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TOP STORIES
Effective and Ethical Government
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
Effective and Ethical Government
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
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Today’s digest archive: http://media.progressnowaction.org/digest/050107.htm
TOP STORIES
Attorney
general says no politics were behind mill-levy opinion
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1a_AG_politics.html
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said he was not politically motivated when he issued a legal analysis Friday calling Gov. Bill Ritter’s proposed mill-levy freeze a significant tax-policy shift requiring voter approval. “I would never issue an opinion that I didn’t feel was appropriate,” Suthers said. “I had no telephone calls from anybody. I’ve had no e-mails from any Republicans or anything like that.” Suthers said his office has a duty to disclose possible constitutional issues with bills moving through the Legislature, including Ritter’s proposed mill-levy freeze. The attorney general’s role of advising the governor and lawmakers of possible constitutional conflicts, he said, was galvanized in a 2003 Colorado Supreme Court decision that said Attorney General Ken Salazar was right to challenge the Republican-controlled Legislature’s 2003 redistricting plan. “I think they protest too much in suggesting it was politically motivated,” Suthers said of critics who have accused his office of colluding with Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams. Suthers said Wadhams had no role “ghost writing” his office’s opinion. “Dick Wadhams is not smart enough to write that, let me assure you,” Suthers said. According to Colorado Confidential, a left-leaning political Web site, Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, told a group of Democrats over the weekend he wants to investigate possible coordination between Suthers’ office and the Colorado Republican Party. ProgressNowAction, a liberal Colorado political group, initiated Monday an online petition to call for an investigation of Suthers’ office. Suthers cautioned that he was not calling Ritter’s policy apolitical. He said only his office’s involvement in the matter was divorced from politics.
RELATED: Property-tax debate to start today
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788317
RELATED: Is Colorado's Attorney General misusing his office?
http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/al/C2QT
Related editorial in COLORADO/OPINION
National
Bush's veto pen poised for war bill
Four years after President Bush declared the "mission accomplished" for the American military in Iraq, the president is poised to veto a $124 billion war spending bill that demands timelines for troop withdrawals from an unrelenting war. "I am about to veto a bill that has got artificial timelines for withdrawal," Bush said Monday in a Rose Garden appearance. "I have made my position very clear, the Congress chose to ignore it, and so I will veto the bill." This could come as early as Tuesday, as the president travels to Tampa, headquarters of the U.S. Central Command that oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This will be the fourth anniversary of the day on which a flight-jacketed and proud president landed as a passenger in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and declared that major combat had concluded in Iraq.
RELATED: Bill on Iraq to Be Delivered 4 Years After Bush’s Words
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01cong.html?ref=washington
More Iraq war news in NATIONAL/ELECTION, NATIONAL/GOVERNMENT, NATIONAL/FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL/MILITARY, COLORADO/MILITARY
Justices to rule on world court's reach
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up an unusual death penalty case that puts President Bush, the Mexican government and a rapist and murderer from Houston on the same team in a legal battle against the state of Texas. At issue is whether Texas must abide by a ruling from the International Court of Justice in the Hague and reconsider a death sentence meted out to a convicted killer who is a native of Mexico. The lead plaintiff, Jose Medellin, has been on death row since 1994 for raping and strangling two teenage girls in Houston. The outcome also could affect the fate of 28 Mexican natives who are under death sentences in California. Three years ago, the Mexican government won a ruling from the international court holding that U.S. officials had violated a treaty requiring that the consulate be notified when Mexican citizens were arrested and held for serious crimes. American tourists and students studying abroad may be familiar with this treaty, known as the Vienna Convention. It protects the rights of Americans when they are abroad. But police and local prosecutors in this country did not routinely abide by the treaty when they arrested and detained suspects who were not U.S. citizens. Mexico objected most strongly when the death penalty was at issue because it opposed capital punishment. In its suit before the international court, it cited 51 Mexican nationals who were on death row in the United States and said it had not been notified during their legal proceedings. The Mexican government said it would have, at minimum, supplied lawyers to argue against the imposition of a death sentence.
RELATED: Supreme Court to Hear Appeal of Mexican Death Row Inmate
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01court.html
More SCOTUS news in NATIONAL/ECONOMY, NATIONAL/CRIME
U.S., China balk at UN climate panel findings
The United States and China want to amend a major report by UN-sponsored climate researchers to play down its conclusion that quick, affordable action can limit the worst effects of global warming, according to documents reviewed Monday by The Associated Press. The critiques, among hundreds of government comments on the draft document, are the prelude to what is expected to be a contentious weeklong meeting as scientists and national delegations wrangle over final wording in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to be issued Friday. Two previous IPCC reports this year painted a dire picture of a future in which unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive up average global temperatures by as much as 11 degrees by 2100, and they said animal and plant life already was affected by warmer and rising seas, spreading drought and other effects.
More climate change news in NATIONAL/ENVIRONMENT, COLORADO/ENVIRONMENT
Pet Deaths Spur Call for Better FDA Screening
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001865.html
Amid growing revelations that suppliers in China frequently spike pet food and other food ingredients with contaminants to boost profits, momentum is building in Washington to bolster the Food and Drug Administration's capacity to detect and screen out adulterated imports. Several Chinese suppliers conceded over the weekend that adding melamine to pet food ingredients -- now blamed for the deaths of many animals in the United States and possible contamination of the human food supply -- is but the latest technique for fooling U.S. companies into thinking they are purchasing a high-quality product.
RELATED: FDA widens Chinese import alert
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-30-chinese-imports-usat_N.htm
RELATED: Senate Takes Up Bill to Change Drug Agency Operations
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01drug.html?ref=washington
Colorado
Demonstrators to turn out for immigration reform
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514373,00.html
Denver and other cities across the nation will host another round of marches today to demonstrate that the campaign for immigration reform is still under way. Organizers don't expect the massive turnouts of last May 1, including an estimated 75,000 people in Denver. They say that fallout from highly publicized raids by immigration agents and Colorado's push to curb illegal immigration have combined to discourage public displays of dissent, particularly among people who crossed the border illegally. "I think it will be different this year. . . . The conditions are much worse than they were last year," said Emily Parkey, a spokeswoman for Rights for All People, which helped organize today's event.
RELATED: Immigrant advocates set to march again
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/01/immigrant-advocates-set-to-march-again/
RELATED: Pro-immigrant rally in Denver set for Tuesday
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070501/NEWS/104300130
More immigration policy news in NATIONAL/IMMIGRATION, COLORADO/IMMIGRATION
Property crime bill OK'd
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5514079,00.html
A bill that would reduce penalties for certain property crimes to keep minor criminals from clogging the state's crowded prisons won the Senate's final approval Monday. "Many people are going to prison for property crimes, and that's the last place we should be sending them," said Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D- Denver. Senate Bill 260 raises the threshold for property crimes that include theft of rental property, motor vehicles, fraudulent checks, unauthorized use of credit and ATM cards as well as defrauding a creditor or debtor and trafficking food stamps. The measure, by Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, bumps misdemeanor losses from $500 to $1,000 and the felony threshold from $15,000 to $20,000.
Ethics queries go unanswered
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5513948,00.html
"I don't know." "I don't recall." "I don't remember." Developer Rick Sapkin, chairman of the powerful business group Colorado Concern, repeated those phrases over and over Monday while testifying before a legislative committee investigating an ethics complaint filed against the group's lobbyist. Composed of top CEOs statewide, the group opposed a home buyers' protection bill this session that eventually was passed and signed by the governor. The group's executive director, William Mutch, helped arrange for phone calls in Democratic lawmakers' districts telling voters they could lose their homes if the bill passed and that the measure was a tax intended to make trial lawyers rich. "My involvement in this is very limited," Sapkin told the three-member ethics committee. That statement appeared to perplex panel members, who pointed out that e-mails show that Sapkin received scripts of the automated phone calls - planned in February and placed in March - and urged others not to panic when Democratic lawmakers became livid over them. Sapkin is with Edgemark Development and is a co-chairman of Gov. Bill Ritter's Business Advisory Group. He was asked not to preside at the group's April meeting, Ritter's spokesman Evan Dreyer said Monday.
RELATED: Business chief denies he OK'd script for robo-calls
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788318
Local towns and cities outline energy impacts
http://postindependent.com/article/20070501/VALLEYNEWS/105010026
Mayors and city council men and women from across the state got a firsthand look at what energy development has meant for Western Slope communities Monday. The Colorado Municipal League's energy committee met in Rifle Monday morning. CML lobbies for state towns and cities and its members are elected officials of those governments.
RELATED: Officials oppose severance tax initiatives
http://postindependent.com/article/20070501/VALLEYNEWS/105010025
More energy policy news in NATIONAL/ENERGY, COLORADO/ENERGY, COLORADO/ENVIRONMENT
Election
Colorado considers moving caucuses to Feb. 5 with other states
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/30/colorado-considers-moving-caucuses-feb-5-other-sta/
The House gave initial approval Monday to a plan to move the state's presidential caucuses from March to Feb. 5 along with several other states, hoping to cash in on the national attention it would bring from candidates. The bill (House Bill 1376) would allow political parties to decide whether to move the caucuses from the third Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in February during presidential election years. It passed with little debate. Rep. Michael Garcia, D-Aurora, said the bill doesn't require parties to do anything. "This bill is totally permissive," said Garcia. The bill faces a third reading in the House before it goes to the Senate.
Constitution proposal dead (Under the dome, 5/1)
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788319
A call for a 2008 ballot measure asking citizens to make it harder to change the Colorado Constitution was defeated by a Senate panel Monday. The proposal from Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, and Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, would have required a margin of three-fifths of votes - 60 percent - to change the constitution. The standard now is a simple majority. The measure passed the House last week 46-16, the first time in four years the proposal made it out of one chamber of the legislature. Critics said lawmakers should spend the next year holding public forums to gather enough support to pass the measure at the polls. The Senate Judiciary Committee killed the resolution Monday before it could be heard by the full Senate, which failed to pass a similar measure last year by one vote.
RELATED: Senators take pass on constitutional-change measure
Today is day for Denver voters to rule
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5513951,00.html
Denver voters will decide today who will set the course for their city during the next four years. Mayor John Hickenlooper is up for re-election, and Denverites must choose at least three new City Council members and a clerk and recorder. Ballots were mailed to 189,864 registered voters a few weeks ago and must be dropped off at collection centers by 7 p.m. today. So far, slightly more than 60,000 ballots have been returned, approximately 30 percent of the total. Many of those ballots have been run through automated counting machines, but results are not yet known. "We're counting ballots but we're not tabulating," said Alton Dillard, spokesman for the Denver Election Commission. "We don't hit the 'total' button until 7 p.m. on Election Night." Dillard said the election has so far gone smoothly.
RELATED: Today is last chance to drop off ballots for Denver's election
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788206
Last minute votes keep coming in
http://vaildaily.com/article/20070430/NEWS/70430019
Tuesday is your last day to vote on home rule and add to the nearly 40 percent of voters who have already cast their vote on the issue. “I brought mine in to the box instead of mailing it because I wanted to make sure it was counted,” said Avon resident Melodee Kennington, who dropped her ballot — marked “yes” — at the Avon branch of the Clerk and Recorders Office on Monday afternoon. Though she received her ballot in the mail three weeks ago, procrastination delayed Kennington’s vote, she said. Carolyn Schneider of Gypsum used those three weeks to learn more about home rule before casting her vote, she said.
Candidate has lengthy court record
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070501/NEWS/105010043
Doing business with Aspen City Council candidate Marie Antionette "Toni" Kronberg often means taking her to court. The 52-year-old swimming teacher has been the subject of nearly two dozen lawsuits in Pitkin County Court and also has a misdemeanor theft conviction. Kronberg insisted that her lengthy record as a defendant does not make her unfit for City Council, which has overseen an annual budget in excess of $100 million the past few years. "On council you don't write the checks," Kronberg said during a two-hour interview Monday with The Aspen Times. "These [lawsuits] are because of personal circumstances I've had in my life. ... I've done whatever it takes to pay things back. Maybe not as quick as people wanted, but what's been doable in my life."
