Daily news digest 4/28-30/2007
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Today’s digest archive: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/043007.htm
TOP STORIES
National
U.S. Rebuilding in Iraq Is Missing Key Goals, Report Finds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901414.html
The U.S. project to rebuild Iraq remains far short of its targets, leaving the country plagued by power outages, inadequate oil production and shortages of clean water and health care, according to a report to be issued today by a U.S. government oversight agency. The 232-page quarterly review by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction presents a sobering picture of the challenges of reconstruction in a war zone. It also says the Army has asked Parsons Corp., one of the largest contractors in Iraq, to explain why it should not be barred from pursuing government contracts for up to three years.
RELATED: 4 U.S. soldiers killed, pushing April Iraq toll over 100
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-30-troop-deaths_N.htm
More Iraq war news in NATIONAL/ELECTION, NATIONAL/GOVERNMENT, NATIONAL/FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL/MILITARY, COLORADO/ELECTION, COLORADO/GOVERNMENT, COLORADO/MILITARY
82 Inmates Cleared but Still Held at Guantanamo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801145.html
More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers. Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.
RELATED: Lawyers oppose limits on detainee access
RELATED: Bar Criticizes Proposed Detainee Rules
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30gitmo.html?ref=washington
More detainee policy news in NATIONAL/CIVIL LIBERTIES
Did Justices' Catholicism Play Part in Abortion Ruling?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901270.html
Is it significant that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure also happen to be the court's Roman Catholics? It is to Tony Auth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He drew Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. wearing bishop's miters, and labeled his cartoon "Church and State." Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters hashed out the issue on "The View," with O'Donnell noting that a majority of the court is Catholic and wondering about "separation of church and state." Walters counseled that "we cannot assume that they did it because they're Catholic." And the chatter continues, on talk radio and in the blogosphere. In the latter category, no one has stirred it up quite like Geoffrey R. Stone, former dean and now provost of the University of Chicago's law school. He posted an item titled "Faith-Based Justices" on his school's blog and on Huffington Post. The post was mostly praised by liberal readers at Huffington Post, but set off a free-for-all back home in Chicago on the faculty blog.
Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801113.html
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide. Titled "Echo-Chamber Message" -- a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again -- the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans "practical help and moral support" and "highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving." Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies' offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina's victims.
Colorado
Siding with Republicans, Suthers stokes partisan fire
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5510100,00.html
Attorney General John Suthers on Friday added fuel to a partisan fire that's been building for weeks over Gov. Bill Ritter's school funding plan. Suthers came down on the side of fellow Republicans, who say the plan is a tax increase that must be approved by voters. State Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams characterizes the plan as a "massive, $1.8 billion property tax increase." Wadhams already has said he'll use the plan to bludgeon Democrats in the 2008 election. Some Democrats saw Wadhams' hand in Suthers' opinion. "There's a mean-spirited snake in the grass, and there's no secret to any of us who it is," Rep. John Soper, D-Thornton, said, referring to Wadhams. In a statement, Ritter said, "This debate has been going on for weeks. . . . The attorney general's argument, issued in an unsolicited and 12th-hour opinion, is flawed, and his timing is suspect." Suthers' spokesman, Nate Strauch, said the attorney general's opinion reflects a nonpartisan assessment of how a court is likely to rule on Ritter's plan. Wadhams said Democrats have their own leadership to blame for marching them into a political firestorm. "They know their own governor is sending them down a plank that voters are going to cut off behind them next year," he said. "Am I going to spend every day, all day between now and 2008 reminding voters what they did this week? You're darn right I am," Wadhams added.
RELATED: AG calls schools plan a tax
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5510098,00.html
RELATED: Suthers says school-tax plan must go to voters
RELATED: Suthers challenges tax freeze
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_5766401
RELATED: School funds bill passes on to Senate
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775500
RELATED: Attorney general says property-tax freeze needs voter approval
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/10
Sex-ed bill on Ritter's desk
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070430/NEWS01/704300323/1002
A bill passed by the Colorado Legislature, if signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, likely will force Fort Collins charter schools to modify their sex-education courses from abstinence-based curriculum to one that includes "science-based" facts about sexually transmitted diseases and contraceptives. If House Bill 1292 becomes law, all Colorado school districts, charter schools and institute charter schools that offer curriculum on human sexuality will have to include the advised standards. The only exception in the state is the Center Consolidated School District, which receives a $39,500 grant from the federal government to teach abstinence-based education under the clause that the money can not be used to teach or promote the use of contraceptives. Charter schools might be able to opt out by petitioning the state Board of Education.
More sex-ed news in NATIONAL/CHOICE
Strife at state AFL-CIO risks labor's political gains
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5770941
When the state's unions powered a Democratic takeover of the legislature in 2004, union leaders expected the victory to reinvigorate a flagging labor movement. Instead, internal strife at the state AFL-CIO threatened those political gains and led to a takeover of the organization by its national leadership. Earlier this month, the Colorado AFL-CIO said it would terminate chapter president Steve Adams and his second in command, secretary-treasurer Paul Mendrick. Adams settled with the union and agreed to resign, while Mendrick continues to appeal the takeover by national leadership. "I want (the national) to leave town and let the Colorado labor movement run the Colorado labor movement without any outside involvement," Mendrick said. "We are capable, we're successful, and we're willing to do it. We get the job done for working people." But union officials say that before the national stepped in, board members and affiliated unions were taking sides in a feud between Adams and Mendrick. They said that board meetings had become verbal shootouts where little was accomplished, and heads of some affiliated unions found the stalemates so frustrating they threatened to leave the AFL.
GOP panel agrees: Warnings of global warming overdone
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509916,00.html
The 12 or so people, lawmakers included, who showed up to hear the Republican Study Committee of Colorado discuss global warming Friday found politics to be just as hot. The gathering in a Capitol hearing room opened with Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Loveland, telling the group that, when it comes to climate change, the public has heard "much less hard sciences . . . (than) political science." Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, described efforts to slow global warming as "an attack on the free-market system, an attack on capitalism and an attack on countries that have progressed to the point where their economies are excelling far beyond other countries'." "I believe there is a concerted effort by many environmentalists in the world to do us harm because they don't want to have the greatest country in the world be the United States," he said. Harvey was followed by William Gray, the respected hurricane forecaster, Colorado State University professor and global warming skeptic. Gray has become a favorite among those who believe environmentalists, Democrats, Al Gore and John McCain & Co. are overdoing it on global warming.
RELATED: Gray blames ocean currents for global warming
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070428/CSUZONE01/70428003/1002/NEWS17
More global warming news in NATIONAL/ENERGY, NATIONAL/TRANSPORTATION, NATIONAL/ENVIRONMENT, COLORADO/ENERGY, COLORADO/ENVIRONMENT
Election
McCain goes for maverick brand
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509739,00.html
In politics, it's usually the second-tier candidates who are fighting to break out of the pack. But on Friday in Iowa, here was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., turning up the volume on his long-standing reformer message in hopes of breaking out of a three-man bundle of front-runners that conservative critics have tried to morph -into one big, squishy moderate: "Rudy McRomney." Just off his official candidacy announcements in New Hampshire and South Carolina, McCain brought his campaign surge to a business-minded crowd of about 500 at the Principal Financial Group headquarters in downtown Des Moines.
Udall outlines positions on Iraq, gas drilling
U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, who was to attend a fundraising dinner for the Democratic Party on Saturday night, acknowledged the memorial's importance in light of the current conflict in Iraq. "In the context of the war in which we find ourselves today and the fact that the country's divided about the direction of the war, we're certainly not divided about our support for the men and women in uniform," he said. The memorial will be flanked on the left by the flags of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Army, and to the right by the flags of the Air Force, Coast Guard and state of Colorado. A central pole will fly the American flag and the POW/MIA flag. The flags will be lit so they may be flown 24 hours a day. The panels will include information from each conflict in American history, including the number of soldiers who fought, were injured and died in each. Morris said the total cost for the memorial is estimated at $100,000. The city of Durango donated $25,000, and the balance has been funded so far by a loan from two anonymous donors.
Ballot supermajority would have defeated most amendments
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_1b_Ballot_Measures.html
Had a proposed supermajority requirement for the passage of constitutional amendments on the ballot been in effect since the late 1970s, the state’s central legal document would have been bereft of some of its most controversial revisions. An analysis of election results dating back to 1978 revealed that more than half of the 52 constitutional amendments passed at the polls would have fallen short of a proposed 60 percent supermajority requirement moving through the Legislature. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, will head to the 2008 ballot if it garners two-thirds approval in the Senate.
Colorado House kills bill that would have allowed felons on parole to vote
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104280150
If might have prevented a whole lot of problems in Dacono. The Colorado House of Representatives last week killed a provision that would have allowed felons on parole to vote, after opponents and Attorney General John Suthers said the measure was unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union promoted the measure, which State Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, carried as an amendment to a technical clean-up bill the Legislature passes every year. But the House Committee on State, Veterans, & Military Affairs voted to take it out. Secretary of State Mike Coffman quickly praised the committee for removing the measure. But it could have prevented some confusion -- and a grand jury investigation -- in a southwest Weld County community.
Hickenlooper: Success, unfinished business
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509257,00.html
Named one of five top big-city mayors in 2005 by Time magazine, Hickenlooper played a key role in assembling all 32 metro-area mayors to support FasTracks, which voters approved in November 2004. He's called the $4.7 billion bus and rail transit system "the most ambitious transit initiative in the history of the country." The mayor also successfully campaigned for a new justice center and a sales tax increase to send more kids to preschool, among other initiatives. He's visited nearly every public school, telling wide-eyed Denver children that college translates into $1 million more in earnings over the course of their lifetimes. The city is also going "green," encouraging energy conservation and recycling, and the mayor, a geologist, is leading the way by driving a hybrid Ford. His 10-year plan to end homelessness has helped hundreds of people find shelter and services. "Our homelessness approach is a national model," he said. The list goes on and on. However, several of the mayor's initiatives haven't been so successful. Some of his highly-publicized promises to reform city government have yet to be realized.
Home rule fans outspending foes
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104290095
Proponents of a home rule-style of government in Eagle County collected three times more funds than their foes as of April 26, campaign finance reports filed Friday showed. Citizens for Home Rule collected slightly more than $10,000 for its campaign to switch from a statutory form of government to one more custom made, its report showed. Citizens for Responsible Government raised $3,250 in its quest to defeat the ballot question. The May 1 election is by mail ballot only. Voters received their ballots earlier this month. It's the only question in this special election. Home rule proponents kept the pressure on by collecting and spending a good share of their funds late in the campaign, the finance reports showed.
RELATED: Court date set in MV case
http://telluridegateway.com/articles/2007/04/30/news/news01.txt
Mountain Village election letter raises legal questions
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/30/4_30_3a_Mountain_dispute.html
When the town of Mountain Village sent a letter to residents more than a month ago about an upcoming special election, one resident complained about the wording, and now the courts are involved. Telluride resident Richard Child said the letter appeared to extol citizens to vote in favor of a planned unit development, called the Silverline Project, that proposes a condominium combined with a public recreation center. Child said it is against the law for government to direct voters about how they should vote, so on April 5 he complained to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. Child said the letter was also sent as a letter to the editor to Telluride newspapers. “Basically the letter to the editor was later distributed on town letterhead using taxpayers’ funds,” he said. “That letter was taking a position regarding a special election on May 22 for the combination condominium project and rec center.” Town attorney David Reed did not return calls for comment this week, but was quoted by the Telluride Daily Planet as saying the town spent about $830 to mail the letter signed by former Mayor Davis Fansler, and the wording was an honest mistake.
Candidate profiles
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070430/NEWS/70429002
With Election Day on May 8 and absentee voting under way, today marks the first installment of a five-part questionnaire for the Aspen mayoral and City Council candidates. This series of questions will run all week, concluding Friday.
Recall organizers submit petition in dispute
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26346
A petition proposing to recall Dinosaur Mayor Freda Powell was submitted to City Hall on Friday afternoon with more than the required number of signatures. Town clerk Tamara Long said the petition contained 22 signatures, four more than the 18 needed, and has been faxed to Dinosaur town attorney Ed Sands, of Rifle, for review. Sands will most likely review the petition Monday and could have an answer for the city as to whether the petition is valid, Long said. The petition lists a myriad of allegations against Powell including failing to provide and maintain adequate police protection, pursue "critical issues" such as no sidewalks, evacuation plan and fallout shelter, and lacks leadership, planning and organizing abilities.
Effective and Ethical Government
Parker native juggled D.C. press
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5778163
With Tony Snow expected to return to the White House on Monday after a month-long absence following a recurrence of cancer, acting press secretary Dana Perino will return to a behind-the-scenes communications role. The 34-year-old Parker native and CSU-Pueblo graduate began her press secretary career working for former Rep. Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., before moving in 2001 to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she was tapped last year to serve as Snow's deputy. On Friday, Perino spoke with Denver Post staff writer Christa Marshall about her time in the spotlight.
Colorado votes in Congress
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_5775564
Here's how some major bills fared recently in Congress and how Colorado's congressional delegation voted, as provided by Thomas' Roll Call Report Syndicate.
Underdogs still bark, young Republicans find
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5776899
Senate Republicans last week sought to "explode the myth of Republicans as doddering harrumphers who haven't danced since the jitterbug," releasing a membership age analysis that shows their caucus is younger than the majority Democrats. But that shouldn't come as news to anyone who has been watching. Leading much of the opposition - and some compromise - on tough issues this year has been a group of young Republicans that some have likened to the early '80s legislative crew of former Gov. Bill Owens, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis and former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. So while the Republican bench has been a bit shallow recently, party leaders see a bright future for some of its 30-something lawmakers: Sen. Josh Penry of Fruita and Reps. Cory Gardner of Yuma, Rob Witwer of Golden and Frank McNulty of Highlands Ranch. "You can definitely see senators, governors and congressman in this group of young legislators," says Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams.
Legislature wraps up 2007 session
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/5
Today marks the beginning of the end for the 2007 legislative session. House and Senate leaders are a bit coy when asked if the session will end early, as sessions have in the past two years while the Democratic Party has held the majority in the House and Senate. Some say it will be Friday; others say next Monday. Officially, the last day is Wednesday, May 9. Regardless, this is the last full week the Legislature will be in session, but there still are a few measures lawmakers haven't yet acted on.
Lawmakers looking to avoid more computer nightmares
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5512310,00.html
Lawmakers hope to halt the multimillion-dollar fiascoes plaguing state computer projects with a bill to strengthen government technology expertise and oversight. Senate Bill 254 abolishes the Colorado Commission on Information Management, comprised of lawmakers, private- sector experts and department heads. Instead, the Governor's Office of Innovation and Technology would take responsibility for centralized planning and streamlining of new technology projects with a panel of tech specialists and department heads drawing on outside experts. The bill has passed the Senate and was unanimously endorsed Friday by the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. The idea is for the governor's respected Chief Information Officer Michael Locatis to forge better collaboration and expertise-sharing among information technology teams now scattered across 20 state agencies, said Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction.
REMEMBER THE GUVS (EXTRA!, April 28)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5510102,00.html
Good news for Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien. Gov. Bill Ritter and former Gov. Roy Romer will be together today in Holly, reviewing tornado- recovery efforts. O'Brien keeps referring to Gov. Ritter as Gov. Romer - she did it again Thursday night at an education seminar. If she does it today, Romer can answer. Romer, who served 12 years as governor, grew up in Holly.
Lobbyist defends tactics to panel
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5510111,00.html
The lobbyist for a powerful business group said it's common practice to refer to unfavorable legislation as a tax. William Mutch told an ethics committee investigating a complaint against him that the tactic is "political argument or hyperbole," and is allowed under constitutional guarantees of free speech. Mutch, the executive director of Colorado Concern, a group of top CEOs statewide, said the practice was used when he worked for the home builders' association. "When you talk about increased liability or fees or new regulations, a lot of the time we frame the argument as a tax on a new home buyer," he said. Mutch on Friday made his first appearance before a three-member legislative ethics committee investigating a complaint against him by Rep. Alice Borodkin, D-Denver.
RELATED: Lobbyist: Tactic stifles speech
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/lobbyist-tactic-stifles-speech/
Bond bungle teaches Denver
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781300
As Denver gears up to ask voters for a multimillion-dollar tax increase for infrastructure needs, the City Council is still handling cost overruns from the last bond. In 1998 voters passed a bond that went more than 40 percent over the budgeted $98.7 million. Three district police stations budgeted at $18.3 million more than doubled in price. A $1 million addition to Rude Recreation Center turned into an $8.2 million reconstruction. And last week, the council signed off to increase the budget for Westwood Community Center a third time - pushing the budget to $3.7 million from the $2.2 million promised in 1998. "I don't see how government can generate confidence when you have a surplus like this," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. "You are only as good as your word."
Republicans reflect on Weld values, party numbers
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104290150
Under the watchful gaze of huge portraits of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Weld County Republicans Chairman Ed Jordan sums up what a Weld Republican cares about. "Values," Jordan said. "Smaller government, fewer taxes and personal freedoms." But, Jordan said, it's not just Republicans who have those values. Many Democrats do too. The people in Weld and in Greeley have always had those values, Jordan said. "The people who started this community were family and religion-oriented," Jordan said. Compared to the Weld Democrats' point of view that their own numbers are growing, Jordan said he doesn't think it's true. "If they are, I would doubt it would be very much," Jordan said. "I don't think that has changed at all." Mayor Tom Selders, who is also a Republican, said he thinks Democrats' numbers have been on the rise.
