family and friends remembered Army Spc. Stephen Kowalczyk on Thursday with Bible verses, hymns and tales of his spirit, love and worldwide adventures. "The loss cuts through us," his sister Kathryn Kowalczyk, of Boulder, said during the funeral at Trinity Lutheran Church. "We find comfort in that he is with a troop of other soldiers that is watching over us," she said. Kowalczyk, 32, known as K-Wal to his fellow soldiers, was killed by small-arms fire March 14 in Muqdadiyah, Iraq. Brig. Gen. Anne MacDonald awarded him the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Good Conduct Medal and promoted him to corporal posthumously.
RELATED: Honoring Stephen Kowalczyk
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/honoring-stephen-kowalczyk/
RELATED: Church group protests at funeral
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/church-group-protests-at-funeral/

Mother of fallen Marine to spend Easter in Naturita
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_1A_Phelps_walk.html
The mother of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, who died three years ago in Iraq, will spend Easter in western Colorado as she continues her walk in memory of her son and to raise money for the wounded. Gretchen Mack will observe Easter at the Pentecostal Church in Naturita, and several veterans and biking organizations are planning to meet there, said Greg Merschel, who is organizing efforts to greet and escort Mack as she reaches the Grand Valley, where her son graduated from high school. Phelps, a 2003 graduate of Palisade High School, died April 9, 2004, soon after his unit arrived in Iraq. Mack and Phelps’ sister, Kelley Orndoff, began their 1,547-mile march from Twentynine Palms, Calif., to Dubois, Wyo., on Feb. 14 and plan to complete it on Memorial Day.

Sgt. Watson recovers from grenade blast in Iraq
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070405/NEWS/104050078
Since waking up in the hospital from an attack in the Diyala Province of Iraq, Army Staff Sgt. Rich Watson is hurting, but in good spirits. "The concussion is still pretty serious, and they're taking it very seriously," said his mom, Sharon Jones-Bird, of Frisco. Doctors are keeping a close watch on Watson, a decorated solider already in possession of a Purple Heart who is nearing the end of his second tour in Iraq. Instead of being sent back out, he is monitoring the radio at the base in the province of Diyala, his mom said.

VA nurse won't get jail
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604756
A former nurse who pleaded guilty to turning off a monitoring machine in a Denver federal hospital - leading to the death of a World War II veteran - was ordered Thursday to serve 16 months' probation and pay $5,967 in funeral costs. The sentence for Carol Elkins, 60, was part of a deal with federal prosecutors in which she promised never to work in health care again. The government investigated itself in this case of criminally negligent patient care at the Veterans Affairs hospital on Clermont Street. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Lewis Babcock called it one of the most vexing cases he's had, one involving a hardworking, religious mother who did little wrong all her life before her mistake in July 2003.
RELATED: House arrest for ex-nurse
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468225,00.html

Line drawn in park over statue
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604793
With its green lawn, jungle gym and picnic gazebo, Berry Park is an unlikely battlefield, but the local flap over the statue of a fallen war hero set to be placed here brewed into a national conflict Thursday. The Internet, talk radio and cable news spread the word of some parents' concerns about the planned bronze sculpture of Navy SEAL Danny Dietz holding his automatic rifle. "There's no middle ground here, and that's unfortunate," said Emily Cassidy, one of a handful of Littleton parents who say the statue with the gun should not be near three schools and two playgrounds at the southeast corner of South Lowell Boulevard and West Berry Avenue. "We're continuing to try to spread our message," Cassidy said. "The message is not against Danny Dietz, his family or the war. It's location, location and the audience that will view it."
RELATED: SEAL statue upsets some in Littleton
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468222,00.html

AFA cadet may face trouble after fall from cruise ship
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468349,00.html
An Air Force Academy cadet who plunged 50 feet from a cruise ship balcony into the ocean could face disciplinary action after a school inquiry is complete. "This will examine facts and circumstances," school spokesman Johnny Whitaker told The Gazette Thursday. "It is not a criminal investigation."
RELATED: Academy probing cruise ship plunge
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=20919&template=article.html

Courage, resilience and service
http://aspentimes.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104060072
High-tech wheelchairs crowded the snow's edge at the Snowmass Mall this week as nearly 400 disabled veterans took to the slopes for the 21st annual National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic. And each chair and collection of adaptive ski gear tells a story of courage, resilience and service. Jason Olmsted, a military veteran from Alabama, skied for the first time Thursday with the help of Joel Berman, an instructor with Adaptive Adventures. The two were one of many pairs hitting the slopes during a week of events that included everything from downhill and cross-country skiing to scuba diving, sled hockey, rock climbing and shooting - as well as new events this year like wheelchair fencing, curling and the biathlon.

Top

Religion

Priest denies that he ever fondled boy he counseled
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468226,00.html
A former Catholic priest took the stand in his own defense in Jefferson County Thursday, flatly denying that he ever fondled a 17-year-old boy. Timothy Evans, 43, on trial for sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, said he met with the boy only once, in June 1996, and that his close relationship with the boy's devout family continued after that. "Nobody ever raised an issue with me" regarding the boy, he said.

Church has unique take on Good Friday
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/church-has-unique-take-on-good-friday/
Nails are scattered near a large wooden cross and, framed by candlelight is a graffiti artist's rendering of Jesus Christ's face at the point of crucifixion. It's the middle station of a Boulder church's unique setup for today's Good Friday display, something that Jeff Rummer acknowledges is "outside of the normal church box."

In the footsteps of the faithful
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5468172,00.html
Since Christianity began, pilgrims have endured sleepless treks, bleeding feet, empty bellies and, in modern times, transcontinental flights with their kids. This is no vacation. Often it's no picnic either. The pilgrim embarks on a quest for spiritual healing and understanding: "It's a journey, a microcosm of real life - it demands everything you have," said the Rev. Greg Ames, a Northglenn priest who leads pilgrimages all over the world and calls himself "a pilgrimage freak."

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Energy Policy

Energy impact bill passes Senate
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_3a__severance_taxes.html
Lawmakers took one more step Thursday toward doubling the amount of money returned to energy-impacted communities. House Bill 1139, which doubles the amount of severance tax revenues directly returned to communities where energy industry employees live, was approved in the Senate without dissent. Local leaders and lawmakers from western Colorado have called the bill essential for their communities to confront the growing impacts, which will top $23.5 billion during the next two decades, according to a March 5 report from the Department of Local Affairs. Mesa County’s energy-impact costs, the internal report said, will approach $2.5 billion over the next 20 years. During the bill’s final Senate vote, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, and Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, added language to authorize an energy-impact forecast report.
RELATED: Energy impact costs hard to nail down, county commissioner says
http://postindependent.com/article/20070406/VALLEYNEWS/104060040

Surface rights breezes past crucial vote
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/07/news070406_3.htm
In a hallway on the state Capitol's top floor, a prominent gas industry lawyer extended his hand to Gwen Lachelt, head of Durango's Oil and Gas Accountability Project. "Congratulations," said the attorney, Ken Wonstolen, who represents the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. OGAP had just won unanimous approval in the Senate Agriculture Committee of its bill to boost landowner rights. The issue has been a perennial loser in the state Capitol for years. While the bill still needs to clear the full Senate, it has never been so close to passing. "It's a big day for Colorado landowners," Lachelt said. She credits cooperation from COGA and gas companies. Wonstolen testified in favor of the bill Thursday, after his group had resisted parts of it earlier this year. Thousands of landowners do not own the natural gas below their land, and the law gives gas companies the right to use the surface land for wells, pipelines and roads. The Legislature has tried to address the conflict several times, but past bills got bogged down in the details of how much gas companies should pay landowners, said Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, who is sponsoring this year's bill.

