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Effective and Ethical Government
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TOP STORIES
National
Bush approval hits 'rough stability': 34%
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-07-bush-poll_N.htm
Americans by nearly 2-1 disapprove of the job President Bush is doing, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. He scores a net disapproval rating in every area of the survey, including the economy and terrorism. His lowest ratings — 30% approval, 67% disapproval — were for his handling of the situation in Iraq. The telephone survey of 1,010 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush's overall standing continuing in the doldrums, at 34% approval, 63% disapproval. The poll's margin of error is +/—3 percentage points. However, Bush hasn't dropped to his lowest ratings ever, as he did in a Newsweek Poll released over the weekend. That survey, taken Wednesday and Thursday, put his approval rating at 28%.
September Could Be Key Deadline in War
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701689.html
Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline. In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq's warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding.
RELATED: House Democrats May Seek Short-Term Financing of War
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/washington/08cong.html?ref=washington
More Iraq war news in NATIONAL/ELECTION, NATIONAL/GOVERNMENT, NATIONAL/FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL/ECONOMY, NATIONAL/MILITARY, COLORADO/TOP STORIES, COLORADO/MILITARY
Christians seek border changes
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/08/christians_seek_border_changes/
A new coalition of more than 100 largely evangelical Christian leaders and organizations asked Congress yesterday to pass bills to strengthen border controls but also give illegal immigrants ways to gain legal residency. The announcement spotlights evangelical leaders' increasingly visible efforts to push for what they say is a more humane policy in keeping with biblical injunctions to show compassion for others. The new group, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, includes members such as the Mennonite Church USA and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which said it represents millions of Latino evangelicals. It includes individuals such as Dr. Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, a megachurch in Longwood, Fla., and Sammy Mah, president of World Relief, an aid group affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.
More immigration policy news in NATIONAL/IMMIGRATION, COLORADO/TOP STORIES, COLORADO/IMMIGRATION
For Democrats, New Challenge in Age-Old Rift
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/washington/08trade.html
Almost nothing rouses as much passion, anger or history for the Democrats as the issue of trade. Defining the rules of engagement in a fiercely competitive global marketplace, trade policy cuts to the heart of the Democrats’ identity, how they view their party’s past and envision its future. It can divide them along regional and economic lines — Midwest vs. Pacific Rim, manufacturing vs. agriculture, Main Street vs. Wall Street. Nobody knows this better than Representative Sander M. Levin, chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade and a 24-year veteran of the House from the suburbs of Detroit. Mr. Levin is one of the newly empowered Democratic leaders trying to find a trade policy that can unite their party and heal a painful rift between those who see a globalized economy as inevitable and good and those who see the cost under current policies, in lost jobs and unsettled lives, as simply too great.
Colorado
Governor lists achievements of his first legislative session
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5525571,00.html
Gov. Bill Ritter said his plan to freeze property tax rates to help public schools faced Republican opposition inside the Capitol, but he's buoyed by "great support from the business community" outside the Dome. "What's, I think, heartening to me is that outside of this building . . . there was bipartisan support for it," a relaxed Ritter said Monday as he ticked off his first legislative session achievements topped by a host of bills to make Colorado a renewable energy powerhouse. "The business community really understood this mill levy stabilization," he added, referring to the school property tax freeze. "They really appreciate, I think, the relationship between higher education and economic development and the impact of going forward without stabilizing the mill levy."
RELATED: Ritter pleased with legislative success
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841746
RELATED: Ritter proud of renewable-energy push
http://www.gazette.com/articles/ritter_22064___article.html/energy_money.html
RELATED: Analysis: Ritter, Penry succeed in '07 legislative session
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_1b_Session_Wrap.html
RELATED: Bills in hand, Gov. Ritter now considers vetoes
Backing grows to shield park
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525676,00.html
A long-running effort to designate Rocky Mountain National Park as a wilderness area leaped forward Monday when Colorado's congressional delegation reported it had reached a compromise on the matter. A statement issued jointly by four members of the delegation - two Republicans and two Democrats - promised all the details at a news conference next Monday at a park campground. Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. Mark Udall, both Democrats, and Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, both Republicans, plan to participate. The quest to make the park a wilderness area dates back three decades, to the Nixon administration. Rep. Mark Udall has carried a bill on the issue every year since 1999. But a variety of hang-ups have prevented the measure from taking effect.
RELATED: Park-protection deal inked
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5840928
RELATED: Lawmakers reach deal on Rocky wilderness designation
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080073
RELATED: Legislators reach accord on park's designation
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/NEWS01/705080352/1002
Chief says he regrets conflict with war protesters
http://www.gazette.com/articles/police_22066___article.html/myers_protesters.html
Colorado Springs police are reviewing policies for handling crowds and civil disobedience after the arrest of seven war protesters, Chief Richard Myers said Monday. Decisions by the protesters and organizers of a St. Patrick’s Day parade resulted in police being “thrust into the middle” of a dispute, the chief said. Myers offered the analysis during a meeting of the Colorado Springs City Council, nearly two months after the March 17 event. “I deeply regret that this incident happened,” Myers said. “It’s not the goal of the police department to be in conflict with any part of this community.” The arrests sparked angry reaction from activists who oppose the U.S. military action in Iraq, including the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission.
Eligible patients may lose access
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5842319
Up to 320,000 clinic patients nationally may be losing Medicaid coverage they are entitled to because of federal rules designed to keep illegal immigrants from getting benefits, a study has found. George Washington University researchers surveyed 300 Medicaid clinics around the country to assess the effect of the 2005 law requiring applicants to prove citizenship before receiving benefits. In Colorado, 15 nonprofit groups operate 115 clinic sites that serve Medicaid and uninsured patients. The Colorado clinics saw a total of 392,000 patients in 2004, the last year for which figures are available. The George Washington study does not estimate the number of those Colorado patients who might lose their Medicaid coverage as a result of the law. Medicaid is a state-federal partnership to provide health care to the very poor, disabled and elderly.
Election
Menconi, Stone 30-1 shots for Congress?
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/70507022
There’s Joan Fitz-Gerald at 3-1, Jared Polis at 12-1 and Will Shafroth at 15-1. But farther down a list handicapping the race for next year’s 2nd Congressional district seat are, side-by-side, two names quite familiar to Eagle County residents: County Commissioner Arn Menconi and former county commissioner Tom Stone. Stone, a Republican, and Menconi, a Democrat, were sometimes adversaries while serving together. Both pegged at 30-1 odds to become U.S. congressman. The odds are at the political Web site coloradopols.com. But there’s one problem with the odds: Menconi says he isn’t going to run. “I think it’s funny that I’m even on the Web site,” Menconi said. Menconi said he considered a run for U.S. Rep. Mark Udall’s seat, but decided against it. A run for that office would be a personal sacrifice, especially considering that he has young children, he said.
Bruce sues city over disallowed ballot measure
http://www.gazette.com/articles/city_22079___article.html/bruce_enterprise.html
Douglas Bruce is back in court, and his opponent is once again the city of Colorado Springs. Bruce filed suit Monday against the city and several officials in El Paso County District Court for not allowing his measure onto the November ballot. Bruce wants to overturn the city’s new stormwater fee, require voter approval to create future enterprise funds and lower the city’s property tax. City Attorney Patricia Kelly, City Clerk Kathryn Young and Municipal Judge Robert Briggle, sitting as the Title Board, ruled Friday the measure has multiple subjects. State law restricts ballot questions to single topics.
Entrance Solution wins OK for last-minute ads
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080039
The end of the Denver Nuggets' playoff hopes last week has led to the temporary easing of one of Aspen's campaign finance regulations. As a result, Jeffrey Evans and his group, Entrance Solution will be allowed to pay for a last-minute advertisement in a local newspaper, which is against city law. The ad is expected to urge voters to reject ballot question No. 1, which would authorize the creation of bus-only lanes on the stretch of highway between Buttermilk and the roundabout at Aspen's western edge.
Effective and Ethical Government
Gift-ban law's effect could be 'chilling'
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5525572,00.html
An ethics expert testified Monday that Colorado's new government gift-ban law goes farther than any in the nation and could have a "chilling effect" on citizens' rights to meet freely with lawmakers. Peggy Kerns, director of the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislators, said Amendment 41 is causing elected officials to distance themselves from legitimate sources of information for fear of being perceived as violating the law. "There is no other state's gift ban that covers hundreds of thousands of people with such a broad brush," Kerns said. The former Colorado lawmaker is the first of nearly a dozen witnesses scheduled to testify during the next two days before Denver District Judge Christine Habas. A group of Coloradans called the First Amendment Council filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to halt the enforcement of Amendment 41.
RELATED: Court bashing for ethics law
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841133
Officials' dispute has town in chaos
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525391,00.html
That yellow police tape on the Victor City Hall last week wasn't marking a crime scene. It was just signaling chaos. Less than two weeks after voters ousted Kathy Justice as mayor and installed Serena Bielz in her place, city government has gone from turmoil to pandemonium in a mistrust-drenched week of lock-changing, allegations of imperiousness and hidden records, and the threat of an audit. It was topped by the city clerk's declaration that he won't write checks - including paychecks - until everything is sorted out. "Next Friday is payday, and if people don't get their paychecks, neither of us is going to be very popular around town," City Clerk Dan Delaney said.
Council calls for budget input
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/NEWS01/705080350/1002
Touting a new budgeting process involving more citizen input, Fort Collins city staff invited residents to share their opinions Monday night on which funding priorities they want the city to focus on. Traditionally, the staff has worked out the finer details of the city's budget and presented a proposed funding plan to City Council in early September.
Round five or six: Windsor still undecided on urban renewal authority
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080079
After one more 90-minute session on how to approach an urban renewal authority, members of the Windsor Town Board are no closer to agreeing than they were more than a year ago when the process started. At the heart of the problem is the Windsor-Severance Fire Protection District, which has stressed its opposition to the plan based on projected revenue losses over the next 25 years. And now the Windsor-Severance Library District has thrown its coffers into the ring. Urban renewal is designed to improve the appearance of a town by redirecting a portion of money collected from property taxes and sales taxes to a board of officers who use the money to revitalize areas that are deteriorating.
Civil Liberties and Equality
Deal on table for suspect
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/hate-crime-deal-on-table-for-suspect/
A University of Colorado student charged with a hate crime after a fight with two gay men in March has reached a tentative deal with prosecutors. Eric William Schorling, 21, appeared in a brief court hearing Monday. His defense attorney, Michael Cohen, told Judge Noel E. Blum that he has reached a tentative disposition in the case. Blum then set an arraignment hearing for June 1. Outside the courtroom, Cohen declined to comment on the terms of the deal. Schorling, who was charged in March with a bias-motivated crime, also had no comment. Police say Schorling and another CU student, Adam Michael Perez, made hateful comments early March 11 to Justin King, 23, and his friend as they walked along a sidewalk at 10th and Pearl streets in Boulder. King said he had playfully wrapped his arm around his friend for a moment and then heard a slur and hateful chatter from behind. After a short verbal exchange, police said, one of the men pushed King, and they began fighting. The attack was one of two suspected hate crimes Boulder police responded to that weekend, and the third of the year.
