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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Republicans in Congress Thursday took aim at the Obama administration’s plan for a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau scheduled to begin operating next week.

A hearing intended to question the architect of the agency about how it would operate turned into a shouting match that caused a half-hour delay in her testimony.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said they should be investigating aggressive bank foreclosures of subprime mortgages instead of subjecting Elizabeth Warren, a White House adviser, to another round of hostile questioning.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a federal agency being created to protect consumers from financial institutions that could take advantage of them.

The agency enforces regulations against financial institutions to avoid risky loans and investments for their customers. The agency also seeks to simplify the lending process for consumers.

“We are opposed to complicated forms and fine print,” Warren said in her opening remarks to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday.

Warren, a Harvard professor, was assigned by President Barack Obama to organize the agency. He has not nominated her to head the agency in apparent recognition she would be unlikely to win approval from the Republican-controlled Congress.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an outgrowth of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law on July 21, 2010.

The Act revamped financial industry regulation by consolidating regulatory agencies, requiring greater transparency from lending institutions and setting uniform standards for investment products.

The law was most controversial with Republicans, who said it exerts too much government control over the free enterprise that has allowed the financial industry to prosper.

Their antagonism over the Obama administration’s regulatory reforms was obvious during the hearing Thursday.

The hearing was called by Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“The American people have a right to know how the bureau will advance and enforce its regulatory assignment,” Issa said.

Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) suggested the committee subpoena mortgage companies accused of predatory lending instead of questioning Warren. The suggestion prompted heated exchanges.

While John F. Tierney (D-MA) tried to make a point about proper procedures for the hearing, he turned to Issa and said, “What part of the English language don’t you understand?”

Issa called a five-minute break to settle disputes before Warren testified.

Even as Warren was being sworn in, Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA) tried to get Issa’s attention but the committee chairman ignored him.

Mild antagonism continued during the questioning of Warren when Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) asked for proof the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would be ready to begin operating effectively by next week.

“We’re looking for the transparency in how you’re going to do it,” Chaffetz said.

He seemed unsatisfied with Warren’s response that the relevant information was posted on the agency’s Web site at usaspending.gov.

“No one’s hiding anything,” she said.

Chaffetz also asked how the agency would measure its progress in protecting consumers.

“We’re in the process of developing our performance metrics,” Warren said.

Chaffetz said, “You’re telling me this is going to be ready by next week?”

Republicans expressed concern the agency would ban some investment products, such as payday loans or put caps on interest rates.

They also asked whether the agency would extend its regulatory authority to auto loans and insurance policies.

Warren said, “We don’t have any present plans” to ban financial products.

She also said the agency would have “limited” power to control financial institutions and their services.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court ruled that prison overcrowding violates prisoners’ rights to health and dignity as it upheld a lower court’s order to release about 40,000 inmates from overcrowded state prisons.

Liberal Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan voted in favor of lawsuits against California filed in 1990 and 2001. They said reducing prisons population will remedy violations of prisoners’ rights.

Dissenting but outvoted were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The four conservative justices said the lower court’s decree violates federal law and the Constitution does not authorize federal judges to run state penal systems.

The lawsuits claimed that California’s prison population was 156,000 at one point or twice the capacity and that mentally ill inmates were killed.

A special three-judge district court found that state officials failed to address violations of prisoners’ rights through new buildings, transfers and more medical staff, so it ordered the release of 46,000 inmates to decongest prison buildings.

So far, the state has released 9,000 inmates.

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Sacramento, CA, United States (AHN) – The impasse over extending taxes continues in California despite a revised budget plan from Gov. Jerry Brown that relies on an unanticipated rise in revenue. Republicans have insisted on an alternative plan that would cut compensation for state workers by 10 percent.

The updated budget takes into account a current-year tax revenue increase of $2.8 billion and a budget year earnings boost of $3.5 billion, for a total adjusted revenue of $6.6 billion.

The windfall, combined with steps already implemented by Brown since taking office, has reduced the state’s deficit from $26.6 billion to $9.6 billion, which consists of a current shortfall of $4.8 billion and another $4.8 billion in the fiscal year starting this July.

Brown’s previous budget plan reduced spending by $12.5 billion and relied on revenue of $12 billion from extending taxes. His new budget cuts spending by $11.2 billion because of an increase in funds for public schools by $3 billion.

Additional cost-cutting measures such as the elimination of 43 boards and commissions, as well as more than 5,000 state jobs, compensates for a revenue package that has failed to attract support from Republicans.

