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TOP STORIES
Pentagon
strains to uphold troop levels in Iraq
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guard10apr10,1,3648432.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The Pentagon will send
four National Guard brigades to Iraq and may extend the tours of five
active-duty Army brigades by as much as four months as it strains to find
troops to sustain the buildup in Baghdad through the end of the year. The
National Guard deployments — 13,000 soldiers based in Arkansas, Indiana,
Oklahoma and Ohio — mark the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
that entire brigades are being called up for second combat tours. The four
brigades served in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Balkans in 2004 or 2005.
"Obviously everyone is going to be a little apprehensive about going back
to Iraq," said Col. Kendall Penn, commander of the 39th Infantry Brigade
Combat Team in Arkansas. "However, this is a mission that the unit has
trained for…. It is a mission that we are capable of doing." The
deployments come at a politically difficult time for President Bush, who is
fighting efforts in the Democratic-controlled Congress to force him to withdraw
combat forces from the 4-year-old war.
RELATED: Hurricane response could suffer, senator says
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shortages10apr10,1,3152978.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
RELATED: Four Guard
brigades to return to Iraq
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-ex-guard9apr09,1,1531857.story?coll=la-headlines-world
RELATED: Iraq Looms
Closer for 13,000 Reservists
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/us/10reserves.html?ref=washington
Senators
press Gonzales for more documents
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys10apr10,1,4868407.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, indicating they think there is more to learn about the
firings of eight federal prosecutors last year, asked Atty. Gen. Alberto R.
Gonzales on Monday to turn over additional documents on the terminations and
threatened to issue subpoenas if the materials were not forthcoming.
Specifically, the four senators want the internal rankings that the Justice
Department made of all 93 U.S. attorneys over the years, as well as employment
charts that Monica M. Goodling, a top aide to Gonzales, provided to Justice
officials as they decided which prosecutors to fire. The senators have also
asked for the department's ratings of all 93 prosecutors in December, when
seven of the eight were fired, including explanations why officials decided
that certain prosecutors "might be on his or her way out" and why
others were allowed to remain.
RELATED: Senators Press for More Files on Removing Prosecutors
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/washington/10attorneys.html
Hopkins
Official Implicated as Student Loan Investigation Widens
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/09/AR2007040901175.html
The directors of
financial aid at Johns Hopkins University and two other universities received
tens of thousands of dollars from a student loan company as the officials and
their schools urged students to borrow money from that lender, New York state
investigators said yesterday. The payments by the company, Student Loan Xpress,
are the latest revelations from a widening investigation into the $85
billion-a-year student loan industry. Congressional Democrats and state law
enforcement officials are probing what had been little-known financial
relationships among lending companies, universities and government officials.
RELATED: Student Lender Had Early Plans to Woo Officials
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/education/10loan.html?ref=us
Richardson
content to start slow in White House race
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-richardson10apr10,0,5553674.story?coll=la-home-headlines
On the afternoon of
the 58th day of New Mexico's 60-day legislative session, Gov. Bill Richardson
reclined on the green leather couch in his office, rubbed his eyes and growled
to the cluster of staffers surrounding him: "What can I sign?" His
aides, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, explained that the Legislature's
printing office had lost three employees, keeping newly passed bills from
promptly reaching his desk. "Send them some of our people," Richardson said. "I gotta sign something." That impatience has been the hallmark
of Richardson's four years as governor, a tenure that has transformed this
sleepy state's politics. The Democrat has launched a flurry of initiatives,
ranging from the mainstream to the quirky. At his urging, the state has cut
taxes, given teachers $275 million in raises, legalized medical marijuana, and
authorized $225 million in state money to build a spaceport.