Tribe says flags disrespected on cranes
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/70507025
The Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council has prohibited either a U.S. flag or, for that matter, a tribal flag, on top of construction cranes on the reservation, located in the Four Corners. Clement C. Frost, the tribal chairman, told the Durango Herald that he rejects using flags atop cranes as wind indicators — the use purported by the contractor — as inappropriate. The tribal leaders believed that flags should only be flown in places of honor, he said. The flag flown atop a crane being used to construct a casino on the reservation was not being treated with respect, Frost said. “It blew off the crane two times and hit the ground,” he said. “I, as a veteran, believe that you never let your flag touch the ground. Even when you take it off the pole, you do not let it hit the ground. Even when you carry it during wartime, you don’t let it hit the ground.” The flag prohibition caused some people to say that the tribe is anti-American, he said.
Immigration
Graffiti threat against immigrants spurs increased patrols
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525389,00.html
The date and time passed without incident, but the fears prompted by a threat on the wall of a portable toilet have not. The threat was specific, indicating that all Mexicans working at the Snowmass Base Village construction site at 2:15 p.m. last Friday would be shot. Police would not discuss any other details, but responded in such a way as to indicate they took it seriously, increasing patrols throughout the week and all day Friday. Karen Sherman Perez was relieved. As part of the Western Colorado Justice for Immigrants Committee, she works on the Western Slope for immigrant rights and legislative reforms. "An event like that is unsettling," Perez told the Aspen Times. "When you have any sort of racial slurs and comments like that, I think it's something that affects everyone."
Ritter: Concerns about driver's license ID bill
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/ritter-concerns-about-drivers-license-id-bill/
Now that the Legislature is over, Gov. Bill Ritter on Monday said he wants more discussion on bills that concern him, including a bill that opponents say would significantly weaken the identity documents required to get a Colorado driver's license. "We have things on our desk that we're looking at, things where we've heard from both sides and I want some additional conversation on that," Ritter said at a meeting with reporters to review the legislative session that ended on Friday. Ritter said he has 30 days after the end of the session to discuss controversial legislation.
RELATED: Ritter ponders ID legislation
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/14
Health Care and Public Safety
Local official to aid in recovery effort
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525464,00.html
A member of the Denver regional Federal Emergency Management Agency office was traveling Monday to help with tornado recovery efforts. Pete Bakersky, who will be based in Lincoln, Neb., will be in charge of FEMA's urban search and rescue operations in Greensburg, Kan., according to FEMA spokesman Jerry DeFelice.
RELATED: Durango’s hot-shot team goes to Kansas for disaster relief
RELATED: Kansas tornado saddens Holly residents
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/9
Levee breaks; homes, businesses flooded
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525967,00.html
Water up to 3 feet deep flooded the foundations of a dozen houses Monday in Pueblo after a levee along Fountain Creek was breached. At least two businesses also were flooded, and water spilled across a low-lying stretch of Colorado 47. The water had receded from homes and businesses by Monday evening, but authorities were recommending that residents spend the night elsewhere after water samples showed high levels of E. coli and other bacteria, said Woody Percival, of the Pueblo Fire Department. The creek has been running high because of runoff from recent rain and snow. Water from the creek filled a containment area on the north end of the city and spread across a road to houses in a low-lying area, police Capt. Richard Goddard said.
RELATED: Hole in Pueblo levee floods basin
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5840929
RELATED: 16 homes, businesses damaged by water
http://www.gazette.com/articles/water_22065___article.html/levee_pueblo.html
RELATED: Fountain Creek floods as embankment fails
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/1
RELATED: Springs' area rain fueled flooding
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/5
Money for public safety stretched thin
http://www.gazette.com/articles/fire_22067___article.html/police_tax.html
A public-safety sales tax approved by Colorado Springs voters in 2001 is stretched to the limit, leaving future police and fire needs unfunded. Although the .4-cent tax is permanent, the city’s ability to build new police and fire facilities shrinks as the city pumps more of the tax money into personnel and building maintenance. The tax is paying for 60 new firefighters and 80 new police officers; it also built two police substations and several fire stations and other facilities. “As we hire firefighters and police officers, money available for capital goes down,” said Deputy Fire Chief Steve Cox. “There’s a limit to what this tax can do.”
Glenwood PD cracking down on smokers
http://postindependent.com/article/20070508/VALLEYNEWS/105080027
There can be no butts about it. At least, no cigarettes near business entrances. Two people were cited for inhaling burning tobacco within 15 feet of downtown bar doorways early Monday morning in Glenwood Springs. The citations suggest police are stepping up enforcement of the indoor smoking ban. There have been three Glenwood Springs citations since the indoor smoking ban took effect last July. "We haven't had the staffing to do it on as consistent and proactive a basis as people would like us to," Police Chief Terry Wilson said. He's instructed his officers to look into the issue more if they have time, although it's not exactly the number-one crime police hope to stop. Some citizens have been vocal about wanting police to enforce the ban. "We have a few people that have been distinctly aggressive in their desire to enforce that issue," Wilson said.
Alamosa woman's death blamed on hantavirus
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/10
A 28-year old Alamosa County woman has died after contracting hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, according to the Alamosa County Nursing Service. Julie Geiser, the service's director, declined to release the victim's identity or the date on which she died. The woman was the year's first recorded case of the hantavirus, which is spread through exposure to infected deer mice. People can be infected by breathing in the virus during direct contact with the rodent or when disturbing dust and feces from their nests or other contaminated surfaces.
Plague hits metro squirrels
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525966,00.html
Plague now has hit squirrels in three metro Denver counties, prompting health officials to again remind people to protect themselves and their pets. Plague is common in prairie dogs, but the last time there was an outbreak among squirrels in metro Denver was 1968. The latest confirmed case of plague was in a dead squirrel found Friday near Cherry Creek Reservoir in the Arapahoe County section of Aurora, and brings the total to 15. Thirteen squirrels dead with the plague were found near the zoo in Denver, and one was found in Jefferson County. On Monday, Boulder Parks officials closed Tom Watson Park on North 63rd Street to test for bubonic plague in prairie dogs there. They became concerned when the active prairie dog colonies appeared unusually quiet. Plague doesn't seem to affect dogs much, but it can be fatal in cats and also fatal in humans, if untreated.
Animal shelter in Thornton being probed
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841136
Police are investigating complaints that conditions at the Mile Hi Humane Society animal shelter are filthy and dangerous to the dogs, cats and horses being housed there. Commerce City police began their probe of the shelter at the urging of Councilwoman Tracey Snyder, who visited Mile Hi in February after hearing from Commerce City residents. The city contracts with the shelter.
Crime and Penal Reform
Colo. U.S. attorney wants federal courts in Springs, elsewhere
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/105070059
Colorado's top federal prosecutor doesn't think it's right that the only U.S. district courthouse in the state is in Denver, and he wants to see courtrooms and judges placed in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Durango. "It's not fair to the rest of the state," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid told The Denver Post in Monday's editions. "It creates distortions in justice." Federal courtrooms and magistrates are available in each of those three cities now, and U.S. district judges last year traveled to Durango for three jury trials and to Grand Junction for two.
Aurora cops, citizens open hearts
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525969,00.html
The cops had guns on their utility belts, but they wore their hearts on their sleeves. In the basement of New Beginnings Cathedral of Worship, about 30 Aurora police officers held what amounted to a group therapy session Monday night with about 60 citizens who came to discuss race relations. For four hours, in small groups and as a whole, they talked about how the police and the community were getting along. The evening was the first part of a four-day series of forums aimed at smoothing race relations in the city after a series of high-profile clashes between white officers and black citizens.
RELATED: Aurora police, residents meet
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5842161
DA won’t seek death penalty in cop’s slaying
http://www.gazette.com/articles/death_22033___article.html/jensen_colorado.html
Backed by the widow of slain Colorado Springs police detective Jared Jensen, the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Monday that it will not seek the death penalty in his killing. Jereme Lamberth, 31, is charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 22, 2006, shooting death of Jensen. The district attorney based the decision not to seek the death penalty in part on Lamberth scoring 69 on an IQ test. Anyone below 70 is considered mentally retarded, and Colorado law prohibits executing the mentally retarded.
Child-care rule a hurdle
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841450
Thousands of Coloradans who get state aid for providing in-home day care to the children of relatives or friends are refusing to undergo the criminal background checks required by a new state law. As a result, 70 percent of the people caring for 7,662 children and getting payments under the state's Child Care Assistance Program in 2006 are expected to be ineligible for additional money, state human-services officials said. The remaining providers who agree to the background checks will get the payments if they pass. A law that took effect in September requires day-care providers who are exempt from licensing requirements to pass a background check in order to get funding for child care.
Dad assails murderer's Web page
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525960,00.html
The father of an 18-year-old murder victim is furious that the man found guilty of killing her has a Web page where he asks women to correspond with him in prison. "I cannot believe they have a man in prison for murder, and the state of Colorado is letting him troll for women," Terry Vernon told the Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction. His daughter, Coty Vernon, disappeared in February 1998 outside DeBeque, about 170 miles west of Denver. An elk hunter found her remains nearly five years later. Authorities said she was killed with a sharp instrument, possibly stabbed to death. Jason Garner, who had gone to a party with her that night, was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. He told police he awoke the morning after the party on a dirt road not knowing where he was, and that Coty Vernon was missing.
RELATED: Killer's Web foray draws dad's wrath
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841789
Bust nets $1.1 million in pot
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5524730,00.html
Two Larimer County men were arrested last week, accused of running marijuana "grow houses" with nearly 2,000 plants and more than 200 pounds of marijuana. The marijuana, seized during raids at four homes on May 4, has "a conservative street value" of $1.1. million, according to a press release issued by the Larimer County Sheriff's Office today. Investigators also found 28 guns, some of them loaded.
RELATED: Million-dollar drug bust
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/NEWS01/705080353/1002
RELATED: Windsor man arrested in one of Larimer County's largest marijuana busts
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105070111
30 vehicles vandalized at airport park-n-Ride
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525963,00.html
Two vehicles at the Airport Boulevard/40th Avenue lot just east of Peña Boulevard were discovered damaged Saturday and another 28 on Sunday morning, RTD officials said Monday.
Economy
Ski areas in Rockies set visitor record
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5525348,00.html
Ski areas in the Rocky Mountain region fared better than their counterparts across the country in the latest season, according to preliminary data released Monday by the industry's national trade group. Overall, U.S. ski areas drew 54.8 million visitors, a drop of 6.9 percent from last year's record-breaking 58.9 visits, the National Ski Areas Association reported. The results were dragged down early in the season by warm weather, but ski areas in the East "roared back" later, according to Michael Berry, association president.
Qwest ranks low for executive pay vs. return
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5525401,00.html
Qwest Communications is ranked among the 12 worst U.S. corporations in terms of the huge gap between executive compensation and shareholder performance, according to a respected independent research firm. The Corporate Library report lists Home Depot, Pfizer, Time Warner Inc., Verizon Communications and Wal-Mart as "pay for failure" companies for the second consecutive year. Qwest is named with Abbott Laboratories and Wyeth as "pay for failure near misses." The Corporate Library, based in Portland, Maine, lists Qwest CEO Dick Notebaert as getting $44.5 million of compensation in the past two fiscal years, while the shareholder return since 2001 is negative 40.8 percent.
