Marriage license denial sparks outrage
HAMMOND, La., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Louisiana's governor and other top officials called for the ouster of a justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
"This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law," Gov. Bobby Jindal said Friday. "Disciplinary action should be taken immediately, including the revoking of his license."
Jindal called on the state judiciary committee to look into why Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, refused to issue the marriage license to Hammond residents Beth Humphrey and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, CNN reported. Humphey, 30, is white, and McKay, 32, is black.
U.S. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La, said the judiciary committee should "use its authority to have Justice Bardwell dismissed from his position."
"Not only does his decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long," she said.
Bardwell has not returned CNN's calls, the network said Friday evening.
Patricia Morris, who heads the NAACP in Tangipahoa Parish, says marrying people is one of the duties a justice of the peace is elected to perform and "if he doesn't do it," he should step down.
Humphrey says she was shocked when the justice of the peace refused to issue the license Oct. 6.
Humphrey and McKay obtained a license from another justice and are consulting an attorney, CNN says.
Morris says her chapter has forwarded the case to the state and national NAACP.
Poll: Approval slips for Obama, Congress
NEW YORK, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's approval rating slipped for the third month in a row, and Congress is less popular than in the spring, a Harris Poll indicated.
The dip comes at a time when the president is trying to push through major reforms on healthcare, revive the economy, and increase employment, the Harris Poll reported Friday.
In July, 54 percent of U.S. adults asked gave Obama positive ratings, but the number dropped to 45 percent in October, the poll said.
Only 40 percent of independent voters currently give Obama positive ratings on his overall job performance, the poll indicated.
At the time of election, Echo Boomers (those ages 18-32) were some of Obama's strongest supporters, but now they give him only a 51 percent positive rating.
Approval of Congress's performance was sharply lower. Only 16 percent of poll respondents rated the legislature's performance positively, down from 31 percent in May, the poll said.
Sixty-one percent of Americans said they think the country is on the wrong track, the third consecutive month that the number of people who think the United States is going in the right direction has decreased, from 46 percent in August to 39 percent, the Harris Poll said.
The Harris Poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 5-12 with 2,293 adults 18 and older. As a matter of policy, the Harris Poll does not report margins of error.
Two healthcare bills more affordable
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Budget analysts estimate the two possible versions of the House healthcare bill come close to the $900 billion ceiling set by U.S. President Barack Obama.
The congressional analysts say one version, favored by liberals, would cost $905 billion, while the other comes in at $859 billion. House leaders worked to lower the cost of the $1.2 trillion healthcare proposal offered in July, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Both packages would provide coverage to 30 million Americans through Medicaid eligibility expansion and private insurance subsidies for those who cannot afford coverage through an employer. Both also would establish a public-option insurance plan that would be competitive with private insurance companies, the Post said.
Compared with the original proposal, however, the two new plans would offer less-generous subsidies for people who need assistance purchasing insurance and do not have access to affordable employer coverage. Additional savings would involve lowering employer tax credits, the newspaper reported.
Under the $905 billion plan, payments for healthcare professionals would be based on Medicare rates, which are much lower than private rates, which poses a problem for medical providers in rural areas, where Medicare payments are lower than the national average.
By contrast, the less-expensive plan would provide that administrators negotiate payment rates directly with hospitals and physicians.
The $859 billion proposal would place millions more on Medicaid rather than offering them federal subsidies to purchase private insurance.
Obama praises Bush-41 during Texas trip
COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama said Friday that former President George H.W. Bush had inspired him and millions of other Americans to undertake public service.
Visiting Bush's home state of Texas for the first time as president, Obama said Bush showed the "extraordinary ripple effect that one life lived humbly, with love for one's county and in service to one's fellow citizens, can have," The Dallas Morning News reported.
Obama spoke at Texas A&M University at a celebration of the Points of Light Institute, which traces its origins to Bush's 1989 inauguration speech, when he called for volunteers to become "a thousand points of light."
"He didn't call for one blinding light shining from Washington. He didn't just call for a few bright lights from the biggest nonprofits," Obama said. "He called for a vast galaxy of people and institutions working together to solve problems in their own backyards."
When Bush introduced Obama, he told the audience he had met him for the first time in 2005 in Houston when the city was packed with New Orleans residents who had fled Hurricane Katrina. Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois, was there to help, not to grab headlines, Bush said.
"I could quickly see that he was someone who genuinely cared about helping others," Bush said.
Obama's motorcade to Ridder Auditorium avoided several hundred protesters.
At least 1,000 civilians killed in Congo
NEW YORK, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- At least 1,000 civilians have been killed in the Republic of Congo's campaign to drive Rwandan rebels out of its eastern region, a U.N. official says.
Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said Thursday the badly planned and disorganized operation supported by the United Nations has led to "predictable and repeated killing," The Washington Post reported. He said Congolese soldiers at times have done the most damage to civilians.
"Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, thousands raped, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground and at least 1,000 civilians killed," Alston said.
He reported that some of the most extreme violence was intended as punishment to villages for supporting the government or rebels. Women, girls and even infants have been sexually assaulted by having objects inserted into their bodies, and pregnant women have had fetuses torn from their bodies, he said.
"Women have, in fact, quite literally been raped to death," he added.
Violence in the eastern Congo, which became a base for Hutus from Rwanda after the 1994 genocide there, has killed as many as 5 million people.
Iraq sends deportees back to Britain
LONDON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Most of the Iraqi asylum-seekers put on a plane to Baghdad returned Friday to Britain after being refused entry to their homeland.
The returnees said immigration officials allowed 10 men to leave the plane in Baghdad, The Independent reported. The others flew back to Gatwick Airport south of London with scores of British security guards who had accompanied them.
More than 30 men were taken to Brook House detention center near Gatwick after the plane landed. Five of them told the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees an Iraqi man in military uniform boarded the plane in Baghdad with armed guards and told the returnees those who wanted to be in Iraq could leave.
"He told the immigration officers to go away and not to try to send people back by force again," one man said.
One of those left in Baghdad, identified only as K., said the British Embassy gave him $100 and sent him away. K. said he did not want to be in Iraq.
This week's flight was the first effort since the 2003 invasion to return Iraqis whose requests for asylum in Britain had been denied.
