United States and Mexico border wall a costly failure film says

Washington’s plan to build a fence on the border with Mexico has cost $3 billion and has not deterred illegal immigrants or drug traffickers from entering the country, according to a new U.S. documentary.”The Fence” hopes to show Americans, who were divided when construction of the wall was approved in 2006, that the venture is a failure as conceived and a blemish upon the United States internationally.It argues that illegals and smugglers can easily climb over, dig under and even drive over the wall, which is only a few feet (meters) high in parts, has no razor wire, and abruptly ends in the desert.

“One of the most confounding and little-known realities of the fence is that it only covers about one third of the 2,000-mile (3,218-km) border,” said Rory Kennedy, the director and narrator.Kennedy, who is a daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, spent weeks traveling along the border from California to Texas as the fence was being built in 2009. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Up to 500 people die every year crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, according to U.S. immigration experts and the Mexican government, a sharp jump from a decade ago. Tougher border security and the fence’s construction have forced migrants to take more dangerous, remote routes into the United States.Some 650 miles of the 670-mile wall called for under the Secure Fence Act and signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush in October 2006 have been built. It contains 120,000 tons of metal and materials, ranging from railroad ties to concrete and chain link fencing.

“COMPLETE THE DANGED FENCE”

Lined in parts with stadium-style lights, cameras and roads to allow U.S. agents to patrol, the fence was partly a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It also aims to stop terrorists from crossing over from Mexico.”This was put up to illustrate to Joe whoever up in Dubuque (Iowa) or someplace that they see a picture of this and … they think ‘oh yeah, that’ll stop them’,” Arizona ranch owner Bill Odle said in the film. “Well of course it doesn’t.”

But it remains a magnet for Republicans keen to show their get-tough credentials in the run-up to the November U.S. elections. Arizona Republican John McCain, facing his toughest re-election battle in years for the Senate, demanded that the government in May to “complete the danged fence.”Despite calls for a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border, the terrain, which ranges from swamps to deserts, makes that idea almost impossible and financially prohibitive.

U.S. law enforcement uses helicopters, unmanned planes and agents in watchtowers and in vehicles to monitor the area stretching from the Tijuana-San Diego crossing in California to the Matamoros-Brownsville crossing in Texas around the clock.U.S. Border Patrol agents say the wall and virtual fencing cut the number of people caught trying to cross into the United States by a quarter in the fiscal year 2009.

Immigration experts counter that the deep U.S. recession in 2008-2009 and the resulting lack of jobs in the world’s biggest economy was a bigger factor behind the drop.Even with a sluggish economy, 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States every year between 2007 and 2009, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.But critics, both in the United States and Mexico, where there was an outcry when the plan was approved, also are questioning the wisdom of spending billions on the fence during hard economic times.

Future U.S. administrations are likely to spend $6.5 billion on maintenance of the fence over the next 20 years, the United States Government Accountability Office says, although researchers at the U.S. Congress say it could be more.The documentary airs on Thursday on U.S. cable television channel HBO.(Reuters)

pastor Terry Jones canceled a plan to burn copies of the Koran at his obscure Florida church

A Christian pastor on Thursday canceled a plan to burn copies of the Koran at his obscure Florida church, which had drawn international condemnation and a warning from President Barack Obama that it could provoke al Qaeda suicide bombings.Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Terry Jones, an obscure minister who heads the tiny Dove World Outreach Center church in the Florida town of Gainesville, to urge him not to go ahead, the Pentagon said.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Gates had expressed “grave concern” in the brief telephone call with Jones that the Koran burning “would put the lives of our forces at risk, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.”Jones later told journalists outside his church that he was calling off his plan, which had caused worldwide alarm and raised tensions over this year’s anniversary of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.

He confirmed Gates’ call but linked his decision to what he said was an agreement by Muslim leaders — which they denied — to relocate an Islamic cultural center and mosque planned close to the site of the September 11 attacks in New York.The proposed location has drawn opposition from many Americans who say it is insensitive to families of the victims of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.”The imam has agreed to move the mosque, we have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday,” Jones said.

