National

On a recent visit back to New Orleans I looked out onto Lake Pontchartrain. A dry breeze lifted the water into waves that shimmered in the sun: beautiful, despite the filthy floodwater the lake had devoured. Everything about the city is sad, including the beautiful parts that remain, because they make the loss of the rest of it so obvious.

Safety concerns on the trains they run dominated the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen’s conference in Las Vegas in late June. Topping the list were railroads’ plans to cut the crew members per train down to one and the issue of transportation of nuclear waste.

Fed fights inflation by increasing unemployment and lowering wages
‘Banker’s-eye view’ of the economy
Home sales and prices, both down

Higher jobless rates
Sheriff’s statements ‘overtly racist’
Entergy New Orleans seeks 25 percent rate boost
Flood or hurricane? Insurers seek to avoid payments

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth was removed Tuesday from a 10-year-old lawsuit in which thousands of American Indians claim the government mismanaged billions of dollars in federal trust funds.

Birth control. It’s used by 98 percent of American women. It’s healthy, safe, and effective. It reduces the number of abortions. It’s basic health care. We can all agree on that much, right?

A University of North Dakota survey using the strict guidelines of the Institutional Review Board shows that the university’s Fighting Sioux team name and logo has real effects on students.

Do the American people have a right to know what their government is doing? For President Bush and members of his administration, the given answer would be a resounding “no.” Listening to the administration, one would get the impression that it believes that every time the press refuses to roll over and play dead the press is unpatriotic, even treasonous.

LAS VEGAS (PAI) — Reviving a campaign they suspended several years ago, the Teamsters will try to organize the 15,000 drivers for Overnite Transportation, but with a difference: they will do so via card-check.

WASHINGTON — Defenders of civil liberties hailed the Supreme Court’s 5-3 decision July 1 that President Bush has no authority to try thousands of detainees in military tribunals at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at other U.S. military prisons around the world.