DA using forensics to investigate judge's laptop
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509095,00.html
The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office is still investigating a stolen laptop computer that was in the possession of a former judge who resigned as Denver's City Attorney after the computer was traced to his home. "The investigation is ongoing, we still are working on the case," Pam Russell, spokeswoman for District Attorney Scott Storey, said Friday. Larry Manzanares, a former district court judge, became Denver City Attorney in January, but resigned in February, after TV and newspaper reports that a stolen laptop was traced to his home.
Board vows to collaborate on finding Evergreen fire chief
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509756,00.html
The board that oversees Evergreen Fire/Rescue promised Friday to stick with a volunteer department and work with firefighters to pick a new chief. "This board will not and has not considered turning this into a paid fire department," said Charles Dykeman of the Evergreen Fire Protection District Board. Nearly 50 people, including about 25 volunteer firefighters, attended the board meeting following Fire Chief Joel Janov's resignation Thursday. Janov was at the center of more than a year of turmoil with the 85 volunteers over the board's efforts to centralize decision making, impose an operations manual and limit the firefighters' authority.
Civil Liberties and Equality
Bill would reduce jail crush
The state Senate moved to reduce prison sentences for theft Friday amid arguments about the growing cost of locking up criminals. "This is actually a hugely important bill," said Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver. "In 1980, there were 3,000 people in prison in Colorado. Now, there are 20,000 people in prison." Senate Bill 260 lowers the penalties for some kinds of theft. For example, check fraud of at least $500 is now a felony. The bill raises the bar to $1,000 for a felony offense. Fraud of less than $1,000 would be a misdemeanor, with a shorter sentence to be served in county jail, not state prisons. Although the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee is sponsoring the bill, many Republicans railed against it Friday.
Senate OKs additional judge for Southwest Colorado
A bill to add a judge in Southwest Colorado finally looks ready to pass after Republicans dropped their opposition. The bill adds judges around the state, and Republicans had protested that the multimillion-dollar cost would take money away from the highway budget. "As a caucus, the Republicans, I know, have been very concerned about transportation, and we should be," said Sen. Steve Ward, R-Littleton. "But frankly, the business community is probably as concerned about judges and court backlogs as they are about roads."
City and suburbs alike touched by gang raids
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5510099,00.html
The raids happened in fancy new suburban neighborhoods where homes with three-car garages are the norm. They also happened in working-class, inner-city neighborhoods where residents are doing their best to keep up homes and yards and keep out crime. No matter the neighborhood, many people who live near homes stormed by federal agents early Thursday in the largest gang roundup in Colorado history had an idea that something wasn't right. Yet the raids - 39 in all across metro Denver - still caught some neighbors by surprise. "I thought they were after Osama bin Laden," said a man who lives near a raid site in the 5000 block of Grant Street in Denver's Globeville neighborhood. A SWAT team entered the neatly kept magenta home with an early morning flash-bang grenade, neighbors said. Later, a distraught young woman was seen crying on the porch.
Laureate tells teens peace takes work
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775492
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams hadn't yet reached the steps of the stage at a peace rally Saturday before the crowd of high school and middle school students began their chant of "Betty! Betty!" The PeaceJam Summer of Peace march and rally drew 200 students from the Rocky Mountain region in an effort to raise awareness about gang violence and prevent the bloodshed that paralyzed Denver 14 years ago.
Cop accused in assault
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5510114,00.html
An Aurora police sergeant appeared in court Friday after he was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor counts of assault, harassment and criminal mischief acts of domestic violence. On Friday, an Arapahoe County judge granted a motion filed by prosecutors to add a third- degree misdemeanor assault count against Sgt. Steve Patrick, a 26-year veteran of the department. Officers arrested Patrick late Thursday after they received a call of a domestic dispute between him and his wife. As officers investigated the dispute, they believed the couple's verbal confrontation eventually had become physical. When the couple's 16-year-old son tried to intervene between his parents, Patrick allegedly tried to assault the teenager, police said.
Plan would restrict [Aurora] sex-offender homes
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781269
A "safety zone for kids" is how City Councilman Larry Beer describes his proposal to restrict sex offenders from living near schools, parks and recreation centers. Beer is venturing into territory few Colorado cities have gone: He wants to ban sexually violent predators and those who assault children from living within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and recreation centers. Those convicted of other sex offenses would not be restricted. In Colorado, only Greenwood Village restricts where offenders can live. Lyons officials recently shot down a similar proposal.
RELATED: Web site offers map to locate sex felons near apartment units
http://www.gazette.com/articles/sex_21782___article.html/information_apartment.html
Gun control sparks debate
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/apr/29/Gun_control/
In the two weeks following the Virginia Tech massacre, politicians, religious and school officials are again examining the legislation designed to protect our nation from such tragedies. On the converse, many officials, including those from Northwest Colorado, disregard the concept of gun control as an effective tool and argue gun control violates a person’s Second Amendment right — the right to bear arms.
Officials seek grant for DNA technology
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/15
Local law enforcement agencies hope to receive a federal grant of almost $380,000 to review 3,200 "cold cases" to determine whether modern DNA technology could solve them. Almost half the grant amount would go to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to hire another DNA analyst, grant writer Ellen Cooney of the Pueblo district attorney's office told county commissioners at a work session on Thursday. Others participating in the grant program would be the Pueblo police and sheriff's departments, which both would receive some money for overtime pay for officers working on case reviews.
A family's last stand
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509281,00.html
Michael Welch II paced frantically across the living room of his parents’ farmhouse. His father lay dead in an adjoining room, shot through the heart by the lawmen who had the house surrounded. His terrified wife, Lori Romero, whimpered nearby. Put the gun down, she begged him, so that they could all walk out with their hands up. Her 13-year-old son, Anthony, calmly focused a camcorder on the bloody chaos of Nov. 2, 2004. "Hey, put the camera on me, bro," Welch instructs on the tape. "Hey, is it recording?" "Yeah," Anthony said. "I want everybody to know that they shot my father because he was defending his family and his Constitution. Somebody shot him right through the heart for nothing. We’re about to give ourselves up. If they shoot one of us or all of us, then I guess this is our f------ ode to America." As the tall, muscular man spoke, the camera panned from his face and blood-splattered sweat shirt to the floor of the bedroom behind him, where Michael Welch Sr., the man everyone called "Poppa," had fallen.
Sheriff's sergeant pleads guilty to careless driving while on duty
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/20
A sheriff's sergeant pleaded guilty Friday to careless driving and received a six-month deferred sentence for an on-duty accident with a bicyclist last fall. Allen Medina's employment at the sheriff's department will not be affected by the plea, according to Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor. On Nov. 21, Pueblo police responded to a complaint that an unmarked sheriff's department cruiser had collided with a bicyclist causing him minor injuries, according to a report by Pueblo police Cpl. James Caffey.
Delta undersheriff: Sex allegations ‘probably false’
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/04/30/local_news/4.txt
An investigation into a sexual assault complaint at the Delta County Jail has so far revealed little evidence to support claims, the undersheriff said. A female inmate at the jail made a complaint to staff there April 16, alleging she was sexually assaulted the day before, by a male detentions officer.
Jury finds Lamar guilty in 2005 rape re-trial
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/27/self-represented-sex-offenders-fate-jurys-hands/
Lamar later told jurors during prosecutor Ingrid Bakke's cross-examination that the woman told him "no," but that "no sometimes means yes." "I pushed the envelope, the boundaries," Lamar said. A trial on the same charges in November 2005 resulted in a hung jury. Lamar previously was convicted of sexual assault for the May 2000 attack of an acquaintance along the Boulder Creek Path near 30th Street. He has also been charged with the alleged September 2005 sexual assault of another inmate while in the Boulder County Jail. That case has yet to go to trial.
Committee reaches goal to complete Columbine memorial
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5511864,00.html
With the help of an anonymous donor, the memorial to the 13 people killed at Columbine will be completed this summer. "It's great news. It is going to be finished in July," said Don Fleming, whose daughter, Kelly, 16, died at Columbine with 11 other students and a teacher on April 20, 1999. "An anonymous donor came forward and pretty much wanted to close the gap and he did," said Fleming on Sunday.
Immigration
ICE expansion?
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509720,00.html
For two years, Sen. Wayne Allard has complained about a pressing need for federal immigration enforcement offices in Greeley and Colorado Springs. Now, it appears the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security agrees with him. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch released a report Friday declaring "there is sufficient need" to put sub-offices in both locations. The report comes on the heels of the Colorado Republican's amendment to the final 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill requiring a cost evaluation to bring offices to Colorado Springs and Greeley, according to Allard's press secretary, Steve Wymer. "When local folks come to the senator and say we need this badly - additional resources - and asks and asks and asks and the agency finally agrees, that's the process working correctly," Wymer said.
RELATED: City leaders question ICE office impact
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070428/NEWS/104270154
RELATED: Latino residents fear ICE office will perpetuate racism
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070428/NEWS/104270153
Report of ICE office coming to Springs off-base
http://www.gazette.com/articles/office_21731___article.html/ice_springs.html
A US senator and a local official jumped the gun again this week in announcing that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would open a Colorado Springs office. The announcement generated a flurry of excitement among those who have pushed for such an office, but it apparently was based on hopes and expectations rather than reality. Several area politicians have called for an ICE office, citing concern about crime and illegal immigrants crowding the county jail. Some of the backers include Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and El Paso County Commissioner Jim Bensberg. Allard’s office issued a statement to media outlets Thursday headlined: “ICE office to open in Colorado Springs.” The statement cited a report ICE prepared at Allard’s direction studying the need for offices in Colorado Springs and Greeley.
Immigration bill is diluted
http://www.gazette.com/articles/bill_21778___article.html/stephens_illegal.html
The most traveled bill in this year’s legislative session, Rep. Amy Stephens’ effort to force more jailed illegal immigrants to stand trial for their alleged crimes, should finally come before the House for debate today. House Bill 1040 has received a virtually unprecedented four committee recommendation votes, including two in the House Appropriations Committee. But while Stephens, R-Monument, has worked ferociously to get former opponents behind the measure, it still was saddled with an amendment last week that could pull its teeth. The bill attempts to fix the “get-out-of-jail-free” card that Stephens and El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa say a number of illegal immigrants now receive.
Immigration impacts SLV jobless rates, economy
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/3
The April 17 raids on a Rio Grande County potato farm and processing plant confirmed what perhaps many in the area already new - that illegal immigrants live and work in San Luis Valley. But the raid also made concrete that illegal workers exist alongside a paradox that includes some of the highest rates of unemployment in the state and a high demand for agricultural labor that some say can't be met by the U.S. labor pool. Colorado's March unemployment figures revealed that all of the valley's counties sit above the state average of 4.6 percent unemployment. The valley's two southernmost counties - Costilla and Conejos - had the highest rates in the area at 10 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively.
Health Care and Public Safety
Coffman gave himself blank check in disaster plan
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509714,00.html
Former state Treasurer Mike Coffman said Friday that he wasn't satisfied with ex-Gov. Bill Owens' plan to keep government running if a disaster shut down the state Capitol, so he stashed blank checks worth up to $1 billion in a safe deposit box. Coffman said he and three other state employees were authorized to sign the checks, which required only one signature. The checks are still in the safe deposit box, even though Coffman has since become secretary of state. Coffman said he was concerned over how the state would pay its bills if someone attacked the Capitol and shut down the state's computer system, which controls bank accounts. He said he set up the safe deposit box in a local bank in 2005 as a backup plan. Coffman, a member of the Marine Reserves, said that with his military background, he didn't think the governor's office was thinking big enough about the potential for a disaster. Coffman said he didn't inform Owens about his plan because he had the authority to do it on his own.
Lead-screening program halts
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775843
The state childhood lead poisoning prevention program has lost its funding and closed - worrying health officials that children with the toxic metal in their bodies will go undiagnosed. The $250,000 program, overseen by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, lost its grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2003. Since then, the state has cobbled together short-term federal funding, according to Lisa Miller, director of the state division of disease control and environmental epidemiology. The program monitored children's blood tests from around the state, investigated reports of elevated lead levels, coordinated intervention, kept a database of cases and provided preventive information.
Senate's smoking bill takes a U-turn
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5510112,00.html
The battle over a bill to ban smoking in cigar bars took yet another twist Friday. Senate Bill 250 has morphed back into legislation that was killed earlier this year. It strictly limits smoking to true cigar bars and closes a loophole some taverns are using to skirt the state's smoking ban. The sponsor, Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, backed away from outlawing smoking in cigar bars after falling short of the votes needed to win passage. The measure stalled Friday in the Senate, even after Boyd watered it down to appease fellow Democrats who want to allow smoking in cigar bars. The measure was sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where opponents hope it will be snuffed out for good.
RELATED: Roberts’ cigar-bar bill is still smokin’
Family full of Flats workers deals with death and illness
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5508636,00.html
For Michelle Dobrovolny and her relatives, working at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant was a family affair. Now, dying is. Sixteen members of Dobrovolny’s extended family worked at the bomb factory northwest of Denver. Seven are sick or dead. Four of the seven have been denied medical care and compensation by a federal program meant to help nuclear weapons workers sickened by radiation or toxic chemicals on the job. They cannot prove Rocky Flats took their health.
City's ER left to hold the fort
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/health_care/article/0,2808,DRMN_25396_5509721,00.html
University of Colorado Hospital and Children's Hospital will move to the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora this year, and by 2010 St. Anthony Central Hospital plans to move to the Federal Center in Lakewood. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center also is moving to Fitzsimons, although that won't make a ripple compared with the other three departures. "The question is what are the implications for all of the remaining facilities and the patients that they serve," said Steven Summer, chief executive officer of the Colorado Hospital Association.
RELATED: Denver assesses impacts of hospitals' relocation
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/29/denver-assesses-impacts-of-hospitals-relocation/
Push on to snuff out smoking at hospitals
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070428/NEWS01/704280353/1002/NEWS17
More than 100 health-care providers from across Colorado gathered at Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland to learn how to better promote tobacco cessation. The conference, which featured keynote speaker Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien, was part of a new idea of promoting tobacco-free medical campuses.
Health care crisis target of program
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/2
Within a year, a pilot project called Health Access Pueblo should begin providing low-cost health care coverage to people working in small businesses. A board has been selected, two-thirds of the start-up funding has been pledged by the two private hospitals in Pueblo, and potential customers are being interviewed to determine what are Pueblo's priorities for types of care to be covered. Planners stress that it is not insurance, with all the actuarial data and huge money reserves that insurance companies must have, but a plan to provide basic health care to people who can't afford insurance coverage.
Web rumors fuel niacin overdoses
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781303
Gobbling huge amounts of niacin can do many things: cause nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, flushing and rashes. One thing it can't do: cleanse marijuana or cocaine from urine samples. Nevertheless, a growing number of teens and young adults - relying on rumor and the Internet - are getting sick after gulping extreme doses of niacin in hopes of beating a drug test, doctors say.
County aims to prepare for possible pandemic flu
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070430/NEWS01/704300317/1002
Larimer County officials are turning their efforts to community involvement and awareness as they try to prepare residents for a potential pandemic flu. That could be difficult in smaller communities in the county, including Red Feather Lakes, which have had difficulty preparing for a pandemic because of isolation, a lack of elected officials and limited funding.
Governors then, now tour Holly
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/2
Former Gov. Roy Romer came home Saturday. The small, quiet town near the Kansas border was Romer's childhood stomping grounds, where he recalled working in downtown stores, the bowling alley and, in his younger days, watching scary movies at the theater and running home afterward, afraid that monsters were lurking in the shadows. The neighborhood looks a lot different now. Residents were still busy cleaning up and rebuilding their community after a deadly and destructive tornado struck without warning the night of March 28.
RELATED: Woman, 76, is 2nd Holly death
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509722,00.html
RELATED: Second Holly tornado victim dies
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/5
Crime and Penal Reform
Coloradans rally to 'stop genocide'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512309,00.html
About 500 people had RSVP'd, but organizers guessed even more showed up - especially students. U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, given a failing grade on Darfur by activists, was not at the rally, but he'll hear about it if he checks his voicemail this week. Activist Ben Drexler called Allard and put the message on speaker phone. The crowd screamed, "Save Darfur!" Even a small group of counter- protesters made an appearance, calling upon the United Nations and United States to get out of Africa altogether. "If you're big enough to have people protesting you, you're a serious movement," said organizer Scott Wisor, senior national field organizer with the Sudan Divestment Task Force.
Tibet activist safe, 'proud'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509715,00.html
A 29-year-old Boulder activist remains "very proud of what she did," two days after Chinese officials arrested her for unfurling a banner at a Mount Everest base camp calling for a "Free Tibet," her husband said Friday. Kirsten Westby was arrested along with four other Americans after they displayed banners that read, "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008." For 36 hours after having learned of the arrest, Westby's family heard nothing from her. But Friday morning, she called her mother, Jean, from Katmandu, Nepal, where the five were dropped off, having been expelled from China.