Brown, who assumed office in January having served two terms as governor three decades ago, has dropped his plan to raise the personal income tax. Under his revised plan, Californians will pay $2 billion less in income taxes compared to his initial proposal. However, he is still seeking to extend the sales tax and vehicle license fee for five years through a ballot.

The tax package represents 42 percent of the revised plan, while spending cuts account for 48 percent. Cuts include previously announced measures such as the closure of 70 parks to save $11 million in the first year, a hiring freeze and the halving of the number of state cars and cell phones.

The ballot for the tax extensions must first be approved by two Republicans from the Assembly and two Republicans from the state Senate.

Republicans rejected the governor’s revised plan and accused him of “fund[ing] bigger government.”

“Assembly Republicans showed that we can protect funding for the classroom and law enforcement without raising taxes,” Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway said in a statement. ” We call upon the governor to stop trying to raise people’s taxes and start working across party lines on a no-tax increase budget compromise.”

State GOP Chair Tom Del Beccaro added, “The bottom line is that Brown’s demand to increase spending while we have a deficit means that he still doesn’t understand that we can no longer spend beyond our means.”

The statemate with Republicans occurred in March when the governor suspended negotiations over what he said were “an ever changing list of collateral demands” in return for support for a special election, such as giving a $1 billion tax break to out-of-state corporations so the companies would bring jobs to California.

The alternative GOP budget plan relies on the higher April revenue to prevent cuts to education and law enforcement. It does not raise taxes and calls on state workers to “do their part” with a 10 percent reduction in pay, benefits and other employee costs, which Republicans say would provide the government with $1.1 billion in savings.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is threatening workers in the city he will void their collective bargaining agreements by passing a new state law that would lead to the appointment of a fiscal manager who would cancel the pacts.

Bing is pushing for the municipal workers to pay more for health care and pensions.

Initiatives by Republican governors to cut government spending and labor power by curtailing collective bargaining rights have been largely successful even as union leaders protested such attempts in Wisconsin and Ohio. However, Bing did not encounter such stiff resistance among the 12,000 municipal workers.

Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, said the lack of massive objection to Bing’s budget proposals was probably due to the city workers viewing him as a political leader seeking concessions and not to emasculate the unions.

The city previously closed 24 offices spread over five days in the first quarter of 2011 as part of budget-mandated furloughs to cut costs. The offices closed on Jan. 31, Feb. 14 and 28, and March 14 and 28.

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Tel Aviv, Israel (AHN) – While France is forcing Muslim women to remove their face veils in public, in the Middle East governments are letting them put them back on.

The new French law prohibiting the wearing of the face veil, or niqab, has already resulted in two arrests its first day on the books. Offenders face a fine of 150 euros ($215). Men who force their wives to wear the niqab may face up to one year in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros ($43,000).

But in Turkey, the government last October relaxed a long-standing ban on veils on university campuses. Tunisia has begun allowing women to appear veiled in their identity cards, amending a decree from 1993. Last Wednesday, amid widespread popular protests, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad allowed veiled teachers to return to work in public schools.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, regulations banning women from wearing the niqab in universities were recently relaxed by the new education minister, who allowed veiled women to enter the campus to write exams, said Azza Sleiman, director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), a Cairo-based human rights organization.

The French decision, as other steps taken by European government perceived as anti-Muslim in recent years, sparked strong criticism in the Arab world. But with the Arab world moving in the direction of greater freedom of expression for Muslims, their comments have added resonance.

The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood condemned the new French law as a new manifestation of an ongoing clash of civilizations.

“This is another step of new crusader behavior facing Muslims everywhere and is the start of a dangerous battle,” Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide Hammam Said told Agence France Presse on Monday. “It runs counter to human rights principles that France claims to endorse.”

Governments in Europe and the Middle East share a common concern about the rise is Islamic extremism. Until recently, however, the severest strictures on Islamic practices were enforced by the Middle East’s dictatorial regimes while European Muslims enjoyed the full array of human rights and equality.

But the tables have turned. Newly liberated from the strict secularist regime of Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s transitional governments have been introducing new freedoms. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been freed from repression experienced in the years before President Husni Mubarak was toppled February 11.

Turkey is a unique case: A democracy controlled by what many call a mildly Islamist government that has slowly rolled back the country’s decades-old customer of secularism.

“The moment has arrived for more freedom in the region as dictators fall. There’s more room for opposition opinions and more tolerance,” Hend Harouni, an English teacher in the Tunisian capital of Tunis, who wears the veil, told The Media Line. “For people to coexist there must be mutual respect. This is simply a French provocation.”