RELATED: Candidate profiles: the entrance
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070501/NEWS/70430014
Bruce petition to revoke stormwater fee disallowed
http://www.gazette.com/articles/city_21801___article.html/bruce_tax.html
Anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce submitted a question for November’s ballot that would abolish the new stormwater fee, but the petition was immediately declared illegal by City Clerk Kathryn Young. Young said the ballot title contains multiple subjects, which city codes disallow. Bruce called Young’s action a “play for time” so the city can snare more stormwater fees while the issue is litigated. “She’s trying to stall so we don’t have time to collect signatures, because the city is run by corrupt city officials, including her, that are doing things that are illegal, and that’s a quote,” Bruce said. He said Young, as a member of a title board two years ago, declared a longer and more complicated ballot title than his as a single topic.
GJ supports push for larger county commission
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1b_BOCC_members.html
The Grand Junction City Council showed support Monday for a resolution seeking to boost the number of Mesa County commissioners from three to five. City Council members are expected to formally approve the resolution, which asks commissioners to initiate the process to increase the size of the board, during their regular meeting Wednesday. Grand Junction Mayor Jim Doody said Fruita Mayor Jim Adams presented the resolution during a quarterly meeting of the mayors of the five municipalities within the county. The mayors agreed to present the resolution to their city and town councils for consideration. The resolution claims increasing the number of county commissioners would increase the “political stability by spreading the authority of the board over more elected officials” and “increase the amount of representation the residents of Mesa County receive.” It also asserts that such a change would better serve each individual community. Any change in the number of commissioners would have to be approved by county voters.
Effective and Ethical Government
Suspect's Web site makes lavish claims
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514303,00.html
A self-styled tailor to star athletes. A self-described millionaire boxing promoter. A state revenue supervisor. The three have one thing in common: They've been accused of stealing millions of taxpayer dollars through fraudulent money transfers. Two are in custody: Michelle Cawthra, 30, and Andre Holliday, 41. Police are continuing to search for Hysear Don Randell, 40, whom authorities described as Cawthra's boyfriend and Holliday's business associate. On a Web site touting Randell's company, Tru Dat Entertainment, the Aurora man is described as "a millionaire whose divine purpose for existence it is to help others in any way" he can. He, Cawthra and Holliday are described as having helped themselves to $5.3 million through transfers that Cawthra oversaw in her job as taxpayer supervisor for the Colorado Department of Revenue.
RELATED: 'Fox' may have worn sheepdog's clothes
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514304,00.html
RELATED: Revenue worker held in $5 million scam
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788330
Lawmakers look toward an early out again this session
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5513952,00.html
The rumor Monday was fleet but exciting: The legislature would adjourn Friday, a full five days before the scheduled end of the General Assembly's 2007 regular session. Within a few hours, however, some legislative leaders said it was more likely that the session would end Monday, just two days early. "We might get out Friday, but Monday is more likely," said Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon. "You can hit a snag at any point. But if you look at the calendar, there's not much (unfinished work) left."
BEASTLY HUMOR (Roll Call, May 1)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5513950,00.html
An animal cruelty bill that outlaws sex with animals has invited all kinds of jokes, including during its hearing before the Senate ag committee. "This is probably the wrong committee to send this to because of the potential conflict of interest," joked the sponsor, Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver. The full Senate debated the bill Monday. "Will it cover the showing of videos at caucus?" asked Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins. He was referring to a porn video that mistakenly popped up on Gordon's TV during a Democratic caucus meeting before last year's session.
Senator hires new staffers
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/20
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has hired two new staffers to serve the Arkansas Valley region, his office announced Monday. The new regional director is Dwight Gardner, currently a Crowley County commissioner. Gardner is replacing Allison Courtner, director of the Southern Colorado Economic Development District. Gardner will resign his commissioner's job when he begins work for Salazar early this summer. Jason Cordova, of Pueblo, has been hired to be the new regional field representative. Cordova is an Air Force veteran of the Iraq war and currently serves in the Colorado Air National Guard. He is a 2005 graduate of the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.
Republicans set Lincoln Dinner
The Montezuma County Republican Central committee will be holding their annual Lincoln Day Dinner May 12 at the Cortez Elks Lodge, 2100 N. Dolores Road, Cortez. Cocktails begin at 6 p.m., with predinner entertainment at 6:30 followed by a grilled steak dinner at 7 p.m. Republican Sen. Joshua Penry, of District 7, Mesa County will be the guest speaker. Penry was elected to Senate District 7 in November 2006 and is the youngest serving state senator at age 31. He was elected to the State House of Representatives in 2004. He served as chief of sstaff of the House Subcommittee on Forests in U.S. Congress. Tapped to head the subcommittee at age 25, Penry was among the youngest individuals to run a Congressional Subcommittee. He also served as the press secretary for Colorado Congressman Scott McInnis.
Judge reschedules Paschall’s arraignment
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513304,00.html
Former Jefferson County Treasurer Mark Paschall will return to court May 14 for arraignment after a judge postponed Paschall’s court appearance today. Paschall, 52, is accused of attempted theft and trying to profit from his past political office for allegedly soliciting a $9,000 kickback from a bonus he offered his top aide before leaving office in January. Neither Paschall nor his attorney, Elizabeth Hunt White, would comment after leaving the courtroom this morning. District Court Judge Randall Arp granted the continuance, but cautioned the defense that he was reluctant to grant the delay. "We need to get the case moving forward," Arp said before rescheduling Paschall’s arraignment.
RELATED: Former treasurer's arraignment delayed (Local news briefs)
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788205
Parks and Recreation boss is MIA
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514552,00.html
Denver's Parks and Recreation Department has been in hot water with the public in the past 13 months. From allowing Xcel to plant a giant transmission line in park land in exchange for $50,000 to proposing an aggressive tree-protection ordinance that the mayor called "crazy," the department has generated heated criticism. From March 1, 2006, through March 31, 2007, Manager Kim Bailey has been away from work on sick, vacation or administrative leave for 424 hours - or 10.6 weeks - significantly more than any other department head, according to documents obtained through a request under the Colorado Open Records Act. That total does not include time Bailey has taken off from work since September as she works toward a doctorate.
Civil Liberties and Equality
Job protection for gays, lesbians divisive
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5514080,00.html
A bill to protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination won the House's initial backing Monday, but drew Republican criticism that Democrats were pushing a "social agenda." Senate Bill 25 would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and religion under state law that already bars bias against employees because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, age or national origin. House Republican Leader Mike May accused the Democratic majority of "hypocrisy" for driving a social agenda that included another bill requiring school districts that offer sex education to discuss contraception along with abstinence. "Democrats continually cried foul when social issues were raised at the Capitol under Republican control, only to make social issues a cornerstone of their agenda during their first year with a Democrat governor," May said in a statement. He claimed Democrats had put health care, transportation and education "on a back burner." Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff replied that May's characterization "is not just wrong, but it's a little silly."
RELATED: House advances gay-bias job ban
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788321
RELATED: Gay-rights bill wins initial OK from House
http://www.gazette.com/articles/rep_21799___article.html/discrimination_religious.html
Immigration
Immigrant crime bill gets initial approval from House
http://www.gazette.com/articles/bill_21803___article.html/rep_illegal.html
An El Paso County lawmaker’s bill requiring the prosecution of repeat-offender illegal immigrants received preliminary House approval Monday, despite criticism that it could lead to racial profiling. HB1040 by Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, received the support of all Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats. It will be up for final approval today before moving to the Senate. “It’s been a long road,” said Stephens, a first-year legislator, noting the bill had traveled through four committees as she tried to build support for it. Under current law, illegal immigrants arrested in crimes are typically deported before they can stand trial, leading to dismissal of their charges and refunding of their bond money. If those immigrants refuse to follow deportation orders or sneak back into the country and get arrested again, they cannot face the original charges.
RELATED: Immigration bill sparks heated debate
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_3a_Imm_debate.html
UNC senior says it's time to take action
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070501/NEWS/104300132
At a Starbucks coffee shop in southeast Greeley, Chris Garcia gladly breaks down his thoughts on immigration and social justice. But the time to talk is over, he said. It's time to take action. Garcia, 22, a senior at the University of Northern Colorado, says has been politically involved in Latino issues since his days at Greeley West High School. "I think what's going on in Greeley should be noted," Garcia said, speaking on the current immigration frenzy in Greeley. "We want Greeley and UNC to be less of a suitcase community; we really need to open up and make it more diverse." In addition to attending UNC full time, Garcia is a member of Latinos Unidos, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Students to march in memory of Chavez
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/11
March will begin at noon Friday at Sixth and Erie streets and travel 3 miles to Cesar Chavez Academy in Hyde Park. Cesar Chavez Academy students will honor the school’s namesake with their annual march and carnival Friday. Both the academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High will end classes early so that students may participate. The march will begin at noon at El Centro De Quinto Sol, 609 N. Erie St., and travel to the Hyde Park campus, about 3 miles. There is no fee to be a part of the walk and registration is not required. Organizers point out that the march is not a protest but a commemoration of the famous labor leader’s life.
Health Care and Public Safety
Treasurer keeps lockbox backup
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5514078,00.html
State Treasurer Cary Kennedy said Monday she will keep a stash of unsigned checks worth $1 billion in a safety deposit box - for now - in case of a disaster. "This is really a safety backup in the event electronic communication systems are disabled, both at the state and in the private banking sector," Kennedy said. Kennedy's decision came after The Associated Press reported that former State Treasurer Mike Coffman had set up the backup plan.
Law change for teen drivers
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070430/NEWS/104300061
Understanding the law in order to get your teen behind the wheel may be more difficult than trying to appear relaxed the first time they pull into traffic. While a new law recently signed by Gov. Bill Ritter comes with some changes, the good news is, it likely will not have the impact in Summit County that some worried it would. One change is that all 15-year-olds must complete 30 hours of an approved classroom driver's education course within six months of applying for a permit. Previously, they just had to be enrolled and taking the class. Also, now they can begin the class at age 14 years 6 months, as opposed to having to be 15. Another change is that 16-year-olds must have six hours of behind-the-wheel training from an approved driving school if they live within 30 miles of one that offers at least 20 hours a week of behind-the-wheel training from a permanent location. That is the rule that could have caused problems for Summit County teens since only one driving school exists in the county.
Raising awareness of an unspeakable crime
http://telluridegateway.com/articles/2007/05/01/news/news01.txt
Awareness months often have their own colors (breast cancer pink, AIDS red, domestic violence purple) and so this month be on the lookout for teal. Teal is the official color of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the staff at the San Miguel Resource Center, a crisis center for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, have been busy hanging up teal-colored posters around town.
COMA to host drug testing seminar
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26376
Typically, events sponsored by Communities Overcoming Meth Abuse concentrate solely on battling the ills of the highly addictive drug listed in the organization's name. Today, however, the group takes a step outside the norm by sponsoring a seminar designed to help employers stem the tide of employee drug use. That's all drug use, COMA chairwoman Annette Dunckley said, not just methamphetamine.
Hospital committed to city
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788481
Centura St. Anthony Central will continue providing care to the Denver neighborhood it has served for 115 years even after its move to a new, $500 million facility in Lakewood, the hospital's chief executive said Monday. George Zara, St. Anthony's chief executive, said the hospital "is committed to having some type of services here," but has not decided just what those services will be. The hospital is located just north of Colfax Avenue between Quitman and Raleigh streets. The new facility - a 311-bed hospital - will be located on 45 acres of the former Denver Federal Center near Alameda Boulevard and Union Boulevard west of Denver.
RELATED: A new St. Anthony planned
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5513922,00.html
Abate or wait?
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/30/news/c_u_and_boulder/news3.txt
Nuisance abatement is not technically an issue that pertains specifically to [CU] student renters, but city data says 42 of the 46 properties that received four or more “quality of life” summonses in 2005 came from one of three student-heavy neighborhoods - University Hill, Goss-Grove or Martin Acres. Also, at least a couple of the proposed code changes could pertain to students. One change would allow the city to count violations that are normally handled in District Court, such as Minor in Possession (MIP) of alcohol or drug violations, as nuisance “strikes” under city code, although current code says someone besides a law enforcement officer must be annoyed by a behavior or situation for it to constitute a public nuisance.