RELATED: China frees 3 detainees
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/tibet-protesters-china-frees-3-detainees/
True or not, city is seen as intolerant
http://www.gazette.com/articles/city_21758___article.html/colorado_springs.html
A rising number of Colorado Springs leaders are concerned that the city’s reputation for intolerance of minorities carries social and economic peril. The leaders — from government, business, charity and civil rights groups — speak carefully about whether the reputation matches reality. Even if the reputation is wrong, they say, repairing it is essential to attracting young, educated, innovative residents. Without those residents, the city is at risk of becoming “irrelevant in the global economy,” said Glen Bruels, co-chairman of the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum. Bruels spoke last week at a City Council meeting, where worries over perception of the city in other parts of the nation got a public examination. At issue was government sponsorship of a festival celebrating the area’s diverse cultures. Some council members said they welcomed racial and ethnic groups, but they worried gay rights groups would use the festival as a political platform. The Diversity Forum, a private group putting on the event, persuaded council members to vote unanimously in favor of city support, despite the participation of gays. “You can’t be committed to diversity and then exclude one group or another,” Bruels told the panel.
Song for Sand Creek
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775493
Former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Northern Cheyenne, had worked for 25 years with others to get national recognition for the Sand Creek site, located 180 miles southeast of Denver. Wearing a traditional Cheyenne headdress, Campbell told the crowd that militia members who attacked the tribes the morning of Nov. 29, 1864, believed the Indians to be "savages" and "sub-human." Yet in light of the troops' brutal behavior, which included hacking a woman to death, Campbell said, "If there were any savages that day, it was not the Indian people." Toni Cartwright had joined fellow Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members who camped in tepees on the Sand Creek site in recent days. Her ancestors were there 143 years ago, she said.
RELATED: Site of 1864 massacre of Indians dedicated
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5774659
RELATED: Hundreds attend dedication at Sand Creek
http://www.gazette.com/articles/cheyenne_21743___article.html/saturday_site.html
RELATED: A MONUMENT TO HEALING
http://www.gazette.com/articles/saturday_21757___article.html/cheyenne_site.html
RELATED: A nation pays tribute
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/1
Young black women lift visions of their futures
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781301
Sunday was the ninth year for EspeciallyMe, an event that brings together young African-American women from Denver-area schools to talk about setting high standards, believing in themselves and reaching for their dreams. Each year, the conference combines workshop sessions with community leaders, with a keynote address given by a prominent figure. "My goal today," said this year's speaker, Atlanta author Natasha Munson, "is to let you know you are not a victim of circumstances. You create your life."
Colorado kids toast Hispanic culture
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512464,00.html
Colorado children of all ages came out in 80-degree weather Sunday to celebrate their day - Hispanic style. The children had the chance to learn about Latin American culture and history through various workshops and performances. The event, widely known in many Spanish-speaking countries as "Dia de los Niños," or day of the children, aims to celebrate youngsters. The Denver Public Library, Denver Art Museum and Colorado History Museum offered free admission. The celebration is observed in many U.S. cities with educational events for children of all backgrounds.
Economy
Payback push begins (Legislative briefs)
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/23
Colorado Treasurer Cary Kennedy kicked off this year's Great Colorado Payback campaign on Thursday. The kickoff includes the largest list of new unclaimed property the program has ever had, nearly 70,000 owners of more than $50 million in lost or forgotten property.
Nacchio trial could advance careers of lawyers involved
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5780864
Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike stand to benefit from their involvement in the high-profile criminal insider-trading case of former Qwest chief executive Joe Nacchio. After landing a major victory for the government with Nacchio's conviction on 19 counts of illegal insider trading, prosecutors could garner a hefty bump in pay if they leave for private practice. Or they may use the success to bolster their careers in government. And despite being on the losing end, the publicity generated by the case could help local law firm Richilano & Gilligan secure additional large-scale work, experts say.
RELATED: Briefs: Nottingham to begin term as chief judge
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5770957
Creation Chamber, Xylem OK merger
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5509636,00.html
Xylem Interactive Inc. and Creation Chamber Inc., two Denver providers of online branding and marketing services, said they've agreed to merge. The new company will be called Xylem CCI and employ 55. It plans to add 20 employees by year's end. The new company is billed as the largest independent "interactive practice" between Los Angeles and Chicago. Xylem CCI will focus on developing Web sites and online marketing strategies. Customers will include Rubbermaid, Mapquest, McDonald's, Best Buy and Mini Cooper.
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
Rural income making strides
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5780867
Incomes grew faster in rural Colorado than they did in the state's metro areas during 2005, according to numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Per-capita personal income in Colorado grew 4.7 percent in 2005 from 2004 to $37,510. Incomes rose 5.6 percent in rural areas of the state to $30,141 versus a 4.6 percent growth rate to $38,713 in metro areas. Four counties enjoyed growth rates in per-capita personal incomes above 10 percent - Crowley, Jackson, Cheyenne and Rio Blanco. All four areas are mostly rural counties with income levels below the state average.
Teen jobs beset by unwanted advances
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781648
Youngsters are more likely to be harassed and less likely to know what to do. But feds are filing lawsuits and educating workers.
Housing and Homelessness
Clerk and recorder's office dives into big backlog of foreclosures
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512294,00.html
City employees and temporary workers have been deployed to the Denver clerk and recorder's office to tackle a backlog of foreclosures that has reached nearly 1,000 past-due files. The city has hired 10 temporary workers at roughly $14 per hour and recruited 28 staff members from other departments, many of them salaried employees who are volunteering their time, interim Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O'Malley said. The employees, who began training last Monday, will work in shifts from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends until the backlog is cleared. It's too early to say how long that will take or how much it will cost, O'Malley said.
Weld lower on foreclosure rate list, but still has high rates
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104290154
The good news: For the past few months, Weld County has not had the embarrassing distinction of leading the nation with its foreclosure rate. The bad news: Weld still has a record number of foreclosures and employees in the Public Trustee's office expect 2007's foreclosure rate to easily surpass the record-setting 2006. For five months at the end of 2006, Weld County led the nation with the highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac, a property listing company that tracks foreclosures. For the past few months, however, Weld has not topped that list, though it has remained in the top 10.
Wyoming foreclosure rate second-lowest in U.S.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512312,00.html
Only Vermont had a rate lower than Wyoming's, with one foreclosure for every 24,532 households. The national foreclosure rate is about one in 425 homes. Colorado's rate is one for every 161 households. According to the report, the number of foreclosures in Wyoming has remained fairly constant over the past six months.
Most assessed values up 10% to 30%
http://www.gazette.com/articles/property_21759___article.html/percent_value.html
The 2007 assessments of the nearly 300,000 properties in El Paso County will go out in the mail Tuesday, and most owners will discover that the estimated market value of their holdings has increased since the last assessment two years ago. The notices of valuation, as they are formally called, are based on real estate sales during an 18-month period beginning Jan. 1, 2005, and ending June 30, 2006, so the assessed value of property will not necessarily reflect current market conditions. The assessments are not tax bills, said El Paso County Assessor Mark Lowderman. But the revised assessed value of properties will be used to determine any increases in the 2008 tax bills to be sent out in January.
Housing lotteries show valley teachers lesson in persistence
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104300047
Students could learn a lesson about perseverance and not giving up hope from two teachers in the Roaring Fork Valley. One of them, Tom Grant, is scheduled to close on a new Glenwood Springs home today, despite finishing last in the recent affordable housing lottery for the unit. "Even though I was a loser, I'm a winner," he said. Another, Sabrina Whitehouse, also has bought a new home under the program, winning a second city lottery after her failure in the process last year. "I've been trying to buy a house for about six years now, and I couldn't, other than this. This has been great," Whitehouse said. Glenwood Springs officials are nearly as happy as Whitehouse and Grant that two teachers were among the four families that got to buy four townhomes recently made available by the city. The city created the program in hopes of helping essential, middle-class workers in town who otherwise stood little chance of being able to afford a home locally.
RELATED: Affordable housing meeting tonight
http://postindependent.com/article/20070430/VALLEYNEWS/70429005
Aspen doctor fights eviction
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104300041
A doctor has filed court papers claiming that the housing authority's bid to kick her out of her Ritz-Carlton Club affordable housing unit is an "invalid attempt to enact rent control." Dr. Amanda Tucker, whom the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority sued in March 2006, continues to live in the deed-restrict townhouse at Aspen Highlands Village, after buying it for $179,000 at a foreclosure auction in 2005. The housing authority claims that Tucker, an anesthesiologist, did not complete an application in order for her to qualify for ownership of the Category 3 housing unit, which puts a $91,000 cap on yearly earnings for owners with two dependents. Additionally, their net assets cannot exceed $150,000. Tucker is a mother of two. At the time Tucker bought the Ritz-Carlton unit, she owned seven pieces of real estate in Hawaii, according to public records.
Media
Salazar joins critics of series on WWII
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512295,00.html
Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Robert Menendez of New Jersey have joined Hispanic veterans and others who say that an upcoming PBS documentary on World War II doesn't include enough contributions of Hispanics and American Indians. The seven-part series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores "the experience of war and combat through the personal accounts of more than 40 men and women," according to Burns' production company. "Sen. Salazar became aware that the PBS documentary on World War II did not include Latinos, and that was of concern, not just to his constituents, but to him personally," Salazar's spokesman, Cody Wertz said. "His father served in the Army during that time. His mother served in the Pentagon."
Future of CU's Silver and Gold at issue
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/30/future-of-cus-silver-and-gold-at-issue/
The possibility that University of Colorado President Hank Brown could appoint the next editor of the faculty newspaper has some school employees concerned about the publication's independence from the administration. University officials are drafting new policies to regulate the Silver and Gold Record, which is distributed weekly to 8,500 faculty and staff members on CU's campuses in Boulder, Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs. Those policies will dictate, for the first time, who appoints the newspaper's editor.
Education
College lobby's price, payoff huge
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781647
Colorado colleges and universities - pitted against each other in the frenzied battle for funding - are spending more than $1.8 million this year to lobby state and federal lawmakers. The powerhouse is the University of Colorado, which budgeted $799,000. But the payoff for the largest research university in the state was huge: lobbyists helped secure $16.2 million in federal earmarks, plus millions of dollars from Colorado's tobacco settlement money for the medical school. Still, some state lawmakers are fed up with the intensity of the higher-education lobby. New money rolling into the state from budget-reforming Referendum C spurred higher-ed lobbyists to kick their game up a notch last year. The lobby was so fierce in 2006 that lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee warned colleges to tone down their tactics.
To read, or not to read: that is the question
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512313,00.html
A national academic group is asking: "Where art thou, Shakespeare requirements for English graduates?" The American Council of Trustees and Alumni - a conservative-leaning, Washington, D.C.-based group that argues there is too little intellectual diversity on college campuses - released a report last week that said fewer colleges nationwide require English students to study Shakespeare. The report, though, is dismissed by a national professors' association. And a Shakespeare scholar at the University of Colorado says the study of literature has evolved over the years and course offerings have become more diverse.
Low-demand degrees may get reprieve from higher-ed officials
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/30/low-demand-degrees-may-get-reprieve-from-higher/
Colorado higher-education officials may stop putting low-demand college programs on the state's endangered list, which targets them for elimination if they don't attract more students. The low-enrolled degree tracks most often appearing on the list are in science, technology, engineering and math — fields that are essential to the state's economy, said John Karakoulakis, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
CSU-Pueblo ranks highest in state for Hispanic tech grads
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/6
Trujillo graduated in December and now is working as an engineer for Xcel Corp. in Pueblo. She is one of a growing number of Hispanic students who are earning degrees in the fields of science, math and technology at CSU-Pueblo. In fact, CSU-Pueblo has become the leader in Colorado in the number of Hispanic students who are graduating with degrees in science, engineering and other technical areas. Of the 163 students who earned degrees in the science and technical fields at the university in 2006, 35 were Hispanic.
RELATED: Tech majors: CSU-Pueblo offers research, mentoring opportunities
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/7
PCC applicants share vision for school
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/7
A primary role of the new president of Pueblo Community College will be getting out into the community and the state to promote the school, two finalists for the position said Friday.
RELATED: Final two candidates offer fresh ideas
http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/Top-Story.asp?id=6819
Aurora's class crisis
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775545
Inside the Aurora Public Schools administration building, Superintendent John Barry has set up a room with floor-to-ceiling graphs charting the education deficits of the 30,000 students in his district. Some refer to it as the "war room" - perhaps a reference to Barry's former job as a two-star Air Force general. The reality on the walls is daunting: In 2006, Aurora didn't have a single traditional "excellent" school. In most grades tested, proficiency rates have sunk or remained flat in recent years in reading and math. The students scored 20 percentage points or more below the state average in almost all areas. "It's one thing for us to fix this a little bit at a time," Barry said. "But we don't have time." Aurora Public Schools is the urban school district that, until recently, no one talked about. Today's numbers tell a story of failure.
School district in turmoil: Embattled superintendent and missing principal roil Valley Re-1 School District
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104280156
Much of the turmoil in the Valley Re-1 School District traces back to the start of the school year. In the wake of the death of a popular teacher, a fuse was lit, and it has burned to a point where students, parents, alumni and some staff members are raising voices in anger. The April school board meeting erupted into charges the district is a "trainwreck" and "imploding." That firestorm contrasted with the somber start of the school year when Anita Lachance, a longtime teacher and instructional coach at Valley High School, died in early September of injuries from a car crash. The months of strife in between those occurrences now leaves some residents and staff members fearing that families and faculty will leave the 1,900-student district.
RELATED: Grassroots group casts critical view of leadership
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104280153
RELATED: Superintendent has moved district in right direction, supporters say
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104280154
Superintendent accepts $16,000 pay cut
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26340
The Moffat County School District Board of Education accepted Superintendent Pete Bergmann's retirement and agreed to a pared down, one-year contract for the 2007-08 school year Thursday night. Following a closed, session, board President JoAnn Baxter announced that Bergmann is retiring and requested a 110 supplemental contract at a decreased salary. "I'm trading salary for time," Bergmann said.
Lunch lag: Boulder Valley schools fall behind on kitchen sanitation inspections
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/29/lunch-lag/
A Congressional requirement that went into effect in the fall of 2005 mandates twice-yearly health inspections for all schools participating in the federal school lunch program, which includes all but four Boulder Valley schools. The requirement was bumped up from once a year in an effort to prevent food poisoning.
Schools struggle with 'threats' vs. 'stupidity'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_5512293,00.html
In the frightening atmosphere of school shootings, stabbings and threats, educators find themselves with a delicate job. When they learn a student has written a violence-laced essay, threatened to make a bomb or brought a gun to school, the first priority is to prevent bloodshed. Soon after, they team up with investigators, mental health professionals and others to assess just how serious the threat was. At the same time, some teenagers - innocent until proven guilty - find themselves caught in a sticky web, ill-equipped to defend themselves against some of society's worst fears.
RELATED: Planning for risk reduction
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/29/news/c_u_and_boulder/news1.txt
RELATED: Bomb threats at two schools false alarms
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070428/NEWS/104270151
RELATED: Teenager’s house searched after threat
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16041
RELATED: PSD follows formula when assessing threat
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070428/NEWS01/704280349/1002/NEWS17
RELATED: Three schools go on lockdown
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/28/4_28_1B_school_lockdown.html
RELATED: Two MCHS students suspended for threats
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26342
RELATED: School limits to expression
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/apr/29/school_limits_expression/
RELATED: Utah colleges allow guns
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/campus-firearms-utah-colleges-allow-guns/
'Preyed on my son'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509717,00.html
A middle school teacher who admitted that his "addiction to sexual deviancy" led him to abuse young students was sentenced Friday to 24 years to life in prison. Former science teacher Marshall Walker was convicted on multiple counts for enticing three middle school boys to pose nude for him in exchange for hunting trips, guns and inflated grades.
District to pay Walker $26K
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/28/4_28_1a_Walker_paid.html
Former Grand Junction High School Activities Director Johnnie Walker will receive $26,473 in severance pay from Mesa County School District 51 in connection with his resignation. Walker will receive $23,623 in salary, which represents the amount left on his 2006-07 employment contract. That contract expires in June. He also will receive $2,850 in earned, unused sick leave, according to District 51 spokesman Jeff Kirtland. After tax deductions and other withholdings, Walker will receive $16,100.59, Kirtland said. Walker, 48, resigned Thursday after 17 years at Grand Junction High School, including the last 14 as activities director, amid allegations he solicited someone posing as a 14-year-old girl for sex. He was charged on Wednesday with felony counts of Internet luring of a child, enticement of a child and attempted sexual assault of a child.
Military
Whole town mourns native son
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775498
Growing up in Grand Junction, Wade Oglesby didn't have a lot of close friends. He was too focused on caring for his ill mother and his baby sister Samantha. But Saturday, Army Cpl. Wade Oglesby, who calmly faced all troubles in his life with the mantra, "float on," had 3 miles of admirers lined up along one of Grand Junction's busiest thoroughfares. They showed their respects as his flag-draped coffin made its hour-long trip down North Avenue in a horse-drawn hearse. Oglesby, who enlisted after his mother's death, died April 18 while serving in Iraq. The Humvee he was driving ran over an explosive device outside Baghdad. He was 28.