Today’s complete national news
Colorado
Bill
to stop land seizure gains
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5630578
After emotional pleas
from dozens of ranchers, a Senate committee passed a bill Monday that seeks to
stop the Army from taking a swath of southeastern Colorado ranchland to expand
its soldier-training ground. "Home is where the heart is, and that's all
I've got," said Abel Benavidez, a Las Animas County rancher whose
ancestors set up a homestead there in the 1870s. Benavidez was one of about 130
people who packed a Capitol hearing room for a measure that aims to block Army
plans to expand the Piñon Canyon training site by 418,000 acres. The bill,
already passed by the House and now headed to the full Senate after a 4-1 State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee vote, is more of a political statement: It's
unlikely the state can trump the U.S. government's authority to take property
through eminent domain. "If they end up doing whatever they want to do,
then we made our voice heard," said Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, who is
sponsoring House Bill 1069 with Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh. Mack Louden, a Las
Animas County rancher whose great-grandparents settled in southeastern Colorado in 1902, said an Army "takeover" could result in the loss of 40 to 80
ranches.
RELATED: Panel says no to Carson expansion
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5474930,00.html
RELATED: Kit Carson
descendant opposes expansion
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5474977,00.html
RELATED: Move to limit
Army site picks up support
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=21080&template=article.html
RELATED: Army's use of
eminent domain under fire
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1176215732/1
RELATED: Army denies
it is withholding records
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1176215732/2
Families
may sue over drownings, court rules
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5630817
Families of two boys
who drowned in drainage ditches in Colorado Springs and Longmont can sue the
cities because government immunity did not apply at the time of the accidents,
the state Supreme Court ruled Monday. The court, in a unanimous ruling, said a
2003 law that extended government immunity to sanitation facilities including
storm water drainage ditches applied only to accidents after July 1, 2003, the
date the law went into effect. The ruling immediately affects one other case,
allowing a separate lawsuit against Colorado Springs and El Paso County to go forward.
RELATED: Court backs boys' families in drowning deaths in '97
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5474464,00.html
RELATED: Longmont
mother can sue city
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/10/longmont-mother-can-sue-city/
RELATED: Mom can sue
Springs in son’s drowning
http://www.gazette.com/onset?id=21067&template=article.html
RELATED: After the
flood
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1176215732/4
Group
backs guv's school funding plan
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5474535,00.html
A statewide public
policy group that includes numerous business leaders weighed in Monday on
behalf of Gov. Bill Ritter's tax plan to fund schools. Colorado Forum Director
Gail Klapper said in a letter to Ritter that the group agrees that the state
school fund is headed for insolvency unless action is taken. In addition to
Klapper, the letter was signed by 67 business and professional leaders,
including Dick Kelly of Xcel Energy and Nancy Tuor of CH2M Hill. Transfers of
state money to the 178 school districts to replace a declining property tax
portion will deplete the state school fund by the 2011-12 academic year, Ritter
believes. He proposes freezing the property tax rate statewide, eliminating
declines that otherwise would occur under a 1994 school finance act. The plan
has come under fire from some Republicans, who call it a "tax
increase" because tax bills would rise as property values rose.
RELATED: State reform could hike school taxes
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070410/NEWS/104100037
CBI
probes threatening e-mail
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5475121,00.html
The Colorado Bureau of
Investigation is trying to track down the author of an e-mail who threatened a
state senator and her grandchildren over an education issue. Sen. Nancy Spence,
R-Centennial, said police are providing security at her grandchildren's homes
and at their schools while the CBI investigates the e-mail. "The person
who wrote it will be prosecuted," Spence said Monday. Spence on Saturday
received the e-mail, which was signed "the edcation (sic) panthers."
She was told she and her grandchildren needed "to pay" for a recent
incident in which a conservative blog posted an anti-school-choice e-mail from
Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs. That posting led to Merrifield's
resignation as chairman of the House Education Committee. Spence is a leading
advocate of school choice and has carried school voucher legislation. Spence
said she has no idea who might be behind the e-mail, which also was sent to the
Rocky Mountain News. She doubted the author used his or her real name. The
e-mail came from an "Ed Barger" at "cea98barger@yahoo.com." It's unclear whether the
author wanted Spence to believe he was affiliated with the Colorado Education
Association(CEA). The group opposes vouchers.
Today’s complete Colorado news
Today’s complete daily news: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/041007.htm
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