Crime and Penal Reform
Defense lawyers can file (Legislative briefs)
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/22
The Colorado Senate gave initial approval Monday to a measure that would allow defense attorneys to ask a judge to convene a competency hearing for their clients. Currently, only prosecutors can make that request. Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, who sponsored the measure in the Senate, said HB1363 is designed to bring fairness to the process, and help relieve some of the crowding at the state's mental health hospitals. The measure requires a final Senate vote before going to Gov. Bill Ritter.
Did you know
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788316
President Bush and Congress have designated May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week of May 13-19 as Police Week. To coincide, Senate Joint Resolution 39 has proclaimed the same dates for Colorado to give recognition to peace officers' commitment to serving and protecting citizens against "violence, disorder, and deception." The measure also recognizes officers who have "made the supreme sacrifice or who have been disabled in the line of duty." The resolution names the 211 Colorado peace officers who have been killed while serving, beginning in 1876 with Charles Faber of Bent County.
Gun control sparks debate
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26386
The local, regional and national debate about gun control inevitably re-sparks itself in the wake of tragic shootings, whether school- or not school-related. 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. Dudley Brown, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Denver-based nonprofit gun lobbyist group, said gun control does nothing more than infringe on people's civil rights to own a gun. "Much like Columbine, the Virginia Tech shooting will be used as a springboard for more gun control. The concept in question is that by somehow passing an ordinance you can control human behavior," he said. "That just isn't looking at history or the reality of the situation." Brown likened gun control to passing a bill that would prohibit fires in school. Colorado "Gov. Bill Ritter could sign a bill that would say there are to be no more fires in school," he said. "Then we could remove all the fire extinguishers because obviously the fire would obey that ordinance. Same thing with ‘gun-free zones.' It's a joke. What that means is ‘good-guys-won't-be-carrying-guns zone.' It's just faulty logic."
'Drug kingpin' gets 3 life terms
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513945,00.html
One of the men convicted this year of running a drug enterprise out of a Federal Boulevard motel was sentenced Monday to three life terms in prison. A jury in January found Alvin "Big Al" Hutchinson guilty of racketeering, selling drugs and continuing a criminal enterprise, also known as the federal "drug kingpin" statute. Prosecutors said Hutchinson was one of the leaders of a group that worked out of the Alpine Rose Motel at Federal and West 62nd Avenue in Adams County, dubbed the "motel from hell." As many as 100 cars a day passed through the motel's parking lot for purchases of crack cocaine, sometimes backing up traffic on Federal, prosecutors said.
Economy
State tourism push showing early signs of success
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5513923,00.html
A recent infusion of money for promoting Colorado tourism shows early signs of paying off. The number of visits to the state's vacation Web site this spring, as well as the number of calls to a toll-free vacation hotline, have far exceeded last year's levels, according to the state's tourism office. The activity comes during a $6.9 million spring and summer marketing blitz aimed at luring more visitors to the state. "We're seeing the impact right now," said Pete Meersman, chairman of the Colorado Tourism Office board and head of the Colorado Restaurant Association.
Qwest wants price controls eased
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5513927,00.html
Qwest Communications is asking federal regulators to ease wholesale pricing controls in four metropolitan markets - Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Seattle. The Denver telco argues such regulations are no longer needed because of affordable local telephone competition from the likes of cable companies, wireless carriers and Internet telephony providers. Qwest filed the petitions for "forbearance" at the Federal Communications Commission on Friday. Qwest was granted partial relief in Omaha in 2005, and other regional Bells also have been asking for forbearance in many markets. At least one competitor, McLeodUSA, plans to oppose Qwest's filings, saying consumer choice could be affected if the rules are lifted. Business customers especially could be affected, McLeodUSA said.
REALTED: Group seeking telco performance-pay link
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5513926,00.html
Swift readies for re-opening of South Korean beef market
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070501/NEWS/105010105
Swift & Co. is getting ready to ship beef to South Korea for the first time in more than three years. South Korean diners have been without U.S. beef since December 2003 when the first case of mad cow disease was verified in a Washington state cow. South Korea has rejected previous shipments of U.S. beef after it resumed trade of boneless beef from cattle under 30 months of age from the United States in September 2006. But more than six tons of beef shipped last week by Creekstone Farms Premium Beef of Arkansas City, Kan., passed inspection. That could lead to more beef imported from the U.S., including that from Swift & Co. of Greeley, which operates four beef packing plants including the one in north Greeley, said Sean McHugh, company spokesman.
Purchase by Thule is logical
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5513938,00.html
Thule AB, a Swedish maker of rooftop boxes and other car accessories, bought Longmont-based Case Logic Inc. to add DVD storage cases, mobile phone holders and other storage devices to its product lineup. Terms weren't disclosed. Case Logic employs 270 people globally, with about 135 in Longmont. It generates annual revenue of about $140 million. Case Logic CEO Tom Sandler told the Rocky Mountain News the acquisition would give the company access to Thule's deeper pockets and resources.
RELATED: Thule buys Longmont-based Case Logic
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/01/thule-buys-longmont-based-case-logic/
Fire scorches [Colorado State] Fair Lottery building
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/6
The Lottery building, used for public relations and ticket sales during the summer expo, was vacant and did not contain computers or machines.
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
Are you better off not working?
http://postindependent.com/article/20070501/VALLEYNEWS/105010028
A single parent with one child must make less than $2,111 a month to qualify for child care assistance, said Nola Nicholsan, who administrates the assistance programs for Eagle County. A family of four cannot earn more than $3,184, she said. Early childhood funding approved Tuesday will make it easier to qualify for assistance, Nicholsan said. At the end of May a family of two will qualify with an income of $2,567, and a family of four can earn $3,872 a month and still get aid. To qualify for food stamps, a family of four can only have $2,167 per month coming in, Nicholsan said. Those salaries sound low, but the reality is that hard working people won't qualify, Cohen said. "The more you work the less you qualify, even if it's the right thing to do," Cohen said. Cohen said she struggled every day to balance her life as a single mother and to be a good employee.
Housing and Homelessness
Area housing meeting sends clear message
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070501/NEWS/105010045
Some 250 people gathered in a house of prayer Monday to hear from fellow area residents who have hardly a prayer of finding affordable housing. Congregations and Schools Empowered, or CASE, hopes to change that, and challenged elected officials from Aspen to Parachute to create a regional housing authority to address the problem. "We're losing skilled and critical people who are struggling to find housing in the valley, and so they're leaving," CASE member Marie Hale said to an audience sitting in pews at St. Stephen's Catholic Church.
Women struggle to find housing
http://vaildaily.com/article/20070430/NEWS/70426041
Kim Walker’s furniture has been in storage for more than a year now. So have her daughter’s toys. They live in a one-bedroom motel room in Glenwood Springs and pay $1,000 a month. While it’s the same rate one would pay for an apartment in town, it doesn’t include a kitchen. Nor does it require a deposit of first and last month rent, and that’s what makes it affordable for Walker. “I’ve lived in the valley for 15 years. We’ve camped out and stayed with friends. We’re homeless,” she said. “We have no place to call home.” Despite the fact Walker has a good job at a retail store in town, she still can’t make enough to get into her own home. “Seventy percent of my paycheck puts us into the motel,” she said.
More than a home
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16073
A formerly homeless man said he’s satisfied with his new camper home, but the OUR Center hopes he’ll strive for more. Alve “Lobo” Thompson — recently featured in a Daily Times-Call story about homeless men living in tents along the St. Vrain River — now lives in a 1950s camper but still struggles for food and other necessities. Lobo, 51, bought his camper two months ago for about $200 and doesn’t pay fees to the owner of the Longmont property where it’s parked. Though waterproof and windproof, his new abode doesn’t have running water, and his small TV runs off a car battery. “The camper is a move in the right direction for me,” Lobo said, adding that he can lock the door and know his few belongings will be there when he comes home.
Media
News, Post circulation declines 1%
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5513689,00.html
Circulation of the Denver daily newspapers fell about 1 percent in the six months ended in March. The decline, below the industry average of 2.1 percent, was the smallest drop since the end of Denver's circulation-boosting newspaper war in 2001. The Denver Post fell 0.9 percent in Monday-through-Friday sales, with an average of 254,058 copies sold. The Rocky Mountain News fell 1 percent in Monday-through- Friday sales, with an average of 253,834. The Sunday Post reported circulation of 704,168, a 0.8 percent drop. The Saturday Rocky reported 550,088 copies sold, a 1.1 percent drop. The numbers come from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the advertiser-sponsored group that monitors newspaper circulation. "We hit our targets for the six-month period," Denver Newspaper Agency spokesman Jim Nolan said. "This is where we thought we'd come out."
RELATED: Sentinel bucks trend with circulation growth
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1b_Circulation.html
Film of skiers on 14ers broke rules
http://vaildaily.com/article/20070430/NEWS/70430018
Filmmaker Ben Galland has lots of footage of skiers on Colorado fourteeners, but all of it may be against the rules as far as the U.S. Forest Service is concerned. Galland had already finished filming when he applied for the permit required by law. That permit has been denied by the White River National Forest and five other national forests. A main reason the permit was denied is that many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks are in national wilderness areas, the Forest Service said.
CU faculty paper updating
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5786829
Several University of Colorado faculty and staff organizations have called for the institution's faculty newspaper to remain an independent voice, as CU administrators and professors work to write new policies governing the Silver and Gold Record. CU President Hank Brown is scheduled to meet today with the CU Faculty Senate and is expected to field questions about the proposed new policies. "My particular assembly thought it was very important, however they are written, that they guarantee the editorial independence of the Silver and Gold because that means we trust it when we read what is in there," said Roxanne Byrne, chair of the CU-Denver Faculty Assembly. CU system spokeswoman Michele McKinney said CU administrators will not use the new policies to infringe upon the Silver and Gold Record's independence.
Education
Day-care funds go begging
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788328
Thousands of Colorado's poorest kids are without adequate day care because their parents aren't tapping into nearly $46 million in unused funding for low-income families. State and county officials say one reason is that they stiffened qualifications for Colorado's Child Care Assistance Program - anticipating federal funding cuts in 2001. The cuts never came. But the number of children covered by the program dropped by 16,000, or 30 percent. "The number of children getting help has dropped drastically," said Leslie Bulicz, child care programs administrator for the Colorado Department of Human Services.
GO WEST, YOUNG READERS (EXTRA!, May 1)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514368,00.html
Gov. Bill Ritter and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien are subjects of a new poster produced by the Colorado State Library to encourage reading. It shows Ritter and O'Brien holding copies of Western-themed books Lonesome Dove and The Angle of Repose.
CU faculty endorses 'instructor tenure' proposal
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/01/cu-faculty-endorses-instructor-tenure-proposal/
Some faculty members are pushing to give job security to non-tenured instructors at the University of Colorado. Faculty members across the campus voted 279-29 over the weekend to endorse a resolution calling for those who aren't on the traditional tenure track to qualify for "instructor tenure" after seven years. Thursday, the resolution will go before the Boulder Faculty Assembly, though the proposal is still in its early stages.
Deputy superintendent finalists quizzed
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/01/deputy-superintendent-finalists-quizzed/
The two people vying to replace Chris King as the Boulder Valley School District's deputy superintendent both have an inside track. Ellen Miller-Brown, the district's middle-level director, started in Boulder Valley seven years ago as the principal at Boulder's Casey Middle School. Judy Skupa, the district's assistant superintendent for learning services, started in Boulder Valley nine years ago as the reading and literacy curriculum director.
Durango man files open-records request
A Durango man filed an open-records request on Sunday for the raw data from Durango School District 9-R's survey of high school parents, staff and students. Walter Venable asked the district for the data because, he said, he wants to produce detailed graphs and post them on the Internet. Venable wrote in his request letter, "I plan to present the information in graphical form on the Internet in a manner which will provide the public with a much clearer and more complete understanding of the results than the significantly more limited graphical summaries currently available on the 9-R Web site." Venable's request follows one filed April 20 by The Durango Herald seeking full results of the survey, including individual written comments. District 9-R last week denied the Herald 's request. Venable's request specifically excludes the written comments.