Tri-State delays plans for Kan. plant
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5604474
Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission said at its annual meeting Thursday that it would delay construction of a coal-based power plant in western Kansas, and instead seek more energy-efficient options to meet higher energy demand. The move comes following opposition to three proposed plants in Kansas and Colorado by environmental groups and some members of Tri-State's 44 co-op members. The company said it would look at alternatives such as expanding its Energy Efficient Credit program for consumers. Tri-State said it would move forward with plans to build a coal-fired plant in eastern Colorado. It also supplies power to members in New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.
RELATED: Wind proponents confront coal power
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070405/NEWS/104050078

Panel OKs state gas-seep study
http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/07/news070406_2.htm
A state-funded study of the Fruitland Outcrop methane seeps, including those in La Plata County, might proceed, even though its original source of oil and gas tax money has dried up. Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, is sponsoring the bill to fund the next three years of the study at a cost of $4.4 million. However, Isgar's original funding source - the state severance tax on gas production - is tapped out, Senate budget experts said Thursday. "The shorthand version of it is, we're overspent by $1.6 million in (the 2006-07 budget year). We could be overspent by $7 million in '07-08," said Sen. Abel Tapia, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Isgar convinced the committee to amend his bill to take the money from a mill levy on gas production - different from the severance tax. The panel voted 6-4 in favor of the bill.

Xcel's charity work lauded
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5605481
An innovative program for Xcel Energy employees to serve the community helped Xcel garner an award Thursday from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado. Xcel, Colorado's largest electric and gas utility, launched a program this year that allows all company employees to take 40 hours of paid leave per year to volunteer in the community. Many of the employees have contributed their time to mentoring at-risk youth in Colorado. The new program and participation by Xcel employees were instrumental in Xcel's being named corporate partner of the year by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Colorado.

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Transportation and Infrastructure

Road panel told to study all options
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604348
Colorado's method of paying for highways and transit is "antiquated, inadequate and in need of overhaul," Gov. Bill Ritter said Thursday as he challenged state leaders to come up with new ways of funding transportation. Between now and November, a new transportation-finance panel will explore a variety of "sustainable revenue streams" for roads and mass transit in Colorado that could include tax increases, toll roads and other "public-private partnerships," Ritter said at a transportation summit attended by more than 500 people at the Colorado Convention Center. To raise more money for transportation, the panel will consider increases in fuel, income, sales and property taxes, as well as a VMT tax that would charge motorists a fee, say one penny, for each mile traveled. Without an infusion of new money, the Colorado Department of Transportation expects to be short about $48 billion for road and transit improvements through 2030, CDOT chief planner Jennifer Finch said.
RELATED: Transportation funding task force ready to hit the road
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5467686,00.html

Top

Environment and Conservation

Roadless area petition awaits decision
http://postindependent.com/article/20070406/VALLEYNEWS/104060037
Changes in the political and legal landscape could mean changes on the ground in terms of how roadless areas are managed in the White River National Forest and elsewhere in Colorado. Advocates on all sides of the issue are awaiting a decision by Gov. Bill Ritter on whether to stand by a petition submitted to the federal government by his predecessor, Bill Owens, on what level of protection should be provided to more than 4 million roadless acres in the state. The White River National Forest has 640,000 roadless acres. Owens incorporated the recommendations of a state task force in his petition. "We're still deciding about whether or not to amend that original petition that was put forward," Ritter said in an interview with the Post Independent in March. Some roadless area advocates say the task force's approach doesn't go far enough to protect these lands. Supporters of the task force say it had broad-based representation and shouldn't be ignored.

County eyes open space funding
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070405/NEWS/104050089
A new law lifting the state sales tax cap for open space programs probably won't become part of the local open space funding equation. The Board of County Commissioners may ask Summit County citizens to extend - and perhaps even boost - an open space property mill levy as soon as this November. But the commissioners don't seem keen on the idea of raising sales taxes to fund open space. The first of two open space mill levies approved by local voters will expire in 2009. The thinking is that, should voters reject the measure this year, it would ensure a "second bite at the apple," according to Commissioner Thomas Davidson.

Private group may buy Wilson Peak land
http://telluridegateway.com/articles/2007/04/06/news/news01.txt
A private conservation group is negotiating with a Wilson Peak landowner to buy out his acreage and give hikers easy access to one of the state’s most stunning mountains.

District seeks to remove irrigation wells from replacement requirement
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104050114
Some of the irrigation wells in the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District could be removed from a requirement to replace water they used in the past. That is the request in a motion put before Division 1 Water Court Judge Roger Klein Thursday morning. Andy Jones, who is representing the district in its water replacement trial for its water augmentation subdistrict, asked Klein to exclude more than 200 wells from a requirement that they replace water they pumped in 2003-2005. Jones argued those wells are no longer a part of the replacement plan being heard by Klein. Klein told Jones and opposition attorneys he would consider the motion, but it's not known when he will rule on it.

Clear Creek Reservoir to be drained by autumn
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1175867596/6
The Pueblo Board of Water Works is draining Clear Creek Reservoir north of Buena Vista this summer in order to make repairs and perform maintenance on the reservoir outlet. The reservoir already had less water than usual earlier this spring, but will have virtually no water in it by mid-August, said Alan Ward, water resources specialist. “We started draining it on March 17,” Ward said. Water released from Clear Creek will be stored in an excess capacity account in Lake Pueblo. Ward said the Lake Pueblo account is nearly empty after leases this spring.

Taking the 'roar' out of the Fork
http://aspentimes.com/article/20070406/NEWS/104060075
The peak runoff on the Roaring Fork River is expected to happen earlier and be much lower than average this year, a federal agency that makes streamflow forecasts reported this week. The Roaring Fork's flow at Glenwood Springs is expected to peak around 4,100 cubic feet per second, The National Weather Service's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center concluded in its April report. The average peak is 6,150 cfs. The report indicated there is only about a 10 percent chance the peak will meet or exceed the average. The warm, dry weather in March will rob the river of some of its spring thunder.

Top

Opinion

Legislature wrestles with sex-ed guidelines
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5604032
Grappling with Colorado's high rate of teen pregnancies, lawmakers have approved a measure requiring school districts to include science-based information in sex-education courses. If the measure is signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, schools that offer sex-ed classes would need to ensure that the curriculum is based on information from doctors, health services and public-health departments. Are today's schools teaching sex ed that's not science-based? "No one really knows what everyone is doing," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora. "There has never been a real accountable way to check and see what each district is doing." "We just felt like there was a need for the state to say these are things we feel need to be added" to a curriculum, she said. "We want to make sure our young people are being kept up to speed on current issues such as Hepatitis C and the HPV vaccine." No district would be required to offer sex education under the bill, but those that do would need to include information about "emergency contraception" and condoms.

