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By BILL CURRY
Federal auditors have found new spending problems at the federally funded Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, including the case of a native leader who was claiming mileage and per diems for daily trips to and from his Thunder Bay office.

The Indian Affairs Department is auditing the congress, the main national group representing natives who live outside of reserves, to examine how federal money to its Ottawa headquarters and eight provincial wings is being spent.

The audit has found that about $150,000 spent by the congress's Ontario affiliate, the Ontario Metis Aboriginal Association, has been disallowed and must be returned.

National chief Patrick Brazeau said the congress will not tolerate such behavior and has suspended the Ontario affiliate.

"If you don't play by the rules, then you're out," he said.

The Ontario affiliate received about $430,0000 in funding in fiscal 2004-05 for programs dealing with Metis rights.

Federal officials stated in the audit that the Ontario wing was not able to provide detailed justification for invoiced payments to the Native Trading House, a company run by Frank Palmeter, a former vice chief of the congress.

The audit also lists about $21,000 in disallowed travel expenses submitted by the president of the Ontario affiliate, Michael McGuire.

"The destination shown on the travel claim is Thunder Bay, the place of (the president's) residence and OMAA office.

There's some grousing over the bill to implement the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the education community against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it's basically a good deal.

The settlement would send additional money to the state's lowest performing schools through the 2013-2014 school year.

By STUART STEERS
Thursday, October 12, 2006
U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez of Colorado outraged several black elected officials this week when he said that 70 percent of pregnant black women have abortions.

Beauprez, the Republican candidate for governor, made the comments in a radio interview on KCFR's "Colorado Matters" program Monday.

"I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling," Beauprez told the station during a discussion of his position on abortion.

On Wednesday, Beauprez apologized.

"I was wrong about the statistic I quoted in a recent interview," he said in a statement.

"I apologize to the African-American community and anyone else who was offended.

By EDWARD EPSTEIN
George W. Who?

President Bush has become the invisible man of the Republican Party's effort to keep control of the House and Senate in November's midterm elections.

The Web sites of the party's candidates in the most competitive races across the country either give only a passing nod to the president or don't even mention Bush, whose popularity has been weighed down by the war in Iraq, high gas prices, economic anxieties and lingering memories of last August's Hurricane Katrina.

With about nine weeks to go before the Nov.

By LISA HOFFMAN
Tina Marie Gilmore said she lost her two young daughters in the floodwaters that besieged New Orleans, suffering the unimaginable horror of watching the girls float away but being helpless to save them before they disappeared.

She bore other losses as well from Hurricane Katrina: destruction to her home on Cedar Street and $10,075 worth of personal property.

By LEE BOWMAN
Many children with severe sleep apnea appear to have damage to brain structures associated with learning ability, a new study demonstrates.

While researchers have long known that fragmented sleep, interrupted breathing and oxygen deprivation can harm a child's ability to learn and his school performance, the brain-imaging study by scientists at Johns Hopkins University is thought o be the first to link specific changes in brain chemistry to the syndrome.

Specifically, the damage was observed in the hippocampus, a structure in the temporal lobe that's vital to learning and memory storage, and in the right frontal cortex, which governs high-level thinking, including accessing old memories and applying them to new situations.

"This is truly concerning, because we saw changes that suggest brain injury in areas of the brain that house critical cognitive functions, such as attention, learning and working memory," said Dr.

By MATTHEW D. LaPLANTE
The American Legion will renew its call for a larger active-duty military at the group's convention this week in Salt Lake City, officials from the nation's largest veterans organization said.

The legion's bid for more service members comes as the U.S.

By MICHAEL COLLINS
With its sandy white beaches, grass-covered hills and steep sandstone canyons, Santa Rosa Island is a natural wonder, an oasis of tranquility in the Pacific Ocean.

But lately, the 53,000-acre island off the coast of Southern California has been the focus of a severe political storm blowing out of Washington.

The fight involves the island's non-native deer and elk, and whether they should be allowed to remain on the land they have inhabited for nearly a century or whether they should be removed.

The National Park Service, which owns Santa Rosa, and various environmental groups say the animals must go by 2011 under a court settlement reached eight years ago.

But Rep.

By THOMAS HARGROVE and GUIDO H. STEMPEL III
Nearly half of adults admit they have ridden or driven motorcycles without wearing helmets, but a new poll found they now overwhelmingly want state governments to make helmet use mandatory.

Despite public opinion, 30 state legislatures have rolled back mandatory helmet laws in recent years due to lobbying by motorcycle-advocacy groups.

Participants in the poll of 1,010 U.S.

By JUDY LIN
Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday struck a deal on legislation to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent over the next two decades.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, hailed the long-bargained agreement as a ground-breaking bill that has the potential to influence the rest of the nation.

"This is the most important day of my brief legislative career," Nunez said.

Schwarzenegger has pledged to sign Assembly Bill 32.

"We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," he said in a statement.