RELATED: Hundreds mourn soldier
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_1a_Oglesby_funeral.html
Soldier demands court martial
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/fort-carson-soldier-demands-court-martial/
A soldier who blames his alleged misconduct on brain damage suffered before he was deployed to Iraq has demanded a court-martial. Spc. Paul Thurman, 24, of Huntington Beach, Calif., rejected an Article 15 on Friday. Army spokeswoman Karen Linn confirmed Thurman rejected the so-called "nonjudicial punishment," in which maximum penalties are limited to reduction in grade, loss of a half-month's pay for two months and extra duty or limits on his movements for up to 45 days. Penalties under a court-martial could be much more severe, but would depend on what he is charged with and Army lawyers are still working on that. Medical and other Army documents provided to The Associated Press by Thurman show that he suffered brain damage while undergoing Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, N.C. He was deployed despite the medical record, but ultimately was medevaced after a short tour in Iraq and returned to Fort Carson.
Groups want hydrolysate shipments stopped
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/17
Last week, the Army started shipping VX hydrolysate, wastewater from the breakdown of nerve agent at the Newport, Ind., Chemical Depot, to a plant in Port Arthur, Texas, where it will be incinerated. Groups in Indiana and Texas have accused the Army of violating regulations requiring advance warning of the plan. The Army has been stymied twice already in plans to ship the waste to plants in Ohio and New Jersey where it would have undergone biotreatment. The issue is an important one to people in Pueblo who are opposed to possible Defense Department plans to ship mustard agent hydrolysate from the Pueblo Chemical Depot, instead of treating it on site as originally planned.
Rancher uses easements in land fight
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/3
Bob Patterson knows that it will take more than a conservation easement to stop the Army from taking his ranch south of Kim. He’s convinced, however, that such easements are a powerful tool for protecting agricultural land in Southeastern Colorado. “I don’t know if I’ll go up or down, but whichever way I go, I want to be looking at a ranch with cattle on it,” he joked last week at a seminar on conservation easements. About 75 people - a mix of real estate agents, landowners, bankers, appraisers and public officials - attended the seminar sponsored by the Lower Arkansas Valley Water Conservancy District, the Colorado Ag Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy and Community Banks of Colorado.
Soaring beyond bigotry
http://www.gazette.com/articles/tuskegee_21780___article.html/air_airmen.html
Age is doing to their ranks what the Luftwaffe couldn’t, but it doesn’t stop the annual pilgrimage of the Tuskegee Airmen to the Air Force Academy. Every spring, the legendary fliers who broke the military’s color barrier don their maroon jackets and fan out to classrooms. The mission is to ensure that the future leaders of the Air Force don’t forget mistakes of the past. Half a dozen of the airmen talked with cadets during events earlier this month at the academy. “These are your future leaders,” said retired Col. Lowell Bell, who calls himself a secondgeneration Tuskegee airman because he flew after World War II.
AFA fliers know how to win half a quail
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5776900
The performing falcons, along with others tethered to a perch and viewed close-up, are seen by hundreds of thousands of people each year. The falcons, the academy's official mascots, appear at events that include football games, air shows and even the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. Some 16 cadets work with the birds housed in a facility on a hillside high above the academy's vast athletic fields. The falcons live for 15 or more years in captivity, about three times longer than the life span of their wild brothers and sisters.
Energy Policy
Ethanol stands alone as a biofuel despite concerns
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104290153
These days some environmentalists are crying foul about a fuel that is polluting the air and ocean and driving up the price of food. No, it's not petroleum critics are complaining about. It's corn ethanol. Corn ethanol has been championed by politicians as a "win, win, win" solution for America's energy demands. It has been heralded as a solution to national security because corn is a domestic product as opposed to the oil that the U.S. consumes, most of which is imported. Its use as a fuel boosts profits for America's farmers and rural communities. And compared with oil, corn ethanol emits about 13 to 20 percent less carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that most scientists believe is responsible for climate change. But corn ethanol has taken a beating recently. Critics blamed high tortilla prices in Mexico this winter on demand for corn by U.S. ethanol refineries. The demand for corn also drove up livestock feed prices around the country. The National Corn Growers' Association disputes both of these claims. The Mexican tortilla crisis was based on a disruption in milling operations and in the supply of white corn, not the yellow corn used for ethanol, the association reports. And, it notes, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' March 2007 consumer price index showed food prices are expected to increase only 3.3 percent--less than last year, despite 15 months of rising corn prices. Ethanol refineries also are being criticized for environmental pollution.
Cooking up new biodiesel: Broomfield turns used oil into alternative fuel
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/29/recycling-cooking-oil-cooking-up-new-biodiesel/
Broomfield has struck oil — cooking oil, to be precise. A new program launched by Broomfield Environmental Services is greasing the wheels of a two-pronged eco-effort that turns used cooking oil into biofuel, while keeping it out of landfills and wastewater. Last week, for Earth Day, the city formally opened its Cooking Oil Collection program — which, along with Boulder and Loveland, is one of only three such city programs in the Denver metro area. Environmental Services Superintendent Kathy Schnoor said residents have needed a way to dispose of used cooking oil for some time. "A very common question that we would get was, 'What should we do with our cooking oil?'" she said. "We were advising them to solidify it, but we knew there had to be a better way."
Scientist warns of drilling near blast site
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_Project_Rulison_study.html
Natural-gas development near an underground nuclear explosion site south of Parachute should not occur until more scientific research is done to answer many questions, a Golden-based scientist concluded after a recent review of information. A preliminary technical review of studies related to the 1969 Project Rulison explosion, conducted by Dr. Robert E. Moran of Michael Moran Associates, found “uncertainties and unanswered questions,” he said, and the magnitude of what could go wrong is “considerable.” An official with a gas company interested in drilling close to the site maintains drilling poses no risks.
Oil-shale work force challenging for Shell
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/30/4_30_1a_Oil_Shale_workforce.html
Finding and housing more than 500 workers to build an oil- shale test project in Rio Blanco County will be a challenge, according to Shell Oil Exploration and Production officials. The company has three, 160-acre federal leases for oil-shale research, development and demonstration projects and estimates it will need 560 construction workers to build its first test project within the next few years. Since 1982, Shell has tested a patented underground process that heats shale rock and pumps out the oil on private lands it owns north of De Beque in Rio Blanco County. It plans more tests and research, along with a freezewall to protect groundwater during the heating, until 2016. The company plans to make a decision on a commercial oil-shale project shortly after the next decade.
RELATED: Raytheon aims radio waves at shale
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/30/4_30_11a_Oil_shale_Raytheon.html
RELATED: Many methods, one basic idea shape new oil-shale technology
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/30/4_30_1A_Oil_Shale_Technology.html
RELATED: Former Exxon Colony engineer tries to compete with oil giants
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/30/4_30_1A_Oil_Shale_Fryer.html
RELATED: Oil shale's bright promise gave way to dark days after Black Sunday
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_1a_Black_Sunday_resave.html
RELATED: 'All hell broke loose' as many left in rage
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_7a_Black_Sunday_Miera.html
RELATED: Some psychology helped clear bust, survivor says
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_7a_Black_Sunday_Reece.html
RELATED: Weird warnings precipitated collapse
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_1a_Black_Sunday_prescient.html
RELATED: Many found themselves in the chips, until crunch time
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/04/29/4_29_7a_Black_Sunday_Rowland.html
RELATED: May 2, 1982: The day Exxon hit the road
http://postindependent.com/article/20070429/VALLEYNEWS/104290034
RELATED: Bust left community gems behind
http://postindependent.com/article/20070429/VALLEYNEWS/104290033
Outages enter a 4th day
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509915,00.html
Hundreds of frustrated Intermountain Rural Electric Association customers were left without power for a fourth day Friday, after a spring snowstorm Tuesday felled trees and power lines in Jefferson and Douglas counties. Susan Irey of Morrison said the first time she saw any IREA utility trucks in her neighborhood was Friday morning. And she couldn't contact an IREA representative either. Calls to the electric co-operative were directed to an automated service that recorded her information, Irey said, and directed her not to call back. Irey's power was restored Friday afternoon - after more than 72 hours. During that time, a backup generator powered the lights but not the oven or microwave. A fireplace kept the house warm.
Transportation and Infrastructure
Tunnel fix could impede Glenwood Canyon traffic
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512381,00.html
The summer traffic snarls in Glenwood Canyon may be a little longer than normal this year because of roof repairs in the Hanging Lake Tunnel, officials said. The tunnel's eastbound bore closed March 30 after a crack in the roof widened to more than an inch, said Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nancy Shanks. Eastbound traffic was rerouted to one of the two lanes in the westbound bore, she said. The Hanging Lake Tunnel is a 105-foot-long section of Interstate 70 through the scenic canyon. A rockslide in 2002 that dumped 2 million pounds of debris on the concrete roof may have caused the crack, said Joe Elsen, a CDOT engineer.
CDOT plans open meeting on I-25 plans
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177826400/10
Colorado Department of Transportation officials invite the public to a meeting on the Interstate 25 Reconstruction Project in the Trinidad area. The session will be held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Quality Inn, 3125 Toupal Drive, in Trinidad. Guests will include Trinidad Mayor Joseph Reorda; CDOT Executive Director Russell George; Tim Harris, CDOT Region 2 transportation director; and Sgt. Matt Packard of the Colorado State Patrol.
Long commute? Just tunnel in
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104290099
If only Aspen had such a magical solution to its commuting woes. An energy company working in western Garfield County found a way to drastically reduce the time needed to move men, materials and equipment into the field. A company called Williams built a 4 1/2-mile road and bore a 3,200-foot tunnel into a mountainside north of Parachute to create a new way to access its natural gas wells in the Piceance Basin. The commute from Parachute to the gas wells in Allen Point will be sliced from 70 miles and up to two hours from Parachute to five miles and roughly 20 minutes, Williams spokeswoman Susan Alvillar said.
State chops feds' fee for Mt. Evans
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775491
The views along the Mount Evans Highway have been described as priceless, but for the past nine years the U.S. Forest Service has managed to nick as much as $10 from virtually every vehicle heading up the highest paved road in the country. That practice will come to an abrupt end this summer. The Colorado Department of Transportation insists the federal government cannot charge for use of a state highway built and maintained with state tax dollars. "We didn't know that they were charging everyone," said CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman. " ...It's illegal under state law."
Off-roaders destroy pristine lands
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/1
Roads are being carved through pristine fields where wildflowers and grasses struggle to grow. Gates and signs are being cut down, run over, shot to splinters or smashed into pieces. The wanton destruction would be enough to make most public land lovers flinch. For U.S. Bureau of Land Management rangers who try to stop the abuse, the problem seems to worsen.
Thousand more trees targeted in Blue River
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104290054
Last year, the homeowners in Blue River removed 200 to 300 trees killed by the mountain pine beetle; this year that number could grow by as much as five to six times, and the small town doesn't want to see the same trend continue. "We know if we don't do something this summer it could be substantially worse next summer," said Blue River Mayor Pro-tem Howard Smith. Armed with a $19,500 budget and the hopes of winning a matching grant from the Board of County Commissioners, the town board is heading up a major fuel reduction project this spring. With permission from homeowners, volunteer students from Colorado State University's forestry program started marking the affected trees, which are all on private property, last Sunday.
CU testing parking system that takes calls, credit cards
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512292,00.html
CU's Parking and Transportation Services rolled out the new machines about a month ago, replacing coin-operated parking meters with three solar-powered, intuitive, no-cranking-necessary parking facilitation units for the new millennium.
Environment and Conservation
Colorado lawmakers push Platte recovery funding legislation
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070428/NEWS/104270150
Colorado lawmakers are putting the finishing touches on a water agreement that's been 10 years in the making. In 1997, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska began hashing out an agreement to address the environmental effects from increased water use in the South and North Platte River basins on endangered and threatened species of animals in Nebraska's downstream portion of the river. Last year, then-Gov. Bill Owens, the governors of Nebraska and Wyoming and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne inked the deal, which set the cost of the plan at $317 million to be split more or less evenly between the three states combined and the federal government. This week, the House and Senate held hearings to consider a bill that would tie up the last loose end of the agreement: securing the federal funding levels agreed upon by the states. Colorado Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar are co-sponsors of the Senate bill. On the House side, Colorado Rep. Mark Udall sponsored the identically worded House version.
EPA faulted on oversight of cleanup sites
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/11
Environmental whistle-blowers are targeting the federal Environmental Protection Agency on perceived shortfalls in its oversight at Superfund cleanup sites. Locally, the Lincoln Park Superfund site has been the target of cleanup efforts since 1984. The site encompasses Cotter Corp.'s uranium mill and a portion of the surrounding Lincoln Park neighborhood. Contamination from old unlined tailings ponds seeped into the groundwater during the early days of the mill operation which geared up in 1958.
Kids weigh in on warming
http://www.gazette.com/articles/students_21710___article.html/one_warming.html
There are two Lego houses. One house, explains Rockrimmon fifthgrader Ryan Greenfield, conserves energy. The other, sitting in a plastic container, does not. He douses the second one in water, the apparent victim of melting polar ice caps. Fifth-graders at Rockrimmon Elementary School in northwest Colorado Springs took on the controversial and newsy topic of global warming for an end-of-year project. They are part of the International Baccalaureate elementary program, a curriculum that feeds on students’ curiosities and incorporates world thinking into basic subjects.
Ozone flirts with breaking clean-air rules
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775546
Ozone pollution season begins June 1, and this one is crucial for the Denver region. After two summers of exceeding federal health standards, the Front Range must meet ozone targets this year or run afoul of the Clean Air Act. That could lead to sanctions such as restrictions on highway projects and industry expansions. And even as Denver struggles to comply with existing rules, new research is revealing ozone - a key ingredient in summer smog - to be more dangerous than previously thought, even for people with healthy lungs.
Environmental hero
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16056
As a boy, he would stare past the storefronts and the grain elevator, past the railroad tracks to towering thunderheads marching across the Illinois plains. Those billowing, cottony clouds inspired a need in Nolan Doesken to unravel the secrets of weather and dream of a life far away from his hometown of Royal, Ill. Now, his boyhood passion for precipitation has led to national recognition as an environmental hero. On April 20 in Washington, D.C., Doesken, 55, was presented with the 2007 Environmental Hero award by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for founding the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.
RELATED: Doesken founded warning network CoCoRaHS
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16057
Judge: Sierra Club can sue Colorado Springs
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/1
U.S. District Court Judge Walker Miller gave a preliminary victory Friday to the Sierra Club in its lawsuit against Colorado Springs over pollution of Fountain Creek. Miller, over opposition from the city, ruled that the environmental group has the legal right, known in legal terms as "standing," to pursue its lawsuit. Pueblo County District Attorney Bill Thiebaut wanted the judge to decide that the district attorney has the authority and standing to pursue his similar lawsuit against Colorado Springs. However, Miller said he needed more time to consider arguments before making a ruling. The city believes Thiebaut is not entitled legally to bring his lawsuit.
State withdraws objection to water rights stipulations
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/04/30/local_news/2.txt
Nearly two weeks after filing objections to an agreement reached between Upper Gunnison Basin water users and the federal government in 2003, the state’s attorney general has filed a motion to withdraw it. “It was done because a number of parties in the Gunnison River Basin made it very clear they felt the filing of those objections would prevent further negotiation,” said Alexandra Davis, First Assistant Attorney General for the water rights unit.
CloudSat suggests changes to water forecasts
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070429/CSUZONE01/704290370/1002/NEWS17
Colorado State University's foray into cloud research could rewrite forecasting textbooks. Saturday marked one year in the sky for CloudSat, a CSU-led satellite project operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Researchers are using CloudSat, part of a constellation of satellites, to see how much water and ice Earth's clouds carry. The data so far suggest that more of the Earth's clouds drop precipitation to the world's surface than previously thought, said Graeme Stephens, a university distinguished professor in atmospheric science at CSU and the principal investigator for the project.
Bee losses a mystery
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512678,00.html
Colorado's beekeepers are gearing up for the summer pollinating season amid fears that a still-unsolved honeybee die-off threatens honey production, crop yields and their livelihood. The rash of bee fatalities appears to have spread to at least 24 states. Mounting alarm over the phenomenon has galvanized the attention of Congress as well as dozens of scientists who gathered in Maryland last week to compare notes about the problem. The losses are tied to what researchers are calling "colony collapse disorder," or CCD for short, a bizarre phenomenon in which the bees apparently become disoriented and never return to their hives. In Colorado and elsewhere, commercial beekeepers are watching closely as researchers examine possible culprits such as a virus, fungus or pesticides - as well as other, more exotic possibilities. One study suggests cell phones could be disrupting the bees' ability to navigate.
RELATED: TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE (Extra!, April 30)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5512673,00.html
RELATED: Beekeepers struggle to explain die-off
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070429/NEWS01/704290368/1002/NEWS17
Green movement gaining steam across country
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104280151
Conservationism and sustainability are gaining steam, and environmental activists and policy makers are hoping to maintain that momentum to avoid letting the new green movement fade into memory like last week's American Idol loser. Karen Barton, a resource management professor at the University of Northern Colorado's geography program who studies the politics of conservation, said the trend has a future. "It seems like people today are beginning to care about the issue because it affects them," she said.
Forest Service hopes to save special place
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104300040
The U.S. Forest Service is trying to protect a sensitive wetland from getting trampled, without creating a trail that captures more human attention. The agency is trying to "get people up and out of the natural system" in a wetland along the Roaring Fork River in El Jebel, according to Mike Kenealy, acting ranger in the Aspen/Sopris district.