Carman: Rip off oil's Band-Aid to help schools
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5604755
The stories from around Colorado sound like something straight out of Charles Dickens' "Bleak House." Children going to school in buildings where rickety old furnaces belch carbon monoxide into the classrooms; chair legs breaking through rotted floors; snowmelt pouring through roofs by the bucket. After a tornado touched down last week in Holly, people across the state galvanized around concern for a community in crisis. Meanwhile, the 1918 school building there is so decrepit that a few years ago, the district considered using steel cables to keep the walls from collapsing. In this state, a school with walls falling down is not a crisis. It's normal.

Audit state mental facilities
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5604031
Recent news out of the state mental hospital in Pueblo is concerning, including the easy escape of a dangerous patient and revelations of a tax fraud ring - allegedly operating with the help of hospital staff. With 1,000 employees, 458 beds and a $33 million budget, the Colorado Mental Health Institute is a complex operation. Even the best-run institutions have isolated issues, but recent incidents make us wonder what else is going on there.

Towns must be tough on watershed provisions
http://www.gjsentinel.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2007/04/06/4_6_07_watershed_edit.html
The measures outlined by Genesis Gas and Oil to protect the environment as it drills for natural gas in the Palisade and Grand Junction watersheds are certainly welcome and appropriate. The question is: Are they enforceable? That’s not to suggest Genesis produced the 58-page drilling plan released this week — after months of work with representatives from both towns — only for the sake of appearance. Genesis officials appear genuinely interested in enacting the measures outlined in the plan. They include: Preparing a plan to prevent spills of chemical pollutants and quickly cleaning up any chemical spills, should they occur. Taking a variety of actions to isolate drilling fluids from both surface and groundwater.

Implicating Cemex, again
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/06/implicating-cemex-again/
Cemex Inc. operates dirty cement plants all over the country, but it might hope that citizens don't perceive its apparent apathy toward public health. Fortunately, the government is paying attention. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency notified Cemex that it is pursuing a range of enforcement options for a staggering series of violations of the federal Clean Air Act. The EPA says Cemex modified its Lyons cement kiln about 1997 without first obtaining the necessary permits.

Johnson: Barriers threaten dream of helping troubled kids
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_5467957,00.html
It has been a few years since I first heard of and last spoke with Harl Hargett, then a man who figured not only was he plain lucky, but just blessed. He had just entered into a deal to purchase from Glen West the Singin' River Ranch, a 150-acre spread near Upper Bear Creek outside Evergreen that the man had for some 30 years operated as a Christian camp and retreat. It was a godsend, Harl Hargett said, since the federal government at the time had determined Colorado had been erroneously paid Medicaid dollars for the rehab of children in its care. In short, money for out-of-home placements of juveniles all but dried up, forcing dozens of residential, foster and group homes into bankruptcy or immediate demise.

Winkler: Our troops are paying with their lives in Iraq for the government's failures
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070406/READERS/104060129/-1/TRIBEDIT
The "Vietnam Syndrome" will not work this time. The wedge driven between the people and the troops to divert attention and accountability from failed government policies is not working this time!

U.S. beef with S. Korea pact
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5604030
Key Western senators, including Colorado's Ken Salazar and Montana's Max Baucus, have signaled that they won't approve the proposed free-trade agreement reached with South Korea this week unless the Koreans lift their ban on imports of U.S. beef. The Post has a long history of supporting efforts to reduce international trade barriers. But the road to more free world trade has to be a two-way street, and Salazar and Baucus are right to pressure the Koreans to keep their part of the bargain.

NATIONAL NEWS

Top

Election

For Candidate Romney, This Dog Might Not Hunt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501944.html
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) is taking some heat for not packing it. Campaigning in New Hampshire this week, the candidate for the Republican presidential nomination told an audience that he is a "lifelong hunter," according to the Associated Press. "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life," the news service reported. But the campaign now acknowledges that the former governor has been hunting twice in his life -- once when he was young and lived on a ranch in Idaho, and more recently on a quail-hunting trip in Georgia with GOP donors.
RELATED: Romney shoots from the hip on hunting
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-romney-hunting_N.htm
RELATED: Romney Used His Wealth to Enlist Richest Donors
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/politics/06romney.html

Gingrich clarifies bilingual-'ghetto' remark
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-gingrich-spanish_N.htm
Newt Gingrich, former leader of the House of Representatives, who is mulling a 2008 Republican presidential bid, said his "word choice was poor" when he equated bilingual education with "the language of living in a ghetto." In a video statement read in Spanish, subtitled in English and posted on YouTube Wednesday, the Georgia Republican said he was not attacking the Spanish language. "I made some comments that I recognize caused a bad feeling within the Latino community. My word choice was poor but my point was simply this: In the United States it is important to speak the English language well in order to advance and have success," he said. Advocating intensive English-language education "is an expression of support for Latinos, not an attack on their language," Gingrich said. "I have never believed that Spanish is a language of people of low incomes, nor a language without beauty."

First quarter presidential fundraising totals
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-apfundraising5apr05,1,5024809.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
Money raised by candidates for president, according to their campaigns, as of March 31.

Florida moves to restore felons' voting rights
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-felons6apr06,1,2909210.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Many Florida felons released from prison could soon have their voting and other civil rights restored under a rule approved Thursday by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and the state's clemency board. All but the most violent felons would avoid a hearing before the board to have their rights restored, which sometimes takes years. To qualify, ex-offenders must have completed their sentences and probation and paid all restitution. "If we believe people have paid their debt to society, then that debt should be paid in full, and their civil rights should in fact be restored," Crist said. "By granting ex-offenders the opportunity to participate in the democratic process, we restore their ability to be gainfully employed as well as their dignity."
RELATED: In a Break From the Past, Florida Will Let Felons Vote
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/06florida.html?ref=us

N.M. County Passes Tax Increase to Fund Spaceport
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501905.html
Voters in a New Mexico county have approved a tax increase that will help build the nation's first commercial spaceport, state officials said yesterday. Rick Homans, chairman of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and the state's secretary of economic development, said the referendum is sufficiently far ahead in the counting of provisional ballots to declare victory, although an official count has not yet been announced.

Top

Effective and Ethical Government

For Bush's Staff Chief, A Thorny First Year
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502144.html
In just under a year as White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten has engineered a thorough overhaul of top administration personnel, pushed to end "happy talk" about conditions in Iraq, and tried to reposition the president on issues such as the environment, the budget, detainee treatment and health care. Yet as Bolten approaches his first anniversary on the job, he and the president he serves find themselves as politically besieged as ever. President Bush's approval ratings -- 36 percent, according to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll -- are lower than when Bolten took over last April. And the president is embroiled in new controversies involving his attorney general and the handling of military health care, while trying to fend off an unexpectedly strong challenge to his Iraq policy from congressional Democrats.