France, where Muslims make up approximately 10% of the population, is the first European country to impose the ban on the niqab in public places, but is not alone in Europe in weighing rules aimed at suppressing what many regard as practices of Muslim extremists.

A similar ban was stopped in Belgium last year, but is still being debated in European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. In 2009, Switzerland, voters approved a ban on minarets, the towers adjacent to mosques used to call believers to prayer. Holland’s minority coalition government is under pressure from its ally, Geert Wilders’ anti-Muslim Freedom Party, to introduce a broad ban on wearing full-face veils in public

In Germany, Hesse in February became the first regional state to ban face veils for public sector workers. Seven of Germany’s 15 other states have banned teachers in state schools from wearing Islamic headscarves. An opinion poll last year indicated that 61 per cent of Germans favored a burqa ban.

The new rules come amid growing concerns that Europe’s Muslim minority isn’t integrating and holds values opposed to what most Europeans believe, including equality for women and freedom of expression.

Shakib Bin-Makhlouf, president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe criticized the timing of France’s law, pointing out that it goes into effect just as Arab peoples are fighting for their freedoms across the Middle East.

“This decision is wrong, unjust and contradicts the values of the French Revolution,”

he told The Media Line. “Whether you are a practicing or a non-practicing Muslim, no one will accept such treatment of Muslims.”

According to French authorities, between 2,000 and 3,000 French women regularly wear the niqab, a fact that prompted Makhlouf to ask why France would put itself in risk for such a minuscule group.

Last July, after the French law had passed in parliament, Al-Qaeda’s second in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri called on Muslim women to remain true to their faith and defy the law. The year before, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy began to circulate the idea of a ban, Al-Qaeda in North Africa vowed to take violent revenge on France.

“Women wearing full veils constitute less than 1% of France’s Muslim population,” Bin Makhlouf added. “I’m surprised that the government would implement such a problematic law for such a small group.”

The full veil may not be as popular among North African Arabs, who constitute the bulk of France’s Muslim population, but it is commonly worn by rich Gulf tourists who frequent the chic boutiques of Paris. Bin-Makhlouf said the new law was sure to damage the relationship between France and Gulf states.

“Now a Gulf tourist will have to account for a 200 euro fine in addition to his hotel costs for taking his wife down the Champs-Élysées,” he said.

Sleiman of CEWLA, who herself isn’t veiled, said she opposed the custom of the full veil, saying that it was only a custom and not Islamic law. She said she supported the law because people have the right to identify those passing them on the street but that France had acted foolishly in implementing the new law.

“The French government should launch a public campaign explaining to Muslims that this is not an anti-religious issue but a matter of personal freedom. They must reassure their citizens.”

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – As Senate Democrats square off with House GOP leaders over the current federal budget bill, family planning funding remains an important point of contention. Republicans say tough choices need to be made in a time of fiscal austerity, but Democrats in Congress and the White House say family planning funds are essential and should not be stripped from the budget.

Last month, the Republican-led House passed a spending bill that slashes funds for family planning clinics and eliminates federal support for Planned Parenthood, a major provider of reproductive health care in the United States. Senate Democrats have since offered up their own spending bill, one that would restore the family planning funding, but the full Senate failed to pass either measure in votes Wednesday. Negotiations between the House and Senate are expected to continue. The current short-term funding measure expires March 18.

“Nobody is saying that Planned Parenthood cannot continue to be the largest abortion provider in America, but why do millions of pro-life taxpayers have to pay for it?” Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., one of the leaders of the effort to strip such funding from the bill, said in a floor speech during the House debate last month.

Planned Parenthood has launched a fierce public relations campaign against the measure, backed by progressive Democrats who have vowed to fight the GOP. “It’s just amazing that the Republican leadership is anti-choice and on the other hand, anti-family planning,” Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said at a press conference on the issue. She added, “This is a war on women.”

What Is Title X?

Title X (ten) of the Public Service Act is a federal grant program signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based reproductive health research center, the law had broad bipartisan support and was the result of increasing concerns that low-income women were not able to get access to family planning services and had higher rates of unwanted pregnancies than more affluent women.