Hot weather, swift water
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781670
The Front Range's swift rivers and lazy lakes offered a reprieve from near record-breaking temperatures over the weekend, but they also brought tragedy in the form of three drownings. Temperatures in Denver stretched to 81 degrees Sunday, 2 degrees shy of the record for the date, said Carl Burroughs of the National Weather Service. But recent rainstorms across the Front Range - combined with seasonal snowpack melting - made some rivers and streams dangerously fast over the weekend, he said.
Fountain Creek panel looks to future
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177740000/3
Some at the meeting noted there have been 15 years of study of Fountain Creek leading up to the Fountain Creek Watershed Study by the Army Corps of Engineers. The portion of the study that will evaluate the technical feasibility of ways to control flooding, erosion and sedimentation is stalled for a lack of federal funding. “What is the state of the watershed authority?” asked Brett Gracely, water resource planning supervisor for Colorado Springs Utilities. “We can share information and adopt common policies, but what can we do?”
Water revenue floods in
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/29/water-revenue-floods-in-boulders-new-water-has/
Boulder officials don't yet know why, but a new water-billing system installed in January has brought more money — 52 percent more — into city coffers this year. For the first quarter of 2007, the city's water department collected $4,364,884 from its customers. That's compared to $2,871,655 over the same period last year, and the increase has one critic wondering whether the new system is faulty.
Inquiry becomes criminal: Creek-widening may have hurt wetlands, prairie dogs
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/inquiry-becomes-criminal-inquiry-into-project/
An internal city of Boulder inquiry into whether drainage work at Foothills Parkway and Arapahoe Avenue illegally hurt prairie dogs and damaged wetlands is a criminal investigation, City Attorney Ariel Calonne said Friday. "There is a pending criminal investigation," Calonne said. "It should be complete in about 10 days." On April 12, the city announced that an internal investigation was under way to determine whether work done at the northeast corner of Foothills Parkway and Arapahoe Avenue the week of March 26 followed city ordinances meant to protect wildlife and wetlands. Officials declined to answer questions in the following weeks about how the investigation was being conducted. On Friday, the Camera requested copies of records related to the work. Calonne said those records won't be turned over until the criminal investigation is complete.
A fish called Wayne - or is it Wanda?
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070429/NEWS/104290057
Every time you flush a toilet, you could be assisting a confused young trout with an unwanted sex change, says a researcher from the University of Colorado. Alan Vajda has set up a tiny, solar-powered lab in the parking lot of Vail's wastewater treatment plant on Gore Creek. He's pumping water from the creek into several tanks in his trailer, where schools of young brown trout await a bloody dissection and probing of their sexual organs. Vajda is trying to find out how treated wastewater in Vail is affecting fish development and reproduction. He's concerned that small amounts of hormones and other chemicals - from urine, feces, birth control, antibiotics, soap and the wide range of drugs we send down our drains - could be changing the sex of fish and harming the ecosystem.
Feds make progress in tamarisk control
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/13
The U.S. Forest Service is making progress on controlling tamarisk in the Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands in Colorado and Kansas. Tamarisk, or salt cedar, on about 750 acres of land will be eradicated this year beginning in May.“Once we treat an area, the native cottonwoods and willows are more vigorous. Ultimately, watershed health and water levels should improve,” said Darren Mayers, Comanche National Grassland Biological Science Technician. He said work during the past four years has dramatically improved wetlands in Southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas.
Officials to track dead animal reports
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5509786,00.html
A squirrel found dead with the plague in City Park has sparked a call for Denver residents to report dead rodents and rabbits - a good way to protect pet cats from harm. John Pape, an epidemiologist who specializes in animal- related diseases for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said reporting will help identify clusters of dead animals. Not every dead animal reported will be tested, Pape said Friday. But reporting is important because it gives officials a sense of where die-offs are centered.
Carlisle student organizes second cleanup day
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1177945083/7
Each year the city of Pueblo spends more money removing garbage and debris that has been dumped illegally or blown free from uncovered trash bins than it does on snow removal. But for the second straight year a local elementary school student is hoping to lighten the city's burden and is asking the rest of his classmates in Pueblo City Schools to pitch in. "I'm just tired of it," said Cameron Martin, 10, a fourth-grader at Carlisle Elementary School. "Sometimes when people drive by Pueblo, I think they feel like it's a dirty town because of all the garbage they see when they are driving. I hear it from a lot of different people and I also see it for myself." For the second year, Cameron is proposing Pueblo City Schools students take a day off from classes to go outside and pick up the neighborhoods around their schools. Schools that collect the most trash will be awarded a pizza party.
Straw returning to construction sites
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/28/straw-returning-to-construction-sites/
One of the oldest home-insulation options is also one of the newest — straw. Straw, hay and grasses were among the first building materials known to humans. Recent generations all but abandoned them in favor of industrial materials, such as steel and plastics. But straw is making a comeback. In the Boulder area, an increasing number of home-construction sites are not littered with piles of plastic foam, fiberglass and tar but instead clay, soil and straw. "People in this area are going more and more with earth-based products," said Dale Johns, owner of Earthrise Homes in Boulder.
Opinion
Carman: "Heroes" are still war dead
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5775490
A nameless person left a red rose on the altar stone at the Colorado Veterans Memorial on Friday morning. It might have been in memory of Cpl. Wade J. Oglesby, 27, of Grand Junction, who was killed April 18 by an explosive in Taji, Iraq. Or maybe for 19-year-old Jeffrey Alan Avery of Colorado Springs, who was killed Monday by a bomb in Miqdadiyah. No one knows. With more than 425,000 veterans living in the state and thousands more Colorado soldiers who have died in war after war, it's anybody's guess. Gov. Bill Ritter stood beside the rose and the stone monument and spoke of those who make the "ultimate sacrifice." He said it's important that we "never forget." As the governor, state legislators and veterans from various conflicts paid tribute to the wars' dead on this warm spring day, nearby schoolchildren squealed and tumbled on the lawn, cars raced along downtown streets, pigeons scrambled for crumbs on the sidewalk and a man ambled along, oblivious to the tribute, his attention fixed hungrily on a hot dog in a bun. Life goes on.
RELATED: The war's signature injury
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5759986
Starrs: Protect habeas corpus
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5759963
There is a very old legal principle called habeas corpus that protects people from being imprisoned without being told why. Essentially, the right of habeas corpus (which literally means "you have the body") guarantees that when the government arrests or detains someone, it has to produce the body of that person and officially state the charges. Along with unfair taxation, the suspension of habeas corpus was one of the reasons for the colonies' revolt against England. It is no surprise, therefore, that the common law writ of habeas corpus, which existed even before the Magna Carta (1215 A.D.), was written into the U.S. Constitution as a most solemn and fundamental right to anyone within the jurisdiction and control of the United States.
Censoring science: Climate-change info redacted
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/30/censoring-science/
We may not be getting the whole story about climate research from our government. New federal guidelines on what scientists say or write about their research place severe limits, perhaps unconstitutional ones, on their ability to talk about climate change.
Rodriguez: Disposable workers wanted in Colorado
PISCIOTTA
AND other participating farmers have received their share of insults from
critics, particularly liberals who have accused them of resorting to what they consider
slave labor, although the prisoners would be paid and, in the end, the program
would cost the farmers more than paying migrants.
Ironically, perhaps, the prison agreement is the brainchild of a local Latina Democratic legislator, Colorado state Rep. Dorothy Butcher, a hard-charging
grandmother and retired phone company employee. Over dinner at Mi Ranchito #2
restaurant in Pueblo, Butcher teared up as she recalled last year's racially
charged debate in Colorado's General Assembly, which led to tough new
legislation granting law enforcement broader powers to check peoples'
immigration status. "It was very hard not to have your feelings
hurt," she said. "Because they were talking about Mexicans as if they
were animals." But, at the same time, Butcher refuses to ponder the ethics
or long-term significance of replacing those very immigrants who were under
attack with convicted criminals. "It's about the economy," she said.
"What do you want me to do? Let the farms dry up? This is not fantasyland."
ICE could drive us apart more
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070429/TRIBEDIT/104290128/-1/TRIBEDIT
There is celebrating in parts of Greeley and Weld County, but we, frankly, are not among the celebrants. News late Thursday that Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., may have been successful in getting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in Greeley was met with mixed reviews. Allard was acting on a request Weld District Attorney Ken Buck submitted in November 2005; Buck wants a crackdown on illegal immigrants focusing on those involved in crime, especially identify theft. We absolutely favor going after criminals -- legal and illegal. And, following the December ICE raid at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant, we have a renewed awareness of how identity theft plays into the hands of those who want to bypass our laws. But we must be very careful when it comes to the presence of ICE offices in Greeley. Frankly, we believe it could split this community. We believe racial profiling is a major concern. And we worry that legitimate immigrants as well as American Latinos will be forced underground.
Ewegen: Who asked you, John Suthers?
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5767951
I've known six Colorado attorneys general in 35 years at The Denver Post, beginning with the legendary Duke W. Dunbar, who served from 1951 to 1973. Dunbar made a vivid impression for two reasons, the first being that his full name was Duke Wellington Dunbar, a fact that prompted longtime Post pundit Tom Gavin to write that the state's top law-enforcement official owed his popularity with the public to "having a lock on the anti-Napoleon vote." Of more consequence was Dunbar's solid reputation for integrity. He loved the law and was famous for always "calling 'em the way he saw 'em," even if his opinions weren't what partisans in his own Republican Party were hoping for. Dunbar, like his successor, John Moore, was a great attorney general who happened to be a Republican. I thought of their legacy Friday when the current officeholder, John Suthers, strode forward in the role of a Republican who happens to be attorney general. Brandishing a "memo" - he didn't call it a formal opinion - Suthers said Gov. Bill Ritter's tax freeze proposal would be unconstitutional if it were not submitted to a statewide vote of the people. The Colorado House of Representatives shrugged off Suthers' comments and gave final approval to the plan on a vote of 41-20, with five Republicans voting in favor. The measure goes to the Senate next week. The Suthers memo, nominally written by Solicitor General Dan Domenico, is a slapdash affair - almost comically so in places. It even twice cites press releases to buttress its legal conclusions. Will Suthers' next foray into partisan law cite the Mallard Fillmore comic strip?
Warhover: Panel committed to changing the system
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5509473,00.html
Thoughtful, committed people can change the world and hopefully our health care system in Colorado. A small group of 27 thoughtful individuals is working with community members and leaders to create a plan to reform Colorado's ailing health care system. They are the appointed commissioners of the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform, established by the Colorado legislature during the 2006 legislative session through Senate Bill 06-208. The legislature created the commission with the charge of studying and recommending health care reform models for expanding coverage, especially for the underinsured and uninsured and decreasing health care costs for Colorado residents - not a simple undertaking. Colorado has 770,000 uninsured residents, with nearly 180,000 of them children. Health care is clearly important to voters. Coloradans, like most Americans, are anxious for solutions to the growing number of people who cannot afford health insurance and to the rising cost of health care. The Blue Ribbon Commission was formed to address these concerns.
Progress with police oversight
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5780861
A Department of Public Safety video of a Denver police officer repeatedly using a taser on a handcuffed prisoner is shocking enough, but then there was the bald-faced lie that an officer told in an official report to whitewash the incident. This episode is a great example of why Denver can be grateful for the improved workings of police oversight. Supervisors viewed the tape and ordered an internal affairs investigation and they can be commended for putting the review on course. The city's new police monitor and citizen oversight panel were instrumental in unraveling the deception, revealing the abuse and putting forward a remedy.
Berumen: Dark cloud on the horizon for Colorado's mentally ill
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/speakout/2007/04/post_45.html#more
May is Mental Health Month and while there is much for mental- health advocates in Colorado to celebrate, there is a dark cloud on the horizon. First, the good news: Gov. Bill Ritter has taken important steps toward lifting Colorado from the bottom of the heap when it comes to funding for mental- health services. He has proposed meaningful increases in mental-health funding and important initiatives to improving mental-health services as part of his efforts to reduce recidivism in the criminal justice system. The dark cloud on the horizon, though, is the Medicaid preferred drug list Ritter ordered the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to implement.
Groff: Let DPS take charge of its destiny
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/speakout/2007/04/post_44.html#more
The column in the April 25 Rocky Mountain News, written by the Denver Public Schools’ superintendent and board members, acknowledges that we can’t operate an effective and innovative Denver public school system using the antiquated methods of the early 20th century. A patchwork of DPS educational reforms applied inconsistently, unevenly and, arguably, haphazardly over the past several decades has resulted in a product of doubtful quality. The Rocky’s series on DPS over the past few weeks, “Leaving to learn,” clearly points out the disconnect between what traditional DPS schools offer and what parents want. As a DPS graduate and parent of young children I had hoped could attend my alma maters, I am gravely concerned about their generation’s academic preparation.
RELATED: DPS must act openly, efficiently on closures
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5780858
Spancer: Gang bust can't erase demand
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5781304
The federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that teamed up to jail what the cops call "the worst of the worst" deserve a huge shout-out. As Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said when the arrests were announced: "It takes a lot of people, and it takes a lot of money." What's left to determine is the return on investment. If, as the rumor mill suggests, Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was killed by a Tre Tre Crip after a confrontation at a downtown nightclub, this sweep offers great potential to break the case on one of Denver's most high-profile unsolved murders. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathee Tafoya said every gun seized will be screened against open cases. Tafoya and Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey also hope to press prisoners for leads. The investigation continues. Eid said he favors "the Al Capone approach," referring to the violent Chicago mobster whose prison term came not for murder, but tax evasion. You charge people with what you can in order to get them off the street, said Eid. Then, you work to build as big a case as you can against them. It's a good philosophy. But it works on only one side of the problem. Even if every one of those arrested Thursday never sees another day of freedom, even if the people charged but not yet in custody can be found, the dent made by this unprecedented effort came in the supply side.
Martinez: Western Dems getting ready for DNC
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5780860
Western Democrats are launching a new political action committee hoping to "inject Western issues and values into the national dialogue." Next year's Democratic National Convention in Denver will be a critical forum for the so-called Western Majority Project. It includes such notables as U.S. Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada and Jon Tester of Montana, Govs. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Bill Richardson of New Mexico, and U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, Gov. Bill Ritter and state Rep. Alice Madden. "There's a lot of interest," said attorney Ken Lane, an adviser to Salazar. "People are asking: How do candidates like Salazar, Tester and Napolitano win." The answer? "You'll have to wait," teases Lane.
Pamp: Power and water
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5759991
Water conservancy districts (WCDs) are very important in rural Colorado. They have substantial authority over the distribution of water, the lifeblood of all rural economies. Even if you live in a city or town, and you don't have to get an augmentation permit from a WCD for your well, check your tax bill and see if you are paying a tax bite to one or more WCDs. They have teeth. All Colorado water is owned in common by the people of Colorado, and individuals have only the right to the beneficial use of certain amounts of it.
Girvin: Conservation: A critical tool for Colorado's ands
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070427/COLUMNS/104270081
Colorado offers a powerful incentive for landowners who want to permanently protect the open space and natural resource values on their property: the Colorado Conservation Tax Credit. By preserving their land with a conservation easement donated to a qualified organization like Continental Divide Land Trust, a landowner may receive a tax credit of 50 percent of the value of the donation. This tax credit is transferable to another Colorado tax payer, meaning that land-rich, cash-poor ranchers and farmers who are unable to take advantage of a typical tax deduction are able to realize a small financial gain for the protection of their land. Wealthier landowners may use the tax credit themselves or transfer it.
Johnson: Smoke ban inspires 'who's on 1st' routine
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_5509813,00.html
The legislature's quest to outlaw smoking in Colorado fascinates mostly because of the sheer inequality involved. Then there's the stumblings and fumblings by elected leaders trying to salvage last year's poorly written, special interest-protecting law, and, finally, the quite avoidable human and economic toll the folly has exacted. A smoker these days could go crazy trying to figure out where it is lawful to light up. Are casinos smoke-free now or not? Cigar bars? How come they smoke in that bar, but not in this one? Over at the Capitol on Friday morning, the Senate was attempting yet again to decide whether to ban smoking in, of all places, cigar bars. Amendments were added; rules were changed. Not a single head went unscratched. It was kind of funny. There was more huddling taking place than on a fall Sunday. "If you ban smoking there, you've got to allow it here," some murmured and others shouted. Who's on first? No, he's on second.
Quillen: Why bother?
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5759985
It takes about 15 minutes to read the U.S. Constitution. Then there's our state constitution, which runs to more than 68,000 words - longer than the typical paperback novel, and a good deal harder to follow. At last report, our state Senate was considering a proposal to make it more difficult to amend our state constitution. As it is, an amendment passes with 50 percent plus one vote. This would be changed to 60 percent. The current requirement for a constitutional amendment is the same as for an initiated law. So if you're hiring people to circulate petitions for your pet cause, why bother with an initiated law, which the legislature can amend or repeal, when with the same effort you can put your measure beyond the reach of the General Assembly by making it part of the state constitution? So it's easy to see why our constitution has become so cluttered, and making it more difficult to amend makes sense. The general charter of our state government ought to concern itself with organization, responsibilities and limitations, not with rules about hog farming and fur trapping. One sweetener with the current proposal is that initiated laws passed by the voters would be difficult for the legislature to change. For the first five years, a two-thirds majority in each house would be required, rather than a simple majority. So laws initiated and approved by the public at large could be changed, but not casually.