Cheney criticizes Pelosi for Syria trip
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney6apr06,1,3569160.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Vice President Dick Cheney scolded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday for "bad behavior" in traveling to Syria, a country that he said promoted terrorism. In a conversation with fellow conservative Rush Limbaugh on Limbaugh's radio show, Cheney belittled Pelosi's public statement after she met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Wednesday. "It was a non-statement, a nonsensical statement, and didn't make any sense at all that she would suggest that those talks could go forward as long as the Syrians conducted themselves as a prime state sponsor of terror," Cheney said. In her statement, Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, said, "We came in friendship, hope and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." All week the White House has criticized Pelosi's trip to the Middle East, but no comments have been as colorful as Cheney's.
RELATED: Pelosi tours the Saudi 'legislature'
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pelosi6apr06,1,4362572.story?coll=la-headlines-world
RELATED: On trip's last stop, Pelosi enjoys view
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050627apr06,1,7164074.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
RELATED: Pelosi Nudges Saudi Arabia to Give Women a Role in Politics
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/world/middleeast/06pelosi.html

Many presidents have used the recess option
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-bush-recess-option_N.htm
When President Bush decided this week that the Democratic-led Senate was playing politics with his nominees, he once again used powers as old as the U.S. Constitution to make recess appointments. Bush ranks fourth among modern presidents in granting such appointments, bypassing the Senate 165 times to get his nominees in place, according to the Senate historian's office. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243 appointments. The Constitution authorized recess appointments so presidents could fill key vacancies during long periods of congressional inactivity, which was the norm in early U.S. history. "The question is whether this is the politically wise thing to do," said Mark Rozell, a separation of powers specialist at George Mason University.

White House nixes spy chief's choices for No. 2
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-spy-chief_N.htm
The new national intelligence chief is still searching for a deputy after six candidates were either rejected by the White House or turned down the job, according to people familiar with discussions about the key slot. The nearly year-long vacancy has come up repeatedly in talks on Capitol Hill and in private discussions at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The new spy chief, Mike McConnell, has addressed the issue with his employees during at least one town-hall-style meeting at his Bolling Air Force Base headquarters.

Rep. Putnam Stays on Message
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501906.html
Rep. Adam Putnam won't apologize for trying to make headlines. The Florida Republican's new job is to jump on anything that makes Democrats look bad and exploit it for maximum effect. As chairman of the Republican Conference Committee, Putnam is the face and voice of House Republicans. His agenda: to aggressively display the flaws of the new majority, to convey the ideas of the Republicans, and to work his hardest to help his party win back the House in 2008. "Because we're in the minority, we have to work that much harder to get our message out," said Putnam, who edged out Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) for the job of conference chairman by a vote of 100 to 91. At 32, Putnam is the second-youngest member of Congress and the youngest to hold the job of GOP conference chair.

Where there's a cause, there's a caucus
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/04/06/where_theres_a_cause_theres_a_caucus/
Every morning in Washington, Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, rides his rusty red-orange Trek bicycle to work on Capitol Hill, a reminder of one of the first things he did when he came to Congress in 1996: create a bike caucus. With 165 members, the bipartisan Congressional Bike Caucus promotes the use of bicycles as a substitute for cars. The caucus shepherded $4 billion for trails, bike paths, and pedestrian facilities in a big transportation spending bill in the last Congress.

NASA's watchdog is rebuked
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nasa6apr06,1,2397593.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
NASA's top watchdog routinely tipped off department officials to internal investigations, and it quashed a report related to the Columbia shuttle explosion to avoid embarrassing the agency, investigators say.

Top

Civil Liberties and Equality

Padilla lawyers oppose disguised witness
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050633apr06,1,6049959.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Allowing a covert CIA operative to testify in disguise about Jose Padilla's alleged Al Qaeda application would be like putting a "ghost" on the witness stand, Padilla's legal team said Thursday.

In N.C., an apology over slavery
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/06/in_nc_an_apology_over_slavery/
The North Carolina Senate apologized yesterday for the Legislature's role in promoting slavery and Jim Crow laws that denied basic human rights to the state's black citizens. Following the lead of lawmakers in neighboring Virginia, the Senate unanimously backed a resolution acknowledging its "profound contrition for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated the denial of basic human rights and dignity to fellow humans."

Radio Host Apologizes For Remarks On Indians
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501943.html
A Houston City Council member and conservative radio host has apologized for saying taxpayers are paying large amounts of welfare to American Indians who are "whining" about having been "whipped in a war." Michael Berry said Thursday that he posted the apology on his station's Web site the night before "not because I offended people but because I was wrong." My facts were wrong, and the basis of my facts was wrong," he said. Berry said on his KPRC-AM talk show March 27 that Indians do not deserve the "incredible" amount of federal assistance they receive. "We conquered them," he said.

Top

Foreign Policy

Eight U.S., Four British Soldiers Die in Scattered Attacks in Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040500251.html
Eight U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in shootings and bombings over the past three days, and four British soldiers and an interpreter died in an attack Thursday in the southern city of Basra, according to American and British officials. Also Thursday, a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying nine people made a hard landing south of Baghdad. Four of the passengers were injured, including two treated for minor smoke inhalation, said Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Iraq. An investigation had not determined whether the Black Hawk had been shot at or experienced other difficulties, she said.
RELATED: 4 British, 8 U.S. troops are slain in Iraq
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq6apr06,1,1593903.story?coll=la-headlines-world
RELATED: Basra police: EFP bomb killed Britons
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-06-efp_N.htm

U.S. may give Iran access to detainees
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-iran-detainees_N.htm
U.S. and Iraqi officials are working to give Iran access to the five Iranians detained by American forces in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. He did not link the move to Iran's release of 15 British troops after nearly two weeks of captivity. In the first detailed discussion of the plan by a senior U.S. official, Gates said the U.S. has no intention of releasing the five Iranian prisoners. They were captured during a January raid in northern Iraq. The Pentagon chief said a consular visit by Iranian officials is not being considered.

Freed Britons Return Home As Calls for Probe Intensify
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040500397.html
The 15 British marines and sailors held captive by Iran for nearly two weeks returned home on Thursday as there were increasing calls for an investigation of the affair and confusion about whether their sudden release was part of a deal. Iran's official news agency, IRNA, said the head of parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, "reiterated that all arrested British naval marines as well as the British government had confessed to having violated Iran's territorial waters." The British denied that the crew had crossed into Iranian waters or that any apologies had been given. Speaking to reporters outside his Downing Street office, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government had made no deals or promises to win the release of the service members, who were immediately whisked by helicopter from London's Heathrow Airport to a military base in southwest Britain for reunions with their families and security debriefings.
RELATED: All sides deny deal freed Britons
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-06-release-britons_N.htm
RELATED: No Diplomatic Change After Britons’ Release
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/washington/06policy.html
RELATED: Freed Britons Are Back Home but Face Questions About Their Capture and Behavior
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/world/europe/06britain.html?ref=world

Britain Charges 3 With Helping Plan 2005 London Transit Bombings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501900.html
British authorities charged three men on Thursday in connection with the July 7, 2005, bombings of the London public transit system that killed 52 commuters. Mohammed Shakil, 30, Sadeer Saleem, 26, and Waheed Ali, 23, were charged with conspiring with the bombers between Nov. 1, 2004, and June 29, 2005.

