Legislators may gut childrens' insurance program

.....Under a proposed state budget already approved by the House, about a quarter-of-a-million children will be removed from the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP.
.....GOP Chairwoman Susan Weddington apparently sees the move as a kind of social promotion to the world of the middle class. In a recently released phone transcript, Weddington told members of the State Republican Executive Committee that families removed from CHIP would simply have to pay for their own policies and "maybe have a little less disposable income or a little less inheritance from Mom and Dad." More.

Anti-gay foster parent bill may not be a reality

.....Last week, KPFT News reported on a bill authored by State Representative from Pasadena Republican Robert Talton. The bill would have banned gay, lesbian, bisexual or any other unmarried person from providing foster care.
.....In a hearing earlier this week, House Bill 1911 was met with broad criticism and passionate testimony. But in the end, it was the estimated $15 million price tag and not the anti-gay spirit of the bill, which caused House support to wane, this according to Republican State Representative, Kenny Marchant of Carolton.
.....Unconvinced that a Republican controlled State Legislature has conceded defeat, gay rights advocates say a bill with more creative financing may re-emerge in the House later this year.
.....Director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, Randal Ellis, cautioned against declaring victory over House bill 1911 too soon. According to Ellis, the bill is not officially dead until it runs out of time on May 12.
.....On another note related to the state's foster care system, the funds allocated to private adoption agencies for fiscal year 2003 have officially been exhausted. As of today, private placements have come to a screeching halt. Across the state, loving families and foster children were astonished to learn they would not be united today. Instead they were informed that no more adoptions can go forward until the state can find additional funds. More.

Halliburton doubles profits despite disdain

.....Oilfield juggernaut Halliburton reported yesterday that it nearly doubled profits, and this in a quarter when Halliburton took a beating internationally due to the Middle East war and political disorder in OPEC member country Venezuela.
.....Halliburton net profits this quarter were $43 million, while last quarter it reported income of $22 million.
.....Last month's highlight for Halliburton came when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the Defense Department contract to fight oil well fires in Iraq to a Halliburton subsidiary company, as well as help clean up Iraq in the war's aftermath.
.....This 2-year contract has received scrutiny since Vice-President Dick Cheney had been Halliburton CEO from 1995 to 2000, at the time when Cheney was then tapped to run for Vice President to President George Bush. More.

Houston company sees union woes in Nigeria

.....A Houston-based offshore drilling company, Transocean, is negotiating for the release of some 100 hostages held by striking Nigerian oil workers for the past 11 days.
..... Free Speech Radio News correspondent in Nigeria, Sam Olukoya, told KPFT news that Transocean is taking advantage of the day laborers not protected by union contracts.
..... The strikers are part of a blue-collar oil workers union - National Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers or NUPENG - and according to FSRN correspondent Olukoya, these "casual workers" are protesting the unwarranted firings of five workers let go for unspecified reasons. More.

State may comply with high court's IQ ruling

..... Defendants with claims of mental retardation will have their mental status decided by a jury if House Bill 614, passed last night, makes its way through the senate and then to the governor's desk.
..... The bill attempts to bring the Texas death penalty system into compliance with a Supreme Court decision issued last year that bars execution of mentally retarded offenders as cruel and unusual punishment.
..... Advocates of criminal justice reform say the bill in the house doesn't realize a proper ban because it times the jury's decision during the punishment phase of a capital trial. Attorney Hannah Derschowitz of Texas Appleseed:
..... "This would be asking a jury, after hearing all these bad things about the defendant, and all of the facts of the case - and also, not to mention, being a death-qualified jury - they would then be asked to unemotionally make a discreet clinical judgment about the presence of mental retardation. And they would also know the consequences of finding mental retardation: that is that there would be no death sentence. ... More.

Indictments slap Enron's former top brass

.....Seventeen months ago, Enron shocked the nation with its sudden implosion. But after countless hearings and investigations and lawsuits, the question remains: Will anyone go to jail for anything related to Enron's failure? Pokey Anderson, who was a research assistant on a book about Enron called Power Failure, reports on new indictments handed down in Houston yesterday.
..... It's been a long time since the nation was first stunned by the failure of Enron, and then a parade of other large companies going bankrupt amid financial scandals.
..... There were hearings in Congress, investigations at the SEC. Various states around the country sued to recover hundreds of millions lost for their pension funds. California has attempted to recover billions of dollars in energy company overcharges. Fingers have been pointed everywhere - at accountants, boards of directors, attorneys, Congress and the SEC. Investment bankers have been called on the carpet for paying more attention to the fees they could generate from Enron than to real prospects of Enron stock and this week they agreed to pay huge fines. The media have come into criticism for making CEOs into larger-than-life figures, almost like sports stars or rock stars, with exorbitant pay regardless of their performance.
..... The amounts of money involved remain difficult to grasp. Enron's top 144 managers were paid $744 million in the year before the collapse. That's about 80 percent of Enron's entire profits for the year -- paid to 144 people. It is also $300 million more than the entire annual budget of the SEC. More.

Bush's vision of 'healthy forests' may become real

.....A bill before the U.S. House Resources Committee would make the Bush Administration's controversial Healthy Forest Initiative law. The plan calls for logging on protected land, starting with the Sam Houston National forest. From rallies in Houston to lobby efforts in San Antonio, Texas conservationists are fighting to keep public lands in public hands. Erika McDonald has the report.
.....They call it 'the Un-Healthy Forest Initiative,' a Bush administration proposal to thin and burn acres of publicly owned and protected national forests. Officials say the plan is designed to protect communities from wild fires. At an Earth Day rally in downtown Houston, protestors called the policy a lumber industry handout. Texas Live Oak Alliance's Cameron Nacify:
....."Several large loopholes inherent in this policy have been written in that are particularly dangerous. And the net result of these for basically logging to go on, this is, most of this is cross-venting, but as they define venting in this initiative, there is no cap on the size of trees they can log, so they can take trees as large as 30 diameters, meaning that they can be thousands of years old." More.

Iranian fights federal money-transferring charges

..... In the early hours last Tuesday morning, members of a Federal Task force raided the home of an Iranian-American suspected of running an unlicensed money transfer business.
..... A local spokesperson for CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, Najat El-Sayeed, says their lives will never be the same:
..... "And the key word is allegedly accused of unlicensed money transferring and business relations. And they were cleared of all charges. The FBI found they were not involved in money laundering, they were not involved in supporting any terrorist organization or things of that nature. But the damage had already been done and the neighbors are already suspicious and they're left to piece their lives together. So that's basically what happened." More.

'Showdown' expected to draw large crowds in Austin

.....In the first of two scheduled press conferences, local community leaders met outside of the SHAPE Community Center on Live Oak in the Third Ward yesterday, to draw attention to a national rally taking place in Austin this weekend.
..... Billed as the "Showdown in Texas;" communities of color, immigrants rights groups, anti-war groups and global justice proponents will all converge on the state capitol this Saturday to highlight what they say is George W. Bush's escalating policy of war and militarism.
..... Local organizer with the Communities of Color Coalition, Kenya Johnson, spoke about the goals of the rally:
..... "We will celebrate and renew our resistance to war and militarism. We will renew our resistance to the dismantling of civil rights. We will renew our resistance to the undermining of labor rights. We will renew our resistance to the persecution and deportation of immigrants. We will renew our resistance to brutality and state-sanctioned murder. We will renew our resistance to exploitation of the environment. And we will renew our resistance to all forms of oppression that divide and exploit the American people.". More.