California budget woes

California budget woes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Chances of a quick resolution to California’s budget stalemate appeared to fade Wednesday after Senate Republican holdouts ousted their leader in a midnight coup and promised to resist tax increases that GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says are needed to close a $42 billion deficit.

The Democrat-controlled Legislature appears to need just one more GOP vote in the Senate to reach the two-thirds majority it needs to get the budget to the governor’s desk, but that vote may prove impossible to get.

The proposal that has been before lawmakers since late last week would use spending cuts, borrowing and $14.4 billion in tax increases to close a projected $42 billion budget deficit through June 2010.

17 must stay at Gitmo

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that 17 Turkic Muslims cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay must stay at the prison camp, raising the stakes for an Obama administration that has pledged to quickly close the facility and free those who have not been charged.

In a showdown over presidential power, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a judge went too far last October in ordering the U.S. entry of the 17 men, known as Uighurs (WEE’-gurz), over the objections of the Bush administration.

The three-judge panel suggested the detainees might be able to seek entry by applying to the Homeland Security Department, which administers U.S. immigration laws. But the court bluntly concluded the detainees otherwise had no constitutional right to immediate freedom.

Cartoon sparks outrage

NEW YORK — A New York Post cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police drew outrage Wednesday from civil rights leaders and elected officials who said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys.

The cartoon in Wednesday’s Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee named Travis who was killed Monday by police in Stamford, Conn., after it mauled a friend of its owner.

Some critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialized a tragedy in which a woman was disfigured and a chimpanzee killed. Others said the cartoon suggests that Obama should be assassinated. Many urged a boycott of the Post and its advertisers.

Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post, defended the work.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment.

Support for shoe thrower

BAGHDAD — About 100 people staged a protest in Baghdad on Wednesday to demand the release of the Iraqi who threw his shoes at ex-President George W. Bush on the eve of the TV journalist’s trial.

A lawyer for journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 30, said the defense would ask for a postponement when court convenes today in western Baghdad.

Al-Zeidi, who works for a satellite station based in Cairo, Egypt, has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush’s joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad.

The obscure 30-year-old reporter was transformed into a cult figure across the Muslim world, where thousands hailed him as a hero and demanded his release for what they considered a justified act of patriotism.

Holder: ‘Nation of cowards’

WASHINGTON — Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was “a nation of cowards” on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues.

In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated, but Americans still self-segregate in their private lives.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said.

Pelosi meets the pope

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI received Nancy Pelosi, one of the most prominent abortion rights politicians in America, and told her Wednesday that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life “at all stages of its development.”

The U.S. House speaker, a Catholic, was the first top Democrat to meet with Benedict since the election of Barack Obama, who won a majority of the U.S. Catholic vote despite differences with the Vatican on abortion.

Associated Press