Dutch Soldiers Stress Restraint in Afghanistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/world/asia/06afghan.html?ref=world
The Dutch-led force of about 2,000 soldiers has adopted what counterinsurgency theorists call the “oil spot” approach. Under this tactic, it concentrates efforts in less hostile areas, especially a basin around Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital, which overlaps an economic development zone designated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. The central idea is that if foreign military forces show restraint and respect, and help the local government to govern, then these areas will expand, slowly but persistently, like an oil stain across a shirt. As they grow, the theory says, the Taliban’s standing will decline.

Kidnapping raises dark issues
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050847apr06,1,1130165.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
More than three weeks have passed since the kidnapping of a BBC correspondent in the Gaza Strip, with no word on who seized him or why. Alan Johnston, the only Western correspondent based in Gaza, has been held longer than any other foreigner abducted in the coastal strip. His captivity has become a symbol of impotence of the Palestinian Authority in the increasingly lawless territory.

President Says Premier Could Face Charges in Ukraine Crisis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501907.html
President Viktor Yushchenko threatened his rival Thursday with criminal charges if he refuses to prepare for early parliamentary elections next month, suggesting the Ukrainian leader was losing patience in the deepening political crisis. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych remained defiant, however, vowing to first wait for a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the legality of the dissolution order. He also called for the involvement of a European mediator to defuse the crisis, Ukraine's worst since its Orange Revolution in 2004.

Diplomats to probe troops' acts in Somalia
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2007/04/06/diplomats_to_probe_troops_acts_in_somalia/
European diplomats said yesterday they were investigating whether Ethiopian and Somali government forces committed war crimes last week during heavy fighting in Somalia's capital that killed more than 300 civilians. The fighting, some of the bloodiest in Somalia in the past 15 years, pitted Ethiopian and Somali forces against bands of insurgents and reduced blocks of buildings in Mogadishu, the capital, to smoldering rubble. Many Mogadishu residents have complained to human rights groups, saying that the government used excessive force and indiscriminately shelled their neighborhoods. Eric Van der Linden, chief of the European Commission's delegation to Kenya, said he had appointed a team to look into several war crime allegations stemming from the civilian casualties.

Barely able to live, too poor to die
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-spiral6apr06,1,6394187.story?coll=la-headlines-world
For Zimbabwe's legions of the sick, the most common treatment is nothing more than hope and prayer. Life here is dominated by the downward spiral into illness and death. To save the sick, families already struggling with the world's highest inflation rate scramble to sell what little they have left. Children with broken limbs must wait until their parents scrape up the money for a cast. Hospitals have nothing, so doctors send families to buy drugs and even surgical gloves. HIV patients seeking antiretroviral drugs are told to come back months later. Accident victims are lucky to get a tetanus shot.

U.S. Confident About NKorea Disarmament
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600387.html
A mid-April deadline to begin North Korea's disarmament process can still be met, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Friday, despite the failure of nearly two weeks of talks to resolve a dispute over frozen Pyongyang funds. The standoff over the $25 million being held in a Macau bank has threatened the next step in a February agreement committing North Korea to shut down its main nuclear facility by April 14 in return for economic aid and political concessions.

China's Hu cementing authority
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050640apr06,1,5329061.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Long a proud showcase for economic development, Shanghai recently has become the stage for a high-stakes drama of corruption, vice and political intrigue with far-reaching consequences for the Chinese Communist Party. The scandal, which has brought down one of China's senior leaders, has its origins in large-scale graft in the local party apparatus. But more broadly, it reflects a political decision by President Hu Jintao to flex his leadership muscles against entrenched party officials known as the Shanghai faction, loosely grouped around former President Jiang Zemin and his proteges from this coastal boomtown.

Solomon Islanders Wait on Disaster Aid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502329.html
Villagers buried their dead where they found them, including two young boys discovered Thursday in one shattered community, as frustration mounted over delayed help for survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami Monday in the Solomon Islands. The United Nations released its first estimates of the human toll from the disaster in the southwestern Pacific archipelago, saying about 50,000 people had been affected, including 30,000 children who are "highly vulnerable" to malaria because of inadequate medical supplies and unsanitary conditions.

Violence looms as East Timor heads for vote
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600385.html
East Timor's political and religious leaders appealed on Friday for calm after supporters of candidates contesting next week's presidential elections clashed during campaigning, sparking fears of further electoral unrest. President Xanana Gusmao, interim Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta and Dili Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva urged voters to exercise their democratic right peacefully and called on political leaders to restrain their supporters.

Top

Immigration

Immigrant crackdown brings 6,696 'collateral arrests'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704060062apr06,1,4542628.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
More than one-third of 18,000 people arrested in a nearly yearlong federal crackdown on illegal immigrants were not the people authorities had targeted, according to government figures. The so-called collateral arrests involved people picked up by immigration agents seeking fugitives such as drug smugglers, thieves, drunken drivers and others who flouted deportation orders. When tracking down fugitives, authorities visit a suspect's last known address and often find other immigrants, who are then asked to prove they are legally entitled to live in the United States. Supporters of such tactics say the government is just doing its job after years of neglect. "God bless 'em," said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego who teaches immigration policy at the University of San Diego. "They apparently decided to start with these fugitives. If you're going to find one [illegal immigrant], you're going to find 100." Critics say the campaign against fugitive illegal immigrants ensnares many hard-working people who are in the country illegally but do not pose a danger. "They're trying to sell it as something where they target [criminals] but it's become part of a larger dragnet," said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee's office in San Diego.

Top

Health Care and Public Safety

New Urgency in Debating Health Care
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/06schism.html?ref=business
Since Hillary Rodham Clinton’s effort to overhaul the nation’s medical system was rejected in 1994, most big employers have stayed out of the debate on health care reform. But with their medical costs ballooning, top executives of large companies are starting to speak up again — and many are calling for a national approach to fixing health care. Few advocate a wholesale shift to government-directed medicine, but most are seeking broad changes in the employer-subsidized health system, which they regard as unsustainable in its current form.

An S O S for 911 Systems in Age of High-Tech
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/06phone.html?ref=us
Since the inception of 911 more than 30 years ago, the three-digit S O S has become universally familiar and relied upon. But the system has not kept pace with the nation’s rapidly changing communication habits. As it ages, it is cracking, with problems like system overload, understaffing, misrouted calls and bug-ridden databases leading to unanswered calls and dangerous errors. At the same time, the number of calls continues to grow. In Cherokee County, for instance, the volume has increased by 20 percent a year. Officials in places large and small have declared a 911 crisis. When 30,000 emergency calls went unanswered in Chattanooga, Tenn., where Bob Corker, the Republican candidate for United States Senate in 2006, had served as mayor, his Democratic opponent, Harold E. Ford Jr., made it a campaign issue. Officials in Riverside County, Calif., fed up with misrouted calls, have been advising residents to call the sheriff or local fire department directly.

Was Hatfield-McCoy feud in blood?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704060067apr06,1,6508713.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
The most infamous feud in American folklore, the long-running battle between the Hatfields and McCoys, may be partly explained by a rare, inherited disease that can lead to hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts. Dozens of McCoy descendants apparently have the disease, which causes high blood pressure, racing hearts, severe headaches and too much adrenaline and other "fight or flight" stress hormones. No one blames the whole feud on this, but doctors say it could help explain some of the clan's notorious behavior.

