Headlines

Local News
Bryan City Council Moves to Eliminate Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency

According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, the Bryan City Council hired a law firm this week to create a corporation to replace the Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency. The College Station City Council postponed a similar vote last month that would have allowed for the creation of a new government agency to manage both cities' solid waste operations, including the Twin Oaks Landfill, which is under construction in Grimes County and being managed by BVSWMA. The cities operate BVSWMA jointly, but the partnership has been strained for more than a year. The cities agreed to create a new agency in place of BVSWMA in an effort to resolve their differences.

Local Politics
College Station Residents Begin to Vote on Red Light Cameras
Supporters of College Station's red light cameras say they're a matter of safety, however, opponents say the issue's all about rights. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that this week, voters in the city will begin the process of settling the matter. Early voting begins Monday on a ballot measure that would ban the cameras from the city. Election Day is Nov. 3. Voters across the state are also being asked to decide the fate of 11 proposed amendments to the state's constitution. Two groups have formed to lobby for voter support: Take Back Your City was created after red light camera critic Jim Ash collected enough signatures to send the measure to the ballot, and Keep College Station Safe, which is led by a consultant hired by American Traffic Solutions.

Texas A&M News
Protest Sparked by President Obama’s Visit to Texas A&M

President Barack Obama visited Texas A&M Friday, accepting an invitation by former President George H.W. Bush to speak at the Points of Light Institute. Outside of the event about one thousands people gathered from across the state to protest the President. The Texas A&M College Republicans sponsored the protest, and other local organizations participated including the Brazos County Republican Party, the Brazos County Young Republicans, the Brazos County Tea Party, and the Young Conservatives of Texas, Texas A&M Chapter. Signs depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler were present in the crowd, as well as a poster with the President and other Congressional leaders with Swastika symbols. While the message of opposition to the President was constant, it was the only constant, as protesters voice concerns about everything from health care to where the President was born.

Texas Politics
Texas State Board of Education Trustees Failed to Disclose Gifts

Two members of the Texas State Board of Education have received thousands of dollars in gifts from a company seeking a lucrative contract with the board, records show, and those members have not reported the gifts on financial disclosure forms. Bidding documents submitted to the board by the company, AEW Capital Management of Boston, say its employees bought 53 gifts worth more than $5,000 for board finance committee members Rene Nuñez, D-El Paso, and Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio. The 15-member board is in the process of allocating $1.2 billion for real estate investment firms to manage – lucrative work for which more than 90 firms have submitted their qualifications. AEW is among them.

National Politics
30% Say Overweight Workers Should Pay More for Health Insurance

North Carolina is about to become the second state to penalize its employees for being obese, but just 30% of Americans favor making government workers who are overweight pay more for their health insurance. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% are opposed to making overweight government workers pay more for health coverage. Adults are less sympathetic with smokers. Fifty percent (50%) support a plan that makes government workers who smoke pay more for their health insurance, but 43% oppose such a measure.

War and Peace
Iraq Releases New Death Toll Figure

At least 85,000 people have been killed in Iraq by bombs, murders and fighting from 2004 until 2008, Iraq's human rights ministry says. The government released the figures on Tuesday in a draft report based on death certificates issued by the health ministry. It said 147,195 people had been wounded in the same four years, but the number of undocumented injuries and deaths could be far higher. The figures in the report are lower than that of the Iraq Body Count project run by a group of academics and peace activists. The project estimates that 102,071 civilians have died in the violence so far since 2003. The group took its figures from media reports, which it then cross checked with numbers from hospitals, morgues and local non-governmental organisations. But the figures from both the Iraqi government and the Iraq Body Count project are lower than the numbers from a 2006 study by The Lancet, a British-based medical journal. The Lancet estimates 601,000 people were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.

Health Care
Study Shows Gap in Hospital Care

There is a wide gap in quality among America's hospitals, and a corresponding large difference in the rate of patient deaths, says a report by medical ratings company HealthGrades Inc. The study showed that patients have a 51.53 percent lower risk of dying in a top-rated hospital than in U.S. hospitals in general. That's based on an evaluation of hospital mortality related to 17 procedures and diagnoses at 5,000 non-federal U.S. hospitals. Researchers examined 40 million Medicare hospitalization records from the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Under HealthGrades' one- to five-star hospital ratings system, with five stars meaning overall performance in the top 15 percent of U.S. hospitals, patients have a 71.64 percent lower risk of dying at a five-star hospital than at a one-star facility.

Reproductive Rights
Abortion and Unintended Pregnancy Decline Worldwide as Contraception Use Increases

According to “Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress,” a major new Guttmacher Institute report released this week, increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and, in turn, a decline in the number of abortions, which fell from an estimated 45.5 million procedures in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003. While both the developed and the developing world experienced these positive trends, developed regions saw the greatest progress. Within the developing world, improvement varied widely, with Africa lagging behind other regions. The decline in worldwide abortion occurred alongside a global trend toward liberalizing abortion laws. Nineteen countries have significantly reduced restrictions in their abortion laws since 1997, while only three countries have substantially increased legal restrictions. Despite these trends, 40% of the world’s women live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, virtually all of them in the developing world.

GLBT Issues
Air Force Academy Censors Professor for Discussing Gays in the Military

A Lieutenant Colonel who taught at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was punished and barred from teaching after she invited three Academy alumni to campus to discuss sexual minorities in the military. The professor, Lt. Col. Edith Disler, said that the classroom visit was approved by her course director, but Academy officials pulled her from the classroom anyway, launching an investigation that ended in a formal reprimand based on the subject matter discussed. Also this week, new data from the Pentagon shows that women made up a majority of Air Force discharges under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in 2008, even though they represent a distinct minority of the overall service. Women received 56 of the 90 total Air Force discharges under the policy, which is 61% of firings, even though women make up only 20% of the service. By comparison, women received 36% of discharges in the Army, where they make up 14% of personnel, 23% in the Navy where they make up 14%, and 18% in the Marines where they make up only 6%.

Race and Racism
Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License in Louisiana

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites and came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society. The ACLU was preparing a letter for the Louisiana Supreme Court, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and see if they can remove him from office. According to a report by CNN, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is calling to have Bardwell's license revoked, and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is calling for his dismissal.