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4A NEWS
NATIONAL
THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAS
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009
Vegas mayor wants apology
Oscar Goodman calls Obama's critical comments harmful for Sin City
BY OSKAR GARCIA Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS — The mayor of Las Vegas told President Barack Obama in a letter that his criticism of companies using taxpayer money to visit Sin City is harmful to the tourist-dependent destination.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman didn't directly ask the president for an apology and retraction in the letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, as he did in interviews.
"It expect him to address it and to correct it," Goodman told the AP.
"Whenyoumake a casual, although not malevolent remark, it can have ramifications which affect the industry as well as all of the citizens who live in southern Nevada," he said. "It's affecting some of these people's lives."
In the past two weeks, two financial institutions that received a combined $35 billion in federal bailout money pulled out of large events in Las Vegas at the last minute. Obama, who has been mustering public support for economic stimulus legislation, said during a town hall meeting this
week in Indiana that companies shouldn't hold such events at taxpayers' expense.
"You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," Obama said.
Goodman said he is worried that Obama's comments are discouraging travel to a city already suffering a steep drop in tourism business and revenue.
"Mr. President, I understand the enormous burden you carry in dealing with the worst economy since the Great Depression,"
"...your comments are harmful to the meetings and convention industry as a whole and Las Vegas specifically."
OSCAR GOODMAN Mayor of Las Vegas
Goodman wrote in the letter, sent late Tuesday.
"I also understand the need for accountability, but your comments are harmful to the meetings and convention industry as a whole and Las Vegas specifically," he said.
The White House has not reacted to Goodman's comments.
U. S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that he spoke with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel about Obama's remarks.
"He made it clear to me that the president's criticism was aimed at
the potential use of taxpayer funds for junkets, and in no way reflects his thoughts about any one particular city," Reid said.
The number of visitors to Las Vegas was down 4.4 percent in 2008 compared with a year earlier, and visits in December alone declined nearly 11 percent. State gaming regulators reported Wednesday that Nevada casino winnings were down almost 19 percent in December, compared with the same month a year ago, dropping taxable revenues for the period almost 23 percent from 2007.
In a statement Rep. Shelley Berkley, D>Nev., asked Obama and others in Congress to refrain from making comments that harm Las Vegas and other destinations whose economies rely on business travelers.
"Please, let's stop the attacks, let's call a cease-fire and let's recognize the true cost of these words in real dollars lost as a result of canceled meetings and other functions that will not be held in Las Vegas." Berkley said.
"Mr. President, I support your efforts to curb corporate excesses in your recovery plan, but from the neon lights of Las Vegas to the Chicago skyline, from the white sands of Hawaii to the Kansas heartland, tourism means jobs," she said. "We need your support and we need the business more than ever before."
NATIONAL Panetta gets thumbs up from Senate panel Wed.
WASHINGTON — A congressional aide says the Senate Intelligence Committee has given Leon Panetta the thumbs up to head the CIA.
Intelligence committee spokesman Philip LaVelle said approval came Wednesday during a closed committee meeting
Panetta was President Barack Obama's surprise pick to head the committee, but the Senate panel approved him without opposition.
Panetta has no direct intel
ligence-gathering or analysis experience. Obama said he was selected because of his managerial skills and ability to repair the agency's relationship with Congress.
The full Senate is expected to confirm Panetta soon.
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Animals perish in wildfires
Rescue officials work to assist injured wildlife in Australia
BY KRISTEN GELINEAU Associated Press Writer
Cheyenne Tree treats a koala nicknamed Sam that was saved from the bushfires in Gippsland at the Mountain Ash Wildlife Center in Rawson, 100 miles east of Melbourne, Australia. Workers were scrambling to assist possums, kangaroos and lizards on Wednesday. More than 180 people were killed in the weekend's fires, and on Wednesday, the scope of the devastation to Australia's wildlife began to emerge, with officials estimating that millions of animals also perished in the inferno.
INTERNATIONAL
SYDNEY — Kangaroo corpses lay scattered by the roadsides while wombats that survived the wildfire's onslaught emerged from their underground burrows to find blackened earth and nothing to eat.
Scores of kangaroos have been found around roads, where they were overwhelmed by flames and smoke while attempting to flee, said Jon Rowdon, president of the
Wildlife rescue officials on Wednesday worked frantically to help the animals that made it through Australia's worst-ever wildfires but they said millions of animals likely perished in the inferno.
Kangaroos that survived are suffering from burned feet, a result of their territorial behavior. After escaping the initial flames, the creatures — which prefer to stay in one area — likely circled back to their homes, singing their feet on the smoldering ground.
"It's just horrific," said Neil Morgan, president of the Statewide Wildlife Rescue Emergency Service in Victoria, the state where the raging fires were still burning. "It's disaster all around for humans and animals as well."
as they emerge to find their food supply gone, said Pat O'Brien, president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia.
The official human death toll stood at 181 from the weekend's deadly fires and authorities said it would exceed 200. While the scope of the wildlife devastation was still unclear, it was likely to be enormous, Rowdon said.
rescue group Wildlife Victoria.
Some wombats that hid in their burrows managed to survive the blazes, but those that are not rescued face a slow and certain death
"There's no doubt across that scale of landscape and given the intensity of the fires, millions of animals would have been killed," he said.
Hundreds of burned, stressed and dehydrated animals have already arrived at shelters across the scorched region.