As usual, options surge prior to offer for First Data
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_5525375,00.html
Not too surprisingly, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' $26 billion offer for First Data was preceded by a 650 percent increase in options during the three days prior to the April 2 announcement. Whenever KKR, TPG Inc. and Bain Capital LLC meet behind closed doors to mount the world's biggest leveraged buyouts, their deals already are common knowledge in the stock options market. Options trading jumped an average of 221 percent in the three days before the 17 biggest U.S. takeovers of the past year were disclosed, compared with the average for the previous 50 days, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Cable now pitching bundles to business
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5840998
After luring millions of residential phone customers from Baby Bells such as Qwest in recent years, cable companies have a new target for their triple play of video, voice and Internet services: businesses. Stamford, Conn.-based Time Warner Cable launched its commercial phone service in a handful of cities about three weeks ago and will expand to a majority of its markets throughout the year, spokesman Justin Venech said Monday. Philadelphia-based Comcast isn't far behind. "Now that the rollout of our residential triple play offer is complete, we will begin to roll out our commercial version," Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said in an e-mail Monday.
Economy signals hope and gloom
http://www.gazette.com/articles/colorado_22070___article.html/march_percent.html
Sales tax collections on March sales in Colorado Springs jumped to a 10-month high because of a surge in hotel bookings and revenue generated by one-time audits. But the good news may be short-lived.
RELATED: March weak for [Aspen] sales tax revenues
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080040
Heavy hitter hits town
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_5525487,00.html
Colorado has landed a U.S. corporate headquarters that owns one of the most valuable assets in the world. And yet the office is staffed by only 14 people. The company? Vodafone Americas Inc., which manages the company's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless. The wireless carrier generated $9.6 billion of operating income on $38 billion of revenues last year. Vodafone Americas recently relocated its U.S. headquarters from Walnut Creek , Calif., to 18th and Champa streets downtown. The office is modest - 6,000 square feet on the 17th floor of Denver Place's South Tower. That's how Vodafone wants it.
Calpers asks Level 3 owners to ease removal of directors
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5841112
The California Public Employees' Retirement System is recommending that Level 3 Communications Inc. investors vote for a proposal that would make it easier for them to remove company directors. Calpers, the largest U.S. public pension fund, told Level 3 investors in a letter that it wants to eliminate the so-called supermajority currently required to fire board members. Calpers holds 5.6 million Level 3 shares.
W. Slope freeze dooms some fruit crops
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841788
April's fickle frosts have robbed some growers of their fruit crops on the Western Slope but left others untouched. Arvin Stahl knew his season was over on April 11, when the thermometer dropped to 20 degrees around Paonia. Even Stahl's wind machines couldn't save his 50 acres of apples, peaches, apricots, plums, pears and sweet cherries. The trees had bloomed two weeks early, after temperatures had climbed into the 80s in March. They were at their most vulnerable when the April cold front settled in for nights on end. "I'm one of the unlucky fellows this year," said Stahl, whose family has grown fruit since 1924 and loses a crop to frost about once every decade.
Silt Co-op closing is another sign of the declining agricultural lifestyle
http://postindependent.com/article/20070508/VALLEYNEWS/105080029
An icon of the rural American lifestyle is fading away in Silt. A farm and ranch supply store is closing. To a lot of people it's a sad sign of changing times and the downturn of the agriculture lifestyle. The Silt Co-op is in the midst of its closeout sale with 50 percent off most items until May 31 - its last day. "It's depressing," said Dawn Bailey, who works at the adjacent Sinclair station. "It's more loss of our agriculture."
Land fight in Telluride, Colo., enters 11th hour
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-07-telluride_N.htm
Open-space advocates in Telluride, Colo., one of the Rockies' most picturesque resorts, are on the brink of winning a decades-long battle to spare from development the scenic meadows at the town entrance. But a pending court appeal by the California industrialist who owns the 573-acre site could annul or delay their victory for years. A frantic three-month effort to raise $50 million to buy the coveted "valley floor" parcel is $1.5 million short. The deadline is Wednesday. Campaign director Hilary White says she is "cautiously optimistic" that last-minute donors will push the fund drive over the top. Contributions have come from more than 1,600 people in 45 states and seven countries. At least 35 benefactors have made six- and seven-figure gifts, one for $5 million.
RELATED: Judge cans lawyers’ VF gambit
http://telluridegateway.com/articles/2007/05/08/news/news01.txt
Housing and Homelessness
Kids don't go halfway in collecting quarters
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525958,00.html
One student donated $67 that she had in her piggy bank. Another put together a fashion show at school and charged $5 per ticket. And still another stood outside a supermarket for four hours collecting donations. Those students and others had one goal: to raise thousands of dollars in quarters to feed homeless children in Denver. "This teaches them about philanthropy and helping others," said Tammy Cunningham, who owns Strings Restaurant in Denver with her husband, Noel.
RELATED: 25 cents for big change
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841137
Skico housing plan jolts the midvalley
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080035
Part of the Aspen Skiing Co.'s plan to ease its affordable-housing crisis could displace more than 100 residents from an existing apartment complex in El Jebel. The Skico announced Monday that it has a contract to purchase the 64-unit Sopris View Apartments on Valley Road, across from Crown Mountain Park and just downvalley from the old Fitzsimmons carwash. Existing tenants learned late last week that they will have at least one year from the closing date to find alternative housing, Jim Laing, Skico vice president of human resources said Monday. Closing is anticipated in 60 to 90 days.
Workforce Forum Series addresses issue of workforce housing
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/may/08/workforce_forum_series_addresses_issue_workforce_h/
“How do you recruit people to come to town to work for your company if they can’t afford a place to live?” asked Riley Polumbus, communications director for the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association. “Obviously the current construction is part of that, but there are other businesses that have challenges housing their workforce as well.” The Steamboat Springs Chamber Economic Develop-ment Council initiated the Workforce Forum Series in response to results it received from its annual member survey.
Media
Singleton becomes AP board chairman
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5838491
W. Dean Singleton took over as chairman of The Associated Press today, succeeding Burl Osborne, who is stepping down after five years as he retires from the news cooperative's board of directors. Singleton, vice chairman and CEO of MediaNews Group Inc., was formally elected to the chairmanship by the board following the AP's annual meeting. Denver-based MediaNews is the nation's fourth-largest newspaper publisher and owns The Denver Post.
Education
Denver teachers union says talks stalled
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_5525961,00.html
The Denver teachers union declared Monday it had reached an impasse with the school district in current contract negotiations. The impasse means that Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association will seek a neutral third party to try to resolve any of the issues that are keeping an agreement from being reached. Both sides expressed disappointment Monday night that they had reached an impasse but defended their negotiating positions as they try to recruit and retain teachers amid dwindling enrollment and competition with suburban, charter and private schools.
RELATED: Teachers, DPS at impasse on new contract
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5842452
More math on the minds of officials
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/boulder-valley-school-district-more-math-on-the/
Boulder Valley students may be expected to bulk up on math. A task force is recommending that the district increase its math graduation requirement from two years to three years, requiring students to get through at least geometry. Now, students only need algebra. The new requirements would start with the class of 2012, this year's seventh-graders. "They felt that the bar needed to be raised in mathematics," said Judy Skupa, Boulder Valley assistant superintendent for learning services.
CSU scientist awarded fulbright scholarship
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070508/NEWS/70507007
Niall Hanan, Colorado State University research scientist from the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar to spend a year in Mali working with local universities studying the ecological dynamics of West African savannas. The prestigious Fulbright program sends 800 U.S. faculty and professionals abroad each year to lecture and conduct research in a variety of academic and professional fields.
CMC meeting held in ‘Boat
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/may/08/cmc_meeting_held_boat/
Kerry Hart knows Steamboat Springs has a perception of Colorado Mountain College, and he’s out to change it. On Monday the dean of CMC’s Alpine Campus addres-sed the CMC Board of Trustees and CMC President Bob Spuhler in one of the few meetings held in Steamboat each year. Hart wants the public and the students at CMC to understand the community college overlooking downtown Steamboat is not a haven for skiers and snowboarders disinterested in their academic future.
Teacher's aid: Keep your cool
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841749
In her 28 years of teaching, Mary Beth Solano has been screamed at by hostile parents, hit with a rock thrown by a scared kindergartner and forced to break up classroom brawls. But never has the veteran teacher attacked a child in response. "I would never hit a child, slap (a student) or anything like that," said Solano, an elementary teacher in the Poudre School District. Instead, she goes "into my calm mode" to settle down insubordinate kids. Many teachers say it's common sense to keep cool. Yet, across the nation, a handful of teachers have made headlines for their handling of students.
Sex ed, health class revamped
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16200
The St. Vrain Valley School District’s health curriculum policy contradicts itself, and the district is trying to change that. The policy, available online, reads: “The board is committed to a comprehensive health education program as an integral part of each student’s general education.” Two paragraphs later, the policy says the goal of the “directive abstinence” approach is to foster healthy behavior. It continues: “(This approach) includes giving contraceptive information by emphasizing sexual activity as risk-taking behavior. Contraceptive information given shall include failure rate of the various methods and risks including sexually transmitted diseases, sterility, birth defects and death. No ‘safe sex’ message will be given and there will be no demonstrations on the use of contraceptives.”
Spanking kids for discipline has its supporters and critics
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16199
State law allows parents and teachers to administer disciplinary spankings, but public and even Catholic schools forbid it. The Bible and some Christian groups call on mom and dad to punish “with the rod,” while secular parenting experts say spanking teaches aggression and might lead to child abuse. Every parent seems to have strong opinions on whether spanking should have a place in modern child rearing. If they think it does, they also have opinions about the appropriate ages for spanking and under which circumstances kids should be spanked.
Student convicted of hacking into school computer to change grades
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525177,00.html
A 17-year-old Golden High School student accused of hacking into computers at the school and changing grades has been sentenced to one year probation with 80 hours of community service. The boy pleaded guilty and was sentenced last Wednesday as a juvenile for the unlawful computer access and altering, Pam Russell, spokesperson for the Jefferson County district attorney's office, said today. Golden police arrested the teen in February after a Jan. 29 break-in at the high school. The teen broke a skylight to get into the school and then broke into his counselor's office, Russell said.
Officers patrol La Jara school
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5842455
Sheriff's deputies and state troopers patrolled the campus of Centauri High School in La Jara on Monday following reports of racial tensions and rumors of gun-toting students, North Conejos school board President Leroy Salazar said. The reports led to the closing of the school Friday morning and postponing that night's prom, Salazar said. He said classes resumed Monday, but parental permission was required for a student to leave the 323-student school.
MCHS students charged
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26479
Two Craig juveniles who allegedly developed a "hit list" and made threats of school violence against Moffat County High School were arrested Friday and have been charged in juvenile court, the Craig Police Department announced.
Judges hear appeal of ruling in CU sex-scandal lawsuit
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525385,00.html
Three federal appeals court judges, hearing the case of two women who allege they were the victims of systemic sexual harassment at the University of Colorado, peppered attorneys for both sides with questions Monday in a session that went twice its scheduled time. The judges, Harris Hartz, Monroe McKay and Neil Gorsuch, must consider whether U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn erred when he dismissed the women's lawsuit in March 2005. The suit was filed under the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX.
RELATED: Simpson case goes into court for appeal
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/simpson-case-goes-into-court-for-appeal/
RELATED: U.S. judges hear duo's appeal
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841748
Military
Vets return to Vietnam in search of healing
http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=16204
Kevin Boyle and Les Schlect will lead a group of Vietnam veterans back to the country in February to help them seek healing and freedom from the trauma of war. Boyle served in the Army in Vietnam. After his tour of duty ended in 1972, he was emotionally and mentally traumatized. But he returned to Vietnam in October to find peace and healing. “The image of trauma is frozen, and the real challenge is, how do you get to that place where you move past that?” Boyle said. Upon his return to Vietnam, Boyle found the country was at peace. That helped him find healing.
