Banner News Day

Several important stories in the news today.

First, good news for pro-choice activists and developing countries across the globe:

Senate Votes to Repeal Bush Abortion PolicyThis news from Capitol Hill.

The Senate has voted to repeal President Bush's ban on international family planning organizations that engage in abortion-related activities from receiving U.S. foreign aid funds. Bush threatened to veto a two-year $34 billion bill authorizing State Department and foreign aid programs if it tried to override the policy that bars U.S. funds going to nongovernmental organizations that give counseling or referrals on abortions, or lobby against other governments' restrictive abortion laws.
-------
And not-so-good news about new cuts to public housing services:

U.S. Plans New, Deep Cuts in Housing Aid

[A] new cost-cutting proposal by the Bush administration could force dozens of housing agencies nationwide to fire maintenance workers, reduce services or close buildings.

If the changes sought by the administration take effect, they will result in one of the biggest cuts since Washington first began subsidizing housing: as much as $480 million, or 14 percent, of the $3.4 billion federal budget for day-to-day operations, including labor, maintenance, insurance and utilities, at the nation's 3,100 housing authorities.

"I've never seen anything this devastating occur in public housing," said Stephanie W. Cowart, executive director of the Niagara Falls Housing Authority, which would lose nearly half of its $3.6 million subsidy, according to an analysis of spending data by two housing authority trade groups.

The administration has for several years advocated a new formula that would redistribute billions of housing dollars toward rural and southern areas and away from older urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest.
----------
Third, interesting news on a proposal by tribes in Oklahoma to open a casino near Denver. This could have huge implications for off-reservation economic opportunities for tribes. I know Zuni is looking at proposals in the Town of Bernalillo.

Indians' Wish List: Big-City Sites for Casinos
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians have not had land in Colorado since many of their women and children were massacred in their sleep by soldiers at Sand Creek in 1864. Driven out of the state, they live today in poor rural areas scattered around Oklahoma.

But the tribes are now offering Colorado a gift of $1 billion and are willing to give up their ancestral claims to nearly half of the state, all in exchange for a 500-acre piece of land near Denver on which they hope to build one of the world's largest casinos, complete with a five-star hotel, a golf course, a mall and an Indian cultural center.

"This would be more than a casino for us," said Clara Bushyhead, a spokeswoman for the tribes. "It is the dream of our elders to complete our life cycle, to come back to our homeland in Colorado from which we were driven. Oklahoma was never our home."

Their campaign for a casino in Denver reflects the latest trend in the explosive growth of Indian gambling: tribes in remote areas, some of them without reservations, trying to acquire land near cities for lucrative casinos. It is a practice known as off-reservation gambling. Its critics use a harsher phrase, reservation shopping.
-------------
And lastly, on the public education horizon:

Facing State Protests, U.S. Offers More Flexibility on School Rules
The secretary of education gave a speech that tried to simultaneously support No Child Left Behind while trying to placate several states threatening to sue the feds for "mandates" that federal money does not cover. After delivering this little address, she left the podium without taking questions. That's education!