CONFUSION OVER MOSQUE “DEAL”

He said he would fly to New York on Saturday with Imam Muhammad Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida to meet the New York imam at the center of the controversy, Feisal Abdul Rauf.But Rauf said in a statement he was surprised by the announcement. “I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Korans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones or Imam Musri. I am surprised by their announcement,” he said.

“We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony,” he said.Sharif el-Gamal, the project developer for the New York mosque, said in a statement: “It is untrue that the community center known as park 51 in lower Manhattan is being moved. The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehood.”Musri conceded to reporters: “This is not a done deal yet. This is a brokered deal,” he said. He said he had no fixed time for him and Jones to meet Rauf in New York.

INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION

Earlier, world leaders had joined Obama in denouncing Jones’ plan to burn copies of the Islamic holy book on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.The international police agency Interpol warned governments worldwide of an increased risk of terrorist attacks if the burning went ahead, and the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans traveling overseas.

Jones has said Jesus would approve of his plan for “Burn a Koran Day,” which he called a reprisal for Islamist terrorism.The United States has powerful legal protections for the right to free speech and there was little law enforcement authorities could do to stop Jones from going ahead, other than citing him under local bylaws against public burning.Many people, both conservative and liberal, dismissed the threat as an attention-seeking stunt by the preacher.”This is a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda,” Obama said in an ABC television interview.

“You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities.The president, who has sought to improve relations with Muslims worldwide, spoke out in an effort to stop Jones from going ahead and head off growing anger among many Muslims.Insults to Islam, no matter their size or scope, have often been met with huge protests and violence around the world. One such outburst was sparked when a Danish newspaper published a cartoon mocking the Prophet Mohammad in 2005.

Pentagon spokesman Morrell said earlier in the day that there was intense debate within the administration over whether to call Jones. Officials feared of setting a precedent that could inspire copy-cat “extremists.”Jones’ plan was condemned by foreign governments, international church groups, U.S. religious and political leaders and military commanders.It also threatened to undermine Obama’s efforts to reach out to the world’s more than one billion Muslims at a time when he is trying to advance the Middle East peace process and build solidarity against Iran over its disputed nuclear program.(Reuters)

Mosque flap tests limits of NYC tolerance

The word tolerance comes from the Latin “tolerare” – to bear. In our dictionaries, we define it as, among other things, the “freedom from bigotry or prejudice.”Its meanings are almost as numerous as the people who express them, as recent entries in the visitor comment book at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles suggest.It means “to respect other races even if u hate them,” says one commenter, signed only as G. “Acceptance,” says another, Alejandra, adding, “To me, tolerance is tinged with the negative aspect of `putting up with’ someone or something, but not fully embracing it.”

As rancor swirls around the issue of whether a mosque and Islamic cultural center should be built two blocks from the New York site where the destroyed Twin Towers stood, Americans are being forced to examine just how tolerant they are – or are not.The issue has always been with us. Against the backdrop of Puritan rigidity and the infamous Salem witch trials, the Founding Fathers made sure the concept of tolerance was woven into the very fabric of the young American republic.In 1790, in a letter welcoming newly elected President George Washington to Newport, R.I., on behalf of “the children of the stock of Abraham,” Moses Seixas reflected this view. “Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens,” he wrote, he saw the hand of God in the establishment of a government “which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

In reply, Washington assured the Jewish leader that the birth of the United States meant a new birth of freedom and respect.”It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights,” he wrote. This would be a country, he pledged, where “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

If Washington’s promise remains part of the nation’s creed today, it’s still true that disputes like that involving the New York mosque test the limits of that tolerance.”We were never as tolerant as we thought we were,” says the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “I think that the rock on which tolerance is built is often more like sandstone than it is granite. It is easy to erode at any times when problems in the culture develop.”

Despite the current imbroglio over the Manhattan mosque, the Rev. Patrick McCollum says he believes Americans are becoming more tolerant. His proof: The fact that his house hasn’t been firebombed in a while.”There were people actually killed and such for having beliefs different than the dominant belief system,” says the San Francisco man, a Wiccan minister in the “sacred path” tradition. “And that doesn’t happen as much anymore.”