Flag from Baghdad flies again
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/05/07/local_news/1.txt
It hasn’t been flown since it was raised in the Baghdad airport in 2003, but on Sunday, this American flag flapped in the wind once again. “This flag has a lot of meaning and history behind it,” said retired U.S. Air Force Senior Vice Commander Orville Kline, member of the Disabled American Veterans chapter 17. Community members and local officials gathered Sunday afternoon for the grand opening of the Sunrise Creek Senior Living Community, located at 1968 Sunrise Drive off of Niagara Road.
Religion
Pie-ty a no-show in church fracas
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525956,00.html
The priest was in the middle of his sermon Sunday when Christina Crippen noticed a man sidle in the door of her Colorado Springs church, holding a large pinstriped box. "I was subconsciously watching him," the 17-year-old choir member recalled Monday, "and I was thinking, 'Hmmm, I wonder what he's doing?' " Seconds later, she found out. The intruder stepped within a few feet of the pulpit and hurled a pie at the Rev. Don Armstrong, the beleaguered pastor of Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish - a man not unfamiliar these days with being the target of attention. Armstrong ducked behind the pulpit. The pie sailed over his head and landed within inches of the choir stall where Crippen and the choir watched aghast. "See, I'm quick, aren't I?" Armstrong cracked, according to Crippen and several other accounts.
Energy Policy
Land of division
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26475
For nearly three years the Resource Management Plan used by the Bureau of Land Management to regulate the use of federal lands in Northwest Colorado has been receiving input for revision. Groups have invested hours coming up with four alternatives in a draft of the plan, with the public input period ending May 16. When discussing certain areas -- especially the Vermillion Basin -- the differences between interested groups remain as far apart as the uses for the land itself.
RELATED: Enviros say time running out for 'the next Roan Plateau’
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_1A_Vermillion_Basin.html
Colorado, Wyoming want more time to review oil shale plan
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/105070070
The governors of Wyoming and Colorado want federal officials to allow more than the allotted two weeks for the states to study and comment on a draft environmental review of commercial-scale oil shale development proposed in the region. Bill Ritter of Colorado and Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming sent letters last month calling the May 15-29 review period "unacceptable" and "unrealistic." Colorado natural resources chief Harris Sherman and Jim Martin, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, were in Washington to meet with Interior Department officials, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Monday.
Ethanol-based fuel trims cost of filling up
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/energy/article/0,2777,DRMN_23914_5525402,00.html
It's rare these days to find someone actually smiling while they fill their tank with gas, especially with prices rising past $3 a gallon. But drivers filling up with E-85 are smiling, or at least smirking. On Monday, the handful of gas stations in metro Denver with E-85 pumps priced the corn ethanol-based fuel as much as 95 cents per gallon cheaper than regular unleaded gas. E-85 is a blended fuel containing 85 percent ethanol, a fuel derived from corn, and 15 percent regular gas. "I fill my tank with E-85 twice a week. I feel pretty good about it," said David Eise, 41, while filling up with E-85 at the Conoco station at 295 S. Broadway. "I can save $250 and $300 per month. . . . I have four kids at home, you know." The station was selling E-85 for $2.199 a gallon while regular sold for $3.149 a gallon.
RELATED: Tanks a lot: Gas hits high
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5841449
RELATED: State gas prices hit record high
http://craigdailypress.com/section/localnews/story/26476
RELATED: Gas prices in Greeley near record high, are eclipsed statewide
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080075
RELATED: Gas headed toward $4 a gallon
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/70507024
Energy workers bring remote store back to life
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_Store_reopens.html
Halfway between Rifle and Meeker on Colorado Highway 13 is a wide open space, broken up only by constant energy industry traffic turning off and onto Rio Blanco County Road 5. That traffic has brought a long-vacant building back to life as the Rio Blanco Store and Cafe.
Transportation and Infrastructure
Taxis to come under scrutiny
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5841002
Prompted in part by Denver's rising profile as a convention destination, the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau on Monday said it will spearhead an in-depth study of the local taxicab industry. "Taxi drivers are the first line of defense that we have in greeting visitors," said convention bureau president Richard Scharf. "This industry is extremely important to Denver's economy." The study will focus on numerous issues surrounding Denver's taxi industry, including regulatory issues like the high barriers to starting a new company and relations between drivers and cab companies. It will also look at key consumer issues like service levels, demand, and the professionalism and courtesy of drivers.
Springs struggling to fix roads
http://www.gazette.com/articles/city_22061___article.html/streets_roads.html
The Colorado Springs City Council may tap into emergency funds to repair a handful of major roads damaged by the harsh winter. That was the indication some council members gave Monday after Saleem Khattak, manager of the Street Division, proposed a devil’s bargain to fix the unanticipated problems. Khattak told council members that Research Parkway, Briargate Boulevard, Platte Avenue and Fontanero Street were hard hit by the freeze-thaw cycle, and portions of each road need to be resurfaced.
Energy grants help bridge funding gaps
http://postindependent.com/article/20070508/VALLEYNEWS/105080031
Bridge projects in Glenwood Springs and Rifle will receive a total of $900,000 from Colorado's energy impact fund program. Glenwood received $500,000 for its proposed south bridge project and Rifle got $400,000 to improve its Third Street Bridge over Rifle Creek. The District Attorney's Office also received an $85,000 grant for case management in Garfield County, bringing to nearly $1 million the amount of local funding provided in the latest energy impact fund distribution. Rifle was turned down in its request for funding for a parks maintenance facility.
County survey: Some driven to dissatisfaction
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_1b_county_survey.html
People are sick of driving in Mesa County, according to a new survey conducted by the county. Between 2005, when the last survey was conducted, and this year, satisfaction among Mesa County drivers has dropped, according to results released Monday of the 2007 Citizen Attitude Survey.
McClure Pass to close today and Wednesday
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_McClure_Pass_update.html
Daytime traffic was allowed through a large rockslide area south of McClure Pass on Colorado Highway 133 this weekend, the Colorado Department of Transportation said. A single lane of alternating traffic was opened after crews blasted and removed rocks and debris brought down in an April 19 rockslide, CDOT spokeswoman Nancy Shanks said. Unstable slopes were also cleared of potential hazards, she said.
Did you bike to work today? City says 21 percent did, while bicycle groups disagree
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/did-you-bike-to-work-today-city-says-21-percent/
Some bike activists are trying to deflate the city's claim that a fifth of Boulder's commuters get to work on two wheels. The real number, they say, is much lower. But Boulder's transportation officials say they're confident their data is solid. "No matter how you slice and dice it, that number just doesn't make sense," said John Schwenker, a spokesman for Boulder Bicycle Commuters. In a lively discussion on the group's e-mail list, bikers said there's almost no way that there's one bicyclist on the road or path for every four people behind the wheel.
Pass now part of scenic byway
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070508/NEWS/105080031
It's official: The drive over Independence Pass is a scenic one. The Colorado Transportation Commission has approved the extension of the Top of the Rockies scenic byway route by about 40 miles to take in Independence Pass, east of Aspen, and the town itself - a move endorsed by local elected officials and recommended by the state's Scenic and Historic Byway Commission. The extended route follows Highway 82 over the pass between Twin Lakes and Aspen, ending west of Aspen at the Maroon Creek bridge. The pass, closed for the winter season, is scheduled to reopen May 24, weather permitting.
Environment and Conservation
Vail eco-terrorists struck with patience, precision
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525968,00.html
William Rodgers hiked up and down Vail Mountain for two days in mid-October 1998, carrying cans of fuel from a hiding place partway up the mountain to an area near the top where he would later set structures on fire, newly filed court documents state. Waiting in a truck on a logging road about an hour away was Chelsea Gerlach, the only member of a cell of radical environmental activists known as The Family who had not yet abandoned the arson plan. With the fuel in place, Gerlach drove Rodgers to a store outside Vail, where he bought sponges, barbecue lighter sticks and roadside flares, according to court records. Then she drove him back to the mountain. Documents filed in federal court in Oregon give one of the most detailed accounts yet of the arson, which destroyed eight structures and stood for five years as the nation's most costly case of eco-vandalism.
Indonesians to appeal Newmont pollution case
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5840886
Newmont Mining Corp., one of the world's largest gold producers, said Monday that Indonesian prosecutors plan to appeal its acquittal on charges of polluting a bay off Sulawesi Island. A Manado District Court judge dismissed the case against Denver-based Newmont and executive Richard Ness last month, ruling that evidence presented at trial showed waste rock dumped into Buyat Bay by the company's now-defunct mine did not exceed government standards. The prosecutors informed Newmont of their intent to appeal Monday, reaffirming a statement they made after the verdict was issued. They have 14 days to detail grounds for their appeal, Newmont spokesman Omar Jabara said. Authorities alleged the rock deposited into Buyat Bay by Newmont and Ness exceeded toxic standards outlined in a 2000 permit and caused some villagers to become ill. A police report showed mercury and arsenic levels in the bay were higher than national standards, but tests by the World Health Organization, government agencies and several independent groups found that pollutants in the water were within normal limits.
Rocky Flats water to be tested
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525959,00.html
Department of Energy officials on Monday said they will send samples of water collected at Rocky Flats to a laboratory in New Mexico to determine if elevated levels of uranium in the samples come from weapons production or are naturally occurring. Testing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory will pinpoint the isotope, or the exact atomic element, in the samples from the site where plutonium bomb triggers were made from the 1950s until 1989. The levels exceed the limits set by the Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement.
Parks may hike entrance fees in ’09
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_1A_park_fees.html
All you Serpent’s Trail runners out there, get your greenbacks ready: Colorado National Monument may increase the cost of its annual passes by 50 percent and more than double its entrance fees. A one-week pass to the monument today will cost you $7, up from $5 in 2005. In 2009, it could cost you $15. The monument’s annual pass may rise from $20 to $30. At Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which a month ago raised its entrance fee from $8 to $15 per vehicle, the entrance fee is slated to increase to $20 per car in 2009. The National Park Service believes tourists and daily visitors to the monument and Black Canyon National Park are getting a bargain for their buck. So, in an attempt to standardize entrance fees and bring them up to market value, visits to national parks nationwide could have a much higher price tag by 2009.
RELATED: Black Canyon of the Gunnison one of 11 parks to see increase
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2007/05/07/local_news/3.txt
Officials suspend public comment on forest plan
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/05/08/5_8_1b_GMUG_Comments.html
The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests are suspending public comment on a proposed forest management plan after a March federal court decision. The decision said the 2005 federal rule under which the forest plan was created is illegal.
Snowpack close to last year's level
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/6
Snowmelt has begun in earnest in Colorado, and the remaining snowpack in the mountains is only 68 percent of the long-term average for May 1, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. That is very close to the snowpack at this time last year. River basins east of the Continental Divide had another month of favorable precipitation in April, according to Allen Green, state conservationist with the NRCS. Snowpack percentages either remained near last month's figures or increased slightly in the South Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande River basins by May 1.
Settlement averts trial in water court
http://pueblochieftain.com/metro/1178631458/8
A rare water court trial scheduled to begin today has been canceled because the parties have settled their differences. Water Referee Mardell DiDomenico said she received news of the settlement on Monday, although details of the final agreement haven't been filed in court yet. The Arkansas Groundwater Users Association sought to change the use of its rights in the Excelsior Ditch to augmentation for well pumping. Farmers who irrigate with wells buy augmentation water to replace what they pumped in the river system.
