News from Home

From The Associated Press

Items from other parts of the country that may be of interest to our winter visitors.

Oklahoma
Cherokee Nation citizenship was at stake Saturday in an election to determine whether descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves should be counted as members of the tribe.

An estimated 45,000 Cherokee were registered to vote in the election, with 30 polling places opened across northeastern Oklahoma.

The election resulted from a petition drive aimed at limiting citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago.

A "yes" vote on the amendment would remove descendants of freed slaves—estimated to be about 2,800 —from the tribe's membership. A "no" vote would allow them to remain tribal citizens.

New York
A federal judge said that she will consider holding New York City in contempt after learning that police have been enforcing a panhandling law ruled unconstitutional 15 years ago.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said more than 700 summonses had been issued to people since she ordered the city to stop using the unconstitutional law.

The City Council then passed a new law to outlaw "aggressive panhandling." But the police department continued to make arrests under the old law.

Colorado
A volunteer said in Denver he was acting on orders from White House staffers when he helped eject three people from an taxpayer-funded event President Bush was attending, according to the man's attorney.

The volunteer, Michael Casper, said in a deposition that two White House employees told him to throw out the three after Casper saw them behaving suspiciously, attorney Sean Gallagher said.

Gallagher was present for Casper's deposition in a federal lawsuit brought by Leslie Weise and Alex Young, two of the three people who were thrown out. They claim they were told to leave because of their political views, and that the White House had a policy of ejecting dissenters from the president's appearances.

Gallagher said the two people Casper named were Steve Atkiss, the White House deputy director for travel, and Jamie O'Keefe, the White House's lead advance staffer for the 2005 event.

Pennsylvania
The state health department warned consumers not to drink raw milk from a dairy farm after two people who drank it were sickened by salmonella.

There was evidence of salmonella in a milk sample obtained from the people who drank it, and samples from Stump Acres Dairy in New Salem tested positive for salmonella, said Dr. Calvin B. Johnson.

Raw milk sales have been suspended at the dairy, he said.