Salzman: Local public affairs shows take on complex subjects
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_5509349,00.html
We're in the golden age of infotainment, and public affairs shows on local TV are anti-infotainment, if there ever was such a thing. So you'd expect them to be a dying breed. But they're actually multiplying in Denver. You may not believe it, but Fox 31 and Channel 20 both launched interview programs this year. Sure, talking-heads shows can fall into the infotainment category - like those national programs with guests who insult each other. But Denver's programs feature humans talking about stuff like the state legislature. How to choose among them?
Post's Denver election picks
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5759987
These are The Denver Post's endorsements in Tuesday's Denver election.
Election
Alliance and Rivalry Link Bush, McCain
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800835.html
When nine Republican presidential candidates presented their cases to Iowa activists at a Des Moines dinner this month, only Arizona Sen. John McCain went out of his way to embrace President Bush. "There's only one commander in chief of the United States, and that's George W. Bush," he told the crowd. "I support him, and I believe in him." But when McCain formally kicked off his campaign last week, there seemed to be a lot he did not believe in, such as Bush's handling of the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and federal spending. McCain called for Bush's attorney general to resign. "That's not good enough for America," he said after reciting a litany of Bush failures. "And when I'm president, it won't be good enough for me."
RELATED: McCain Tries to Recapture Vigor of His Last Campaign
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/politics/29mccain.html
Giuliani Sees Socialism in Democrats' Plans
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702136.html
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pulled out the S-word to criticize universal-health-care plans advocated by Democratic presidential candidates. The Republican hopeful said in a visit to Raleigh, N.C., that Democrats who urged "mandatory" universal health care at a debate Thursday night were "moving toward socialized medicine so fast, it'll make your head spin," according to the Associated Press. Giuliani instead advocated for a private solution. "When we want to cover poor people, as we should, we give them vouchers," he said.
Clinton Campaign Tries to Keep Heat on Obama Over Debate Response
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702162.html
The first Democratic presidential debate did little to change the shape of the 2008 race, but it provided a post-debate flash point Friday between the campaigns of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton over the issue of fighting terrorism. At issue is whether Obama mishandled a question about how he would respond if two American cities were attacked by terrorists: Did he fail to demonstrate the toughness and resolve that voters want in a president or was his answer a careful and comprehensive checklist for any potential president dealing with an international crisis? The Clinton campaign seized on what happened, claiming, without mentioning Obama, that "Hillary was the candidate who demonstrated that she would know how to respond if the country was attacked." An Obama spokesman dismissed the Clinton camp's press release as "a sign of nervousness."
RELATED: Clinton's PowerPointer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901661.html
Obama: Racial ills haven't healed
Invoking images of Los Angeles in flames, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama argued Sunday -- the 15th anniversary of the nation's most violent modern civil uprising -- that little has been done to fix the social and economic conditions that gave rise to a three-day rampage that killed at least 53 people. And although the riots occurred in Los Angeles, the conditions that spawned them persist around the U.S., Obama told an overflow crowd at the First AME Church. "There wasn't anything going on in Los Angeles that was unique to Los Angeles," Obama said. "If you traveled to Chicago, you would see the same young men on street corners without hope, without prospects and without a sense of any destiny other than ending up in prison or in a casket." Obama drew a sustained standing ovation when he rebuked the Bush administration for funding the war in Iraq ahead of improving the lives of impoverished Americans, particularly those in minority neighborhoods.
RELATED: A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/politics/30obama.html?ref=us
Edwards puts taxes for rich on the table
Democrats opened a new divide over taxes Sunday, as former Sen. John Edwards said he would consider an added levy on businesses and individuals reaping the kind of huge financial reward enjoyed by some of the nation's wealthiest investors. Speaking as state party activists wound down their three-day convention in San Diego, the North Carolina Democrat told reporters that "paying additional taxes, an excess-profits, excess-income tax" was a notion "worthy of consideration." He did not offer specifics. But New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who followed Edwards to the lectern after addressing delegates, swiftly disagreed. "Democrats, whenever we have a solution, we want to tax," Richardson said. "I'm different. I'm a tax cutter."
Top Democrats Strain to Keep Pace
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800964.html
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) appeared here without her husband this weekend, but she did bring one of his trademarks: a hoarse speaking voice. Clinton said she was fighting a cold. But at a news conference after her speech to the California Democratic Party Convention on Saturday, she acknowledged that the front-loaded 2008 primary schedule is putting a strain on her candidacy. Having California, New York and other big states move up their primaries to Feb. 5 "puts an extraordinary burden on me and my campaign," Clinton said, a rare acknowledgment of stress from one who has sought to look as if she finds campaigning a breeze. "You know, we have never had a primary process like this," she said in response to a question about the earlier-than-ever California contest. "We're all trying to figure out how to manage the resources, the time, the organizational challenges." She quickly added: "But I'm excited that California is moving up like it has decided to do."
RELATED: California Democrats Cheer Talk They Sought 4 Years Ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/politics/30dems.html?ref=us
Effective and Ethical Government
Tenet Details Efforts to Justify Invading Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042700550.html
White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet. Although Tenet does not question the threat Saddam Hussein posed or the sincerity of administration beliefs, he recounts numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to insert "crap" into public justifications for the war. Tenet also describes an ongoing fear within the intelligence community of the administration's willingness to "mischaracterize complex intelligence information."
RELATED: Former C.I.A. Chief’s Memoir Irritates Some High-Ranking Readers
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28tenet.html
RELATED: Rice Rebuts Tenet’s Assertion That ’01 Warning Was Ignored
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30tenet.html?ref=washington
GOP's Base Helps Keep Unity on Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900948.html
The experiences of the few Republicans to vote against the war help explain the remarkable unity that the party has maintained in Washington behind an unpopular president. Just four Republicans -- two in the House, two in the Senate -- voted last week for a $124 billion war funding bill that would require troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1, legislation that Bush has vowed to veto. That cohesion reflects the views of the GOP's core voters, who see the war in Iraq in fundamentally different terms than Democrats and political independents do, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success.
RELATED: Congress' vote on Iraq war is only a prelude
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-assess30apr30,0,5939734.story?coll=la-home-headlines
RELATED: Rice says president won't let Congress set Iraq benchmarks
RELATED: Quiet Bush Aide Seeks Iraq Czar, Creating a Stir
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30hadley.html
GOP Lawmaker Told of Plan to Fire U.S. Attorney
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702112.html
The White House told a Republican member of Congress last summer about its plans to fire a U.S. attorney in Arkansas and replace him with a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but it did not tell Democratic lawmakers, according to a new Justice Department e-mail released yesterday. The White House called Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) "and pretty much told him what they are doing with this appointment and how they are going about it," according to a July 6 e-mail from Bud Cummins, then the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. "There has been some subsequent talk among other members of the delegation about it and some of them may be chapped about how it was handled," Cummins wrote in the message to a senior Justice official.
Political Appointees No Longer to Pick Justice Interns
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702190.html
The Justice Department is removing political appointees from the hiring process for rookie lawyers and summer interns, amid allegations that the Bush administration had rigged the programs in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups, according to documents and officials. The decision, outlined in an internal memo distributed Thursday, returns control of the Attorney General's Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program to career lawyers in the department after four years during which political appointees directed the process.
Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyer Under Scrutiny in Probe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702228.html
A federal task force investigating the activities of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has in recent weeks been looking into whether one of Abramoff's colleagues improperly traded favors with a Justice Department lawyer, sources familiar with the Abramoff investigation said yesterday. The lawyer, Robert E. Coughlin II, resigned on April 6 as deputy chief of staff in the Criminal Division, citing personal reasons, a department spokesman said. Coughlin had worked in the criminal division since 2005 but was recused from the Abramoff inquiry because of a longtime personal friendship with Kevin A. Ring, one of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues whose actions are under investigation, a law enforcement source said. Investigators are looking into dealings between the two in 2001 and 2002, when Coughlin worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, the sources said.
Prosecutors Drop Gun Case Against Webb Aide
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702138.html
Prosecutors yesterday dismissed the case against a top aide to Sen. James Webb who was accused of bringing a loaded pistol into the Russell Senate Office Building. Phillip Thompson, executive assistant to Webb (D-Va.), had been charged with carrying a pistol without a license after Capitol Police found the loaded gun and ammunition March 26 during a routine screening of his briefcase. Thompson said that Webb owned the weapon and that he did not realize he was carrying it.
Former Tenn. Lawmaker John Ford Convicted of Taking Bribes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702110.html
Former state senator John Ford (D), a prominent member of a politically powerful family, was convicted Friday of accepting $55,000 in bribes. But the federal jury deadlocked on the more serious charge of extortion, creating a mistrial on that count. Ford was acquitted of three counts of witness intimidation.
'I Abhor Injustice,' Alleged Madam Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801192.html
Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view. A one-time law student, Palfrey ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges. Palfrey piqued fascination -- and anxiety -- by first threatening to sell phone records that could unveil thousands of clients, and then handing them over, apparently for free, to ABC News. She is scheduled to appear tomorrow in U.S. District Court in the District. On Friday, Randall L. Tobias resigned as deputy secretary of state one day after confirming to Brian Ross of ABC that he had patronized the Pamela Martin firm.
RELATED: Rice Deputy Quits After Query Over Escort Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702497.html
After Hiatus, Snow's Happy Return
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900359.html
Don't get him wrong. Tony Snow appreciates all the cards and flowers and prayers. He's likely to choke up talking about the outpouring of support he has received since learning that his cancer has returned. But after weeks out of the office, Snow says, "you get buggy." So the White House press secretary plans to return to duty today, raring to get back to representing a besieged president and jousting with journalists. With investigators bearing down, various appointees under fire and the president in a veto showdown with Congress, there will be no shortage of hard questions. And Snow can't wait.
N.J. governor likely to leave hospital Monday
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-30-corzine-discharged_N.htm
Gov. Jon S. Corzine was expected to leave the hospital on Monday, 2½ weeks after being seriously injured in a car crash. It was uncertain when he would be able to return to work. State Senate President Richard J. Codey is the acting governor. Corzine fractured his left thigh and broke 11 ribs, his breastbone and other bones in a crash on April 12. He was operated on three times and a metal rod was inserted to stabilize his leg. Doctors said Corzine will likely not be able to walk without crutches or a cane for at least six months.
Civil Liberties and Equality
C.I.A. Held Qaeda Leader in Secret Jail for Months
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28prisoner.html
The Central Intelligence Agency held a captured Qaeda leader in a secret prison since last fall and transferred him last week to the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, officials said Friday. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd who is said to have joined Al Qaeda in the late 1990s and ascended to become a top aide to Osama bin Laden, is the first terrorism suspect known to have been held in secret C.I.A. jails since President Bush announced the transfer of 14 captives to Guantánamo Bay last September.
NAACP to hold funeral for "N" word
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-30-n-word-funeral_N.htm
The NAACP held a symbolic funeral in Detroit 63 years ago for Jim Crow. The civil rights organization will do the same this summer for the "N" word, the Rev. Wendell Anthony said Sunday. Anthony, president of the civil rights organization's Detroit branch, said members and supporters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will conduct services and a "eulogy" for the racial slur. The mock funeral will be held during the NAACP national convention July 7-12 in Detroit, he said. "We are committed to ending hate — word and talk," Anthony said. "It doesn't do anyone any good, whether it's a journalist on TV or a rapper on the radio."
Foreign Policy
Darfur protests draw thousands in London, Washington
Thousands of people protested Sunday outside Prime Minister Tony Blair's residence to demand decisive action to end the violence in Darfur, holding up a 7-foot hourglass filled with artificial blood. Protests also were held in the United States, Israel and other countries on what campaigners designated a global day of action. In London, protesters handed a letter to Gareth Thomas, a minister of state for international development, calling for the quick deployment of a strong peacekeeping force in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where a four-year war has left more than 200,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced. The letter, addressed to Blair, urged the prime minister "to use your influence to push the international community to call for action." "Time is running out for the people of Darfur, and we urge you to keep the pressure on the government of Sudan until there is an effective peacekeeping force on the ground protecting civilians," the letter said.
The Two Sides of Baghdad Barriers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901413.html
New walls around markets and other public gathering places -- one of the most visible features of the military push to stem violence in Baghdad -- are meant to counter what U.S. commanders now consider one of the most lethal and psychologically devastating weapons in the insurgents' arsenal: vehicles that suicide attackers pack with ever more powerful explosives. "I'm concerned about the single big events that continue to occur," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the senior U.S. military operations commander in Iraq. Although sectarian killings have decreased in Baghdad since February, when tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops began arriving, attacks with the vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, known as VBIEDs, have increased. Supply of the weapons, which commanders liken to a low-tech precision bomb, is virtually unlimited.
Maliki's Office Is Seen Behind Purge in Forces
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901728.html
A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad. Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post. Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals.
Afghan deaths fuel ire, rift
U.S.-led raid Sunday on a suspected militant cell killed as many as six Afghans -- including a woman and a teenage girl -- and spawned protests by hundreds of angry Afghans chanting "Death to Bush!" The U.S. said four militants were among the dead, but it was the civilian deaths that infuriated the protesters, who carried five bodies to a main highway and blocked traffic with felled trees during the demonstration. The protests came amid heightened activity elsewhere by coalition troops. In southern Afghanistan, more than 2,000 NATO and Afghan troops began an operation before dawn Monday to drive Taliban fighters from another swath of their opium-producing heartland. The British-led Operation Silicon is the latest attempt to extend the shaky control of President Hamid Karzai's government in Helmand province, officials said.
RELATED: Afghans Protest After Coalition Raid Kills 6 People
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/asia/30afghan.html
Iran On Guard Over U.S. Funds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701668.html
The Bush administration's $75 million program to promote democracy in Iran has undermined the kind of organizations and activists it was designed to help, with U.S. aid becoming a top issue in a broader crackdown on leading democracy advocates over the past year, according to a wide range of Iranian activists and human rights groups. Since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice unveiled the program more than a year ago, a wide array of activists -- teachers, women's rights campaigners, labor organizers, students, journalists and intellectuals -- have faced interrogations, detentions, imprisonment and passport confiscation over suspected links to the new U.S. funding, activists and human rights groups say. Iranian officials have charged that Washington is supporting the kind of soft revolution that transformed Eastern Europe. "Dozens of Iranian activists are paying a price since the announcement of the $75 million, and practically everyone who has been detained over the past year has been interrogated about receiving this money," said Hadi Ghaemi, Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch. "They are obsessed with the perception that the U.S. is fueling a velvet revolution through this money."
RELATED: Iraq presses for U.S.-Iran talks
RELATED: Iran to Attend Regional Talks on Iraq Violence
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/middleeast/30diplo.html?ref=world
RELATED: In Iran, spring brings out fashion police
A Saudi Prince Tied to Bush Is Sounding Off-Key
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/washington/29saudi.html
Bush administration officials have been scratching their heads over steps taken by Prince Bandar’s uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that have surprised them by going against the American playbook, after receiving assurances to the contrary from Prince Bandar during secret trips he made to Washington. For instance, in February, King Abdullah effectively torpedoed plans by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a high-profile peace summit meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, by brokering a power-sharing agreement with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas that did not require Hamas to recognize Israel or forswear violence. The Americans had believed, after discussions with Prince Bandar, that the Saudis were on board with the strategy of isolating Hamas. American officials also believed, again after speaking with Prince Bandar, that the Saudis might agree to direct engagement with Israel as part of a broad American plan to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. King Abdullah countermanded that plan.
Olmert awaits Lebanon war inquiry report
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000312.html
An Israeli inquiry into the Lebanon war was expected on Monday to criticize Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sharply for launching last year's campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas but refrain from calling on him to resign. Publication of interim findings by the government-appointed Winograd Commission at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) follows reports in Israeli media over the weekend that Olmert would be censured for a "rash and misguided" decision to go to war. Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets into Israel during the war, sending a million people into shelters in attacks the Middle East's mightiest military failed to stop. Olmert's approval rating has since plunged to single digits in opinion polls. Olmert's aides say he has no intention of resigning and, according to what Israeli television and newspaper reports described as leaked details of the interim conclusions, the five-member commission will not urge him to step down.
RELATED: Olmert braces for fight to save his job
India-U.S. nuclear pact remains stalled
The high-profile nuclear cooperation deal that lies at the heart of warming ties between India and the U.S. has run into serious trouble over the fine print. Officials on both sides are expressing growing frustration over each other's seeming intransigence in overcoming the final obstacles to sealing the agreement, which would reverse years of U.S. policy and allow American companies to sell and share civilian nuclear technology with India even though it has refused to join the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. When proposed nearly two years ago, the nuclear pact made headlines as proof that the world's most populous democracy had joined hands with the most powerful to create a new balance of power, especially as a counter to a rising China.
Ethiopia Continues to Hold U.S. Man, Frustrating Family
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801141.html
The family of a U.S. citizen being held in Ethiopia has grown increasingly frustrated that he remains detained despite reports that he would be released. A congressman's office said this month that Amir Meshal, 24, would soon be freed. But Ethiopia then changed its mind, according to an internal U.S. government document that was disclosed last week.
Somalis warily returning to their battered capital
Somalis who fled the worst fighting this city has seen since the early 1990s have been warily returning, but few here said they believed the transitional government had crushed Islamic militias and ushered in an era of peace. Mogadishu residents Sunday recounted horrific stories of civilian casualties and massive structural damage during recent shelling by government and allied Ethiopian forces attempting to drive Islamic militants from the capital. Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi said the troops were searching former strongholds of the Islamic Courts Union and supporting militias of Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan. He called on people to disarm. Gedi claimed victory over the Islamists on Thursday, and the capital has been calm since Friday. Over the weekend, civilians buried corpses that had lain in the streets for days, and braced for another wave of violence.