Watershed draft clarifies regulations for ranchers
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2007/may/08/watershed_draft_clarifies_regulations_ranchers/
A controversial watershed ordinance has been revised and once again is scheduled for action by the Steamboat Springs City Council. At a joint meeting Monday in the Routt County Courthouse Annex in downtown Steamboat Springs, the Steamboat Springs City Council and Routt County Board of Commissioners discussed a new draft of the ordinance that drew strong public opposition from rural landowners when first proposed in December.
Tussle over water rights between Denver Water and Silverthorne?
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/105070060
With a mid-August water court date looming, Silverthorne and Denver Water are trying to work out their differences on the town's application for a recreational water right on the Blue River. Silverthorne wants to ensure adequate flows for rafting during the three big holiday weekends, as well as summer-long flows for a whitewater kayak park. "What we're trying to do is make sure our ability to store and maintain water in Dillon Reservoir is not affected," said Bill Bates a Denver Water resource engineers.
Public hearing for Breck mine waste plan is Tuesday
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070507/NEWS/105070061
Breckenridge residents will have yet another chance to offer input on a controversial mine waste cleanup at today's town council meeting, with a hearing scheduled for 7:30 p.m. The Forest Service and EPA want to haul several thousand tons of rock tainted with high concentrations of lead and arsenic from the national forest Claimjumper parcel, near Airport Road, to a long-term storage site in French Gulch, where it would be capped with clean earth and monitored. Federal officials have touted the cleanup as a "win-win" that would improve environmental conditions at both locations, but residents of neighborhoods in French Gulch have expressed concern about the plan.
City wants its affordable housing to be built "green"
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5841000
A committee born out of the mayor's Housing Task Force is pushing to require developers of city-funded affordable housing to build "green." The group has been considering various standards, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, and Enterprise Community Partners Inc.'s Green Communities, to determine what makes sense for affordable housing. The goal is for developers to be environmentally responsible, create the healthiest product possible and create a high-quality product, said Karen Lado, director of Enterprise Community Partners' Denver office and head of the Housing Task Force. But task-force member Kim Calomino, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the Home Builders Association, cautioned against requiring green building too soon. It would be prudent, she said, to wait until a uniform national standard is adopted. Eager to jump on the green bandwagon, many municipalities are working on regulations that will create a checkerboard of standards that must be tacked on to otherwise uniform codes.
Recycling center, business brace for semester's end
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/following-the-junk-trail-recycling-center-brace/
CU students finish final exams Thursday, and the campuswide graduation ceremony is Friday morning. Cloke said overnight security at Savers will be cheaper than last year, when the thrift store paid a $2,000 city fine and rented seven trailers to haul away the excess drop-offs. Store employees, around this time last year, found a 30-foot-high tower of couches that had been built in the parking lot in the middle of the night. "It's not that we don't want them to bring their donations," Cloke said. "But it has to be resellable." Thrift-store employees say they have limited space and can't take in all of the donations, even when they are of good quality. They also notice a buy-and-return cycle — some of the same furniture pieces and household items they sell in the fall come back in the spring. CU Recycling is holding a campus drive this week, setting up bins in the dorms for students to leave clothes, non-perishable food, electronics and other items that can then be donated to Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that builds homes for low-income families.
Making fountain youthful again
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5525957,00.html
The original fountain, whose central geyser spouted 90-feet high, had been sickly for a couple of decades because of lack of funding, Kerecman said. He now hopes to restore the nozzles and lights to their former glory by the fountain's 100th birthday with the help of the city, Denver Water, and donations from the public. Then-mayor Robert Speer had the fountain completed in May 1908 to beautify the city as it hosted the Democratic National Convention. Now the city will be hosting the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August. "We're repeating history," said Kerecman.
Opinion
Carman: Legions march in to help ailing Vietnam vet
http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_5841134
On Sunday, a veteran from the same Marine division as Robert E. Lee wrote him a check for $500. Dozens of other veterans offered to give all they could - $5, $20, $50 - to help the destitute Vietnam vet buy food and pay his back rent. A representative of the Disabled American Veterans promised to walk his application for benefits through the process so the 60-year-old Denver man who lost his voice to cancer - presumably caused by Agent Orange exposure - won't be left homeless while he awaits his due from the VA. Lee, whose story appeared in my Sunday column, is so touched by the concern he can hardly talk about it. "I never meant for this to happen," he said. "I just got between a rock and a hard place." His case is far from rare. Along with calls and e-mails from readers eager to help have come endless requests for assistance from people stranded in the same bureaucratic swamp. One Vietnam vet has been waiting a year for his application for disability benefits to be processed. Another got fired from his job after seeking counseling when images from the war in Iraq triggered incapacitating flashbacks from the post-traumatic stress disorder he still battles nearly 40 years after leaving Vietnam. A veteran with an artificial voice box called pleading for help. "We're all in the same boat," he huffed into the phone. That vets recognize that they are in this together surely was obvious at Lee's eviction hearing Monday.
Capitol goes green: And legislators do well elsewhere, too
http://dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/08/capitol-goes-green/
Colorado legislators finished work five days early this year, closed up shop and headed home. This concluded a session that left environmentalists, in particular, cheered. That result was not surprising. For the first time since John F. Kennedy was in office, Democrats controlled the Colorado governor's office and both houses of the state Legislature. Gov. Bill Ritter has been preaching the alternative-energy gospel, and a significant number of legislators show shades of green. "This year, Colorado lawmakers ran the most pro-conservation legislature in our state's history," said Elise Jones, executive director of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. "We have seen the passage of new laws that bolster Colorado's new energy economy, balance oil and gas development with protection of wildlife habitat and local communities, and ensure our state's water resources are clean."
Bipartisanship may advance RMNP bill
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/OPINION01/705080304/1014/CUSTOMERSERVICE02
In a long overdue effort, the Colorado congressional delegation has finally united in support of designating Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness. Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, and U.S. Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Mark Udall are scheduled to make the announcement May 14 that they have reached a compromise on the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness Bill.
DA out of order again with memo on judges
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5839421
After a humiliating public censure by a disciplinary panel last December, we had hoped that suburban District Attorney Carol Chambers would fly a straight and narrow course. So it's disquieting, to say the least, to find her at the center of another ethical controversy. This time Chambers has been accused of trying to intimidate a judge. In an e-mail last month, she appeared to outline how she'd punish judicial behavior that didn't meet her preferences. She warned if any judge was overtly hostile toward her prosecutors or made "inappropriate" comments about cases or victims, "there absolutely will be docket control problems in that division." Chambers, first elected in 2004, prosecutes crimes in Arapahoe, Douglas, Lincoln and Elbert counties. A prosecutor should be committed to the efficient and fair administration of justice, but Chambers could create crippling delays by asking for trials in every case, regardless of whether that was a prudent approach. The Colorado Supreme Court's attorney regulation counsel is investigating, and we urge a thorough review.
Bacon: Seal some criminal records
http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/OPINION04/705080302/1014/CUSTOMERSERVICE02
Prior to 1988, any and all Colorado convictions could be sealed. This law was changed in 1988 to prohibit any conviction, no matter how minor, from sealing. HB 1107 brings some balance to Colorado's criminal justice records policy. It allows residents who have been convicted of petty offenses, misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies and who have been offense-free for 10 or more years to petition the court for a sealing of their criminal records. The judge must find that the petitioner's privacy interests outweigh the public's right to know before a sealing can be ordered. However, if the District Attorney objects, no sealing can occur. Recent amendments to the bill, supported by the Colorado Press Association, require public notice when a petition to seal is filed and grant any member of the public the ability to unseal the records should the public interest so require.
Freedenthal: Treating mental illness
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5839429
In 1999, when two teenagers shot 13 people to death at Columbine High School and then killed themselves, a memorial was proposed for all the victims - including the shooters. Outrage ensued. Many parents of the teenagers killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold argued that the boys were murderers, not victims. I can understand their outrage. A memorial for the murdered should inspire loving memories and cleansing grief. That said, a sad fact remains: People who kill while in the throes of mental illness are victims themselves.
A bridge, not a crutch
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/editorials/article/0,2777,DRMN_23964_5525251,00.html
Tim and Bernadette Marquez have deserved nothing but praise from Denver residents for their generosity, especially with their formation of the Denver Scholarship Foundation. Instead, they've been taking some unwarranted flak.
RELATED: College aid plan's rocky start
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5839420
Littwin: Tancredo looked like deer caught in the bright lights
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_5525512,00.html
The reason Tom Tancredo bombed so badly in his first presidential debate is that he forgot why he was there. For a moment - actually, for about 90 minutes - he must have actually let himself believe he was a legitimate candidate for president of the United States. Standing on the stage at the Reagan Library - alongside all those diversity-free Republican worthies - he seemed caught up in the bright lights and the big stage and the shadow of the giant Air Force One looming overhead.
RELATED: Quillen: Speeding up the debates
http://www.denverpost.com/opinionheadlines/ci_5839427
Campos: A look back from 2017
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_5525286,00.html
Now that a decade has passed since the extraordinary events of the summer of 2007, it's possible to look back on that great national crisis with the benefit of some historical perspective. Everyone is familiar with the broad outlines of the crisis, which began when President Bush ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch military operations against Iran. The series of events that unfolded over the next few days has been chronicled, analyzed and debated endlessly in the years since.
Election
Obama Makes Push For Fuel Efficiency
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701771.html
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) yesterday proposed federal assistance to help U.S. automakers cover the cost of their retired workers' health benefits if the companies invest in technology to improve their vehicles' fuel efficiency. In a speech at the Detroit Economic Club, the Democratic presidential candidate offered a plan to ease the pain of U.S. automakers even as he reiterated support for higher fuel-efficiency standards. Carmakers have complained that they cannot afford those standards, but Obama said yesterday that "the auto industry is on a path that is unacceptable and unsustainable -- for their business, for their workers and for America."
RELATED: Obama: Make cars more fuel-efficient
RELATED: Wife Touts Obama's 'Moral Compass'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701573.html
Comparison To Clinton Is Dismissed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701677.html
There was a time when advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) looked abroad for proof that women can get elected to a top leadership role in the modern world: Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister; Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; and Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile. But as presidential candidate Ségolène Royal was defeated by a conservative man who had been France's chief law enforcement officer, the Clinton campaign was quick to dismiss comparisons between their candidate and her Socialist counterpart across the Atlantic. "Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much in common," said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director. Unlike Royal, who emphasized her charm and femininity rather than her strength on foreign policy, Clinton has proven her national security bona fides, her advisers said.
RELATED: Clinton courts Obama base
RELATED: Poll: Clinton rebounds over Obama
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-07-poll-2008_N.htm
Romney leads GOP contenders in a N.H. poll
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/05/08/romney_leads_gop_contenders_in_a_nh_poll/
For the first time since declaring his candidacy for the presidency, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is leading the other Republican contenders in a poll of likely voters in next year's New Hampshire primary, a development that could provide a psychological boost for his campaign and energize his campaign donors. The poll, by Survey USA for WBZ-TV, was taken after the first debate among Republican presidential candidates last week. It suggested that 32 percent of likely GOP voters in New Hampshire favor Romney, compared with 23 percent for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and 22 percent for Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Giuliani Speech Stresses Conservative Stances
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701975.html
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani addressed the conservative membership of the Heritage Foundation last night with a speech that -- quite naturally, given the audience -- stuck to foreign and economic policy instead of turning to social issues. Fresh from the first debate among 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls, where he acknowledged that he respects "a woman's right to make a different choice" on abortion, Giuliani avoided subjects on which he and his audience were likely to disagree intensely. Instead, he talked at length about the need for tax cuts, control of federal spending and freedom. His remarks on freedom got a lot of applause, as did his pledge about the 42 percent of civilian federal employees set to retire during the next two presidential terms. "Some politicians assume that we'll just replace all of them," Giuliani said at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. "I bet there are some politicians in the other party -- I don't know, maybe in ours -- that think we ought to increase them. . . . Here's what I would do: I would seek to replace only half of them."