McCollum, 60, has been involved in a seven-year federal court battle over California’s policy of employing as state chaplains only Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and adherents to Native American religions. He attributes both his struggle and the Manhattan mosque fight to what he calls the “dominant religious lens factor.”

Even so, he interprets the latter as a sign of growth.”I think that the intolerance that we’re experiencing right now is that for the first time in a long period of time, since almost the founding of our country, we’ve actually begun to ALLOW pluralism to surface in our country,” says McCollum. “So we’ve started to uphold the ideals that our country was founded on … and the people who’ve been in the dominant position begin to feel like they’re under attack.”

Although not declaring his outright support for the mosque planners’ real estate choice, President Barack Obama has defended their constitutional right to be there.

Not everyone was satisfied with his words.”I think to reason in that manner is to shortchange American identity; it’s not to apprehend fully the robustness of American identity,” says Brad Stetson, co-author of the book “The Truth About Tolerance: Pluralism, Diversity And The Culture Wars.”

America’s “penchant for toleration,” as Stetson puts it, is “beyond question.” But he says that tolerance has always been “circumscribed by some understanding of what was best for the commonweal, the health of the social body.””It’s not necessarily intolerant to say no,” says Stetson, who also lectures at Chapman University and California State University, Long Beach. “Governing bodies at various levels of a deeply pluralistic society like ours have a duty to consider the range of public sensibilities … a given decision affects, and not merely reflexively grant the naked exercise of rights upon request.”

Lynn can understand why some people are so upset about the Islamic center plans. “I’m not saying that everybody who is against building this mosque is some kind of a bigot,” he says. But is building the mosque really the equivalent of, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested, putting a Nazi sign “next to the Holocaust Museum” in Washington, D.C.?

Yes, says 88-year-old Abe Rosenblum.In 1943, Rosenblum was taken from his home in the Carpathian Mountains and “drafted” into the Hungarian labor force. When the Nazis occupied the area, he and the other Jews were sent to a ghetto, then loaded into boxcars, and eventually wound up in Mauthausen, a notorious concentration camp not far from Adolf Hitler’s hometown of Linz, Austria.

By the time the Russians liberated him from another subcamp in 1945, the 6-foot-1 Rosenblum weighed just 85 pounds. His father, grandparents and five sisters all perished. Only he and his oldest brother, who had emigrated to Chicago in 1939, survived. Rosenblum eventually joined him, settling in the suburb of Skokie, Ill.

In 1977, Rosenblum and the many other Holocaust survivors who settled in Skokie were horrified when Frank Collin and his National Socialist Party of America announced plans to march there. Although the courts eventually upheld Collin’s right to parade, the march was called off after Chicago, Collin’s original target, agreed to grant him a permit to rally there.

Years later, when arriving for the dedication of the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Rosenblum looked out his bus window and saw a single protester standing in the rain, holding a Nazi flag and wearing a swastika arm band. It made him physically ill.

“We already lived through all these atrocities, and these guys come over here and still want to?” he says in heavily accented English, his respiration quickening. “They didn’t have enough? … This is not free speech. This is antagonizing.”Rosenblum does not believe that Islam is an inherently violent religion. But he says Muslims have no more business building a mosque so close to ground zero than an order of Carmelite nuns had to establish a convent outside the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

His voice rising, he asks why another New York site can’t be found. “You have to build it there, where people suffered? … It hurts me even to talk about it. Because I know what these people feel, those people who lost their loved ones.”Lynn wonders who is speaking for the Muslim-Americans who died in the 9/11 attacks. “There was the same terror for Muslims as … for Jews or Christians or atheists that morning.”

Eighteen-year-old Ceara Sturgis has been oblivious to the storm clouds emanating from New York. But she’s had a busy week.On Wednesday, she started classes at Mississippi State University. The day before, she filed a federal lawsuit against her high school in Wesson, Miss.

