Headlines

Local News
College Station City Council Approves Tree Ordinance

According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, the College Station City Council voted this week to approve an ordinance that states that every new single-family home or townhouse in College Station must have at least one tree on the property. The City Council voted unanimously to amend the city's landscape and tree-protection ordinance to require developers to include two trees at least 2 inches in diameter or one tree at least 4 inches in diameter. The new rule does not apply to existing subdivisions. The change also gives developers more credit for preserving trees during construction and additional credit for landscape plans prepared by qualified landscape professionals.

Local Politics
Waco Republican Party Battles Hispanic Republican Group

A new political club that aims to bring McLennan County minorities into the Republican is being criticized by the McLennan County Republican Party. The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the Hispanic Republican Club of McLennan County was founded by Duke Machado and a group of conservative activists, including some in the Tea Party movement. The group’s stated mission is to reach out to Hispanic, black and young adult voters, whom leaders say the party has ignored. However, the McLennan County GOP leadership responded with e-mail emphasizing that the club “is not sanctioned by, nor is it affiliated with, the Republican Party of McLennan County.” The two groups have exchanged criticisms over the way in which to reach out to minority voters.

Texas News
Texans Face Long Delays for Food Stamps

According to an article in the Texas Tribune, pending food-stamp applications have soared, from about 38,000 a year ago to more than 65,000 in October. Two-thirds of those people had waited longer than the federally mandated 30 days and nearly half had waited more than 60 days. The worst delays have stranded families without help for months on end. And those figures tend to undercount the total case load because they don't capture many applications until a worker starts processing them. The Texas Health and Human Services recently made a host of changes, sparked by a lawsuit and federal compliance demands. The agency has added about 500 employees, showed the first decrease in pending cases, to about 62,000 in November, a drop of about 3,000. In 2005, Texas privatized food sates and hired Accenture to take over enrollment under a $900 million contract that was canceled two years later after a host of foul-ups.

Texas Politics
Legislature to Focus on Veterans' Issues

Senate leaders promised this week to focus on Texas veterans' employment, education and mental health needs as they work toward the 2011 regular legislative session. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst joined Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and retired Army Reserve Maj. James R. Cunningham at a San Antonio news conference to announce the areas on which Dewhurst formally is asking the Senate Veterans Affairs and Military Installations Committee to focus. For the veterans committee, that includes a study of veteran employment and veteran-owned small business issues; utilization of the new GI Bill; advantages of a centralized call center for referring veterans to benefit providers; ways to coordinate state veteran workforce programs; and how Texas can better address veterans' mental health needs.

National Politics
Much Opposition to Health Care Plan Is From Left

According to the political polling blog FiveThirtyEight.com, much of the opposition to the current health care legislation is coming from liberals. In a recent poll, Ipsos did something that no other pollster has done. They asked the people who opposed the bill why they opposed it: because they are opposed to health care reform and thought the bill went too far? Or because they support health care reform but thought the bill didn't go far enough? It turns out that a significant minority of about 25 percent of the people who opposed the plan -- or about 12 of the overall sample -- did so from the left; they thought the plan didn't go far enough. Ipsos also asked a parallel question of people who supported the plan: did any of them support the plan because they oppose health care reform and thought that the plan was sufficiently watered-down so as to "keep health care reform from happening"? A small number of people picked this response: about 10 percent of those in favor of the plan, or 3 percent of the entire sample.

Economy
Without More Federal Aid State Budget Cuts Could Cost Economy 900,000 Jobs

States face a serious fiscal problem that could force them to institute additional deep budget cuts and tax increases in 2010, weakening the fragile economic recovery and harming vulnerable children, seniors, and people with disabilities, among others. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the federal assistance that states received for their Medicaid programs under this year’s economic recovery legislation is scheduled to end with a “cliff” on December 31, 2010, and the assistance states received for education and other services also will be largely exhausted by then. Although that date is more than a year away, the problem is coming to a head now. The outlook for state fiscal year 2011 is grim; actions states will have to take to eliminate deficits for that year are likely to drag down GDP by more than 0.9% and could cost 900,000 jobs.

Environment
EPA Rules that Greenhouse Gases are Harmful to Human Health

According to an article in the Christian Science-Monitor, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced this week its final determination that greenhouse gases are a hazard to human health – a widely expected move whose less-than-expected timing came on the first day of climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. Obama administration is using to nudge Congress toward new climate-energy legislation. If the Senate – where the bill is bogged down – won’t act, then it’s clear the EPA now stands ready to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, analysts say. It underlined several moves already begun by the administration during the past 11 months, including: Establishing a new greenhouse gas emissions-reporting system. Mandating that, beginning next month, large US greenhouse-gas emitters work with the EPA to monitor their emissions. Also, requiring that, beginning in 2011, large greenhouse-gas emitters for the first time submit information that will allow tracking of greenhouse-gas emissions over time and be publicly available.