Poudre High whizzes win trip to White House
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788482
When last heard from midday Monday, the Poudre High School Science Bowl team was headed to the White House, set to meet the president or first lady, as the winners of a national competition that whittled down 12,000 participants to a triumphant five from Fort Collins. Meanwhile, 28 students from Denver's East High School were busy winning a national political-science competition, beating 1,200 students in a battle that tested knowledge of the Constitution. To win the science bowl, the Poudre Impalas prevailed over the other finalist, State College Area High School from Pennsylvania, with a quick identification of an infrared spectroscopy image of a random molecule, formic acid, which puts the sting in bee stings.
RELATED: PHS national champs
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070501/NEWS01/705010341/1002
Employees face criminal counts in 3 city schools
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/8
Criminal charges were filed Monday against three employees of Pueblo City Schools accused of providing alcohol to students. Three more adults who are not employed by the school district also were charged in connection with a series of alleged parties at a South High School teacher's home.
RELATED: South community reacts to teacher scandal
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/9
Educator who faces charges granted OK to leave state
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/18
A former school director accused of false imprisonment and assault involving seven different students at a private school for troubled youth has been granted his request to move out of state. Randall Hinton, 32, was arrested by Canon City police in January for investigation of allegations that stemmed from a Dec. 29 incident. A 17-year-old female student at the campus reported she was forced to lie face down on the floor with her arms at her side and palms facing up for 12 hours. She also said Hinton twice grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, injuring her hand and wrist.
Where are they now?
http://coloradodaily.com/articles/2007/04/30/news/c_u_and_boulder/news2.txt
Three young men, two of them CU students, have been arrested and booked in the past three weeks - on very different charges. One is accused of sexually assaulting women in their sleep, one is accused of illegally possessing firearms in the dorms, and one is accused of making threatening statements in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. The Colorado Daily takes a look at these three students and their cases: where are they now?
Students could be expelled for online threats
http://www.gazette.com/articles/school_21807___article.html/students_threats.html
Two honor-roll students at Horizon Middle School could be expelled for a year after making online threats against other students and teachers. The sixth-grade boys also have to go before a judge on criminal charges. The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office was called last week when school officials saw the threats on a Web page a week after the Virginia Tech shootings. “After interviewing everybody, we determined it wasn’t a credible threat. The boys were basically being stupid,” sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Clif Northam said. “We take it serious.”
Military
Marine from Lone Tree killed in Iraq
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513231,00.html
Marine Cpl. Christopher Degiovine of Lone Tree was killed during combat operations in Anbar province, the Defense Department said Monday. Degiovine, 25, died Thursday. No other details were released. He was assigned to 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune , N.C.
3 Carson casualties identified
http://www.gazette.com/articles/carson_21817___article.html/killed_2nd.html
The three were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Carson. The three died of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit. Four 2nd Brigade soldiers were killed the second week of April. So far, 200 soldiers from Fort Carson have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom since the 2003 invasion, including 89 killed by roadside bombs. Including those killed during its 2004 Iraq deployment, the 2nd Brigade has lost more soldiers, 95, in the war than any other Fort Carson unit.
Mental health care lax, vets say
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788937
A veterans advocacy group said Monday that Fort Carson soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are not receiving adequate care and are punished for behavioral problems related to their illnesses. Last week, nine U.S. senators signed a letter asking the Government Accounting Office to assess a systemwide review of military health care to ensure soldiers are receiving proper medical care. In the letter, the senators said they had "come to learn about a number of upsetting allegations at Fort Carson." Representatives of those senators plan to visit Colorado Springs on May 14-15 to talk to soldiers who have told their stories to Veterans for America, a veterans advocacy group.
RELATED: Post PTSD care again under fire
http://www.gazette.com/articles/carson_21800___article.html/fort_soldiers.html
Carson buffer zone a step closer
http://www.gazette.com/articles/buffer_21804___article.html/zone_development.html
A land deal worth $2.16 million marked a crucial step in efforts to create a buffer zone of vacant land next to Fort Carson. Military and business leaders have worked for more than 30 years to prevent intensive development around the base. One of the most complex parts of that effort involved creating a 1.5-mile-wide buffer east of Fort Carson in the Rancho Colorado community. Rancho Colorado covers dry hills west of Interstate 25 at the Pueblo County line. A deal hatched nearly two years ago called for the Department of Defense to put up money to buy some land inside the buffer zone in exchange for a development company’s promise not to offer water service for new houses there. Without water, development in the area is likely to stop.
Aging soldiers facing 'one last battle'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514252,00.html
They went to Europe the first time as young men, ready to fight and maybe even die in the biggest armed conflict the world has known. Today, they go back as old men, ready to find some perspective on their experiences in World War II, ready to revisit the beaches they stormed, the forests where they fought, the cities they bombed. Some, such as Stanford "Shep" Waldman, a veteran of the Army's 83rd Infantry Division, saw ground combat in all five major campaigns in Europe. Others, such as Elmer "Lucky" McGinty, fought the war from the air, surviving 29 missions as a radio man and gunner in a B-17. And still others, such as Edward Tipper, experienced battle as one short, incredibly intense experience: just six days from the moment he parachuted into Normandy on D-Day until he was horribly wounded by mortar fire as his unit fought to take Carentan, France.
Religion
Colorado churches gear up for National Day of Prayer
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513946,00.html
Colorado's role in the National Day of Prayer is on a roll. More than 70 organizations and churches, nearly double from last year, will participate in Thursday's nationwide event, state coordinator Willow Kauffman said Monday. The centerpiece is the annual noon rally at the state Capitol, featuring Gov. Bill Ritter and church and community leaders. The event will continue across the street at Lincoln Park with worship, music and hot dogs. And for the first time, there also will be an evening prayer service at Temple Event Center, East 16th Avenue and Pearl Street, including an all-city choir. It begins at 7 p.m.
Islamic extremist turned Christian to speak at prayer day
http://greeleytrib.com/article/20070501/NEWS/105010108
More than 20 years ago, Kamal Saleem's life turned upside down. A serious car crash in 1985 left him in the care of Christian doctors. Saleem, who grew up as an Islamic fundamentalist, changed his faith and embraced a gentler way of life. This will, he will be the featured speaker at the 2007 National Day of Prayer in Greeley. This year's event brings together many churches and includes representatives from across Weld County. On Thursday, residents will gather in Centennial Center Plaza from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. to pray for the city, county and nation. In the evening, a prayer walk and concert are planned. Saleem will tell the story of growing up in a religion of hate that he says is still operating in America. As young Sunni Muslim in the Middle East, Saleem dreamed of dying as a martyr to honor Allah. He attended a Palestinian Liberation Organization assault camp, trained as a terrorist and came to America in the 1970s to convert people to Islam, he said.
Energy Policy
Salazar bill could help reclaim water
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/2
Federal legislation that could lead to the cleanup and use of water produced from coal-bed methane and other drilling is moving ahead. U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., chaired a hearing of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Water and Power Subcommittee to hear testimony on his proposal that could lead to better use of water produced from oil, gas and methane drilling. The issue is pertinent to Southern Colorado, where methane drilling in Las Animas and Huerfano counties has increased in recent years. Water is usually found in the same deep coal veins as methane, but water users have struggled to decide how it should be claimed.
Lawmakers rush to slow oil-shale push
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1a__Oil_Shale_Politic.html
When energy company executives gather in a room and start talking about trillions of barrels of oil, most of it locked within oil shale conveniently located near the junction of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, they appear overcome with a firm sense of optimism, as they did in April at the Utah Energy Summit. The Piceance Basin, Utah’s Uinta Basin and Wyoming’s Green River Basin, they say, could be a one-stop shop for answers to America’s energy independence. “There’s enough oil reserves in the United States (primarily those in the Green River Valley) to satisfy us at present energy demands for the next 400 years,” Dan Elcan, chief executive of Oil Shale Exploration Co., or OSEC, said at the summit. OSEC is expected to soon receive the sixth and final Bureau of Land Management oil shale research and development lease for the Piceance and Uinta basins. The company’s plans to reopen the long-defunct White River oil shale mine were approved by the BLM on Monday. The mine is on a 160-acre lease in Utah about 20 miles west of Rangely.
RELATED: White River oil-shale mine to reopen in Utah
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1a_Oil_Shale_Lease.html
Environment and Conservation
Study: Arctic sea ice melting much faster
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513944,00.html
Arctic sea ice is melting faster than earlier projections and could disappear far sooner than previously thought, according to a study to be published today. The new findings, by a team of Boulder-based scientists, show that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic is moving as much as 30 years ahead of what was predicted by 18 computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to analyze the effects of global warming. The study says that computer models appear to be underestimating the effects of greenhouse gases. "The transition to a new Arctic (ice-free) state is more likely to occur well within this century," earlier than the 2050 to 2100 timetable suggested by standard computer models.
CSU study: Future uncertain for cattle
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070501/CSUZONE01/705010329/1002/NEWS01
Cattle ranchers in eastern Colorado might have trouble keeping livestock fed if predictions about increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in coming decades hold true. In a recently released study by Colorado State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, researchers used plastic tubing and infrared heaters to pump carbon dioxide and heat above soil in test patches at the Central Plains Experimental Range near Nunn. Computer modeling then was used with experiment results to make predictions about the future. Researchers said increases in carbon dioxide likely will create more grass for grazing, but those grasses will be less digestible, making it harder for cattle to gain weight.
Agreement protects state's water supplies
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5514006,00.html
Western states that rely on the Colorado River for water have agreed on a plan for dry years that protects Colorado's supplies, Gov. Bill Ritter said Monday. Deliveries to Arizona and Nevada in drought years would drop when water levels in Lake Mead drop below a set level, he said. Arizona, Nevada and California all use their share of the Colorado River - or more - each year while Wyoming and Colorado haven't fully tapped their share. The agreement, reached at a meeting last week of the Colorado River Basin states, will help protect Colorado's supply from the demands of other basin states during droughts. The agreement still must be approved by Secretary of Interior Richard Kempthorne, who is reviewing the proposal.
Senators like Platte River plan
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178029105/13
Testimony on legislation to implement the federal share of the Platte River recovery plan was heard last week by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. The sponsors of the legislation, including U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., applauded the committee’s action as a positive development. “This is a solid piece of common sense legislation; it will help protect the water rights of farmers and ranchers while also shielding them from the heavy hammer of the Endangered Species Act,” Allard said. “I have been a longtime supporter of this type of program and this hearing gets us one step closer to seeing the good results of this policy on the ground.”
Trails, open space eyed in project
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_1a_Riverfront_Commission.html
The Riverfront Commission has crafted plans for a $15.2 million project that would add more than six miles of trails along the Colorado River, connect other trails to the Riverfront Trail and preserve more than 500 acres of riverfront properties. The commission has asked Great Outdoors Colorado to contribute a $7.1 million grant to the Mesa County Riverfront Project. The balance of the funding would come from Mesa County governments, School District 51, the Mesa Land Trust and a host of other organizations.
River study would examine fishing holes, kayak spots
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/may/01/river_study_would_examine_fishing_holes_kayak_spot/
[Steamboat] City officials are seeking a consultant to ensure that manmade structures such as kayak parks and fishing spots are not eroding the Yampa River’s health. Craig Robinson, open space supervisor for the city’s Parks, Open Space and Recreational Services Department, said Monday that such a consultant is needed because the river in and around Steamboat Springs contains many structures — most often, boulders placed in the river to alter flows — that have not been looked at for years.
Mud spills from property again, Ginn says
http://vaildaily.com/article/20070430/NEWS/70430027
Mud spilled into Willow and Turkey creeks from the Ginn Development Co.’s property when trespassers damaged some sediment control barriers Sunday, authorities said. Two people on dirt bikes reportedly damaged the barriers while traveling up Willow Creek Road near Red Cliff, said Kim Andree, spokeswoman for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office. “A minor amount” of sediment discolored the creeks, but Ginn employees corrected the situation, according to a Ginn news release. This is the second time Ginn sediment has discolored waters in the area since last week.