Sturgis claims she was discriminated against when her name and photo were left out of the senior yearbook. School officials said Sturgis, who is lesbian and generally dresses in gender-neutral or “masculine” clothes, violated a policy that allowed only boys to wear tuxedos for their senior portraits.When Sturgis tried on the scoop-necked drape, she felt so uncomfortable that it brought her to tears. She changed into a tux and submitted that photo.

Sturgis – a National Honor Society member who was involved in numerous school sports and clubs – had been told the photo wouldn’t be included in the yearbook. But the omission of her name seemed an attempt to deny her very existence.”I’d been going there 13 years, and that was my senior year, and that was the last memory I was going to have,” she says. “And, like, 40 years down the road, when people look at that, I’m not going to be in there. My friends aren’t going to see me in there. And that just, it really hurt my feelings.”

Ironically, it took what Sturgis sees as an act of intolerance to show her just how much support she has. A Facebook page dedicated to her has nearly 3,000 friends.”Most of them are not from Mississippi,” she says with a chuckle. “I really think it’s just the small, closed-minded towns that are doing this.”

If Americans are conflicted, they can be forgiven, says tolerance museum director Liebe Geft. She admits to finding the word “problematic” herself.Geft – whose paternal grandmother and namesake was among Lithuanian Jews rounded up by their neighbors ahead of the Nazi invasion, taken out to the woods and shot – would like visitors to define tolerance “in a much more active way, putting respect into practice.”

“It’s not a mandate to accept everything,” says Geft, who grew up in Zimbabwe and has lived on four continents. “There are limits to what a civil society should tolerate. And when the human rights and dignities of others are being trampled and denied, that’s not acceptable in a country that advocates rights and freedoms and dignity for all.”But, as the visitor comments reveal, intolerance is in the eye of the beholder.

In the museum’s “Tolerancenter” are four polling stations that allow visitors to weigh in on the provocative topic du jour. On Wednesday, Geft posed the question: Is it appropriate to erect a Mosque and Islamic Community Center close to the 9/11 site?”The results, as of Friday: 37 percent answered “yes,” 62 percent said “no.”

U.S. military will conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise with South Korea early next month

The U.S. military will conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise with South Korea early next month, sending a message to the North that Washington is committed to defending its ally, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the joint exercise, which is likely to annoy regional power China, would be conducted off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula and was aimed at defending against “sub-surface” attacks, particularly following the sinking of one of the south’s warships in March.

“This exercise certainly sends a clear message to North Korea that the U.S. is committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea,” Whitman told reporters. “Our commitment is unequivocal.”Asked about China’s likely negative reaction, Whitman said Beijing had no reason to view the joint series of exercises as a threat to its security.

“These exercises are intended to deter North Korea from future destabilizing attacks such as that which occurred with Cheonan,” he said, referring to the sinking of the South Korean warship earlier this year, which was blamed on Pyongyang.The North has denied involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, and sees the latest string of joint exercises as a provocation by its neighbor and Washington.After Seoul competed drills near a disputed maritime border off the west coast this month, the North retaliated by firing a barrage of artillery shells in the same area.

SUCCESSION JITTERS

Relations across the divided peninsula have become more fraught following the attack on the Cheonan and there also is growing concern in Washington over the North’s increasingly unpredictable behavior.U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that recent provocations by the North should be seen in the context of tensions surrounding the succession of leader Kim Jong-il, who is expected to hand over power to his youngest son.

Gates said Kim’s youngest son was probably seeking to “earn his stripes” with the North Korean military and he was concerned that there were more attacks ahead.The latest military exercise, planned for early September, followed a visit by Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Seoul last month, Whitman said.The exercise will focus on anti-submarine warfare tactics, techniques and procedures and was designed specifically to improve the readiness and proficiency of U.S. and South Korean forces against potential sub-surface attacks, he said.Whitman said the exercise was still in the planning stages and declined to provide details on which U.S. ships might be involved or the scope or length of the exercise.As the North’s only major ally, China has called the U.S. drills a threat to both its security and regional stability.After a joint U.S.-South Korea naval drill in the Sea of Japan last month, China conducted its own heavily publicized military exercises.(Reuters)