Health Care
Cancer Rates Continue to Fall in the U.S.

Cancer diagnoses and deaths continued to decline in the U.S., according to the latest available data, helped by efforts to reduce risk, provide early detection and develop therapies. The Wall Street Journal reports that the report, from a group of cancer and health organizations including the National Cancer Institute, trumpets the successes of improved screening and comes amid calls for less and later screening for breast and cervical cancers. A federally funded task force created an uproar last month when it said women could wait until they are older to begin routine mammograms and have them less often, a call echoed by a similar pronouncement on cervical-cancer screening from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. New diagnoses for all types of cancer combined in the U.S. fell on average almost 1% per year from 1999 to 2006. Cancer deaths decreased 1.6% a year from 2001 to 2006. Overall cancer rates continue to be higher for men than for women, but men experienced the greatest declines in new cases and deaths.

Civil Rights
New Report Questions "Suicides" at Guantanamo

According to an article in Salon.com, on the night of June 10, 2006, three Guantanamo detainees were found dead in their individual cells. Without any autopsy or investigation, U.S. military officials proclaimed "suicide by hanging" as the cause of each death, and immediately sought to exploit the episode as proof of the evil of the detainees. However, a major new report from Seton Hall University School of Law released this week raises serious doubts about both the military's version of events and the reliability of its investigation. The Report details that the three men "died under questionable circumstances"; that "the investigation into their deaths resulted in more questions than answers"; and that "without a proper investigation, it is impossible to determine the circumstances of the three detainees' deaths." The 54-page, heavily-documented Report raises numerous troubling questions.

Human Rights
Rescued Child Prostitutes Not Receiving Help

More than a month after the FBI announced it had rescued 52 children from "sexual slavery" in a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution, none of the victims is receiving the help experts say is necessary to overcome such trauma and rejoin society. The Los Angeles Times reports that at least one, a 15-year-old Sacramento girl held on an unrelated charge, remains in a juvenile detention center, according to a Los Angeles Times check of the children's situations. Others have been sent home or into foster care. The victims need intensive residential treatment, experts say, and only three such programs exist in the country. When America's child prostitutes are identified by the FBI or police, they are incarcerated for whatever reason possible, whether it be an unrelated crime or “material witness hold.” Child victims are often sent home or to foster families after moving through juvenile court.

Reproductive Rights
Women of Reproductive Age Disproportionately Uninsured

According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, publicly funded family planning providers are struggling to meet a growing need for subsidized contraceptive care, which is being driven by more women wanting to postpone childbearing during tough economic times. This surge in demand is straining already-limited resources, and is exacerbated by rising unemployment that has resulted in more women losing employer-based insurance coverage. According to the new report, some family planning centers have been able to expand their hours of operation to meet the growing need. Unfortunately, many more centers have been forced to cut back on services due to budgetary constraints. More than half the surveyed centers reported one or more service delivery challenges related to staffing or cutbacks in services. Nearly half reported staff layoffs or a hiring freeze. One-third reported cutbacks in the number of contraceptive methods offered, typically the long-acting and more effective methods like the IUD and implant (which have high up-front costs) and some brands of birth control pills. A quarter reported longer wait times for clients seeking care.

Women’s Issues
Extremist Threat to Women Increasing, Government Failing to Protect

Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, women and girls suffer high levels of violence and discrimination and have poor access to justice and education. Human Rights Watch released a report this week that said that the Afghan government has also failed to bring killers of prominent women in public life to justice, creating an environment of impunity for those who target women. The 96-page report, "We Have the Promises of the World: Women's Rights in Afghanistan," details emblematic cases of ongoing rights violations in five areas: attacks on women in public life; violence against women; child and forced marriage; access to justice; and girls' access to secondary education. One nationwide survey of levels of violence against Afghan women found that 52 percent of respondents experienced physical violence, and 17 percent reported sexual violence. Yet because of social and legal obstacles to accessing justice, few women and girls report violence to the authorities.

Race and Racism
Latinos Rarely Mentioned in U.S. Media

According to a report by New America Media, an in-depth study of nearly 35,000 articles in major media outlets between Feb. 9 and Aug. 9, 2009, which was released this week by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, found very little coverage of Latinos and even less of other minority groups. During the six months examined, 2.9 percent of the news content studied contained substantial references to Hispanics. Of 34,452 articles, only 654 made any reference to Latinos and 57 focused directly on an aspect of Latino life in the United States. Fifty-five English-language U.S. media were studied, including 13 newspapers, 15 cable TV shows, morning and evening TV news shows, 12 Web sites and nine radio programs.