Aspen close to filling climate post
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070501/NEWS/105010039
Spearheading Aspen's efforts to reduce global warming is a hot job, judging from the interest the post has attracted from near and far. Some 70 individuals applied for the position - more than two-thirds of them from out of state, according to Phil Overeynder, the city's director of public works. The city narrowed that list to eight candidates interviewed last month; a final round of talks with three finalists is now under way. Two applicants met for follow-up interviews with city officials last week, and the third will be interviewed Friday.
Fort Collins-Loveland receives 'D' grade for ozone levels
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070501/NEWS01/705010344/1002
Air quality in Larimer County is good and getting better but isn't without problems, according to a new report. Fort Collins-Loveland is listed as No. 13 among the top-25 cleanest metropolitan areas in terms of long-term particulate air pollution in the "American Lung Association State of the Air: 2007" report. But the county overall gets a grade of "D" for ozone levels. The information shows the region is "right on the cusp" of failing to meet federal standards for ozone, said Doug Ryan, an environmental planner with the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment.
Conifer woman attacked by bear on her porch
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5513452,00.html
A bear clawed a Conifer-area woman early today when she went to her porch to see why her dog was barking, a Division of Wildlife spokeswoman said. The woman was treated at Swedish Medical Center for her wounds, which were not life-threatening, said DOW spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill. The bear was killed when it charged a wildlife officer near the woman’s home in the 9500 block of Fallen Rock Road just east of Colorado 73 in Conifer Park Estates.
RELATED: Officer kills bear after similar bruin injures woman
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788208
Neighbors get clean and green
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16076
[Longmont's] Golden Pond
Estates is “greening” up its annual neighborhood cleanup this year by encouraging
residents to recycle and donate items before tossing trash to the curb.
Neighbors piled onto teens recycling project
http://www.gazette.com/articles/best_21808___article.html/project_gazette.html
It wasn’t enough for Jacob Mathews’ family to recycle — he wanted to get his neighbors involved, too. And so began the Peregrine Recycling Initiative fours years ago. About 10 of his neighbors gather their paper products, and Mathews takes them to recycling centers. More than 2 tons of newspapers, junk mail and magazines have been recycled, he said.
Landlords buy into environmental upswing
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070501/NEWS01/705010323/1002/NEWS01
In addition to installing energy-efficient heating and air conditioning systems to cut down on heating and cooling costs, the Oberles sprayed the attic with about 6 inches of insulation. The couple hope to install double-panned windows into their house and the rental to further cut down on energy costs. The Oberles' tenants are not required to take care of the lawn, as the Oberles use sustainable practices for yard upkeep. They also use landscape materials to attract wildlife. Tenants are encouraged to water their lawn as they are reimbursed for any water costs. "We haven't charged our tenants extra for all this work we have done on the house," Sue said. "It may not seem like a smart business move, but it just seems like something you would do as a good human being." Matt said the rental house and their own house still are works in progress. The couple are in the process of converting all lights in the houses to fluorescent bulbs.
Loveland granary rescue rethought
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788935
A nonprofit group bent on saving the 116-year-old Loveland Feed & Grain building is hoping a two-day brainstorming session later this month will produce an idea of how best to restore it. The three-story structure, now sagging and worn, rests just off a railroad line that runs through Loveland. It was saved from demolition last year by Loveland businessman Barry Floyd. Floyd bought the building for $400,000 and said he would keep it to allow the nonprofit, Novo Restoration Inc., to buy the granary. But Novo couldn't come up with enough matching funds for a $200,000 grant from the State Historic Fund to purchase the property. So Novo and Floyd are forging a public-private partnership to turn the building into a viable, working local landmark, said Novo's Erin McLaughlin.
Niwot grange hall SOS issued
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16077
One of this rural Boulder County community’s historic landmarks is badly in need of repairs, at a price tag that could exceed $200,000.
Opinion
GOP's brazen flip-flop on education funding
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5787419
In recent days, Republican strategists, led by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, have tried to paint the property tax freeze as a tax increase. But it is nothing of the kind - as Republicans themselves recognized in 2004 when they passed the very same plan in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. Even then-Senate President John Andrews, whose aversion to tax increases is legendary, voted for the freeze. The 2004 freeze plan was developed after Sen. Norma Anderson, R-Lakewood, and Rep. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs - then the majority leaders of their respective chambers - asked the Office of Legislative Legal Services if such a freeze would be legal. In a carefully reasoned legal opinion, the office ruled that it would be possible to freeze property taxes in the 175 school districts that have authorized such a freeze. In a transparently partisan ploy to embarrass Ritter, a Democrat, McElhany is now ignoring previous GOP backing for the freeze while making the bizarre argument that failure to cut taxes every year is a tax increase and thus prohibited by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. But actually, such freezes are authorized by TABOR itself if voters approve. And in 175 elections, they already have.
Carman: Immigrant march gains urgency
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5788479
When 75,000 people marched to the state Capitol last May 1, the objective was to give a human face to the immigration issue and to urge Congress to act. A year later, the level of urgency is much higher, yet Congress is no closer to confronting the dilemma of what to do with 12 million illegal immigrants who have made the U.S. their home. "It's very, very important this year to march," said Georgina, who nine years ago crossed the border from Mexico illegally to work in the U.S. "This year it's very necessary because we have to stop the raids and stop the repression."
Lawmakers' final to-do list
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5787421
It's that time of the year, the merry month of May, when state lawmakers step up their pace in order to resolve a flurry of bills before their scheduled adjournment, which is May 9 - next Wednesday. As of yesterday morning, a total of 153 bills needed action. Among them are the governor's proposed property tax freeze to stabilize education finances, a constitutional amendment asking voters to make it harder to change the state constitution, and a bill requiring group health insurance policies to cover certain mental disorders. The mental health bill mandates that coverage for mental disorders be similar to coverage for a physical illness. It also expands coverage provided through the Indigent Care Program of the Children's Basic Health Plan. All three bills are critical and we urge lawmakers to pass them without delay.
Acknowledging a massacre: Sand Creek site critical
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/01/acknowledging-a-massacre/
The initial judgment was that the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had it coming. It wasn't a massacre but a "battle." There weren't victims, only "savages." And the butchers were heroes. That was the view of the Rocky Mountain News in 1864, shortly after Col. John Chivington led 700 members of the Colorado milita in the unprovoked slaughter of 160 Native Americans camped on Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado.
Littwin: Candidates take their places in line
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_5514005,00.html
To understand what's at stake in the South Carolina Democratic primary, you could start with the annual Clyburn fish fry. If you were in town the other night - and it seemed like everyone was - you couldn't miss it. You just had to follow the sound of the music and the hypnotic vapors from the 1,200 pounds of whiting, served on 1,200 loaves of Sunbeam bread. Getting a ticket was the easy part. Waiting in line an hour for your fish was the real test.
Election day arrives in Denver
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/editorials/article/0,2777,DRMN_23964_5513968,00.html
It's election day in the city of Denver, and you can just feel the excitement. You beg to differ? You were expecting serious competition, perhaps?
RELATED: Carroll: Easy ride for Hick
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/onpoint/archives/2007/05/carroll_easy_ride_for_hick.html
A gun loophole is shot down in Virginia
http://www.gjsentinel.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2007/05/01/5_1_loophole_edit.html
If the executive order that Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine issued Monday had been in effect earlier this year, Virginia Tech mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho would have had considerably more difficulty in obtaining the guns he used in his deadly rampage that killed 32 people. Kaine’s order says that the database of people who are banned from buying guns must include the name of anyone who has been found by authorities to be dangerous and has been ordered to undergo mental-health treatment. In 2005, Cho was ordered to get counseling after a judge ruled that he was a danger to himself. But Cho was never committed to a mental-health hospital and, as a result, his name wasn’t in the database that gun dealers must check before selling a weapon. Cho didn’t reveal his mental-health problems when he purchased his guns.
Election
In Chicago, Giuliani sticks to disdain for Iraq pullout
Republican presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani stepped up his attacks on the Democrats' Iraq withdrawal strategy Monday, contending it amounted to little more than handing U.S. enemies "a printed-out list of how we're going to retreat." Giuliani, in Chicago for a noontime fundraising appearance, said he stood by his recent criticism that Democrats have attempted to put the nation "on defense" in the global war on terror. The former New York City mayor, among the top tier of Republican White House hopefuls, came under unusually rapid attack from leading Democratic presidential contenders for last week attempting to portray Democrats in Congress as weak on terrorism in seeking a timetable to remove U.S. military forces from Iraq. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) accused Giuliani of pandering to a form of "divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies." But Giuliani, who was New York's mayor at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center, said the U.S. must act because Al Qaeda has emerged as "one of our primary enemies" in Iraq.
McCain favors 'League of Democracies'
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-30-mccain-foreign-policy_N.htm
Republican presidential candidate John McCain envisions a "League of Democracies" as part of a more cooperative foreign policy with U.S. allies. The Arizona senator will call for such an organization to be "the core of an international order of peace based on freedom" in a speech Tuesday at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. "We Americans must be willing to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies," McCain says, according to excerpts his campaign provided. "Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom, knowledge and resources necessary to succeed." "To be a good leader, America must be a good ally," he adds in the speech, another in a series of policy addresses as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination. Such comments offer a contrast to President Bush, who critics contend has employed a stubborn, go-it-alone foreign policy that has dramatically damaged the U.S. image abroad.
Ex-Senator Seen as Rehearsing for Prime Time
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/us/politics/01thompson.html?ref=us
Mr. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and current presidential question mark, is speaking the next night at the annual dinner of the Lincoln Club of Orange County, an influential conservative group. The scheduling illustrates the political place Mr. Thompson occupies: he is of the presidential campaign, but not in it. Yet. Making speeches at carefully chosen appearances, doing an occasional interview and fielding questions from Republican congressmen, Mr. Thompson, 64, is running something of a guerrilla exploratory effort. He even weighed in recently on a conservative blog to offer a detailed defense of his ideas on federalism. Behind the scenes, Mr. Thompson has been consulting with his inner circle — including former Senators Bill Frist and Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee and experienced Washington aides like Mark Corallo, a former Justice Department official — about how he could pull together the money and staff he would need to run.
Effective and Ethical Government
Republicans Buck Bush On Iraq Benchmarks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001527.html
Brushing aside White House opposition, Republican leaders in Congress said yesterday that negotiations on a second war spending bill should begin with benchmarks of success for the Iraqi government, and possible consequences if those benchmarks are not met. Democratic leaders will send a $124 billion war funding bill to President Bush today that would establish such benchmarks and tie them to troop withdrawals, which would begin as early as July 1 if they are not met. The bill will arrive at the White House on the fourth anniversary of Bush's speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, when he declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq before a banner that proclaimed "Mission Accomplished."
Ex-CIA Officers Among Tenet Critics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001731.html
George J. Tenet's close friends said he anticipated criticism for some of the claims and anger he expressed in his new memoir about his former life as director of the CIA. He did not expect, they said, that his detractors would include former CIA and military officers, or that he would be blamed for the deaths of U.S. troops fighting a war in Iraq that he knew had been badly planned from the start. As his book, "At the Center of the Storm," debuted yesterday, six former CIA analysts called on Tenet to donate a significant portion of royalties to families of service members killed or wounded in Iraq. They also called on him to return the Presidential Medal of Freedom he was awarded in December 2004.