United Nations give warning of second wave of Pakistani flood deaths

Pakistan  The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $459 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, warning of a second wave of death among sick, hungry survivors unless help arrived quickly.Roiling floods triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rain have scoured Pakistan’s Indus river basin, killing more than 1,600 people, forcing 2 million from their homes and disrupting the lives of about 14 million people, or 8 percent of the population.President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has come in for harsh criticism for its perceived sluggish response to the disaster, defended a decision to travel abroad as the floods began, saying he helped focus international attention on the plight of the victims.The floods, the worst in the region in 80 years, have raised fears for the prospects of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally already battling a deadly Islamist militancy.U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday the U.S. military was tripling the number of helicopters in Pakistan to 19 from six and sending in a landing platform to be used off the coast of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.

Washington, which had already committed $55 million to Pakistani flood relief efforts, also announced it was contributing a further $16.2 million to the U.N. refugee agency and International Red Cross for emergency assistance to flood victims.Aid agencies have complained of a lackluster donor response to the crisis, while a U.N. spokesman said help was needed soon.”If we do not respond soon enough to the urgent needs of the population, if we do not provide life-saving assistance as soon as is necessary, there may be a second wave of death caused by diseases and food shortages,” said U.N. humanitarian operations the spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.Hundreds of roads and bridges have been destroyed from northern mountains to the plains of the southern province of Sindh, where the waters have not yet crested, meaning the situation could get worse.

Countless villages and farms have been inundated, crops destroyed and livestock lost. In some places, families are huddled on tiny patches of water-logged land with their animals surrounded by an inland sea.On the outskirts of the city of Sukkur, in Sindh, hundreds of people waited for food supplies at a tent camp.”I can’t find my 12-year-old son. I’ve been to my village with soldiers on a boat but there was no sign of him,” said farmer Mohammad Hassan.”I’m so worried. I don’t know what to do. Should I take care of my family here or go and look for my son?” Hassan, a father of 10, told Reuters before rushing into a throng jostling around a truck that arrived with rations of cooked rice.

ECONOMIC DAMAGE

The International Monetary Fund has warned of major economic harm and the Finance Ministry said the country would miss this year’s 4.5 percent gross domestic product growth target, although it was not clear by how much.Pakistani stocks ended 0.17 percent down at 9,875.68 as the economic costs of the disaster rattled investors. the market has lost 5.37 percent since the floods began.The United Nations says the disaster is the biggest the country has faced and it would cost billions of dollars to rehabilitate the victims and rebuild ruined infrastructure.Giuliano said he was optimistic aid would arrive and $150 million had already been pledged. The U.N. World Food Program needs $150 million to feed 6 million people for three months.Zardari defended his decision to travel to France and Britain at the end of last month.

“Some have criticized my decision, saying it represented aloofness, but I felt that I had to choose substance over symbolism,” he said in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.The British government had pledged $24 million in aid, following his meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, the Pakistani leader said.

Pakistan’s military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its 63-year history, has taken the lead in relief efforts, reinforcing the faith many Pakistanis have in their armed forces and highlighting the comparative ineffectiveness of civilian governments.Analysts say the armed forces would not try to take power as they have vowed to shun politics and are busy fighting militants.U.S. military helicopters have been airlifting survivors in an effort that may win Washington some supporters in Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment runs high.

“Let’s not talk about politics. We were trapped here and they came to evacuate us,” said Abdul Rehman, 37, rescued by a U.S. helicopter after being stranded with a new-born baby and wife.”They’re doing good. Let’s appreciate them.”The United States needs a stable Pakistan to help it end a nine-year war by the Taliban in Afghanistan.(Reuters)

Dick Cheney has been out of the hospital

WASHINGTON  Former Vice President Dick Cheney (69), as is rumored, has been out of the hospital, Monday, after a month and then get a new heart pump.”We go through the effort of healing at home, he and his family express gratitude for adequate care given by medical staff at Inova Fairfax Hospital and George Washington University,” said a statement from his office.They are also grateful for the support of many people who have to write to and pray for healing for Cheney.