Salmonella blamed on water leak at factory
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050673apr06,1,7884971.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Moisture from a leaky roof and faulty sprinkler helped salmonella bacteria grow and contaminate peanut butter at its Georgia plant last year, sickening more than 400 people nationwide, ConAgra Foods said Thursday. The company conducted a nearly two-month investigation into the contamination and pledged to ensure that Peter Pan peanut butter is safe when it returns to stores in mid-July.

Pet Food Recall Expands as Senator Announces Hearings on FDA Investigation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501124.html
The recall of pet foods contaminated by tainted wheat gluten expanded yesterday to 20 additional varieties and Sunshine Mills dry dog biscuits. Sen. Richard J. Durbin announced a congressional hearing on the Food and Drug Administration's investigation, and more than 200 pet owners sued the company that sold the pet food for fraud. The FDA also said Menu Foods, a major manufacturer of brand- and private-label wet pet foods, expanded its original recall to foods it made since Nov. 6, 2006, a month earlier than previously announced. Its products made after March 6 are safe, the firm said.
RELATED: Pet deaths not easy to solve
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-05-petfood-probe-usat_N.htm
RELATED: 22 Brands of Dog Biscuits Are Added to Pet Food Recall
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/06petfood.html?ref=us
RELATED: China Says It Had Nothing to Do With Tainted Pet Foods
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/worldbusiness/06petfood.html?ref=business

One gene, a million small dogs
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-smalldogs6apr06,1,7857831.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Scientists identify the switch that leads to size variation among breeds. Learning more about it could help fight human disease. Thanks, boy!
RELATED: Difference Between Mutts and Jeffs? A Gene
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/science/06dogs.html?ref=science

Top

Economy

Consumer Confidence Falls for 2nd Month
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600277.html
Consumer confidence sank to a six-month low as higher gasoline prices, a housing slump and stock market turbulence made people fret more about the economy. The RBC Cash index showed confidence dropping to 85.4 in April. That was down from 92.3 in March. The new reading was the lowest since 83.1 in October. The index is based on the results of the international polling firm Ipsos. "The consumer is very nervous about the situation," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "One factor that is figuring into the drop in confidence is the rise of gasoline prices. Some places are close to $3 a gallon. A lot of consumers think that will poison the economy and the outlook," he said.

Wall Street ends shortened week higher
http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2007-04-05-stocks-thurs_N.htm
Wall Street ended a winning, holiday-shortened week with a quiet advance Thursday as investors awaited the release of March employment figures and remained cautiously optimistic after their recent buying streak. For the week, the major indexes showed gains each day and returned to positive territory for the year. There was a subdued tone to trading Thursday as investors adjusted portfolios ahead of a three-day weekend; the stock market is closed for Good Friday. Investors were particularly careful because they won't be able to trade on Friday's Labor Department's employment report until the stock market reopens Monday morning.

Rural Aid Goes to Urban Areas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502033.html
In a few weeks, artists, lawyers and bankers will begin arriving here for the busy summer season on high-speed ferries that take 90 minutes to make the trip from Boston. They will land at a recently refurbished municipal dock that was built with the help of a $1.95 million low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A few blocks away, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum has used nearly $3 million in grants and loans from the Agriculture Department to add gallery space and renovate a historic sea captain's house. A short drive back down the Cape, the department is financing a new actors theater in Wellfleet and recently awarded a grant to a garden center in Hyannis to build a windmill. Although Cape Cod is only a short trip from Boston and Providence, R.I., and is home to some of the wealthiest beach towns in the United States, to the Agriculture Department it meets the definition of rural America. That means it qualifies for aid originally intended for farmland and backwoods areas that were isolated and poor, struggling to keep their heads above water.

Kerkorian Opens Bids for Chrysler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501088.html
Kirk Kerkorian, the 89-year-old billionaire investor who has agitated boardrooms from Hollywood to Detroit, proposed a $4.5 billion buyout of Chrysler yesterday, the first public offer for the troubled carmaker. The offer opened what is expected to be a high-stakes bidding war for Chrysler. In typical Kerkorian style, the proposal was designed to pressure the board of its parent company, DaimlerChrysler, which has remained mum about potential buyers.
RELATED: Kerkorian bids for Chrysler
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050702apr06,1,4804772.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

IRS seeks $10M in allegedly hidden assets
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/regulation/2007-04-06-tax-probe-usat_N.htm
Federal tax officials have asked a court to authorize government seizure of $10 million linked to dozens of alleged tax debtors suspected of using anonymously controlled companies to hide their ownership of the funds. The legal complaint filed this week in federal court in St. Louis targets companies and bank accounts formed by Asset Protection Group, a Nevada firm that marketed corporate secrecy techniques aimed at helping clients shield assets "from capricious federal judges and any government agency."

Patent Ruling Impact
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502116.html
Verizon has thrown a lifeline to rival Vonage Holdings, suggesting that the Internet phone provider could continue serving its customers despite a judge's ruling ordering it to stop using a crucial technology connecting its network to the public telephone system. The compromise proposal came this week ahead of a hearing in Alexandria today that could decide the fate of the heavily marketed Vonage. U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton is scheduled to rule this morning on Vonage's request that he stay his earlier decision, which barred the company from using several types of technology found by a jury to be in violation of Verizon's patents. Vonage, which argues that it did not infringe on the patents, has asked for a reprieve of at least 120 days while it appeals the month-old verdict.

Retailers Join Forces To Track Theft Rings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502086.html
Two of the shopping industry's largest trade groups are joining forces with the FBI to create a database that tracks retail crime gangs, which they say are becoming increasingly organized. About 35 companies are participating in the database, including Limited Brands; American Eagle Outfitters; Mervyns and Bealls department stores; and Macy's, owned by Federated Department Stores. The Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network, or LERPnet, is slated to launch Monday for retailers. Law enforcement will have access in a few months.

Top

Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability

Jobless claims rise in latest week, but trend is strong
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-04-05-jobless_N.htm
Newly laid-off workers signed up for unemployment benefits at a faster pace last week as companies try to cope with sluggish growth in the economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for jobless benefits rose a seasonally adjusted 11,000, to 321,000 for the work week ended March 31. Although the increase left jobless claims at their highest level since the beginning of March, the report suggested that the labor market is holding up fairly well to strains from the troubled housing market and struggles faced by the automotive industry and other manufacturers. The showing on new jobless claims last week was in line with analysts' expectations. They were forecasting claims to total around 320,000.
RELATED: Jobless Claims Rise by 11,000
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/06econ.html

Top

Media

N.Y. Times Investors Urged to Protest Board
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040500881.html
An influential advisory group for institutional investors recommended yesterday that shareholders of the New York Times Co. withhold their votes for four of the company's directors at this month's annual meeting, in a sign of growing shareholder unrest with company management. The advice is the latest pressure brought against the Times Co. for its poor stock performance in recent years. The Times Co., like The Washington Post Co., is a public company that has two classes of stock, one with far greater voting power than the other. Such an arrangement allows a few individuals, mainly the Times Co.'s Ochs-Sulzberger families, to control the company despite holding only a small portion of the overall shares, called Class B. Class A stock is available for public purchase; shareholders elect four directors. Class B stockholders elect the board's nine other directors, who include Times Co. chairman and Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and Times Co. President Janet L. Robinson.