RELATED: Book's key anecdote true, Tenet says
A Bush appointee goes after the White House
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-bloch1may01,0,6507585.story?coll=la-home-headlines
At first glance, Scott J. Bloch seems to fit the profile of the "loyal Bushie," the kind of person the White House salted through the Washington bureaucracy to make sure federal agencies heeded administration priorities. But Bloch, 48, is a man who defies expectations. The lifelong Republican runs an agency — the Office of Special Counsel — that is turning its investigative spotlight on the White House, in particular the political operation headed by Karl Rove. His office is investigating whether Bush administration personnel violated civil statutes by inserting GOP electoral politics into Cabinet agency meetings, firing at least one U.S. attorney, and discussing some of the activities in private e-mails that are missing. When Bloch was recommended for the post by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), few imagined his tenure would turn controversial among Bush Republicans. Although Bloch is a committed conservative, he says — displaying his Office of Special Counsel badge with a dash of drama — "I am a prosecutor."
Justice Dept. Official Says His Role in Firings Was Limited
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001526.html
Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told congressional investigators that he had limited involvement in the firing last year of eight U.S. attorneys and that he did not choose any to be removed, congressional aides familiar with his statements said yesterday. McNulty said he provided erroneous testimony to Congress in February because he had not been informed that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and his aides had been working with the White House on the firings for nearly two years, the congressional aides said.
RELATED: Gonzales allowed aides some hiring power, records show
RELATED: Some Ask if U.S. Attorney Dismissals Point to Pattern of Investigating Democrats
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01corrupt.html
'D.C. Madam' case enthralls capital
"Miz Julia" sent tremors through the nation's capital Monday simply by threatening to call her "clients" to testify at her trial. Talk about real power. But Miz Julia, otherwise known as Deborah Jeane Palfrey, is neither a politician nor a high government official involved in making war or policy. Nor is she a CIA undercover agent. Instead, she says she merely ran a legal escort service in the nation's capital featuring massages and sexual fantasy. To the contrary, say U.S. government prosecutors. They have charged her with racketeering by allegedly running a prostitution ring, with women charging $300 an hour. Now, those allegations have given Palfrey, 50, of Vallejo, Calif., a nickname other than Miz Julia. She's become widely known as the "D.C. Madam" who has brought Washington an old-fashioned sex scandal. And she's angry. "I believe there is something very, very rotten at the core of my circumstances," she said Monday after a court hearing in which a federal judge agreed to appoint a new public defender for her.
RELATED: Washington sexual fantasy service 'madam' unmasking clients
An emotional Snow briefs press
The White House spokesman is back at work, five weeks after the discovery that his cancer had spread.
Senator Home From Hospital
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001434.html
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) has returned to his Fairfax County home this week, after four months of hospitalization triggered by a brain hemorrhage that threatened his life and pulled him from the Senate. Johnson, 60, will continue outpatient physical and speech therapy five days a week at two Washington area facilities, spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said yesterday. Physicians have not estimated when he might return to work, she said. Johnson, who is trying to regain strength on the right side of his body, was released from the National Rehabilitation H ospital in the District on Friday. He is using a wheelchair while he learns to walk again. He will eventually shift to a motorized scooter when he returns to work, Fisher said. The senator is reading four newspapers a day and receives regular briefings from his staff, she said.
N.J. Governor Discharged From Hospital
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000146.html
Tearful, grateful and apologetic, Gov. Jon S. Corzine left the hospital where he was treated for severe injuries suffered in a high-speed auto accident in which he was not wearing a seat belt. But the governor's recovery is far from over: Medical personnel said he is not likely to be able to walk without crutches or a cane for at least six months, and the governor's mansion is being changed to help his progress. Corzine drew cheers from a gathering of hospital workers Monday as his wheelchair was pushed out the front door of Cooper University Hospital, where he had arrived aboard a medical helicopter after the April 12 crash on the Garden State Parkway. Corzine, 60, choked up as he acknowledged the medical staff's work and apologized for setting a bad example by not wearing a seat belt.
Civil Liberties and Equality
Justices Again Refuse Guantanamo Bay Cases
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001507.html
For the second time in a month, the Supreme Court decided yesterday not to hear appeals from terrorism suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, refusing to call a halt to the military commissions they face after Congress authorized the trials last fall. The court rejected an appeal by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who won a landmark Supreme Court case, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian charged in the killing of an Army medic in Afghanistan. They are the only two of about 385 detainees at the U.S. naval base who have been charged with terrorism crimes and are facing military trials. The justices' decision not to take the appeals of Hamdan and Khadr came less than one year after they struck down the system of military tribunals that the Bush administration had devised to try suspected members of al-Qaeda. Ruling in Hamdan's first case, the court found that the tribunals lacked a basis in federal statute and violated international human rights law.
RELATED: Feinstein seeks to close Guantanamo
Kent State victim wants case reopened
An audio recording made when National Guardsmen killed four Kent State University students during a 1970 anti-war demonstration could resolve the mystery of whether a command to open fire was issued, a survivor said Monday. Alan Canfora, wounded in the wrist during the confrontation, wants the government to reopen the case. Four students were killed and nine were wounded in the campus clash. In 1974, eight guardsmen were acquitted of federal civil-rights charges.
Foreign Policy
U.S. sees rise in terrorism casualties
Deaths and injuries from terrorist attacks worldwide increased sharply last year, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, with government officials, police and security guards coming under greater attack than ever before, the State Department concluded in its annual survey of global terrorism released Monday. The U.S. government's study on terrorist trends and attacks found that more than 20,000 people died and more than 38,000 were injured in about 14,000 incidents last year, an increase of nearly 6,000 deaths, or 40%, over 2005, according to the department's "Country Reports on Terrorism 2006."
RELATED: State Dept.: Terror attacks up 25% in '06
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-30-terror-rise_N.htm
RELATED: U.S. Cites 91 Percent Rise In Terrorist Acts in Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001663.html
Panel to Probe Handling of Foreign Aid for Katrina
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001669.html
The Senate homeland security committee plans to hold hearings this summer on the Bush administration's handling of offers of foreign aid after Hurricane Katrina, senators said yesterday. Of $854 million offered after the storm -- in cash and oil that was to be sold for cash -- only $44 million has gone to disaster victims or reconstruction so far. The Washington Post reported Sunday that most of the money went uncollected, or the offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups. Some spending has been delayed by restrictions on the money's use. The administration also did not accept offers of supplies from around the world.
April Toll Is Highest Of '07 for U.S. Troops
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001929.html
The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence. More than 60 Iraqis also were killed or found dead across Iraq on Monday. Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces have outstripped those of Americans throughout the war. In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. Iraq's government has yet to release any monthly totals for April.
RELATED: U.S. April death toll in Iraq passes 100
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-30-troop-deaths_N.htm
Officials: Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader killed
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-26-iraq-alqaeda_N.htm
Iraqi officials have received reports that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed by Sunni tribesmen but the information has not been confirmed, the chief government spokesman said Tuesday. The statement by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh followed a welter of reports from other Iraqi officials that Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been killed. Iraqi officials have rushed out similar reports in the past, only to acknowledge later they were inaccurate. U.S. officials said they could not confirm the reported death. Al-Dabbagh told Al-Arabiya that word of al-Masri's purported death was based on "intelligence information," adding tnat "DNA tests should be done and we have to bring someone to identify the body."
Prince Harry definitely going to Iraq -- unless he's not
After several days of public nail biting and second thoughts, it's official: Prince Harry will be deployed to Iraq this month. Britain's senior army commander said Monday that he had personally decided to go ahead with the first royal assignment to active combat since the Falklands War in 1982 but was prepared to keep the matter open for review. "The decision has been taken he will deploy," Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, the army chief of staff, told the BBC. Saying he hoped to end the "somewhat frenzied media speculation around this issue," Dannatt said he had made the decision after the "widest possible consultation."
Sunni Ministers Threaten to Quit Cabinet in Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?ref=world
The largest bloc of Sunni Arabs in the Iraqi Parliament threatened to withdraw its ministers from the Shiite-dominated cabinet on Monday in frustration over the government’s failure to deal with Sunni concerns. President Bush stepped in to forestall the move, calling one of Iraq’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, and inviting him to Washington, according to a statement issued by Mr. Hashimi’s office and the White House. The bloc, known as the Iraqi Consensus Front and made up of three Sunni Arab parties, “has lost hope in rectifying the situation despite all of its sincere and serious efforts to do so,” the statement said.
NATO, Afghan troops launch offensive
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-30-afghanistan-offensive_N.htm
Hundreds of British troops swept into the lush poppy fields of southern Afghanistan Monday, drawing hostile fire at the start of a NATO operation to expel the Taliban from a valley stronghold. More than 3,000 NATO and Afghan troops are participating in the operation, the latest effort to bring Helmand province under the shaky control of President Hamid Karzai. A long column of armored vehicles brought several hundred British soldiers to the Sangin Valley, near the town of Gereshk and Afghanistan's strategic ring road that links the cities of Kandahar and Herat.
RELATED: U.S. Says Raids Killed Taliban; Afghans Say Civilians Died
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/world/asia/01afghan.html
U.S. Likely to Confront Iran on Nuclear Activity
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001006.html
President Bush today raised the likelihood that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will send a rare, direct message to senior Iranian officials later this week: Suspend the nation's uranium-enrichment program, which the United States believes is being used to develop nuclear weapons, or face isolation. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Bush asserted that Rice will not shun Iranian officials at a conference of major nations that have a stake in the future of war-ravaged Iraq. "Should the foreign minister of Iran bump into Condi Rice, Condi won't be rude," Bush said. "She's not a rude person. I'm sure she'll be polite. But she'll also be firm in reminding the representative of the Iranian government that there's a better way forward for the Iranian people than isolation."
Senators Question Halliburton Executive About Dealings in Iran
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01halliburton.html
A Halliburton executive, facing withering criticism from Democratic lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Monday about the company’s business dealings in Iran, insisted that the firm had not broken any laws. The official, Sherry Williams, a Halliburton vice president and corporate secretary, said the company had consulted several law firms in 1995 after sanctions were imposed on Iran. Officials of the company, which recently announced it was moving its chief executive from Houston to Dubai and establishing a corporate headquarters there, determined that it was legal for independent foreign subsidiaries of United States companies to do business there, she said. “We have followed U.S. law,” she said. “We will continue to follow U.S. law.” Although the three Democratic senators on hand repeatedly suggested broader concerns than strict legality should have prompted the company to halt its business in Iran, Ms. Williams expressed no regret for the firm’s work there.
Official Panel Accuses Israeli Leaders Of Multiple Failures in Lebanon War
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050100413.html
An official Israeli investigative committee on Monday accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of "a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence" in taking the country to war in Lebanon last summer. The interim findings of the Winograd Committee also sharply criticized Defense Minister Amir Peretz for not grasping "the basic principles of using military force to achieve political goals" and accused Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the army chief of staff at the time, of acting "impulsively" in advocating an "immediate, intensive military strike" to secure the release of two captured Israeli soldiers. The findings amount to a harsh indictment of some of Israel's most respected institutions and the people who lead them, portraying the Jewish state's military commanders as complacent and its political leadership as rash and inexperienced.
RELATED: Scathing war report shakes Israel
RELATED: Israeli leader resists calls to resign
Turkish Police, May Day Protesters Clash
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050100224.html
Turkish police charged into crowds of leftist protesters marking the anniversary of a deadly May Day rally in Istanbul on Tuesday, spraying tear gas and kicking and clubbing demonstrators as they fled. Police also used a water cannon to clear crowds from around Taksim square. Officers outfitted with helmets, gas masks and truncheons detained 580 demonstrators. Some of the protesters were carrying pistols, firebombs and knives, Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said.
RELATED: Stocks feel fallout from Turkey's crisis
Amnesty gives China low grade on Olympics reforms
The Chinese government has failed to meet its promise to introduce greater freedoms, Amnesty International charged Monday, in the latest international criticism ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games here. The London-based human rights organization said in its report that China had made progress reforming its death penalty system and granting greater access for foreign journalists. However, the group charged that Beijing continues to detain local activists without trial, stifles domestic journalism, and has embarked on a campaign to "clean up" the streets of Beijing of petty criminals, vagrants and drug users ahead of the Summer Games. "What we're aiming to do is encourage China to showcase to the world that reforms have taken place, that they're a respectable, modern member of the international community," said Mark Allison, author of the report. China's Foreign Ministry rejected the report's findings.