Title X grants, which are administered through state health departments or regional agencies, support family planning programs in 4,500 clinics serving 5 million individuals across the country. The funds, which totaled $317 million last year, are used to provide a range of reproductive health and family planning services primarily to low-income individuals. The program is run by the Department of Health and Human Services and provides funding for contraceptive counseling and supplies, STD testing, breast and cervical cancer screenings, vasectomies, hypertension and blood pressure measurement, prenatal care and sex education.

While Title X is the only federal program dedicated exclusively to reproductive health care, it isn’t the only source of public funding for family planning services, or even the largest. About 12 percent of the $1.85 billion in public funds spent on family planning services in 2006 came from Title X, according to Guttmacher. The biggest chunk of funds—71 percent—came from Medicaid, a joint federal-state health program for low-income individuals and families. The remainder was funded through various federal block grants and state appropriations.

What Are Republicans Proposing?

Several measures offered by Republicans are part of the House budget bill, which was approved on a strict party vote on Feb. 19. All Title X funding is eliminated in the massive spending bill that sets budget levels for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That “continuing resolution,” H.R. 1, seeks to trim billions of dollars from discretionary funding in the federal budget.

The House also approved an amendment offered by Pence to the spending bill that cuts all forms of federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which operates a network of more than 800 family planning clinics nationwide. Planned Parenthood receives roughly $360 million in federal assistance annually through Medicaid, Maternal and Child Health block grants and other sources.

The GOP’s plans to cut Title X and to defund Planned Parenthood are at odds with President Barack Obama’s priorities—the president requested $372 million for family planning in his FY 2012 budget.

Does This Affect Abortion Coverage?

Current law prohibits health care providers from using federal money to finance abortions. But the law doesn’t bar Title X grantees from using other funds to cover abortion-related care, so long as they keep those funds segregated from federal grant money.

Before introducing his amendment to the spending bill, Pence had also introduced H.R. 217, known as the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” which would prevent health centers that offer abortion services from receiving future Title X family planning grants (exceptions would be made in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health). The bill has been effectively tabled pending the vote on the overall spending continuous resolution, which, if enacted, would eliminate the need for H.R. 217.

Several other bills dealing with abortion funding have also been introduced.

What Do Family Planning Supporters Say Is At Stake?

Reproductive health advocates such as Families USA, Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America argue that eliminating or restricting access to Title X money would cut off vital financial support for health centers that are providing care at steeply discounted rates for low-income patients. According to Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, Title X money gives clinics the flexibility to invest in things like outreach and infrastructure—something Medicaid payments don’t account for. The institute also estimates that the contraceptive services offered at Title X centers prevent 973,000 unintended pregnancies each year.

Planned Parenthood says six in 10 family planning centers in the U.S. receive Title X funds, which account for 24 percent of their revenues. Planned Parenthood is the largest single recipient of Title X money, securing about a quarter of the total allocated to health centers each year.

According to Karen Rowley, who oversees several Planned Parenthood-affiliated health centers in California’s Fresno area, clinics are already turning away patients because of the overwhelming demand for services. Losing all federal funding would further exacerbate the problem.

“Many of our patients would go without medical care, not only reproductive healthcare but for primary care needs,” Rowley said.

The national organization has painted a picture that is even more dire—63 percent of its health centers would be at risk for shutting down altogether if H.R. 1 passes, the group says.

What Do Critics Say About Cutting Planned Parenthood’s Federal Funds?

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in D.C., presents a different view.

Chuck Donovan, a senior research fellow at the foundation, says Planned Parenthood has significant income beyond federal funding, citing a 2010 GAO report indicating the organization’s income was $388 million between 2002 and 2007. “They can afford to join in the belt-tightening that is happening all across the country,” he said.

As for the other health centers that would be affected by Title X cuts, Donovan said that supporting family planning through tax rebates or vouchers, rather than a categorical funding program with an established mandate, would be a better option.

“Our preference is to fund health care through things that give individuals choice,” he said.

Pence has acknowledged that health centers use Title X money to perform valuable services that he supports, but he contends that the funds are also being used to support abortions indirectly by covering operating costs and other related expenses for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

“Eliminating Title X funding has never been my goal,” he said on the House floor. “My focus has and will remain on denying taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood or any organization that provides or promotes abortion as a means of birth control.”

This is an updated version of an article that first ran Feb. 18.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The federal government of Canada filed a legal brief with the Ontario Court of Appeal arguing that Ottawa does not have an obligation to protect sex trade workers.

The government pointed out that by going into a job that comes with dangerous situations, prostitutes could not be given promises of safety.