Zell Gets Veto Power at Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/media/06tribune.html?ref=business
The Tribune Company last night disclosed new details of its plan to go private in a complex deal engineered by the real estate tycoon Samuel Zell, including provisions that will give Mr. Zell broad authority over corporate activities.

Top

Education

Education Dept. Official Under Scrutiny in Student Loan Probe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502074.html
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a senior official in its financial-aid office who owned about $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company that has been subpoenaed by New York authorities, department officials said yesterday. Matteo Fontana, general manager of Financial Partners Services, the department's primary contact for student loan companies, held at least 10,500 shares in the parent company of Student Loan XPress in September 2003, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. At that time he oversaw the government database that contains confidential information on student borrowers.
RELATED: Federal Official in Student Loans Held Loan Stock
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/education/06loans.html?ref=washington

Battle to Win Top Colleges' Nod Escalating
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502251.html
Beka Badila, a senior at the Oakcrest School in McLean, did everything she was supposed to do to get into a good college. She worked hard to get a 3.56 grade-point average and raised her SAT score from 1500 to 1800. She played on the tennis team all four years, wrote good college-application essays and devoted herself to her first love -- drama productions. The results are in: rejected by the University of Virginia, William and Mary, Carnegie Mellon, Occidental and Pepperdine, waitlisted at Fordham. The 18-year-old's only acceptances were two small Virginia schools -- Bridgewater and Longwood.

Top

Military

Defense Secretary Sees Encouraging Signs in Baghdad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501453.html
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he believes the military's operation to secure Baghdad is showing "positive" early signs but that he is reluctant to use "happy talk" to describe the situation in Iraq because it remains violent. Gates told reporters at the Pentagon that it is still too early to tell whether the "surge" into Baghdad is working and said top commanders probably will not know until midsummer whether their efforts at clearing out Iraq's largest city are making significant progress. Displaying a sense of caution, as he often has in his first months at the Pentagon's helm, Gates said predictions that the U.S. security plan would elicit a rise in large-scale bombings and other attacks to derail the effort have so far come true.
RELATED: Duration of troop surge in Iraq is unclear
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-ex-gates5apr05,1,7578428.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Pentagon to alert Guard for '08 Iraq tours
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-national-guard-iraq_N.htm
Several National Guard brigades are expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of next year, according to a senior Defense Department official. If their assignment to Iraq is ultimately approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, it would be the first time full Guard combat brigades were sent back to Iraq for a second tour. The units would serve as replacement forces in the regular unit rotation for the war, and would not be connected to the recent military build-up for security operations in Baghdad. Gates is expected to sign the notices alerting the Guard troops shortly, said the official, who requested anonymity because the information has not yet been released.

Army suspends recruiter for anti-gay e-mail rants
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050845apr06,1,343731.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
The fraught e-mail exchange between the Army recruiter who went headhunting for soldiers on the Internet and a freelance copywriter searching for steady work started innocuously. The recruiter, sitting at her desk in Brooklyn, N.Y., fired off a message to the Jersey City job seeker who had posted his resume on CareerBuilder.com and invited him to apply to join the service. She noted that the Army had plenty of openings in military intelligence, aviation, translation and other fields. In an admittedly sarcastic tone, the job seeker wrote back that he was openly gay and asked whether that would disqualify him -- though he knew the answer quite well, as he acknowledged later -- and said he had no interest in being in the military. The exchange escalated into a series of insults and counterinsults, culminating in anti-gay, racist and typo-filled rants by the recruiter, who has been reassigned and is under investigation by the military. The text of the e-mails was provided by the job seeker but has not been disputed by the Army. "You are definitely unqualified, now take you gay self someplace else we do not tolerate gay people like you in any part of the military," wrote the recruiter, Sgt. Marcia Ramode, in angry capital letters in an early e-mail. She later wrote: "You head off to gay land of people who have no morals, and get rid of yourself. Personally I think being gay is disgusting and immoral."

Accuser testifies in Naval Academy case
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050632apr06,1,5656742.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A Naval Academy student testified Thursday that a fellow midshipman forced her to have sex three times over several hours in a Washington hotel last year.

Book details Army drug experiments
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-army-experiments_N.htm
Army doctors gave soldier volunteers synthetic marijuana, LSD and two dozen other psychoactive drugs during experiments aimed at developing chemical weapons that could incapacitate enemy soldiers, a psychiatrist who performed the research says in a new memoir. The program, which ran at the Army's Edgewood, Md., arsenal from 1955 until about 1972, concluded that counterculture staples such as acid and pot were either too unpredictable or too mellow to be useful as weapons, psychiatrist James Ketchum said in an interview. The program did yield one hallucinogenic weapon: softball-size artillery rounds that were filled with powdered quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ, a deliriant of the belladonnoid family that had placed some research subjects in a sleeplike state and left them impaired for days. Ketchum says the BZ bombs were stockpiled at an Army arsenal in Arkansas but never deployed. They were later destroyed.

Top

Religion

Blogging for Jesus, political junkies on CBN
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-brody6apr06,1,3515196.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Political reporter David Brody is punching his keyboard with two fingers, checking the Web for mentions of his stories. Up pops a liberal blog quoting one of his recent interviews. He's delighted — until he sees the snippet is attributed to "Pat Robertson's CBN." "Pat Robertson's CBN," Brody says in frustration. "We take that as a dig." Brody does work for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, and mostly he's proud of that fact. But stereotypes are inevitable when you cover politics for a network run by a standard-bearer of the religious right. Brody, 42, has made it his mission to confound them. By turning his blog into a sounding board for presidential candidates — testing their appeal to the much sought-after evangelical voter — Brody has turned CBN into an unlikely go-to source for political junkies, routinely cited by the mainstream media.

New Accusations Are Raised After Firing in Jewish Group
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/us/06jewish.html
The controversy surrounding the World Jewish Congress, the tiny nonprofit organization that won billions for Holocaust survivors, continued this week, as its chief patron, Edgar M. Bronfman, accused its former leader, Israel Singer, of misusing money and concealing “significant information.”

Top

Energy Policy

Gas use up since early time change
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-05-daylight-savings-usat_N.htm
In a bid to save energy, Congress moved up daylight-saving time by three weeks this year. But so far, the change appears to have backfired after Americans last month used record amounts of gasoline as they got out to enjoy the extra hour of sunshine. Average daily gasoline demand for the three weeks after the time change rose 2.8% from the same period a year ago and was the highest ever for the period, according to the Energy Department. Some observers say the surge is linked to the earlier start for daylight-saving time, which began March 11 instead of the customary first Sunday in April. "Daylight-saving simply pushes us out of our houses," says Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. Downing, a critic of daylight-saving time, argues that the extra hour of light at day's end leads people to drive to places, such as golf courses, parks and shopping malls, that they otherwise wouldn't.

Nuclear Plant Owner Seeks Payment for Lost Production
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/business/06nuke.html?ref=business
The owner of an Ohio nuclear plant has asked its insurer to pay for two years of lost production because of corrosion that it called “unexpected and unforeseeable,” even though it had resisted government pressure to inspect for acid leaks just before the problem was uncovered in 2002.

