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Welcome to Media General News Service THE DAY'S BEST ONE ABORTION CURB FAILS, ANOTHER ADVANCES: (Richmond Times-Dispatch) BY JIM NOLAN AND WESLEY P. HESTER Social conservatives emboldened by Republican gains in the General Assembly last November suffered a major setback Thursday when a Senate committee defeated a bill to prohibit women from having an abortion beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy. But today the House of Delegates appears ready to pass a bill to defund state-paid abortions for low-income women expecting a child with "gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency" after it advanced the measure Thursday. The vote was 7-7 on Senate Bill 637 sponsored by Sen. Mark D. Obenshain R-Harrisonburg. Republicans hold an 8-7 majority on the committee, but Sen. Harry B. Blevins, R-Chesapeake, abstained, deadlocking the measure. BILL TO PROTECT PRIVATE ADOPTION AGENCIES ADVANCES: (Richmond Times-Dispatch) BY WESLEY P. HESTER A bill to protect a private adoption agency's right to refuse placement based on religious beliefs has advanced to its final reading in the House of Delegates today, where it is all but certain to pass. Democrats claim House Bill 189, carried by Del. C. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, allows adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples. ACLU TARGETS LEGISLATURE’S PRAYERS: (Winston-Salem Journal) BY WESLEY YOUNG Prayer is coming back to meetings of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, although there will be no mention of Jesus. At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to stop prayers before sessions of the North Carolina General Assembly that are "explicitly sectarian and favor only one religion, Christianity," according to a letter sent from ACLU attorney Katherine Parker to N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper on Thursday. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011 ruled in a 2-1 decision that Forsyth County's prayer policy was in violation of the U.S. Constitution because the great majority of the prayers were Christian. The court concluded that the county was favoring Christianity at the expense of other faiths. The Supreme Court declined to hear the county's appeal of the decision last month, allowing the circuit court's opinion to stand. The same circuit court ruling is being cited by the ACLU in its letter to Cooper. Parker told Cooper that the ACLU had received complaints about the General Assembly's "frequent practice of convening session with sectarian prayer," and said Cooper should intervene to stop the practice. SELF-HELP TEAM STUCK IN TURMOIL: (The Tampa Tribune) BY MICHAEL SASSO TAMPA Peter and Tamara Lowe pack arenas with their "Get Motivated Seminars." You could also call their shows the Ex-Politicians Retirement Fund. Consider that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani collected $1.8 million in 2006-2007 for appearing at the couple's motivational powwows, according to financial disclosures from Giuliani's failed 2008 presidential run. But now the Tampa-based operation is in turmoil, tied up in the couple's ugly divorce. For now, their star-studded events continue without a hitch — in Las Vegas, Honolulu, and elsewhere. What the future holds for the seminars and operation's estimated 150 workers in Tampa likely will be left to a judge. OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY LEASE PROCESS MOVES FORWARD: (Richmond Times-Dispatch) BY PETER BACQUÉ The federal government has cleared an environmental hurdle in allowing wind energy lease sales off the Virginia coast. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has sent out a call for information to identify industry interest in locations in the offshore Virginia Wind Energy Area for commercial leases, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday. |