National News
AP - Wholesale prices rising at fastest pace since 1981
Wholesale inflation surged in July, leaving prices for the past year rising at the fastest pace in 27 years, according to government data released Tuesday.
AP - US housing starts at lowest level since March '91
Construction of U.S. homes and apartments fell in July to the lowest level in more than 17 years, the government reported Tuesday.
Wall Street Journal - As U.S. Economic Problems Loom, House, Senate Sweat the Small Stuff
The 110th Congress, whose term officially ends in January, hasn't passed any spending bills or attacked high gasoline prices. But it has used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of the word "baseball."
Politico - Pump primed for fall fight on energy
There’s a little something for everyone to hate in the energy proposals House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) articulated over the weekend.
Roll Call - Republicans Return to House, Focus on Process
A handful of Republicans returned to an empty House chamber Monday for the third week of protesting Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) refusal to allow a vote on offshore drilling.
CQ - Republicans Say Any Drilling Bill Must Move Through Committee
House Republicans said Monday they would refuse to consider any energy bill that came straight to the floor from the Democratic leadership’s offices, rather than working its way through committee markups — a process that can take weeks or months.
CQ - Earmarks Decline in Senate, But Up in House
The Senate has trimmed the amount of earmarks in its fiscal 2009 spending bills, but the House has increased its total slightly from last year, according to an analysis released Monday by a group that advocates curbing the practice.
Politco - Colleges back students in piracy case
Hollywood-backed legislation to curtail copyright infringement by college students could make music and movie piracy even worse, the education lobby says.
International News
Washington Post - U.S. Extraditions Raise Concerns in Colombia
In a small courtroom here, Ever Veloza has over the past year confessed to nearly 1,000 slayings in Colombia's conflict and recounted how the death squads he helped run were supported by army officers and prominent politicians.
Washington Post - NATO Ministers Meet to Address Georgia
NATO allies on Tuesday accused Russia of using "disproportionate" force in its military conflict with Georgia and said the alliance will not resume regular contact with Moscow until its troops have withdrawn to pre-conflict positions -- a withdrawal that was supposed to begin Monday but does not appear to be substantively underway.
LA Times - U.S. counter-terrorism officials express relief over Musharraf exit
Even at the height of his powers, he had produced uneven results in battling Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
NY Times - Taliban Forces Kill 10 French Soldiers and Raid U.S. Base Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting, one a complex attack with multiple suicide bombers on an American military base on Monday night, and another by some 100 insurgents on French forces in a district east of the capital, killing 10 French soldiers and wounding 21 others, military officials said Tuesday.
State News
San Jose Mercury - California leads nation in immigrant births
A new and more nuanced national report about fertility shows a significantly higher share of babies are born to immigrants in California than in any other state, even as a lower-than-average share of the state's births are to poor women and women on welfare.
AP - California fines 18 hospitals for shoddy care
Eighteen hospitals in California were fined for state health code violations in which patients died from various mishaps such as an improperly inserted tube and a ventilator that wasn't turned on. Other violations include surgical tools left inside patients after surgery.
Washington Post - Calif. Court Puts Gays' Care Over Doctors' Faith
Doctors may not refuse medical treatment to gay men or lesbians for religious reasons, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday.
San Diego Union Tribune - Economy affecting casinos' cash flow
Indian tribes are finding that gambling isn't as recession-proof as once thought.
San Diego Union Tribune - Housing Prices Sink
Sales surge, but real estate market is still in decline
NC Times - Conserve or we'll do it for you, state says
Conserve water or the government will do it for you. That's the blunt message of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan for improving California's water supply, which went on the road for a series of community meetings Monday.
NC Times - Yes on A campaign contributions top $600k
With a week to go before voting ends, a political action committee supporting the measure, which aims to rebuild half of the public hospital's aging Oceanside campus, has raised more than $600,000 --- or about the same amount of money that was raised for two failed hospital bonds in 2006.
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