Bush Steps Up Effort to Persuade Putin on Missile Defense Plan
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/world/europe/01prexy.html?ref=washington
President Bush, under pressure from allies in Europe to be more forthcoming about his plans for basing missile interceptors in the region, said Monday that he was intensifying his efforts to persuade Russia to cooperate with the United States on the initiative “so that they don’t see us as an antagonistic force, but see us as a friendly force.”
Deep divide over suspected war criminal
The day after Ramush Haradinaj resigned as Kosovo's prime minister, U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, praised him as a patriot and a statesman. "I want to publicly salute him for his personal courage," said Biden (D-Del.), who described Haradinaj as a young man who looked like he could lift an ox out of a ditch. The U.S. State Department, French Foreign Ministry and United Nations also were generous in their praise for the 38-year-old political leader -- a nice send-off for a fellow who had just been indicted by the international war crimes tribunal in the abduction, torture and murder of 40 of his countrymen. Colliding images of war criminal and peacemaker have made Haradinaj's trial a source of deepening acrimony between UN prosecutors, who claim the ex-prime minister is a vicious killer responsible for acts of unspeakable brutality, and UN diplomats, who describe him as a key partner in securing a stable Kosovo.
5 British Men Guilty in Foiled Bombing Plot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000296.html
Five British men were convicted Monday of plotting to kill hundreds of people by bombing a shopping center, nightclub or other target here, in a case that officials said demonstrates increasing links between homegrown British extremists and senior members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Pakistan. After a year-long trial and a record 27 days of jury deliberation, the five were found guilty of conspiring to build and detonate a massive fertilizer bomb. Officials said the plot, which involved the purchase of 1,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, was at the time the most ambitious mass murder attempt ever disrupted by British security services.
Immigration
Marchers seek to reinspire push for immigrants' rights
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-march1may01,0,3488334.story?coll=la-home-headlines
As Southern California organizers made final preparations for May Day marches to press for immigrant and labor rights today, officials warned that the protests will snarl traffic, disrupt mass transit and halt some business in downtown Los Angeles and beyond. March organizers say they expect fewer than the estimated 650,000 who took to the streets last year, but the LAPD said Monday that it is bracing for 100,000 — and perhaps more — people to descend on the city center and are warning the public to avoid downtown. Officially organized to celebrate the May 1 International Workers' Day, marches are planned today in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Riverside and at least 75 other cities nationwide.
Foreigners seeking high-skilled worker visas hope to beat the odds
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-30-visa-lottery_N.htm
From high-heeled fashion models to high-skilled techies, foreign workers are waiting this month to hear whether they've won an unprecedented lottery for temporary U.S. work visas.
As Deportation Pace Rises, Illegal Immigrants Dig In
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/us/01deport.html?ref=us
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement, removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 — about 20 percent — over the year before, according to the agency’s tally. While President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, a significant number of Republicans in Congress reject the plan because they view it as amnesty for lawbreakers. They advocate a broader campaign of deportations that would expel many illegal immigrants and, they say, drive millions more to give up and go home. “We are not calling for I.C.E. to become the Gestapo knocking on doors in the middle of the night,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, a group in Washington that seeks to curb immigration. “But we have to increase the likelihood that if you are here illegally you will be caught.”
Immigrants Slow Rate Of Money Transfers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001698.html
The amount of money Latin American immigrants sent home from the United States grew at a slower rate during the first two months of the year than in the same period a year ago, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. The slowdown puzzled some experts who study such remittances, which contribute significantly to Latin American economies. Remittances rose in the single digits in January and February after rising as much as 20 percent year-over-year since analysts began tracking the transfers at the beginning of the decade, the Inter-American Development Bank said yesterday. Many remittance-rich nations would fall into a recession if immigrants began sending home significantly less money, which could encourage more poor Latin Americans to find work in the United States, according to the study and Donald Terry, manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund at the Inter-American Development Bank.
Health Care and Public Safety
Doctors sue state of Louisiana
Hundreds of doctors at a hospital near New Orleans sued the state Monday, seeking $100 million for care they say they have provided free to poor and uninsured patients since Hurricane Katrina. The closure of state-funded Charity Hospital in New Orleans after Katrina sent the indigent to doctors in private practice and to the few open hospital emergency rooms in the area. The lawsuit, filed by 381 doctors at West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, a suburb of New Orleans, said the physicians had not received a dime for their work.
Prescription-Writing Law Is Voided
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/us/01prescription.html
A federal judge on Monday struck down a New Hampshire law that makes doctors’ prescription-writing habits confidential, saying it violates the First Amendment. Signed in June 2006 by Gov. John Lynch, the law made New Hampshire the first state to try to block pharmaceutical companies’ hard-sell pitches by restricting access to data that identifies doctors and other prescribers. Pharmaceutical company salespeople prize doctors’ information because it profiles prescribing habits. They can learn which doctors favor brand names or generics, and who is more willing to prescribe new drugs.
HIV-test bill raises fears
Doctors in Illinois may no longer have to get written consent from patients to give them HIV tests under a controversial state bill that's part of a national effort to make HIV testing more routine. Supporters of the bill, which could come to a vote in the Illinois House this week, say it would give crucial knowledge to the estimated 10,000 Illinois residents who are infected with the virus that causes AIDS but don't know it. The initiative would enact guidelines that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year in hopes of screening all patients between ages 13 and 64. But the change in law also would require rescinding parts of Illinois' 20-year-old AIDS Confidentiality Act, which ensures that patients cannot get tested for HIV without their knowledge. Tensions between patients' rights and public health priorities have made the bill a politically dicey subject.
Crime and Penal Reform
Video Persuades Justices to Back Police Use of Force to End Chase
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000484.html
The Supreme Court said yesterday that police officers may use potentially deadly force to end a high-speed chase of a suspect who has put the public at risk, with the justices greatly influenced by a videotape of a treacherous pursuit through dark Georgia highways that left the driver paralyzed. The 8 to 1 decision was an important victory for law enforcement officials and was unusual for the way the justices became intensely involved in the details of the case. They said the videotape of the 2001 chase, captured by cameras in the pursuing patrol cars, clearly showed that two lower courts were wrong to hold that a deputy sheriff who had rammed the suspect's car could be held liable for his actions.
RELATED: Video verdict: Supreme Court OKs deadly force to end high-speed police chases
Loophole closed for gun purchases
The governor on Monday closed the loophole in state law that allowed the Virginia Tech gunman to buy weapons despite a court ruling that he was a threat and needed psychiatric counseling. Gov. Timothy Kaine issued an executive order requiring that a database of people banned from buying guns include the name of anyone who is found to be dangerous and ordered to get mental health treatment.
Sentence tracking system is tossed out
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/05/01/sentence_tracking_system_is_tossed_out/
The [Massachusetts] Department of Correction, staggered by a string of disclosures about its wrongful confinement of at least 14 inmates, said yesterday it is scrapping its system for calculating inmate sentences and is devising new methods to make sure prisoners serve only their legal terms. At the same time the department also revealed that an inmate previously described to the Globe as having been held 34 days too long was actually released more than two years -- 790 days -- after he should have been.
Economy
Rulings Weaken Patents' Power
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001668.html
The Supreme Court concluded a series of cases yesterday that weaken the protection given to patent holders, making it more difficult to get a patent and easier to challenge existing ones. Patent experts said one of two cases decided yesterday -- KSR International v. Teleflex-- is the court's furthest-reaching ruling in the field for decades. The decision sends a clear message that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and lower courts must be more open in considering whether inventions are "obvious," a common ground for denying an application. "Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress and may, in the case of patents combining previously known elements, deprive prior inventions of their value or utility," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for a unanimous court.
RELATED: High Court Puts Limits on Patents
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01bizcourt.html?ref=business
Shares Decline as Investors Await Economic Data
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001508.html
Wall Street retreated Monday as investors, casting a wary eye toward coming economic data, cashed in some profits. Still, April ended as the Dow Jones industrial average's best month in more than three years. Investors did manage to send the Dow to a new trading high before pulling money out of the market ahead of Tuesday's manufacturing report from the Institute for Supply Management. On Monday, the report's precursor, the Chicago Purchasing Managers' index of manufacturing activity in the Midwest, came in weaker than expected.
Exchange rates cut into U.S. travelers' fun in Europe
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-04-30-euro-travel-usat_N.htm
A weakened dollar could send at least some Americans packing for destinations other than Europe this summer. Bookings for Western Europe this summer are down by nearly 3% compared with the same period last year at travel agency AAA's 1,000 locations, spokesman Michael Pina says. Online agency Travelocity sees a 2% drop-off from last year, says Amy Ziff, editor-at-large at Travelocity. "The middle of the market is certainly evaluating where they want to be this summer," says Terry McCabe of Altour, a Manhattan-based travel agency. Even Altour's well-heeled clients are showing a growing interest in saving money, she says.
U.S. watching China, Russia, others on piracy
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-04-30-piracy-watchlist_N.htm
The Bush administration on Monday targeted China, Russia and 10 other nations for extra scrutiny in the piracy of American movies, music, computer programs and other copyrighted materials. The 12 nations were put on a "priority watch list" in the area of copyright piracy, which costs the American industry billions of dollars in lost sales annually. "We must defend ideas, inventions and creativity from rip-off artists and thieves," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement accompanying this year's report. The administration earlier this month announced that it was filing two new trade cases against China before the World Trade Organization. One of those cases charged that China was lax in enforcing its laws on protecting American copyrights and patents.
Chavez: Venezuela to pull out of IMF, World Bank
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-04-30-venezuela-imf_N.htm
President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would formally pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions. "We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions. Chavez said he wanted to formalize Venezuela's exit from the two bodies "tonight and ask them to return what they owe us." Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year. Chavez made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America overall would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.
RELATED: Venezuela Set to Assume Control of Its Oil Fields
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001861.html
Wolfowitz Says He Is Target of 'Smear' Tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000121.html
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz said yesterday that he is the victim of a "smear campaign" designed to portray him as unethical and an ineffective leader and that he will "not give in to such tactics" by resigning. In a statement to a committee of the bank's executive board on allegations that he violated bank rules by arranging a hefty five-year pay and promotion package for his girlfriend, Wolfowitz said he had followed the institution's rules as he understood them. He said the effort to oust him is part of a "conscious campaign" to undermine his reform efforts and "derail important programs . . . to aid the poor." Wolfowitz's spirited defense, during a two-hour closed-door session with his attorney at his side, marked a clear change in strategy from earlier efforts to mollify his critics with apologies and offers to become a better manager. Instead, Wolfowitz challenged the full 24-member board to examine its own conduct, submitted a sheaf of "exhibits" in evidence, and warned that the "circuslike process" of leaks and public calls for his resignation would give bank donors an excuse not to contribute and make it hard to find someone else willing to take the job.
RELATED: Wolfowitz calls detractors' accusations 'bogus'
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-04-30-bush-backs-wolfowitz_N.htm
Fannie Mae's Former Chief Loses Plea To Move Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001697.html
Former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin D. Raines lost another round in the legal battle over his role in accounting troubles at the mortgage finance giant Friday when an appeals court refused to take the matter out of the hands of a regulator Raines has argued is biased against him. Raines "has not shown a clear and indisputable right to the requested relief," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said without elaborating. Raines is defending himself against administrative charges that he improperly manipulated Fannie Mae's earnings to maximize bonuses from 1998 to 2004. The agency that filed the charges, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, alleged that his misconduct and that of other former executives cost shareholders billions of dollars.
Worker's Rights and Corporate Accountability
Wal-Mart's Union Stance Attacked
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001679.html
Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York, released a report yesterday detailing what it called excessively aggressive tactics by Wal-Mart Stores to stop union organization in its stores. The report is the first comprehensive look at the retailer's anti-union operations, the group said, though much information had previously been reported. Most of Wal-Mart's actions were legal but heavy-handed, the report says, including a rapid-response team to prevent organization, a hotline for store managers and tips on staying "union free." In addition, the report cites more than a dozen rulings against Wal-Mart by the National Labor Relations Board that found that Wal-Mart illegally confiscated union literature, prohibited discussions of unions and retaliated against union supporters.