RELATED: The private Giuliani tests the public's tolerance
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-giuliani7may07,1,6553830.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
RELATED: Abortion Rises Anew for Giuliani
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/politics/08giuliani.html
Virginia Tightens Rules on PACs Formed by Out-of-State Politicians
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701579.html
Virginia is preparing to impose a law designed to stop out-of-state politicians from funneling unlimited amounts of money through the commonwealth, which has no restrictions on how much individuals or businesses can donate. In recent years, former governors George E. Pataki (R-N.Y.) and Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.), a presidential candidate, have established Virginia-based political action committees even though they don't heavily contribute to candidates in the state. The politicians use the committees to collect unrestricted amounts of money to pay for their political activities across the country, allowing them to skirt campaign finance laws in their own states.
Effective and Ethical Government
Hiring Process Was Bypassed for Prosecutor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701825.html
When he was counsel to a House subcommittee in 2005, Jay Apperson resigned after writing a letter to a federal judge in his boss's name, demanding a tougher sentence for a drug courier. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia in the 1990s, he infuriated fellow prosecutors when he facetiously suggested a White History Month to complement Black History Month. Yet when Apperson was looking for a job recently, four senior Justice Department officials urged Jeffrey A. Taylor, the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, to hire him. Taylor did, and allowed him to skip the rigorous vetting process that the vast majority of career federal prosecutors face. As Congress and the administration spar over whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales allowed politics to unduly influence the work of the Justice Department, Apperson's hiring has been cited by government lawyers and others as an example of how a system that relies on apolitical prosecutors should not function.
RELATED: Justice Dept. Allows Immunity Deal for Former Gonzales Aide's Testimony
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701686.html
Byrd Scales Back but Still Takes Stand
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701490.html
Throughout the Iraq war, one of President Bush's loudest Democratic critics has been the longest-serving member of the Senate: Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. "Cross your fingers, pull out your lucky rabbit's foot, even nail a horseshoe over the Oval Office door -- but hoping for luck will never change the deadly dynamic in Iraq," Byrd lectured the White House last week from the Senate floor, his folksy eloquence well intact. Yet the octogenarian lawmaker's voice was quavering as he spoke, his regal bearing a bit unsteady. It was another indication that all is not well with Byrd, an institution within an institution, who turned 89 in November after winning a ninth Senate term.
Judge Appoints New Lawyer for Alleged Madam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050700441.html
The woman accused of being the D.C. madam has a new attorney, appointed yesterday by a federal judge. Preston Burton, a partner in the Washington office of Orrick, Herrington &; Sutcliffe, will represent Deborah Jeane Palfrey against charges that she ran an illegal D.C. prostitution ring in Washington under the guise of an escort business. Burton was named by Washingtonian magazine in 2004 as one of the capital's leading criminal defense attorneys. Palfrey joins a long list of notable clients who have turned to Burton to defend them. He represented White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and spies such as CIA agent Aldrich H. Ames, former FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen and former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belen Montes.
New Jersey Gov. Corzine returns to work after near-fatal crash
Jon Corzine resumed his duties as governor Monday, nearly a month after a high-speed crash on the Garden State Parkway almost killed him. The Democrat can walk again, but only slowly and with special crutches, and he plans to work from the governor's mansion at first rather than trying to return to the Statehouse. "The most important thing for me to express, again, is my gratitude for so many people who have made it possible for me to be sitting here," Corzine said Monday outside the mansion in Princeton. He used the crutches to maneuver down five steps to a chair set up for his news conference.
Civil Liberties and Equality
Longtime Leader Quits International Jewish Group
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701721.html
Billionaire Edgar M. Bronfman resigned yesterday as president of the World Jewish Congress amid the fallout over his sudden firing two months ago of his longtime associate in the nonprofit organization. Bronfman and Israel Singer became a famous, globe-trotting duo in the 1980s and 1990s, first by helping to expose the Nazi past of former United Nations secretary-general and Austrian president Kurt Waldheim, and later by coaxing European banks to pay billions of dollars in restitution to Holocaust survivors.
50 Years Later, Little Rock Can’t Escape Race
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/08deseg.html?ref=us
Fifty years after the epic desegregation struggle at Central High School, the school district here is still riven by racial conflict, casting a pall on this year’s ambitious commemorative efforts. In the latest clash, white parents pack school board meetings to support the embattled superintendent, Roy Brooks, who is black. The blacks among the school board members look on grimly, determined to use their new majority to oust him. Whites insist that test scores and enrollment have improved under the brusque, hard-charging Mr. Brooks; blacks on the board are furious that he has cut the number of office and other non-teaching jobs and closed some schools.
Blacks' auto rates higher, analysis says
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/05/08/blacks_auto_rates_higher_analysis_says/
Blacks have been charged higher auto loan rates than other auto buyers, federal research says. But the gap in loan rates could narrow, and possibly disappear, as the result of recently concluded lawsuits. Blacks paid a typical auto loan rate of 7 percent for new cars, compared with a rate of 5 percent for whites in 2004, according to a consumer organization's analysis of the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. That was the most recent survey available. And blacks were more likely than auto buyers in general to have auto loan rates higher than 15 percent. For used car loans, 27 percent of blacks who buy cars were charged interest rates of 15 percent or more. Blacks were three times as likely as whites -- 27 percent to 9 percent -- to have auto loan rates at least that high.
Foreign Policy
Chevron Seen Settling Case on Iraq Oil
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/08chevron.html
Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators. The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public. The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.
Troops at Baghdad Outposts Seek Safety in Fortifications
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701935.html
Nearly three months after the U.S. military launched a new strategy to safeguard Baghdad's population by pushing American and Iraqi forces deeper into the city's neighborhoods, defending their small outposts is increasingly requiring heavy bulwarks reminiscent of the fortresslike bases that the U.S. troops left behind. To guard against bombs, mortar fire and other threats, U.S. commanders are adding fortifications to the outposts, setting them farther back from traffic and arming them with antitank weapons capable of stopping suicide bombers driving armored vehicles. U.S. troops maintain the advantage of living in the neighborhoods they are asked to protect, but the need to safeguard themselves from attack means more walls between them and civilians.
RELATED: Bombs Kill 20 in Sunni Insurgent Stronghold
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050700147.html
RELATED: Blasts batter an island of relative calm in Iraq
Turkish-Kurdish Dispute Tests U.S. Strategic Alliances
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701524.html
While President Bush's new strategy in Iraq focuses on stopping the violence in Baghdad, trouble threatens to boil over in Iraq's Kurdish region to the north, which the administration frequently holds up as an island of stability and a model for the future. The long dispute between Turkey and Iraq over renegade Kurdish fighters camped on the Iraqi side of their shared border reached new heights last month. When the head of Iraq's Kurdish regional government threatened to provoke an uprising among Turkish Kurds, Turkey responded with warnings of direct military action and an angry complaint to Washington. Ankara has massed thousands of soldiers on its side of the border and has warned it will dismantle the camps in Iraq if the U.S. military will not use some of its nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq to do it.
Iraqi refugees flood fragile region
The total of 2.4 million refugees includes some who left Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, but it is during the ensuing four years of war that Iraq has experienced a huge exodus. The vast majority of Iraqi refugees -- around 2 million -- have fled to Syria and Jordan, where they are straining the already overstretched infrastructures of two of the region's poorer countries, pushing up rents and prices, drawing scarce water resources and crowding public health facilities and schools. In terms of raw numbers, it's bigger than the crisis in Darfur, according to the UNHCR. It's also the largest mass migration in the region since the exodus of Palestinians from Israel in 1948 -- and it risks becoming every bit as destabilizing as that still-unresolved issue.
RELATED: Child mortality study cites gains in Egypt, decline in Iraq
U.S. Trainers’ Killer Was Afghan Soldier
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/world/asia/08afghan.html
The man who shot and killed two American military trainers and wounded two others on Sunday was a soldier in the Afghan National Army, the Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed Monday. A military spokesman, Gen. Zaher Azimi, said that the soldier had suffered from mental problems over the past year but that he had been cleared for service by army doctors. The shooting occurred Sunday night outside the new high-security block at Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the eastern edge of Kabul, the capital.
Syrian dissidents' arrests signal lesser freedoms
Like others in his circle of well-known intellectuals seeking democratic reform, the prominent human rights lawyer seemed to be protected by his fame. But what was once permissible no longer is tolerated. Observers believe the verdict in his case was a signal: The political landscape in Syria has changed once again. The boundaries of what can be said in public have shifted during the last year and the regime now has a narrower view of what is permissible.
Israel Proposes Gaza Buffer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050800335.html
Israel's army has developed a plan to create a "buffer zone" inside the edge of the Gaza Strip to halt the latest wave of Palestinian rocket attacks, military officials said Tuesday. Such Israeli action would likely torpedo a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip and could threaten U.S. efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
RELATED: Israeli Premier Survives Votes in Parliament
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/world/middleeast/08mideast.html?ref=world
Japanese Premier Makes Gift to War Shrine but Does Not Visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/world/asia/08japan.html?ref=world
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan made a ceremonial offering to a controversial Tokyo war shrine last month but did not go himself, a shrine official said Tuesday. Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto memorial that commemorates Japan’s wartime dead, including Class A war criminals from World War II, has been a focal point of Chinese and South Korean ire over what many in Asia see as Japan’s lack of remorse for its wartime deeds.
Sarkozy in Seclusion to Plan France's Next Government
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701678.html
French President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy showed a first sign Monday of his promised break with the past, emerging from a Paris hotel dressed in bluejeans and an open-collared white shirt, a casual sartorial style not associated with previous French presidents. Waving to well-wishers, he headed off to an undisclosed location to recuperate from the campaign and begin mapping out his new government. Sarkozy won Sunday's vote by 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent by promising to transform a country gripped by self-doubt and economic decline. Now, with only nine days before he moves into the Elysee Palace, the French equivalent of the White House, he must begin efforts to close divisions over politics, ethnicity and how -- or if -- things should change.
RELATED: Sarkozy victory deep, wide
Northern Ireland leaders sworn in to office
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050800261.html
Northern Ireland's Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders, arch-foes during decades of sectarian conflict, were sworn in to run a new power-sharing, home-rule government on Tuesday. Hardline Protestant cleric Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness took the pledge of office as first minister and deputy respectively.
Castro links hijack attempt to Posada case
Convalescing leader Fidel Castro on Monday linked last week's deadly hijacking attempt to an American court's decision to free anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles on bond. In his latest communique, Castro said two defecting Cuban soldiers who tried to hijack a plane to the U.S. and killed an army officer in the process were encouraged by the lax U.S. handling of violent acts against his nation.
Oaxaca braces for new protests
The words of Benito Juarez, a reformist hero and Oaxaca's most famous native son, are found on their share of colonial-era buildings here: "Respecting the rights of others is peace." So it is no wonder that Oaxaca remains on edge, five months after a conflict that left at least a dozen protesters dead after teachers, union members, students and indigenous activists occupied the main plaza and triggered a police crackdown. The clashes have ended, but protesters and government officials say the other side continues to use intimidation and is not respecting the rights of city residents. Some protesters continue to deface and block public buildings, while activists accuse state police of intimidation and arbitrary arrests.