Zimbabwean Activists Tell of Rights Abuses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801116.html
At least 224 Zimbabweans have been detained, kidnapped or arrested since March 11. Before Wednesday's arrests, thirty had been denied bail and remained in custody for alleged "banditry, terrorism and sabotage," Saki said. Five of those 30 are critically ill because of abusive interrogation techniques, he said. One of the detainees, Paul Madzore, a member of parliament, has told visitors that he has passed out repeatedly and was suffering from severe headaches. The four other critically ill detainees are being held in a prison hospital, and family members attempting to visit them are harassed by intelligence officers, Saki added.
Report Faults China On Rights Failures
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901501.html
The 2008 Olympic Games have become a catalyst for more repression in China, not less, according to an Amnesty International report released today and aimed at pressuring the Beijing government a year before the start of the world's premier sporting event. The 22-page report says China's illegal detention and imprisonment of activists and other measures have overshadowed some modest reforms, including how the Chinese legal system reviews death penalty cases and the loosening of some restrictions on the foreign press. The report marks the latest effort by human rights organizations and individuals to try to use the Olympics, and the international spotlight they place on China, to push for broader reforms.
RELATED: Beijing, Taipei vie for Caribbean support
U.S., Japan Reiterate Warning to N. Korea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042700210.html
President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe threatened North Korea on Friday with the possibility of new sanctions unless Pyongyang abides by its promise to shut down its nuclear program, while Bush invited senior lawmakers to the White House next week to discuss how to break the stalemate over Iraq war funding. "We're hoping that the North Korea leader continues to make the right choice for his country," Bush said at a joint news conference with Abe at the presidential retreat here. "But if he should choose not to, we've got a strategy to make sure that the pressure we've initially applied is even greater. That's our plan."
Europe Worries as Russia and U.S. Argue Over Missiles
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/world/europe/28diplo.html
When the United States first asked Poland and the Czech Republic to base missile defenses on their soil, the proposed interceptors and radar were cast as a prudent hedge against Iran and a guarantee that Europe’s security was indivisible from that of America, which was moving ahead with defenses for its own territory. But with Russia’s rejection of a new American invitation to cooperate on missile defense — a rebuff delivered with an exclamation point when the Kremlin threatened Thursday to pull out of a treaty on conventional weapons in Europe — the initiative risked driving Moscow further from Europe and dividing Europe’s public over the future of its shared security.
Estonia blames Russian media for lies
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-29-estonia-russia_N.htm
Estonia's foreign minister on Sunday accused the Russian media of spreading lies to provoke unrest during the removal of a Soviet war memorial and grave from downtown Tallinn last week. Russian officials dismissed the accusations as groundless, saying Moscow had nothing to do with the explosion of violence in the ex-Soviet Baltic republic. Estonia's decision to relocate the war memorial sparked three nights of rioting in the country and largely ethnic Russian towns that left one person dead, 156 injured and more than 1,000 detained. It was the worst violence since Estonia won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and raised concerns throughout the European Union.
An Armory in Gun-Shy Europe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900133.html
Switzerland, a country of 7.5 million people with an estimated 2 million or more guns in circulation, sits as a heavily armed exception in the heart of Europe, where most countries have strict gun-control laws. Virtually all able-bodied Swiss men are required to serve in the military, which issues them assault rifles or pistols, or both, which they store at home and keep when they leave the service. At a time when the Virginia Tech killings are stirring debate about U.S. gun laws, Switzerland is also weighing new curbs on a robust culture of gun ownership that dates back centuries. Parliament is considering a measure to ban the keeping of ammunition at home. Opposition politicians, backed by a leading women's magazine, are campaigning to get guns and ammunition out of Swiss homes to be stored in gun clubs and military armories.
Castro 'in charge' again, Chavez says
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-29-castro-chavez_N.htm
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday his friend and political ally Fidel Castro is "in charge" again nearly nine months after undergoing intestinal surgery. The Cuban leader has not been seen in public since before July 31, when he announced he had undergone surgery and provisionally ceded power to his younger brother Raul. With Cuban officials giving increasing positive reports about Fidel Castro's health, there has been speculation recently that he could soon be back in the public eye. "Fidel is in charge. Fidel is in charge," Chavez said, revealing that he received a "philosophical letter" from Castro the day before and that it ran to nearly 10 pages.
Colombian Seeks to Persuade Congress to Continue Aid
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/americas/30uribe.html
Faced with allegations of government ties to paramilitary death squads and criticism from prominent Democrats, President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia is heading to Washington this week to try to unlock frozen American aid and salvage a trade agreement with the United States. It is not clear whether Mr. Uribe will succeed, despite having the best relations with President Bush of any South American leader. Mr. Uribe boasts high approval ratings in Colombia, but a scandal over links between outlawed paramilitary groups and his close political allies has eroded his credibility in Washington.
Immigration
Immigration rallies likely smaller
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-29-immigmarch_N.htm
Marchers demanding a path to U.S. citizenship for as many as 12 million undocumented immigrants will take to the streets in many cities Tuesday, but organizers say crowds will fall far short of last year's giant rallies on May 1. A year ago, police estimated that more than 1 million people rallied for rights for illegal immigrants and against a short-lived proposal in Congress that would have made illegal entry to the USA a felony. Crowds were estimated at 400,000 in Los Angeles, 400,000 in Chicago, 30,000 in Houston and 20,000 in New York City. In economic boycotts billed as "a day without immigrants," hundreds of thousands of Hispanic workers and their supporters didn't punch the clock. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach shut down, and 72,000 students walked out of classes in Los Angeles. In contrast, a march here Tuesday is likely to attract no more than "tens of thousands," says Javier Rodriguez of the March 25 Coalition, a group named for a rally of 500,000 here in 2006.
Few Iraqi refugees allowed into U.S.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-29-iraqi-refugees_N.htm
The United States admitted 68 Iraqi refugees in the six months through March, a tiny percentage of those fleeing their homes because of the war, State Department figures show. The United States has been unable to accept more Iraqis in part because of the time needed for background checks, which have become more stringent since 9/11, Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of State, told USA TODAY. About 50,000 Iraqis leave their country every month, and 2 million have fled Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to the United Nations. Most have settled in neighboring Syria and Jordan. The influx has stretched health care and other social services there.
Bush Pitches Immigration Plan at College
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800293.html
Miami Dade College has been trying to get a president to speak at graduation for nearly a decade, and this year President Bush accepted, using the commencement speech here Saturday to outline his vision of an assimilating America. The White House saw it as an appropriate setting: With more than 160,000 students, Miami Dade bills itself as one of the largest institutions of higher education in the country, with a diverse student body that includes many children of immigrants. The flags of 64 countries, representing graduates' backgrounds, were carried in the ceremony's opening parade. Administrators say the school also has a heavy slice of Cuban Americans, one of Bush's strongest constituencies, so there seemed to be little fear of the kind of hostile greeting the president might receive on other campuses. Only students, family and faculty were given tickets to the heavily guarded event.
RELATED: Senators grasp at a chance for reform
Reproductive Choice
Condom Information in Abstinence Programs Called Inaccurate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702106.html
Each of these assertions turns up in federally funded abstinence-only sex education programs: Condoms fail to prevent HIV infection 31 percent of the time during heterosexual sex. The chances of getting pregnant while using a condom are 1 in 6. And condoms break or slip off nearly 15 percent of the time. And each of them is wrong, says John S. Santelli, a pediatrician and a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. In a 20-page document submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services this week, Santelli detailed what he calls "misleading" and "scientifically inaccurate" information in three curricula used by programs that receive federal abstinence-only funding. His analysis accompanied a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union demanding that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt ensure that such programs provide medically accurate information about condoms and sexually transmitted diseases, as required by federal law.
Health Care and Public Safety
Drugmakers, Doctors Get Cozier
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800896.html
Despite efforts to curb drug companies' avid courting of doctors, the industry is working harder than ever to influence what medicines they prescribe, sending out sales representatives with greater frequency and plying physicians with gifts, meals and consulting fees, according to several new papers. One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week found that 94 percent of doctors have some type of relationship with the drug industry -- most commonly accepting free food or drug samples, which about 80 percent of physicians did. More than one-third of the 1,662 physicians who responded to a survey conducted from November 2003 to June 2004 reported being reimbursed by the drug industry for costs of going to professional meetings or continuing medical education, and 28 percent said they had been paid for consulting, giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials.
Defense Training Goes Begging for Airline Crews
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701937.html
Although the pilots said the course was valuable, federal officials are struggling to boost the participation of airline crew members in the one-day program. Only two -- both of whom had experience in self-defense -- showed up to take the Monday morning class. And neither was a flight attendant, the target group for the training. Federal officials have canceled other classes in Northern Virginia and elsewhere in recent months because of low turnout. The free program offered by the Transportation Security Administration has trained 1,750 flight-crew members, most of them flight attendants, since it began three years ago. The graduates represent less than 1 percent of the 120,000 flight attendants and nearly 100,000 pilots who are eligible to take the course. The program, which TSA officials say is part of their effort to prevent hijackings, is designed to give flight crews several basic self-defense techniques and teach them to think about how to defend themselves and their cockpits.
Expensive Lesson for Maine as Health Plan Stalls
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/30maine.html?ref=us
When Maine became the first state in years to enact a law intended to provide universal health care, one of its goals was to cover the estimated 130,000 residents who had no insurance by 2009, starting with 31,000 of them by the end of 2005, the program’s first year. So far, it has not come close to that goal. Only 18,800 people have signed up for the state’s coverage and many of them already had insurance.
'Super bug' bill targets hospitals
Illinois is poised to become the first state to require hospitals to implement programs combating a dangerous, drug-resistant bacterium that kills thousands of people in the U.S. each year. Under a bill moving through the legislature, hospitals would be required to test for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in all intensive- care and "at-risk" patients, such as those transferred from nursing homes. If it is detected, aggressive measures to prevent transmission would kick in.
KFC, Taco Bell quit cooking with trans fat
KFC's fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a health message along with the likeness of its founder, Colonel Harland Sanders. The Louisville-based chain announced Monday that all 5,500 of its U.S. restaurants have stopped cooking chicken in artery-clogging trans fat.
Melamine Said Common in Chinese Animal Feed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000285.html
The mildly toxic chemical melamine is commonly added to animal feed in China, a manager of a feed company and one of the chemical's producers said Monday, a process that boosts the feed's sales value but risks introducing the chemical into meat eaten by humans. Customers either don't know or aren't concerned about the practice, said Wang Jianhui, manager of the Kaiyuan Protein Feed company in the northern city of Shijiazhuang. "We've been running the melamine feed business for about 15 years and receiving positive responses from our customers," Wang told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Using the proper quantity of melamine will not harm the animals. Our products are very safe, for sure," Wang said. Although apparently widely practiced in China, concern over the use of melamine arose only in March, after the U.S. recall of nearly 100 brands of pet food made with wheat gluten contaminated by the chemical. Adding melamine to food is illegal under American law, and China's government last week said it was banning its use in food products.
RELATED: Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30food.html?ref=business
Crime and Penal Reform
Amnesty Reports Drop in Executions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701982.html
More than nine in 10 of all known executions in the world took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the United States last year, but the global total dropped to 1,591, from 2,148 in 2005, according to an Amnesty International report released yesterday in Rome. The United States, with 53 executions in 2006, is the only country in the Americas to have carried out the death penalty since 2003, the report noted. Concerning China, Amnesty said that it had counted more than 1,000 executions in 2006 but that the true number is believed to be closer to 8,000. Use of the death penalty remains a state secret in China, it added.
Race Gap Cited in Traffic Searches
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901427.html
Black, Hispanic and white drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but African Americans and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested, a federal study found. And police are much more likely to use force against or to threaten to use force against African Americans and Hispanics than against whites, whether in a traffic stop or another encounter, according to the Justice Department. The study, released yesterday by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, covered police contacts with the public during 2005 and was based on interviews by the Census Bureau with nearly 64,000 people age 16 or over.
RELATED: Black drivers searched more often, feds say
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-29-trafficstops_N.htm
Besieged by crime, afraid of the police
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/04/28/0429metneighborhood.html
The crime used to be worse. In 2002, APD officers joined forces with Fulton County prosecutors, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and FBI agents to form Project Safe Neighborhoods, intended to crack down on violent crime and drugs along English Avenue, in Vine City and surrounding communities. Since the program started, more than 750 properties have been inspected for code violations, with more than 400 being cited. About 50 buildings — some havens for drugs and other crimes — have been demolished. Under the program, people who commit violent crimes, or are charged with serious and repeated drug offenses, are prosecuted in federal court. About 200 felons in the area also have been prosecuted on federal gun possession charges. But while the community needs and depends on the police department, there is almost a universal sense that the police can't be trusted. "I think the community would like to cooperate, but people are afraid to call the police. People are afraid of the cops," said L.V. Hilliard, on his way home from the store. "They talk the talk, but they don't seem concerned about people. The police need policing."
Two federal judges hold key to California prison reform
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-judges30apr30,1,3517235.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
Two veteran jurists may find themselves reluctantly stepping in where there is a political vacuum to address inmate overcrowding.
Economy
Inflation is largest issue, economists say
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-04-30-econ-survey-usat_N.htm
Inflation is the Federal Reserve's biggest challenge, according to a USA TODAY survey of 53 top economists, who predicted slightly slower expansion and somewhat sharper price pressures than in a January poll. Fully 59% of the economists pegged inflation as the Fed's main problem, while 41% said slower economic growth was the primary challenge in the April 20-25 survey.
Special Bank Panel to Grill Wolfowitz
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000121.html
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, fighting to keep his job, is arguing that the poverty-fighting institution's ethics officials were aware of his role in helping secure a promotion and pay raise for his girlfriend, who was on the bank's staff. A special bank panel investigating his handling of the 2005 promotion of bank employee Shaha Riza was scheduled to hear from Wolfowitz on Monday. The controversy has prompted calls for Wolfowitz's resignation. The bank's 24-member board is expected to make a decision in the case this week. Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war in his preceding Pentagon job, will cite a Feb. 28, 2006, letter that his attorney characterizes as showing that bank's ethics committee had looked at the arrangement.
RELATED: Opposition to Wolfowitz strengthens
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-04-28-wolfowitz-bank_N.htm
RELATED: Resignation Could Be Part of World Bank Compromise
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30bank.html?ref=washington
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
War bill delays minimum wage hike
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-30-war-bill-wage-bill_N.htm
Increasing the minimum wage should be easy for a Congress controlled by Democrats, especially with President Bush's pledge of support. But a $2.10 boost for America's lowest-paid workers is again being delayed, this time in a tussle over whether to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq. It's been 10 years since the last minimum wage increase, and boosting it from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over the next two years was a key element of Democrats' midterm election platform. They even added a sweetener for Republicans: $4.8 billion in tax cuts for small businesses over 10 years.
Housing and Homelessness
Flippers flop as housing market cools
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2007-04-29-flippers_N.htm
Foreclosure filings across the United States rose 47% last month from a year ago to 149,150 — one for every 775 households, according to statistics from Realty Trac Inc., a foreclosure listing service. And for the third straight month, Nevada's foreclosure rate led the nation when it rose 220% from a year earlier to 4,738 filings, or one in every 183 households. In Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, one of every 30 homes began the process toward foreclosure last year. The day Schwartz reserved his home, the sales staff was raising prices $20,000 after every fifth buyer came inside. The $500,000 house he and his wife were eyeing had shot up to $540,000 by the time they sat down. Somehow, it still seemed like a good deal. "Everybody was thinking, 'Hey it's not the end of the world, because the homes across town are selling for $720,000. We have almost $200,000 in equity in the house and it isn't even built yet,'" Schwartz said.
Media
Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901555.html
As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said.
Spy books strain CIA review board
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-29-spy-books_N.htm
A record number of former CIA officers and officials are stepping from the shadows to publish memoirs, novels, essays, training manuals, legal treatises and op-ed pieces, according the agency's Publications Review Board.
Education
School sued over response to MySpace photo
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-04-29-myspace-school-suit_N.htm
A woman denied a teaching degree on the eve of graduation because of a MySpace photo has sued the university. Millersville University instead granted Stacy Snyder a degree in English last year after learning of her Web-published picture, which bore the caption "Drunken Pirate." "I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time," said Snyder, 27, who now works as a nanny. The photo, taken at a 2005 Halloween party, shows Snyder wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. It was posted on her own MySpace site. Although Snyder apologized, she learned the day before graduation that she would not be awarded an education degree or teaching certificate.
Military
War Called Riskier Than Vietnam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801167.html
President Bush recently said that "there's a lot of differences" between the current war in Iraq and the Vietnam War. As fighting in Iraq enters its fifth year, an increasing number of experts in foreign policy and national strategy are arguing that the biggest difference may be that the Iraq war will inflict greater damage to U.S. interests than Vietnam did. "In terms of the consequences of failure, the stakes are much bigger than Vietnam," said former defense secretary William S. Cohen. "The geopolitical consequences are . . . potentially global in scope." About 17 times as many U.S. troops died in the Vietnam War -- the longest war in U.S. history -- as have been lost in Iraq, the nation's third-longest war. Also, despite widespread public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, the debate over it has not convulsed American society to the extent seen during the Vietnam conflict. However, Vietnam does not have oil and is not in the middle of a region crucial to the global economy and festering with terrorism, experts say, leading many of them to conclude that the long-term effects of the Iraq war will be worse for the United States.