RELATED: Report Assails Wal-Mart Over Unions
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01labor.html?ref=business
Housing and Homelessness
Accounting Said to Hide Lender Losses
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01account.html?ref=business
In the spring of 1998, the chief financial officer of New Century Financial, a lender to home buyers with blemished credit, wrote an unusual paper describing a then little-known accounting technique. The executive, Edward F. Gotschall, marketed his white paper at industry seminars and conferences, and promoted it to Wall Street analysts as an insider’s look at New Century, according to people who read the paper. New Century was at the time one of the nation’s fastest-growing subprime lenders. Now that technique, called gain on sale, may be coming back to haunt the company, which filed for bankruptcy protection on April 2 after disclosing a month earlier that federal prosecutors and securities regulators were investigating accounting mistakes and stock sales at the company. The company is expected to file restated results for most of 2006 as early as this month. The technique promoted by Mr. Gotschall, who stepped down as chief financial officer in 2006 but continued as vice chairman of the board of directors, allowed the company to report profits before they actually existed. The paper profits were pegged to future earnings from loan sales to institutional investors.
Media
Weekday circulation at daily newspapers falls 2.1%
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2007-04-30-newspaper-circulation-falls_N.htm
Weekday circulation at U.S. daily newspapers fell 2.1% in the latest six-month reporting period, according to figures released Monday, in the latest sign that people are turning to the Internet and other media for news. Comparable figures for Sunday newspapers fell 3.1%, according to the Newspaper Association of America, an industry group. The calculations are based on reports that newspapers deliver to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Among large newspapers, the performance was mixed for the six months ending in March, with several showing gains, most notably The New York Post, which is locked in a fierce competition with the New York Daily News. Those papers had the largest gains among the major dailies, with the Post's average weekday circulation rising 7.6% over the same period a year earlier, while the Daily News rose 1.4%.
Google Calls Viacom Suit on YouTube Unfounded
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/technology/01google.html?ref=business
Responding to Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit over video clips on YouTube, Google said Monday that it would not back off, declaring that the law was on its side. “We are not going to let this lawsuit distract us,” Michael Kwun, managing counsel for litigation at Google, told reporters. In its response to the lawsuit, filed Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Google said that Viacom’s claims were unfounded and asked for a judgment dismissing the complaint.
Education
Warnings On Student Lenders Unheeded
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001930.html
The Bush administration killed a proposal to clamp down on the student loan industry six years ago following allegations that companies sought to shower universities with financial favors to help generate business, according to documents and interviews with government officials. The proposed policy, which Education Department officials drafted near the end of the Clinton presidency and circulated at the start of the Bush administration, represented an early, significant but ultimately abortive government response to a problem that this year has grown into a major controversy. Now, as the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry faces an array of investigations into questionable business practices that some officials believe could have been curtailed by the 2001 proposal, the Education Department has embarked on a new effort to set rules for the industry to prevent conflicts of interest and other abuses.
Science and Technology
Russian space chief says US rejects moon effort
The chief of Russia's space agency said that the United States has rejected a proposal for the two countries to explore the moon together, a Russian news agency reported. A NASA spokesman in Washington said the United States was unaware of any Russian proposal and was perplexed by the space chief's claim. NASA said in December that it would establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Officials with Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, later said they had hoped to join NASA's program, contributing Russian technology and space experience.
Military
Officers Testify Against Accused U.S. Colonel
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043000536.html
A senior U.S. military officer accused of aiding the enemy gave gifts to the daughter of a "high-value" detainee, angering the prisoner by violating cultural norms and acting as a father figure, a witness said Monday in the opening day of a hearing to determine whether the officer will stand trial. Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, an Army reservist who served as a commander at a detention camp in west Baghdad, is accused of nine offenses, including fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee, having an "inappropriate relationship" with a female interpreter, possessing pornography and illegally storing classified documents. Steele, a resident of Prince George County in southeastern Virginia, is also accused of aiding the enemy. It is a rare allegation that, if proved, can be punishable by death. A court liaison said Monday that the accusation against Steele is not currently a capital offense but could be elevated as the case moves forward.
RELATED: Case against U.S. officer in Iraq profiled
Here comes $3 gas again, and it could get worse
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-30-gas-usat_N.htm
If the price at your local gas station isn't topping $3 already, it likely will soon. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $2.971 Monday, up more than a dime from a week ago and the highest since August, according to the Energy Department. A separate survey from motor club AAA found the U.S. average was $2.953 Monday, up nearly 30 cents from a month ago. Oil market experts, including those at Wachovia, Oil Price Information Service and Alaron Trading, said it's just a matter of time before the U.S. average gasoline price tops $3 a gallon. The average price at the pump already is above $3 in 11 states and the District of Columbia. And some said the nationwide record, not adjusted for inflation, of $3.069 will soon be broken. That record was set Sept. 5, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, according to the Energy Department. Adjusted for inflation, the record high was in March 1981, when gasoline prices were $3.223 in today's dollars.
Pentagon study says oil reliance strains military
A new study ordered by the Pentagon warns that the rising cost and dwindling supply of oil -- the lifeblood of fighter jets, warships, and tanks -- will make the US military's ability to respond to hot spots around the world "unsustainable in the long term." The study, produced by a defense consulting firm, concludes that all four branches of the military must "fundamentally transform" their assumptions about energy, including taking immediate steps toward fielding weapons systems and aircraft that run on alternative and renewable fuels. It is "imperative" that the Department of Defense "apply new energy technologies that address alternative supply sources and efficient consumption across all aspects of military operations," according to the report, which was provided to the Globe. Weaning the military from fossil fuels quickly, however, would be a herculean task -- especially because the bulk of the US arsenal, the world's most advanced, is dependent on fossil fuels and many of those military systems have been designed to remain in service for at least several decades.
Feds propose offshore drilling expansion
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-30-offshore-drilling_N.htm
The Interior Department announced a five-year plan Monday that would expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and set a 2011 lease-sale date for waters off the coast of Virginia. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said he included Virginia in his five-year plan at the request of state officials. Drilling in the area has been banned by Congress and the White House, and the lease sale could not go forward unless those bans are eliminated, he said. Kempthorne said his plan incorporates a 50-mile no-drilling buffer zone off Virginia's coastline and establishes another buffer zone at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, called the five-year plan "a positive step forward toward achieving American energy security."
RELATED: Administration Proposes New Energy Drilling
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01drill.html
Coral Is Dying. Can It Be Reborn?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/science/earth/01coral.html?ref=science
Theirs is an uphill battle. Many would say corals globally are already so damaged, and so threatened by further environmental degradation, that there is little chance restoration efforts can turn things around.
Editor’s note: the New York Times has converted to a subscription-based editorial section. We are no longer clipping their op-ed columnists.
Marcus: A Law Day Unto Himself
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001330.html
President Bush wants to wish you a Happy Law Day. He wants you, he says in his 2007 Law Day proclamation, to know that "Our Nation is built upon the rule of law." He wants you to recognize how America's lawyers have "helped make our Nation a shining example of justice." If only the president would practice what he proclaims.
RELATED: Law Day
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/opinion/01tue4.html
Gitmo: still a 'legal black hole'
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-gitmo1may01,0,7490666.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION has a shameful record when it comes to detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base who assert that they are wrongly being held as "enemy combatants." At first, the administration argued that detainees had no right to consult a lawyer, period. Later, it had to disavow a mean-spirited attack by a Pentagon official on lawyers who had dared to represent "terrorists." Now the administration is rightly being criticized for asking a federal court to scale back the detainees' access to their lawyers (only three visits once an attorney has been retained) and to place restrictions on attorney-client mail. The rationale for the crackdown is that lawyers have encouraged a hunger strike and other "threats to security" by informing detainees about events in the outside world, including the war in Lebanon and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Beyond the Bush veto
CONGRESS HAS sent its Iraq funding bill to land at the White House today, exactly four years after President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier flying a "mission accomplished" banner, and hours after the end of a month that saw more than 100 Americans and 1,550 Iraqis killed in the fighting there. Democrats did themselves and the nation no favor in timing the bill to extract the most embarrassment from Bush, since it made them vulnerable to Bush's charge that their bill, requiring that the United States begin drawing down troop levels by October, was little more than political posturing since he had vowed to veto it. Senate majority leader Harry Reid also stumbled by saying the war had been lost. The war was won within a few weeks; it is the occupation that has been lost. Still, Bush has stoked this debate with politics from the first. And, as for timing, there are very few days that offer a platform of positive news from Iraq. Just yesterday, the British reported the largest monthly casualties in four years, and the State Department reported terrorist attacks up 25 percent worldwide.
Robinson: Pulling Over for Prejudice
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001333.html
This just in: Driving while black is still unsafe at any speed, even zero miles per hour. The same goes for driving while brown. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report Sunday showing that white, African American and Hispanic drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police for alleged traffic offenses. In 2005, the year covered by the study, black drivers were actually less likely -- by a tiny margin -- to be stopped by police than were drivers in other groups. You might be tempted to conclude that the constitutional imperative of equal protection had finally been extended to America's streets and highways. But you would be wrong. The study reports that African American and Hispanic drivers who are stopped by police are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched. Specifically, police searched only 3.6 percent of white drivers pulled over in traffic stops, while they searched 9.5 percent of African Americans who obeyed the flashing lights and 8.8 percent of Hispanics.
Holtzman: Alberto Gonzales' safety net
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-holtzman1may01,0,3365495.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
Confirmation hearings for his successor could spawn criminal investigations of the White House.
Arellano: Many migrant marchers have moved on
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-arellano1may01,0,3248195.story?coll=la-opinion-center
MILLIONS OF Latinos surprised the United States a year ago with a kick to the political cojones. Men, women, children and their multiethnic amigos marched through Los Angeles and dozens of other cities, proclaiming to the world that they wanted amnesty for illegal immigrants. The sleeping Latino giant finally awoke from his siesta and caught up to the previous waves of immigrants in assimilating into the United States. Today, perhaps smaller but no-less-enthusiastic crowds will protest anew for the same cause. Anti-immigrant types are already disparaging Latinos for failing to deliver political substance and resorting again to spectacle. Rally organizers, meanwhile, claim that any reduced participation is caused by — take your pick — fear because of the recent migra raids on businesses, the lack of a boogeyman a la Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and his infamous HR 4437, or the impossibility of replicating a once-in-a-lifetime event. But all sides have it wrong. The reason Latinos won't come out in full force this time around is because there's no need. La lucha — the struggle — is almost over.
RELATED: Migratory truths
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-immig1may01,0,1657949.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
RELATED: Greenway: Integrating, tolerating immigrants
To: The Temporarily Able-Bodied
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/opinion/01tue1.html
Just about everyone who works pays taxes into the fund for federal disability benefits. But mercifully, relatively few people ever collect. To qualify, you must be unable to work, and your disability must be of such severity that you’ll be out for at least a year or you’re likely to die from it. Those criteria are tough but necessary to ensure that resources go to the neediest Americans. In the past several years, however, another hurdle has been erected, one that is unacceptable and inhumane. Processing delays, mounting since 2000, have left more than one million applicants languishing without help, some for years.
Sokatch, Myers: 'Never again' for Armenians too
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-myers1may01,0,3937946.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
Several American Jewish groups abandon their anti-genocide zeal when it comes to Turkey's massacre of Armenians.
Olmert's failure of foresight
THE UNSPARING criticism of Israel's prime minister, defense minister, and outgoing army chief of staff in a report released yesterday on last summer's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon suggests that Israeli democracy is capable of avoiding a repetition of previous blunders.
Dionne: The Democrats' Foreign Policy Primary
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001331.html
Niccol? Machiavelli, the 16th-century political realist and schemer, would relish the intricate calculations the three leading Democratic presidential candidates are required to make. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards need to do two things simultaneously: persuade the intensely antiwar majority in the Democratic Party that they despise President Bush's Iraq policies and demonstrate that they would be resolute in dealing with America's foreign foes. Over the past week, that foreign policy dance has produced some riveting moments.
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