Rep. Dicks leading trip to Middle East

Submitted on February 20, 2007 - 5:45pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - With Congress in recesses for the Presidents Day holiday this week, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., is spending his break meeting with leaders and Washington state soldiers in Iraq and four other countries.

In the nine-day trip, Dicks and a team of representatives from both parties will also visit Pakistan, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Germany.

In addition to meeting with foreign leaders, Dicks will meet with soldiers from western Washington. He hopes to meet with members of the Fort Lewis striker brigade, who are deployed in Iraq, and members of the Washington National Guard.

Dicks said he wants to talk to the Washington troops about whether they are getting the training and equipment they need and whether a lack of either is affecting their ability to do their job.

Joining Dicks for his third trip to the Middle East are three members of the defense appropriations subcommittee and two freshman representatives, one of whom served in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.
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Bush praises black leaders at history month celebration

Submitted on February 12, 2007 - 6:54pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - President Bush celebrated an audience filled with black leaders Monday - astronauts, sports stars and his own cabinet member Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - to mark African American History Month.

Bush said he couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate black history than by highlighting the achievements of “ordinary citizens who do unbelievably fine things.”

“Their stories speak a lot louder and a lot clearer than I could have,” Bush said at an East Room speech. “The strength of the African-American community has always lied in the hearts and souls of our citizens, people who refuse to allow adversity to diminish the spirit and extinguish the drive to make America live up to its promise.”

Noting the theme of this year’s African American History Month, “From Slavery to Freedom: Africans in the Americas,” Bush told of the suffering blacks endured and how they overcame adversity.

“Yet despite these assaults on culture and humanity, the children of Africa persevered,” he said.
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Climate debate grows heated during House hearing

Submitted on February 9, 2007 - 4:30pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - Boulder researcher Susan Solomon defended her stance on human-caused climate change amid challenges - including a question about her scientific credibility - from House Republicans at a hearing Thursday.

Solomon is co-chair of an international scientific team that released a landmark climate- change study last week in Paris.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said there is a greater than 90 percent likelihood that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases are to blame for most of the planet’s warming over the past 50 years.

But Republicans on the House Committee on Science and Technology have a different idea.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., submitted a list he said contains the names of “hundreds of scientists who disagree with this concept that climate change is caused by human activity.”
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Washington’s Bainbridge memorial one step closer to reality

Submitted on February 7, 2007 - 4:01pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., uttered the Japanese words “nidoto nai yoni,” which mean never let it happen again, as he spoke to House members Tuesday.

Inslee was urging representatives to pass a bill that would give national park status to a site on Bainbridge Island, Wash., from which Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during World War II.

The measure passed 419-0.

“We will be making a strong American statement … that the power of fear will never again be allowed to overcome the promise of liberty,” said Inslee, who represents Bainbridge Island. “America is a country that makes mistakes, but learns and improves.”

The memorial will commemorate the 227 Bainbridge Island residents who were the first Japanese Americans taken on March 30, 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans were held in camps during the war.
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Rep. Inslee writes book to spark action on climate change

Submitted on February 6, 2007 - 5:55pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - Outside Rep. Jay Inslee’s office stands a large photo of a polar bear looking rather glum. The caption reads, “The impacts of climate change are ruining my home.”

While there may not be polar bears in his district, Inslee, D-Wash., said global warming has hit too close to home.

As global warming has become a hotter issue, with recent media attention and Hollywood depictions of the enormity of the problem, Inslee has been writing his way toward a solution. In his forthcoming book, “Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Revolution,” Inslee offers tangible ways to fix the problem.

Washington state is faced with a decline in the alpine meadows in Mount Rainer and Olympic National Parks, increasing water temperature, reduced stream flows and declining snow pack combined with summer drought.

“We can’t let people feel overwhelmed. They could just seize up and not act. We can’t become frozen by this problem, we have to move,” Inslee said in an interview Monday in his Capitol Hill office. “That’s what this book is about. It’s really trying to build confidence in our abilities in America to develop a new clean-energy future.”
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Travel industry wants government to help attract more foreign visitors

Submitted on February 2, 2007 - 6:33pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - As chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, Jay Rasulo said he spends a lot of time talking about magic. Most of the time, it has to do with fairy dust, mouse ears and talking cats, but he said America’s people and culture are just as magical.

“People simply need to visit here to feel this magic,” he said.

This is why Rasulo, along with colleagues in the travel industry, are urging lawmakers to make more of an effort to increase the number of foreign visitors to the U.S. each year.

Citing a research study by the Discover America Partnership, traveling to the U.S. makes visitors 74 percent more likely to feel “extremely favorably” about the nation.

Rasulo leads the partnership with Stevan Porter, president of the Americas InterContinental Hotels Group, and other travel industry business leaders.
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Spelling book to make dreamers into champions

R’ay Fodor, 9, watches Barrie Trinkle, co-author of “How to Spell like a Champ,” sign a copy of her book for him.
Photo by Kayla Webley

Submitted on January 30, 2007 - 1:34pm.

Kayla Webley
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON - Unlike most fourth grade students, R’ay Fodor happily accepts extra homework. He studies spelling a lot more than his friends, but he said it’s worth it if it helps him reach his dream of winning the national spelling bee and becoming “famous.”

Fodor’s dad started coaching him in spelling when he was just 5 years old. Now, four years later, he enters every spelling be he can, and made it farther than any other third-grade student in the Jewish Primary Day School Bee last year.

“I’ve gotten good grades in spelling since the second grade, so I thought I would give it a go,” he said.

Fodor is like many would-be spelling bee contestants who will be poring over the new book, “How to Spell like a Champ.”

It provides study tips, advice from previous winners, word games and puzzles for practice. It also offers students insight into what it is really like to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, including how big the stage is, how to get parents “to chill” and what losing feels like.
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Delegates want an official chance to make their voices heard

Submitted on January 23, 2007 - 6:51pm.

Kayla Webley

WASHINGTON - American Somoa has the highest per capita casualty rate of any U.S. state or territory in the war in Iraq, but its delegate cannot vote in Congress. Eni Faleomavaega wants to change that.

Faleomavaega, a Democrat, is in his 10th term representing American Samoa in the House of Representatives. As an elected delegate, he is sworn in like every other representative and allowed to serve on committees. But, unlike other members of Congress, when the time comes to vote, Faleomavaega can only stand by.

Faleomavaega is one of four delegates from U.S. territories, who although they do not pay federal income taxes, are allowed to have a small voice in the workings of their country’s government.

“By and large, many members don’t even know we exist,” Faleomavaega said. “Give us a chance to represent our people … allow us to participate in our democracy.”

Like the territories, D.C. citizens also do not have a vote in Congress. They elect a non-voting delegate. But unlike the territories, D.C. citizens pay federal income tax, a grievance that runs high. The motto on D.C. license plates reads “Taxation without representation.”
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