Michael Morris, a federal lawyer who represents Canada’s attorney general, wrote that practicing prostitution in any place, which often is characterized by major efforts to avoid the law, is the main source of risk to sex trade workers. The dangerous conditions are not sufficient reasons to change current laws, Morris added.

Morris filed the appeal after Ontario Superior Court Justice Susan Himmel struck last year three prostitution laws that banned operating or working in a brother, communicating to gain clients and living off the fruits of prostitution despite the decriminalization of prostitution per se. Himmel said these provisions place the lives of sex trade workers at risk because they are forced to work underground.

However, Court of Appeal Justice Marc Rosenberg stayed Himmel’s order until April, and extended the stay until June when Ontario’s highest court will tackle Ottawa’s appeal for four days. If the court would favor the sex trade workers, prostitution would be legalized in Ontario and other Canadian provinces may follow suit.

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Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – Illinois is poised to enact legislation providing same-sex couples in the state the rights and benefits given to married heterosexual couples.

Gov. Pat Quinn is scheduled to sign the measure into law late Monday before a gathering of gay advocacy groups and state and Chicago officials.

The legislation allowing for civil unions passed by a 61-52 vote in the state House last November, followed by a 32-24 vote in the state Senate. It does not legalize same-sex marriages but lets gay couples receive legal benefits and make decisions such as emergency healthcare for a loved one. It takes effect on June 1.

The legislation makes Illinois the sixth state to provide same-sex couples with all the obligations and protections of marriage, after California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington state.

Hawaii’s state Senate passed a civil unions bill last Friday affording gay couples marriage rights. Only five jurisdictions nationwide including Washington, D.C. have legalized same-sex marriage.

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Philadelphia, PA, United States (AHN) – The Philadelphia police arrested Wednesday an abortion doctor, his wife and eight unlicensed employees to face charges of murdering one patient and seven babies who were born alive. The arrest of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, was the culmination of a one-year investigation of his alleged malpractice following the police raid of his clinic in Lancaster Avenue, West Philadelphia last February.

The raid was supposed to search for evidence that Gosnell was illegally dispensing narcotic painkillers but the police were shocked to find fetuses and body parts in garbage bags, plastic boxes and bottles. The West Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society has since been shut down after 32 years of operation and flaunting of Pennsylvania abortion law and other laws.

A 260-page Grand Jury report released Tuesday stated that Gosnell illegally performed late-term abortions by forcing ill-informed mothers to deliver babies more than 24 weeks old and cutting their spinal cord with scissors to kill them.

The law allows abortion only for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion beyond 24 weeks is outlawed because the fetus can already survive outside the womb.

The same report cited that one patient died from overdose of anesthesia at his clinic in 2009 and many other violations committed by Gosnell, who started performing abortion in 1972.

Gosnells’ attorney, William J. Brennan, cited his client’s long years of serving minorities, immigrants and poor women in a low-income neighborhood.

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Orlando, FL, United States (AHN) – Two Hard Rock employees who worked in the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal Studios in Orlando have filed a class action lawsuit for the company’s alleged failure to pay minimum wages that were required under Florida law.

The Orlando Hard Rock Cafe is the largest Hard Rock Cafe in the world.

The complaint alleges that Hard Rock’s servers and bartenders were paid less than minimum wage during the period Jan. 14, 2006, until approximately July 2009. The complaint charges that Hard Rock attempted to pay the servers and bartenders less than minimum wages while taking a tip credit that is allowable under Florida and federal law only when the servers and bartenders are allowed to retain all of their tips or where a legal tip pooling arrangement is instituted among employees “who customarily and regularly receive tips.”

The complaint alleges that servers and bartenders improperly shared their tips with individuals who were employed as expediters. Expediters at the Orlando Hard Rock Cafe are not customarily and regularly tipped employees; instead, they are kitchen employees who are responsible for ensuring food is prepared and garnished properly.

According to lawyers for the employees, Hard Rock was not entitled to the tip credit because servers and bartenders did not retain all their tips and paid a portion of their tips to expediters.

Hillary Schwab, Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C., Boston, Massachusetts, the firm handling the suit, said, “In this economy, servers and bartenders need all the tips they can get. Hard Rock should have known that a tip sharing arrangement that included kitchen staff violated Florida and federal law.”

The Florida Constitution states “[a]ll working Floridians are entitled to be paid a minimum wage that is sufficient to provide a decent and healthy life for them and their families.”

Florida’s minimum wage provision has garnered headlines recently because the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation was sued for allegedly improperly calculating the minimum wage under Florida law.

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