Cheney himself claimed to have suffered a heart attack and five times in mid-July and then he decided to install the equipment because of suffering from heart failure due to the rising pressure.He put on the supporting tools that are useful for left ventricular pump function of heart and is usually only given in patients with chronic heart disease.(AFP)

NBA all-stars joined President Barack Obama on Sunday to entertain wounded troops

WASHINGTON LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and other NBA all-stars joined President Barack Obama on Sunday to entertain wounded troops.The basketball superstars were joined by some retired legends, including Bill Russell and Magic Johnson. College player Maya Moore of the Connecticut Huskies women’s team also played.

The game was played for a group of “wounded warriors” – troops injured in action – and participants in the White House’s mentoring program.The action took place at a gym inside Washington’s Fort McNair, a short drive from the White House. The president was inside the gym for about two hours. (AP)

federal judge Judge orders protections reinstated for gray wolf in Montana and Idaho

HELENA, Mont. A federal judge on Thursday reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho, saying the government made a political decision in removing the protections from just two of the states where Northern Rocky Mountain wolves roam.The decision puts a halt to wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho planned for this fall. Montana wildlife regulators last month set the wolf-hunt quota at 186, more than doubling last year’s number, with the aim of reducing the state’s wolf population.U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula said in his ruling that the entire region’s wolf population either must be listed as an endangered species or removed from the list, but the protections for the same population can’t be different for each state.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to Montana and Idaho wildlife officials but left federal endangered species protections in place for wolves in Wyoming. There, legislators have approved a plan classifying wolves in most areas of the state outside the vicinity of Yellowstone National Park as predators that could be shot on site.

Molloy sided with the wildlife advocates who sued the federal government, ruling that Endangered Species Act does not allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to list only part of a species as endangered, and the federal agency must protect the entire Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population.”The rule delisting the gray wolf must be set aside because, though it may be a pragmatic solution to a difficult biological issue, it is not a legal one,” Molloy wrote.

Gray wolves were listed as endangered in 1974, but following a reintroduction program in the mid-1990s, there are now more than 1,700 in the Northern Rockies, which includes all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, along with portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah.Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other wildlife advocates sued the federal government after the Fish and Wildlife Service decision in April 2009. They argued that the government’s decision would have set a precedent allowing the government to arbitrarily choose which animals should be protected and where.

Doug Honnold, an attorney for EarthJustice representing the plaintiffs, said he was gratified by the ruling, though he is sure there will be another chapter to the story.”For today, we are celebrating that the approach we thought was flatly illegal has been rejected. The troubling consequences for the Endangered Species Act have been averted and the wolf hunts are blocked,” Honnold said.

The plaintiffs don’t want wolves on the endangered species list forever, but they do want a solid plan in place, said Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife. The government’s plan was poorly devised and would have allowed too many wolves to be killed, she said.”We need a good wolf management and delisting that allows for a healthy interconnected wolf population,” Stone said.

Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game declined to comment immediately after the ruling was released, saying they had yet to read the whole decision.The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission has asked the state to appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to a statement by the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks agency.

Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said Montana has done everything it’s been asked to do in developing its state management program but now will have to apply federal law and regulations once more.”This puts a spotlight on Wyoming and seeing what can be done with Wyoming,” Sime said.The increase in the wolf population brought livestock losses for ranchers and competition for hunters for big game, such as elk. Molloy’s decision means ranchers in northwestern Montana will no longer be able to haze, harass or kill wolves that prey on their livestock, Sime said.

Wolves in southwestern Montana will revert to their “experimental population” status and ranchers there will still be able to kill wolves that attack their animals, she said.But a big blow is the loss of a hunting season, Sime said.”That’s clearly a management tool that we want to have in the toolbox. We think it’s legitimate and appropriate,” she said.Both Idaho and Montana held wolf hunts last year. Montana’s kill ended with 73 wolves and Idaho’s with 185.

Idaho’s congressional delegation released a statement that said Molloy’s ruling ignored the exploding population of wolves and that the state can manage wolves in a sustainable and responsible way.”We look for a more reasonable decision from a higher court,” said the statement from Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Reps. Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick.At the end of 2009, there were at least 843 wolves in Idaho, 524 in Montana and 320 in Wyoming, with more in parts of Oregon and Washington state.