RELATED: Mexican protest leaders' sentences spark outrage
Immigration
Top LAPD Officers Disciplined for Use of Force at Rally
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701640.html
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton demoted one top officer and reassigned another Monday, the department's first act of punishment after police used batons and rubber bullets on immigration-rights protesters last week. At a City Hall news conference, Bratton said a two-star deputy chief, Cayler "Lee" Carter Jr., and his second-in-command, Louis Gray, were the ranking officers at MacArthur Park on May 1, when officers swept through the park swinging batons and firing rubber bullets indiscriminately. Carter has been moved down a rank in the department and has been told to stay home from work indefinitely. Gray has been reassigned within the department.
RELATED: Los Angeles Punishes Police Official Over Clash at Demonstration
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/08california.html?ref=us
Health Care and Public Safety
Seniors May Have Lost Out on Drug Subsidies
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701571.html
Some low-income seniors may have missed out on millions of dollars in federal subsidies because the government did not notify them that they could be reimbursed for past prescription drug purchases when they enrolled in Medicare's drug benefit, a Government Accountability Office study has found. The problem is one of several that has complicated the enrollment of nearly 7 million "dual eligible" people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, according to the study being released today. It can take more than one month for a senior who newly qualifies for Medicaid, which provides health care to the poor, to be enrolled in a heavily subsidized prescription drug plan (PDP) offered by Medicare. But by law, the person must get coverage retroactive to when they became eligible, sometimes up to several months before.
Senate blocks effort to allow drug imports
The Senate sidetracked a controversial amendment Monday that would have let Americans buy prescription medication from foreign suppliers, a move that cleared the way for action on an overhaul of the government's drug safety system. The drug import amendment, which was tacked onto the Food and Drug Administration overhaul legislation, could save consumers billions of dollars, its sponsors said. But the pharmaceutical industry argued that the provision could flood the market with counterfeit medications, and the White House threatened to veto a bill that eased import restrictions. That put Democrats, the Senate majority, in a bind: Though many support drug imports, they also consider the larger drug safety overhaul must-pass legislation.
FEMA reimbursement criticized
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/05/08/fema_reimbursement_criticized/
More than 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, many communities in Mississippi and Louisiana are still haggling with the Federal Emergency Management Agency over how much money the government will reimburse them for debris removal and infrastructure repairs. FEMA says it audits all Katrina projects to root out waste and fraud. Local officials, however, say the agency has needlessly dragged out the process and has not clearly defined what prices it considers reasonable.
Chickens That Ate Bad Feed Pass Test
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701685.html
Chickens that ate bird feed made with a small amount of contaminated pet food are safe for human consumption and can be released for slaughter and sale, federal health officials said yesterday. That decision emerged from a government risk analysis completed over the weekend involving 20 million chickens that officials said Friday had inadvertently been fed the tainted feed in several states. "There is very low risk to human health" from consuming the chickens, according to a synopsis of the findings released by the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration.
RELATED: Tainted pet food: Lab says melamine not only culprit
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-05-07-melamine-usat_N.htm
RELATED: Poison pet food woes seem to hit cats harder
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-05-07-poison-pet-food-science_N.htm
Energy drink Cocaine pulled
An energy drink called Cocaine has been pulled from stores nationwide amid concerns about its name, the company that produces it said Monday. Clegg Ivey, a partner in Redux Beverages LLC of Las Vegas, said the company plans to sell the drink under a new name for now.
Crime and Penal Reform
Va. Tech gunman dodged mental health treatment
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-cho050707,1,4893494.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech failed to get the mental health treatment ordered by a judge who declared him an imminent threat to himself and others, a newspaper reported today. Seung-Hui Cho was found "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization" in December 2005, according to court papers. A judge ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment. However, neither the court nor community mental health officials followed up on the judge's order, and Cho didn't get the treatment, The Washington Post reported, citing unidentified authorities who have seen Cho's medical files.
Judge apologizes after his marijuana arrest
The Florida jurist cuts a deal, but his career may be up in smoke.
Economy
The Cost of War, Unnoticed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701582.html
The global war on terror, as President Bush calls the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and related military operations, is about to become the second-most-expensive conflict in U.S. history, after World War II. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress has approved more than $609 billion for the wars, a figure likely to stand as lawmakers rework their latest spending bill in response to a Bush veto. Requests for $145 billion more await congressional action and would raise the cost in inflation-adjusted dollars beyond the cost of the wars in Korea and Vietnam. But the United States is vastly richer than it was in those days, and the nation's wealth now dwarfs the price of war, economists said. Last year, spending in Iraq amounted to less than 1 percent of the total economy -- about as much as Americans spent shopping online and less than half what they spent at Wal-Mart. Total defense spending is 4 percent of gross domestic product, the figure that measures the nation's economic output. In contrast, defense spending ate up 14 percent of GDP at the height of the Korean War and 9 percent during the Vietnam War.
Rates aren't expected to budge after Fed meeting
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/fed/2007-05-07-fed-preview-usat_N.htm
Federal Reserve policymakers will likely remain in a holding pattern when they meet Wednesday as inflation continues to be a very real threat despite a dramatic slowdown in the economy. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are expected to keep their target for short-term interest rates, which influences the cost of borrowing for everything from cars to condos to couches, at 5.25%, the highest since January 2001. In a USA TODAY survey last month, 50 out of 52 economists said the Fed would leave rates alone this week. And investors in a market in which participants bet on future Fed moves anticipate U.S. central bankers will stay on hold at least through the summer, according to Moody's Economy.com.
Scandal May Jeopardize World Bank Funds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050700490.html
The leadership crisis engulfing the World Bank began with talk of favoritism for a girlfriend and ill feeling about the Iraq war. But as the bank's board this week considers the fate of President Paul D. Wolfowitz, the ethics controversy has swelled into a test of who controls the institution and its future relevance in battling global poverty. The outcome could determine whether governments from Berlin to Buenos Aires would be willing to contribute new funds in support of the bank's mission. "There's a real danger because of this Wolfowitz stuff that donors are going to find a reason not to give," said Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy adviser for Oxfam International, an anti-poverty group in Washington.
RELATED: Europeans offer U.S. a deal to get Wolfowitz to quit
Consumer Borrowing Increased in March by Most in 4 Months
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/08econ.html
Consumer borrowing increased in March by the most in four months as Americans charged more purchases to their credit cards and took out more car loans, Federal Reserve figures show. Consumer credit, or nonmortgage loans to individuals, increased $13.5 billion, or 6.7 percent at an annual rate, to $2.425 trillion, the Fed said Monday. In February, consumer debt rose $5.6 billion. Consumers faced with tapped-out home equity loans and falling real estate values may be turning to credit cards to keep spending. Gary Thayer, chief economist at A. G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis, said low unemployment was also providing support for consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of economic growth.
Guilty Pleas Expected in Big Insider Trading Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701641.html
A former Morgan Stanley executive responsible for making sure that employees obey the law is preparing to plead guilty this week for her role in one of the largest Wall Street insider-trading rings in more than two decades, according to court papers. Randi E. Collotta and her husband, Christopher, are scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York on Thursday. The negotiations between the Collottas and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York became public yesterday upon the release of correspondence from a government lawyer.
Alcoa Makes $27 Billion Hostile Bid For Canadian Competitor Alcan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050700267.html
Alcoa, seeking to keep pace with growing Russian rival Rusal, launched a hostile $27 billion bid for Canadian aluminum rival Alcan on Monday, after failing in almost two years of private talks to reach a negotiated deal. Alcan's U.S. shares rose nearly 35 percent, well above the offered price, suggesting investors think the bidding could go higher. Alcoa shares gained 8 percent.
Housing and Homelessness
A Cross-Country Blame Game
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/08lend.html?ref=business
What used to be a profitable partnership between subprime lenders and Wall Street banks has now degenerated into a cross-country blame game. Lenders in California say big investment banks encouraged and pushed them to make risky loans. On Wall Street, bank executives say mortgage lenders became sloppy and did not pay enough attention to fraud. Whatever the cause, Ownit provides a vivid example of what went wrong. William D. Dallas, the founder and chief executive of Ownit, acknowledges loosening lending standards but says he did so reluctantly and under pressure from his investors, particularly Merrill Lynch, which wanted more loans to package into lucrative securities.
Media
Wall St. Journal Editors Held News of Murdoch Bid
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/media/08journal.html?ref=business
One of the trickiest things for a news organization to do is cover itself. That was the situation some editors at The Wall Street Journal found themselves in last month when they learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was making a $5 billion bid for The Journal’s parent, Dow Jones, at least a week before the news broke elsewhere. It was one of the biggest business news events of the year, the kind that The Journal would typically pursue aggressively. But Paul E. Steiger, the paper’s top editor who knew of Mr. Murdoch’s offer, decided not to publish any news of it, according to people inside of Dow Jones who were briefed on the situation.
RELATED: Authorities investigate trading in Dow Jones options
http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2007-05-07-options-probe_N.htm
Judge’s Libel Victory Against Paper Is Upheld
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/08herald.html
The highest court in Massachusetts upheld a $2 million libel verdict on Monday against The Boston Herald and one of its reporters for articles that said a Superior Court judge had made disparaging comments about crime victims and that he was lenient with criminals. In a unanimous opinion sharply critical of the newspaper, part of Herald Media Inc., and its reporter, David Wedge, the Supreme Judicial Court said, “There is an abundance of evidence that, taken cumulatively, provides clear and convincing proof that the defendants either knew that the published statements found by the jury to be libelous were untrue or that they published them in reckless disregard of their probable falsity.”
Thomson Confirms Interest in Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/media/08reuters.html
The Thomson Corporation, the financial data provider, confirmed yesterday that it had approached the board of the Reuters Group, the British news service, about a possible takeover. Thomson said the move “may or may not lead to an offer” for Reuters. The company did not provide any further details in a short statement.
Education
‘Top Chef’ Dreams Crushed by Student Loan Debt
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/08default.html?ref=us
In the way that the work of directors like Martin Scorsese flooded film schools with students in the 1970s, and the television show “L.A. Law” packed law schools in the 1980s, the rise of celebrity chefs has been good for culinary schools. But would-be top chefs face a challenge that most lawyers, engineers or nurses do not: few jobs in their chosen field pay enough for them to retire their student loans. As a result, as many as 11 percent of graduates at some culinary schools are defaulting on federal student loans. The national average for all students last year was roughly half that, at 5.1 percent. Although the restaurant industry is expected to create two million new jobs in the next decade, the Department of Labor reports that in 2005, the latest year for which data were available, the average hourly wage for a restaurant cook was $9.86.
Purdue names 1st woman president
Internationally recognized astrophysicist France Cordova will become Purdue University's 11th president and the first woman to hold the post following a unanimous vote by the school's Board of Trustees on Monday.
Science and Technology
Exploded Star the Brightest Ever Seen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050700752.html
Astronomers have spotted a cataclysmic explosion that marked the death of a huge, distant star in a blast five times as bright and powerful as any they had seen previously. They said yesterday that a similar fate may be imminent for a star in Earth's galactic neighborhood. The size and energy of the newly recorded blast, 240 million light-years away, have already begun to transform scientific understanding of how especially large stars explode, and have left awestruck researchers concerned -- and a little excited -- about what might happen to the similarly enormous and unstable star closer to home.