Top

Transportation and Infrastructure

Mandate: Anti-Rollover for U.S. Vehicles
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040500849.html
The government said Thursday it would require all new passenger vehicles to have anti-rollover technology by the 2012 model year, predicting it could save thousands of lives and dramatically reduce rollover crashes. The Transportation Department said "electronic stability control" could prevent between 5,300 and 9,600 deaths annually and up to 238,000 injuries a year once it is fully deployed into the nation's fleet. "Like air bags and like seat belts, 10 years down the road we're going to look back and wonder how the ESC technology was ever lived without," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said at the New York International Auto Show.

Top

Environment and Conservation

Warming report may be 'diluted'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704050617apr06,1,6705321.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A major report on global warming will likely read less dire about massive extinctions than scientists originally wrote. Participants in marathon negotiations over a climate change report, due out Friday, said government delegates have weakened the original language in the report. A final draft of the report -- as written by scientists before editing -- says "roughly 20-30 percent of species are likely to be at high risk of irreversible extinction" if global average temperature rises by 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
RELATED: Emissions Already Affecting Climate, Report Finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/science/earth/06cnd-climate.html?ref=science

Top

Opinion

Editor’s note: the New York Times has converted to a subscription-based editorial section. We are no longer clipping their op-ed columnists.

Ignatius: Calming the Waters in the Gulf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501789.html
Here's an American acronym we ought to translate promptly into the Iranian language of Farsi: INCSEA. It's shorthand for a May 1972 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to prevent dangerous incidents at sea, and it's a model for how to begin reducing dangerous tensions with Iran. The moment for such a dialogue is ripe, now that the Iranians have opted for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis they provoked two weeks ago when they seized15 British sailors and marines in disputed waters off the Iraqi coast. The British hostages are back home, but it's obvious that a better system is needed to avoid confrontations in the crowded waters of the northern Persian Gulf.
RELATED: Diplomacy paid off with Iran
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-iran06apr06,0,164373.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
RELATED: Hanson: Use policy, not bombs, to put Iran in its place
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0704050552apr06,0,6760331.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

Brooks: Bring on the Iraq micromanagers
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks6apr06,0,5635026.column?coll=la-opinion-center
FACED WITH congressional bills setting timelines for the redeployment of combat troops from Iraq, the president and his dwindling band of supporters have been complaining bitterly about lawmakers' efforts to "micromanage" the war. Funny, you'd think they'd be relieved! It's about time someone in the U.S. government showed an interest in managing — much less micromanaging — this war.

Guantánamo Follies
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/opinion/06fri1.html
There has been much speculation about the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal from a group of Guantánamo Bay inmates until they have exhausted their legal options. Was the court signaling that the appeal had no merit? Were the court’s liberals waiting for a better chance to review President Bush’s unconstitutional detention system for “illegal enemy combatants”? Whatever the justices’ intentions, we saw one clear message in their decision, and we hope that Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, saw it too. It is past time for Congress to undo the grievous damage done by President Bush’s abuse of the Constitution when he created his system of secret prisons and public internment camps to detain selected foreigners indefinitely without any real legal challenge.

Froomkin: A Poke in the Eye at Recess
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/05/BL2007040501012.html
When the White House suddenly and unexpectedly withdrew Sam Fox's nomination to be ambassador to Belgium last week -- just minutes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was set to vote against him -- it was seen as a sign that President Bush might be reconciling himself to the realities of sharing power with a Democratic-controlled Congress. Democrats, who had denounced Fox for his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, applauded the White House for its graceful concession. But it turns out that conceding gracefully was the last thing President Bush had in mind. He was just sick of going through the motions.
RELATED: Recess Abuse
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501886.html
RELATED: No Recess From Bad Appointments
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/opinion/06fri2.html

Goodman: Fast track to making mistakes
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/06/fast_track_to_making_mistakes/
A few weeks ago, a Supreme Court reporter noticed that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took an unusually long time getting on her feet after a hearing. Blogging away on "Legalities," ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg breezily wrote that it "made me think I'd better start pulling those possible retirement files together." This hint about Ginsburg's health moved across the blogosphere at, well, Internet speed. Days later, New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse -- tweaking her colleague -- offered a "pedestrian" explanation for the justice's slowness. Ginsburg couldn't find one of the shoes she'd kicked off under the table. The difference between the two reports on the shoeless justice was not a matter of good or bad reporting. It was, rather, a matter of blog time and checking time. The observation was right, but the diagnosis was as far afield as an errant shoe.

Dionne: Answers To the Atheists
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501790.html
As a general proposition, I welcome the neo-atheists' challenge. The most serious believers, understanding that they need to ask themselves searching questions, have always engaged in dialogue with atheists. The Catholic writer Michael Novak's book "Belief and Unbelief" is a classic in self-interrogation. "How does one know that one's belief is truly in God," he asks at one point, "not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?" The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn. They are especially frustrated with religious "moderates" who don't fit their stereotypes.

Reed: An Ameriquest speechwriter's mea culpa
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-reed6apr06,0,5551064.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
She penned executive addresses while the subprime mortgage company was sinking under its own questionable lending practices.

Milbank: The Right Dusts Off Its 'Impeach Clinton' Buttons
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501861.html
The Right Wing Conspiracy was not as Vast as it once was, but yesterday's steering committee meeting at the National Press Club still had a decent turnout. WorldNetDaily was there, as well as the New York Sun, two representatives of Accuracy in Media, talk-show host Lester Kinsolving -- and a camera crew from Fox News, natch. The subject: a new poll, funded by Judicial Watch, finding that people expect Hillary Clinton's administration to be corrupt. Some might regard the findings as premature, given that the Hillary Clinton administration has not been elected and, therefore, has had limited opportunity to demonstrate corruptness. But this was no obstacle to Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, which back in the day filed drawers full of lawsuits alleging Clinton corruption.

Lehigh: New Mexico's man on the move
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/06/new_mexicos_man_on_the_move/
BILL RICHARDSON'S press availability outside the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has drawn only a half a handful of reporters. The New Mexico governor has just finished a distant fourth in the early Democratic fund-raising sweepstakes, his $6 million dwarfed by Hillary Clinton's $26 million, Barack Obama's $25 million, and John Edwards's $14 million. And yet, he's feeling pretty good. Richardson has outdistanced both Chris Dodd ($4 million) and Joe Biden (nearly $4 million), adding to the sense that he's the second-string presidential candidate with the best chance of getting into the game.

Ullrich: Raw truth from Elizabeth Edwards
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0704050550apr06,0,5973897.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
On a cold, windy April day in a banquet hall connected to a billiards parlor, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' campaign slogan hung strategically on a wall, acting as the backdrop for one of his frequent town hall meetings. It looked like a sneak peek at the title of an entirely forgettable graduation speech being given by a well-meaning Iowa school board president: "Congratulation graduates, and remember, 'tomorrow begins today.' " A crowd of about 600 listened politely as Edwards spoke passionately about predatory lending, universal health care, affirmative action, the minimum wage and, in response to a local question, federal assistance for those with autism.

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