Thursday’s ruling could affect a lawsuit in which Wyoming charges the Fish and Wildlife Service had no reason to refuse to turn over management of gray wolves to Wyoming as it did to the other states. The case is before U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne.”If the rule is vacated, there’s a question that Judge Johnson has to consider of whether or not there is something for him to decide,” said Bruce Salzburg, Wyoming attorney general.(AP)

Senate approves $26.1 billion for state aid

The Senate on Thursday approved a jobs bill that would send states $26.1 billion to help them cope with historic budget shortfalls and give Democratic lawmakers a victory to tout on the campaign trail ahead of the November elections.By a 61-to-39 vote, the Senate passed a bill that would send the states $16.1 billion for Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor, and $10 billion to prevent teacher layoffs. States could face total budget gaps this year of $120 billion.

The U.S. House of Representatives, in a rare move by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been summoned back from its August recess to vote on the measure. That is expected to happen on Tuesday. The bill would then go to President Barack Obama for his signature. Similar measures previously have passed the House.Republicans say the legislation will add to the deficit and tie states’ hands on how to spend the funds. They have attacked it as a “job-killing tax increase.”

They also say the bill serves “special interest groups,” specifically teachers unions whose members tend to vote for Democrats.Pelosi said that labeling teachers and police officers, who will also benefit from the state aid, is demeaning.”This legislation is about creating and saving American jobs and preventing a double-dip recession,” she said. “It is fiscally responsible and fully paid for.”

Democrats facing a wave of anti-Washington anger hope the bill will convince voters going to the polls on November 2 of their commitment to bring down the U.S. unemployment rate, which is near 10 percent.The fragile economic recovery is foremost on the minds of voters and candidates for the 435 House seats and 37 Senate seats up for grabs.

Although states have been begging for the Medicaid money, they are wary of the teachers’ fund as it requires them to keep education spending at 2008 levels, which many cannot afford.Supporters say the bill will not add to the deficit because it is paid for by closing tax loopholes, eliminating advance refunds on the earned income tax credit and ending stimulus funds for food stamps earlier than expected.

One loophole that would be closed would raise more than $10 billion over a decade by preventing companies from claiming foreign tax credits for income not yet subject to U.S. tax.More than half of the 50 U.S. states counted on the additional funds for Medicaid for fiscal 2011, which started last month for many.

States use federal reimbursements to run the program. The $862 billion economic stimulus plan passed last year boosted the reimbursements, but the extra money runs out in December and states have been considering spending cuts and tax cuts to fill the void.The Medicaid money will also give older people access to healthcare, said AARP, the lobbying group for older Americans.

“States are better able to continue offering the often less costly home and community-based service that older Americans overwhelmingly prefer to more expensive nursing homes,” said the group representing retirees.The healthcare industry generally found reassurance in the Senate vote, saying the extra money will help hospitals and pharmacies continue to provide services.

One state, though, was not pleased. The bill would require Texas to agree to maintain or increase education funding during fiscal 2011, 2012 and 2013, in order to receive any of the teacher funds.The federal government was targeting the Lone Star state, said Governor Rick Perry, a Republican running for reelection in November.”Washington would be taking yet another step toward usurping the state’s authority by determining how to fund our schools, and what’s worse, no other state is subject to this provision,” Perry added.(Reuters) –

23-year-old woman reportedly is hospitalized in critical condition after she spent 10 minutes trapped underwater

SPOKANE, Wash. A 23-year-old woman reportedly is hospitalized in critical condition after she spent 10 minutes trapped underwater by milfoil at Horseshoe Lake in northeast Washington.The Pend Oreille (Pond O-Ray’) County sheriff’s office says Rachell Wood, of Elk, Wash., and her friends were trying to swim to some waterfalls from a public access point Wednesday when they got tangled in the aquatic weed.

The three companions swam to shore but couldn’t find her in the murky water. Authorities say after a few minutes they flagged down some people in a boat who pulled the woman from the water. She was taken to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.(AP)