RELATED: Star explosion rocks astronomers
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-05-07-supernova_N.htm
How the Inca Leapt Canyons
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08bridg.html?ref=science
Centuries before the George Washington Bridge, the Andes were crisscrossed with suspension bridges. Now students at M.I.T. are learning to recreate them.
Military
U.S. Debates Deterrence for Nuclear Terrorism
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/washington/08nuke.html?ref=washington
Every week, a group of experts from agencies around the government — including the C.I.A., the Pentagon, the F.B.I. and the Energy Department — meet to assess Washington’s progress toward solving a grim problem: if a terrorist set off a nuclear bomb in an American city, could the United States determine who detonated it and who provided the nuclear material? So far, the answer is maybe. That uncertainty lies at the center of a vigorous, but carefully cloaked, debate within the Bush administration. It focuses on how to refashion the American approach to nuclear deterrence in an attempt to counter the threat posed by terrorists who could obtain bomb-grade uranium or plutonium to make and deliver a weapon.
General: Air fleet wearing down
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-07-air-fleet_N.htm
The Air Force's fleet of warplanes is older than ever and wearing out faster because of heavy use in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the service's top combat commander. Gen. Ronald Keys, who leads the Air Combat Command, points to cracked wings on A-10 attack planes and frayed electrical cables on U-2 spy planes. Compared to 1996, the Air Force now spends 87% more on maintenance for a warplane fleet that is less ready to fly, Air Force records show.
Navy returned openly gay sailor to active duty
The Navy returned an openly gay sailor to active duty last year in what gay rights advocates say is an example of how some military commanders -- stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- are turning a blind eye to the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning gays and lesbians from revealing their sexual orientation. Petty Officer Jason D. Knight, a Hebrew linguist who says he had officially informed his superiors that he was homosexual, was discharged in April 2005 after completing his four-year tour of duty, according to a summary of his Navy personnel file. Nine months later, the Navy recalled him to active duty, even though he was openly gay, and sent him to Kuwait, where he served as a translator and received multiple awards for exemplary service.
Religion
For Some Muslim Wives, Abuse Knows No Borders
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701936.html
One was a shy, slender young woman who spoke no English when she was brought from Pakistan to enter an arranged marriage with a stranger in Virginia. The other was a self-confident professional, born in Turkey but raised in the United States, who thought she knew what she was doing when she married an educated Muslim man in Maryland. Yet both women fell under the sway of the same powerful pressures that sometimes reach around the globe to keep Muslim wives in the Washington region imprisoned in abusive marriages, unable to fight the gossip and shame that come with defying their culture and religion, isolated from help that is just a three-digit phone number away.
Brazil and the pope: an uneasy embrace
Benedict is making his first papal trip to the Americas, home to half the planet's Catholics, and will face a church replete with competing visions of how to retain the faithful and win back those who have left. The five-day Brazil visit also will serve as an important test of whether a pope seen as a rigid, Europe-focused intellectual, who stresses traditional dogma over creative worship, can reach and influence today's Latin America.
Official Who Oversees Gulf Oil Drilling to Retire
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/08royalty.html
Johnnie Burton, the top federal official overseeing Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling, will retire, effective at the end of this month, Dirk Kempthorne, the interior secretary, said yesterday. “I respect your decision to return to your family and to the West we both love,” Mr. Kempthorne wrote in a letter accepting Ms. Burton’s resignation, according to a release from the department. Ms. Burton served as director of the Minerals Management Service during the disclosure of an error that may allow drillers to avoid more than $10 billion in royalties on oil and gas produced under federal leases. While the mistake occurred before President Bush appointed her in 2002, an investigation revealed that Ms. Burton failed to take swift action.
Utility's bottom line: Killing fish a positive
Faced with the prospect of a multimillion-dollar tab to help revive Chicago-area rivers, the owner of four coal-fired power plants is pushing a plan that would keep the urban waterways too hot for fish to survive. The aging Midwest Generation plants suck up nearly every drop of the Chicago and Lower Des Plaines Rivers to cool their massive equipment, then churn it back out as hot as bathwater, sometimes hotter than 100 degrees. Illinois has banned the process at newer plants because it can kill fish or discourage them from sticking around. State regulators are proposing new temperature limits that could force the utility to spend up to $800 million on equipment upgrades, which would curb the amount of warm water pumped into the waterways. But the power company's executives contend there are more benefits than drawbacks from keeping the rivers hotter than normal. They even suggest that killing all of the fish in the rivers might be a good thing.
Gas prices may have hit peak for now
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-05-07-gas-prices_N.htm
The nationwide average price of gasoline hit a near-record $3.054 Monday, and averages in 21 states and Washington, D.C., set records, according to two authoritative reports. What's more, $4 gasoline is likely a reality to some California drivers who use premium-grade gasoline. Motorists organization AAA says high-octane fuel averages about $3.90 in the state's expensive communities.
Editor’s note: the New York Times has converted to a subscription-based editorial section. We are no longer clipping their op-ed columnists.
Madigan: Pre-emptive war is an unmistakable error
The big problem is the strategy the U.S. embraced with the arrival of the Bush administration to replace deterrence, a Cold War policy that had clearly outlived its usefulness as the Soviet threat cracked, shattered and then disappeared. Boiled down, it amounts to pre-emptive war. Defuse threats before they cause damage. It seemed like a good substitute on paper, particularly in light of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The Bush administration argued, in an important change of direction, that American foreign policy should be aimed at identifying and eliminating these threats. It might actually have worked, briefly, in Afghanistan, when a CIA-designed reaction led to the ousting of the Taliban, the rousting of Al Qaeda and establishment of what seemed at the time to be a friendlier, more acceptable government. It's not so clear how well that worked now. The Taliban have revived themselves. The poppy harvest is healthy and moving toward its catastrophic market. The nation is clearly not safely under friendly control. And yet, we have a crop of GOP presidential candidates competing to make the most hyperbolic statements conceivable about how they would love to kill Osama bin Laden.
Greenway: The imperial overreach
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/08/the_imperial_overreach/
LISTENING TO President Bush's petulant tones lambasting Congress for questioning his war, I had a feeling that what we are seeing in Washington has been going on for close to a thousand years in the political tradition in which America was formed. Rulers reach for more and more power until their parliaments and barons think things have gone far enough and begin clipping regal wings.
Dionne: Progressives' French Lesson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701223.html
There are some countertrends toward the left, notably in Australia, according to recent polls. A populist left (quite different from the moderate European variety) has gained ground in Latin America. And Democrats might take heart that France and the United States have moved on opposite electoral cycles ever since Socialist Francois Mitterrand won power in 1981, just a year after Ronald Reagan's election. Nonetheless, the social democratic and liberal left faces a big problem because globalization makes the movement's core pledge -- to produce economic growth that lifts up the poor and the middle class as well as the rich -- far more problematic.
Carroll: The disappearance of war-broken soldiers
Around the time of my visit to Walter Reed, James Forrestal, recently retired secretary of Defense, was admitted to Bethesda as a patient, and I now understand his welfare was not the hospital's paramount concern. This was the spring of 1949, and tensions with the Soviet Union were running high. Forrestal had stoked those tensions, helping to put in place what might now be reckoned a paranoid foreign policy. That was why, when he had a psychological breakdown -- he was found catatonic in his Pentagon office, he was reported seen running through the streets in his pajamas crying "The Russians are coming!" -- the clinical paranoia of the secretary of Defense was treated as a national secret. When Forrestal was admitted to Bethesda, he was not assigned to the locked psychiatric ward on the first floor because of the questions that would raise. Instead, he was put in the unsupervised VIP suite on the 16th floor. May 22, he killed himself by jumping from the unbarred window of his bedroom. No one at the Navy hospital wished Forrestal ill, but keeping his condition secret was more important than keeping him safe. So-called national security trumped patient health, which resulted in unacknowledged pressures on diagnosis and treatment.
Catania: Death row's IQ divide
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-catania8may08,0,6288102.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
LAST MONTH, the state of Texas executed James Lee Clark, a plumber's assistant who raped and killed a teenage girl. Clark's lawyers argued in vain that their client, a high school dropout with a low IQ, should have been spared because of his mental impairment. Within hours of Clark's death, California's highest court spared Jorge Junior Vidal from a possible death penalty trial in the torture and murder of a teenager because he is mentally retarded. Five years ago this June, the U.S. Supreme Court banned execution of the mentally retarded as unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual punishment." In its decision, the court cited the American public's "evolving standards of decency." But the intentionally vague ruling has led to a mishmash of decisions. Some defendants with signs of retardation have been spared capital trials; some inmates have been removed from death row; others have been tried and executed.
Look who's lobbying for universal health care
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-healthcare8may08,0,5439696.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
A newly formed coalition of businesses illustrates that healthcare politics have come a long way.
Medicare Privatization Abuses
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/opinion/08tue1.html
It seems that outrageously high government subsidies aren’t enough to satisfy the private plans that participate in Medicare. Some of these Medicare Advantage plans have been caught using hard-sell tactics to pressure elderly Americans into signing up for policies that may leave them worse off than they would be with traditional Medicare coverage. The unscrupulous sales pressure is one more argument for removing the subsidies that are the only crutch allowing many of these plans to survive.
Congress and the Student Loan Scam
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/opinion/08tue3.html
Republicans in Congress have generally defended corporate welfare for companies involved in the student loan business: lenders that collect billions of dollars in federal subsidies in return for issuing government-backed loans that represent no real risk to the companies themselves. But support for these wasteful subsidies is waning in both parties, thanks to recent revelations showing just how corrupt and costly the program has become.
Canellos: Florida's primary decision sets dominoes teetering
The national parties have some leverage: They can refuse to seat delegates selected in unsanctioned primaries. But Florida, with its large number of delegates and special clout as the nation's millennial battleground, is willing to call the parties' bluff. If the parties can't push Florida into line, there would be no constraints on the process at all. It's hard to assess the impact of such a situation because if Florida isn't stopped, additional states could try to horn in on the early action. But despite the doomsday talk coming out of some of the early voting states, it's still too early to predict a disaster.
Building a Better Debate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701553.html
IF YOU TUNED IN to the recent Republican and Democratic presidential debates, you may have had the same reaction as many viewers looking at the crowded stages: Who's that? The Democratic debate in South Carolina featured eight candidates, while 10 crammed into the GOP debate in California last Thursday. Voters trying to sort out their presidential choices aren't helped by debates cluttered with the likes of Mike Gravel (hint: he's a former senator from Alaska) on the Democratic side and Ron Paul (hint: he's a libertarian House member from Texas) among the Republicans. If the standard is that any declared candidate is entitled to a podium, we're going to end up with even more crowded stages in 2012.
Robinson: Ten Candidates Wide, But Not Very Deep
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701225.html
The announced Republican candidates for president did nothing in their first debate to discourage the unannounced Republican candidates -- Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich, maybe Chuck Hagel-- from wading in. The water doesn't look very deep. Lined up on stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library last Thursday, each of the 10 presidential hopefuls struggled to distinguish himself from the crowd. Even if you knew Tommy Thompson from Jim Gilmore from Mike Huckabee, it was hard to keep them straight. "Diverse" certainly wasn't a word that came to mind when you looked at the field. I admit that my first thought was "country club."
Cohen: Start Hedging The Views . . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701224.html
If Rudy Giuliani can make it in New York, he can make it anywhere. Except, perhaps, in the Republican party.
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