They also serve their conscience
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-dissent30apr30,1,5579943.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
California veterans, including some still on active duty, are speaking out against the U.S. presence in Iraq.
U.S. military court weighs charges against colonel
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-29-colonel-charges_N.htm
A hearing opens Monday to determine whether a U.S. officer should be court-martialed for nine alleged violations of military law, including aiding the enemy while he commanded a military police detachment at a main detention center here. Army Lt. Col. William H. Steele, a reservist from Virginia serving full time, faces charges that include providing an unmonitored cellphone to detainees, fraternizing with a prisoner's daughter, illegally storing and marking classified material, maintaining an inappropriate relationship with an interpreter, possessing pornographic videos, failure to obey an order and dereliction of duty regarding government funds. The most serious charge, aiding the enemy, was tied to Steele's time at the jail at Camp Cropper and could carry a death sentence. The camp is an expansive prison near Baghdad International Airport that held Saddam Hussein before he was hanged.
Religion
Vatican Panel Discounts Limbo for Unbaptized
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800831.html
Ann Druge grew up in a Catholic family with eight children and the haunting knowledge that a ninth was stillborn. Because the baby, named Mary Ellen, had not been baptized, she was denied a Catholic burial. "When we would go to the cemetery . . . we'd always stop where they threw the dead flowers. That's where the little one was buried," said Druge, 80, of Storrs, Conn. "My mother and father were very upset every time. She was stillborn, so she couldn't be buried in the consecrated ground. We were told she was in limbo." No more. After three years of study, a Vatican-appointed panel of theologians has declared that limbo is a "problematic" concept that Catholics are free to reject. The 30-member International Theological Commission said there are good reasons to believe instead that unbaptized babies go to heaven, because God is merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved."
Chavez Pledges Oil, Money for Leftists
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000317.html
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Venezuela hopes to gradually sell off its refineries in the United States and build a new network of refineries in Latin America, part of a plan to offer his leftist allies in the region a stable oil supply. Chavez also raised the idea of issuing a regional bond to raise funds for social spending as he hosted a summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, a leftist bloc and trade group that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua. "I proposed that we issue an ALBA bond. I hope that we can do it.... And that we issue it here in Venezuela, like we did with Argentina, and bring in $1 billion," said Chavez, addressing leaders Sunday on final day of their talks. Chavez said the money acquired would be put in a fund to provide credit for ALBA nations.
Interior Dept.’s Drilling Plan Includes Gulf and Alaska Bay
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/washington/28drilling.html
The Interior Department has put the final touches on a five-year plan to expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore from Alaska and Virginia. Department officials said Friday that the plan would include more environmental buffer zones around lease areas and make other minor changes to a previous draft. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will announce the “major oil and gas development program” on Monday, a department statement says. The new leasing plan “would significantly increase the nation’s domestic energy supplies while protecting the coastal and marine environments, and provide a major economic stimulus to the nation and participating coastal states,” the statement said. Details were sketchy, but in January, President Bush ended drilling bans in an area of the central Gulf of Mexico and in Bristol Bay in Alaska. That action cleared the way for making an area in the Gulf of Mexico south of the Florida Panhandle available for drilling. The “Lease Area 181” is a small part of 8.2 million acres that Congress approved for oil and gas development in December.
Venture Capital Rushes Into Alternative Energy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/30energy.html
Money is flowing into alternative energy companies so fast that “the warning signs of a bubble are appearing,” according to a report on investment in clean technology by a New York research firm, Lux Research.
Defaults Plague Little-Known Big Lender
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900929.html
The National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., located in a sleek office building off the Dulles Toll Road, is one of the Washington area's biggest lending businesses. It has a $17.8 billion loan portfolio -- bigger than any bank based in the area -- and a chief executive who pulls down a salary of more than $800,000 a year. It's also one of the least-known big businesses around. But a nasty legal fight with a borrower and a critical report by a bond analyst have focused attention on the unusual -- and unregulated -- lending institution's struggle over the past five years to keep itself on an even keel despite loan losses, rising interest rates and razor-thin margins. The CFC occupies what sounds like an obscure business niche: It lends money to cooperatives that generate electricity and deliver it to rural America.
Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901500.html
Experts on energy consumption call it the "wife test." And one of the dimly lighted truths of the global-warming era is that fluorescent bulbs still seem to be flunking out in most American homes. The current market share of CFL bulbs in the United States is about 6 percent, up from less than 1 percent before 2001. But that compares dismally with CFL adoption rates in other wealthy countries such as Japan (80 percent), Germany (50 percent) and the United Kingdom (20 percent). Australia has announced a phaseout of incandescent bulbs by 2009, and the Canadian province of Ontario decided last week to ban them by 2012. The relatively glacial adoption rate of CFLs in most of the United States suggests continued stiff resistance on the home front, despite dramatically lower prices for the bulbs and impressive improvements in their quality.
Transportation and Infrastructure
On the Road, Hope for a Zero-Pollution Car
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/automobiles/29INTRO.html?ref=science
WHEN the largest aircraft ever built — the pride of Nazi Germany — crashed in flames at the United States Navy’s airship base here, it took 36 lives and smeared the reputation of hydrogen for decades. In less than a minute, the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 turned hydrogen, which provided the zeppelin’s lift, into a pariah. But 70 years later, a growing number of advocates are promoting hydrogen as a panacea, a promising alternative to petroleum. In the last decade, every large carmaker has jumped on the hydrogen express. In dozens of laboratories and research centers, scientists and engineers are busy searching for ways to reduce the cost and improve the practicality of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Development has progressed to the point that some of these prototype vehicles are in daily service, commuting around Detroit, delivering packages in Washington, serving urban bus routes.
Environmental Guru Energizes Canadians
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042800907.html
The rough ghost town in the Canadian Rocky Mountains that became a prison home for four members of the Suzuki family during World War II did not really seem such a bad place to 6-year-old David. "For a kid suddenly plunked down in a valley where the rivers and lakes were filled with fish and the forests with wolves, bears and deer, this was paradise," Suzuki recalled years later in his autobiography. Still, an internment camp for Japanese Canadians was an unlikely place to start for the man now embraced by Canada as a national icon, voted one of the country's "Greatest Canadians," the man seen as the guru of the environmental movement here. His relentless hectoring on climate change, capped by standing-room-only rallies he held in 43 towns in Canada in February, has helped propel the environmental issue to the top of Canada's political agenda, already influencing the jockeying ahead of the next national election.
RELATED: Gore calls [Canada] climate change plan a fraud
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/04/30/gore_calls_climate_change_plan_a_fraud/
Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/weekinreview/29revkin.html?ref=science
THE rush to go on a carbon diet, even if by proxy, is in overdrive.
Editor’s note: the New York Times has converted to a subscription-based editorial section. We are no longer clipping their op-ed columnists.
When Seeing Is Disbelieving
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901152.html
Four years ago tomorrow, President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and dramatically strode onto the deck in a flight suit, a crash helmet tucked under one arm. Even without the giant banner that hung from the ship's tower, the president's message about the progress of the war in Iraq was unmistakable: mission accomplished. Bush is not the first president to have convinced himself that something he wanted to believe was, in fact, true. As Columbia University political scientist Robert Jervis once noted, Ronald Reagan convinced himself that he was not trading arms for hostages in Iran, Bill Clinton convinced himself that the donors he had invited to stay overnight at the White House were really his friends, and Richard M. Nixon sincerely believed that his version of Watergate events was accurate.
Bookman: Rumbles in military hint at change
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/stories/2007/04/29/0430bookman.html
Time and again, President Bush has tried to hide his incompetence behind our men and women in uniform. Repeatedly, criticism of his policies has been distorted into an attack on the troops; too often, questions about his strategy have been brushed aside with claims that his policy had been dictated by his generals. Even now, with the House and Senate trying to force a change of direction, the White House accuses Congress of trying to "micromanage our commanders and generals," redefining the debate as a disagreement between Congress and the military, not with the president.
Robert Novak: Hagel's Stand
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901562.html
Hagel faces a political paradox as he ponders a career decision -- whether to run for president, to seek reelection next year or to get out of elective politics. His harsh assessment resonates with many Republicans who believe Bush's war policy has led the party to disaster. Yet that message faces rejection from GOP primary voters, and he is under attack from the right at home in Nebraska (with Jon Bruning, the state's 38-year-old Republican attorney general, threatening to run against him).
Ferguson: What war?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ferguson30apr30,0,7557486.column?coll=la-opinion-center
At home, the economy soars and Americans let the good times roll. Meanwhile, Iraq burns.
Miller: The Abandonment
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702049.html
Diplomatic neglect from the Bush administration and years of armed confrontations have cut the chances for Arab-Israeli peace from slim to none.
Stone: Our faith-based justices
Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Roman Catholic. The four justices who are not all followed clear and settled precedent. It is distressing to have to point this out. But it is a fact that merits attention. In similar circumstances, where a decision could not credibly be explained in terms of traditional legal analysis, the same sort of observation would be appropriate and necessary if five Jewish justices disregarded precedent to vote in favor of the interests of Israel or five African-American justices disregarded precedent to vote in support of black reparations. Of course, that all of the Catholic justices voted as they did in Gonzales might have nothing to do with their personal religious beliefs. But given the nature of the issue, the strength of the relevant precedent, and the inadequacy of the court's reasoning, the question is too obvious to ignore.
King: A Legacy in Peril at the World Bank
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701781.html
As the U.S. representative on the World Bank's board of executive directors, I formally nominated Alden Winship ("Tom") Clausen in 1980 to be the bank's sixth president. The outcome was never in doubt. Clausen was elected by acclamation. It has always been thus. Since the World Bank was created at the end of World War II, the election of an American as president has never been seriously challenged. However, 51 years of unbroken American service at the helm of the largest international financial institution are in jeopardy, thanks to the ill-fated presidency of Paul Wolfowitz. This week, the European Parliament, in an unheard-of action, called for his resignation. What a fall from grace for the United States.
Choose the right investigations, Congress
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-rove30apr30,0,3371048.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
THANKS TO Democratic control of Congress and its own ineptitude (or worse), the Bush administration is under investigation on so many fronts that you can't tell the sleuths without a scorecard. But not all scandals are created equal. The weightiest investigations are the ones being conducted by two Justice Department agencies — the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Inspector General — into the controversial firings of eight U.S. attorneys. If Inspector Gen. Glenn A. Fine, who demonstrated his independence with a report to Congress about the FBI's misuse of national security letters to obtain bank and phone records, finds fault with Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, it's hard to see how Gonzales could cling to office. Somewhat down the scale we find the hitherto obscure Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who is investigating both the firing of U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias and allegations that the administrator of the General Services Administration once asked how the agency could "help our candidates" for Congress after GSA political employees were briefed by an aide to Karl Rove. While Bloch's operation doesn't have the stature of the Justice Department offices, any finding by the special counsel that the administration violated the law would be embarrassing. It's Congress, however, not any in-house investigator, that worries the administration most. After years of lax oversight by Republicans, Democrats are relishing their role as inquisitors, whether on the war in Iraq, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center or Army Ranger Pat Tillman's suspiciously portrayed death.
Bundling in the Capitol
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/opinion/30mon4.html
Congress is still haunted by the black hat and easy-money grin of Jack Abramoff, the über-lobbyist who is in jail now but reportedly talking freely to investigators. The Abramoff specter should be a warning as the Democratic House confronts its election promise to crack down on the sordid giving and taking of outsized chunks of special-interest lobbying money. The House would be wise to follow the Senate’s lead in shining sunlight on the notorious “bundling” of contributions by powerhouse lobbyists who become money harvesters at campaign time. They call in numerous individual donations from their various clients, then personally deliver mega-bales of the lucre to lawmakers left warm with gratitude.
Cohen: Gonzales Offers No "Pleasure for the President"
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/2007/04/the_pleasure_of_the_president_1.html
If America received a dollar over the past few months every time some White House official said the phrase "U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President" our nation's debt would be gone. The great Jon Stewart even made fun of the phrase last month. So when President George W. Bush this week went back to the phrase, and then tried to defend his indefensible attorney general, it got me thinking: what sort of pleasure could Alberto R. Gonzales possibly be giving the President these days? And, no, this isn't a wind-up to some lame off-color joke.
Mallaby: Lazy, Job-Stealing Immigrants?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901322.html
Demagogues are spouting nativist nonesense about immigration, while candidates who know better are avoiding the issue.
RELATED: The Amnesty Sideshow
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/opinion/30mon1.html
Buruma: There's no .44-caliber Koran
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-buruma29apr29,0,642796.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
It's easy to go too far while banning words in the name of preventing violence.
Kuttner: Hedging disaster
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/28/hedging_disaster/
The burgeoning hedge fund and private equity industries are both a cause and a symptom of a dangerously lopsided America. Because they are private (not listed on stock exchanges or offering shares to the public), these funds do not have to disclose their inner workings to regulators or to the public. Yet these unregulated funds are increasingly buying and selling some of our largest corporations, stripping assets, piling on debt, leaving employees and subsequent buyers to dig out of a deep hole. The difference between hedge funds (unregulated mutual fund s for very wealthy individuals) and private equity (privately held firms that buy and sell entire companies) is collapsing, creating an unregulated sector of wild-west financial engineering rife with conflicts of interest.
Live free and civilly united
NEW ENGLAND may be known for its unforgiving winters and its chilly social customs, but the region nonetheless has become an island of tolerance for gay and lesbian couples.
Georgia’s Shame
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/opinion/30mon3.html
Every day that young Genarlow Wilson remains in prison for consensual sexual activity is a further indictment against the prosecutors, lawmakers and judges of the Georgia legal system. Lawyers for Mr. Wilson have applied for a writ of habeas corpus to challenge his cruel and unusual 10-year sentence. The Superior Court should grant it. When he was 17, Mr. Wilson received oral sex from a 15-year-old girl. For that, he has served over two years of a strict minimum decade-long prison term. He was convicted of aggravated child molestation, a charge intended for adult sexual predators. If Mr. Wilson had engaged in sexual intercourse with the same girl, it would have been a misdemeanor under an exemption for contact between minors. Oral sex was left out. Legislators have since corrected the unintended trap. If Mr. Wilson engaged in the same action today, it would be a misdemeanor.
A Glacial Pace on Warming
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/opinion/28sat3.html
Weeks after the Supreme Court’s momentous ruling that the federal government could and probably should regulate greenhouse gases, pressure for decisive action continues to build. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has warned that he will sue the Environmental Protection Agency unless it gives him the power to regulate automobile emissions. A New York Times/CBS News Poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans now want immediate steps to deal with global warming. And a leaked draft of the next report from the world’s leading scientists says that the window for action is shrinking — that what governments do over the next 20 to 30 years will determine whether the world can avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Even so, Washington continues to move as slowly as a melting glacier.
Robinson: In My Town, an Undying Issue
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702017.html
In the "spin room" at the South Carolina State University student center, Hillary Clinton's people were trying to convince journalists that their candidate had won the first Democratic presidential debate. Barack Obama's people were trying to convince us that he was the winner. John Edwards's people were explaining how the Clinton and Obama people had it all wrong. The fact is that no candidate really won or lost the debate. Setting aside Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska who seemed to be reprising Peter Finch's performance in the movie "Network" ("I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"), the rivals for the Democratic nomination were remarkably polite and uncommonly unified in their basic message: We're not George W. Bush, and we genuinely want to win the White House this time. The only clear winner was Orangeburg.
RELATED: Page: Democrats neither sizzle nor fizzle at debate
Kagan: Obama the Interventionist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702027.html
America must "lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good." With those words, Barack Obama put an end to the idea that the alleged overexuberant idealism and America-centric hubris of the past six years is about to give way to a new realism, a more limited and modest view of American interests, capabilities and responsibilities. Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will confirm suspicions about America's inherent hegemonism. But Obama believes the world yearns to follow us, if only we restore our worthiness to lead. Personally, I like it.
RELATED: Mr. Obama's Worldview
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042701881.html
Tucker: Terror is already Giuliani's friend in campaign
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2007/04/28/0429edtuck.html
So what sort of presidential campaign do you run if you're too liberal for conservatives, too Republican for Democrats and too libertine for almost everybody? Rudy Giuliani has just answered that question: He'll be counting on the fear factor. Giuliani has become the first Republican presidential candidate to enthusiastically embrace the Karl Rove strategy of scaring voters into becoming supporters. Campaigning in New Hampshire last week, Giuliani declared that if a Democrat were to be elected president in 2008, he (or she) would "wave the white flag" in Iraq and America would suffer "more losses." Later, Giuliani told conservative talk show host Sean Hannity that Democrats "do not seem to get the fact that there are people, terrorists in this world, really dangerous people that want to come here and kill us. That in fact they did come here and kill us twice and they got away with it because we were on defense — because we weren't alert enough to the dangers and risks." That same strategy was key to President Bush's victory in 2004. The president and his surrogates painted Democrats as weak-kneed defeatists, appropriated the imagery of 9/11 and used all the tools of the presidency to frighten voters into believing al-Qaida lurked just around the corner — waiting for the return of a Democrat to the Oval Office.
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