Morning News Roundup (05 Apr)

• The WaPo reports that voters in the majority of 32 Wisconsin towns with local referendums on the Iraq war voted Tuesday to bring the troops home. Although the referendums are nonbinding, organizers with the Green Party and other antiwar groups said they hope they send a message to Washington.
  

  Shorewood resident Keith Schmitz, a 55-year-old public relations consultant, spent the weekend going door to door with literature about the town's referendum, which calls for a pullout by year's end.
  
  "This is truly a grass-roots effort," he said. "None of us are James Carvilles; it's just do-it-yourself politics. We're just doing our best and seeing what happens."

• After analyzing IRS data, the NYTimes found that President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans. Some of the findings:
  

  Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003.
  
  Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003.
  
  The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market.

• Ahhh... April in Paris: Police fought running battles with rioters in central Paris last night as youths attacked officers with bangers, bottles and concrete at the end of a mass demonstration against a youth employment law. [Guardian]
  
  
• The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan that would allow so much extra industrial air pollution that 7 of 10 of the agency's own regional air-quality directors have signed on to a memo condemning it. [CSM]
  
  
• If the federal government won'd do anything, it seems it's up to the states to provide necessary services--this time health care. USAToday has a rundown of several state initiatives, from Massachusetts to Kansas to Oregon. The AP reports that Mass lawmakers have approved a health care reform package that expands coverage, using a combination of financial incentives and penalties to expand access to health care over the next three years and extend coverage to the state's estimated 500,000 uninsured.
  
  
• With a pending amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution to ban same-sex marriages, WI Senator Russ Feingold makes his position clear, calling the amendment "a mean-spirited attempt" to single out gay men and lesbians for discrimination and said he would vote against it. And he went further, announcing that he favors legalizing same-sex marriages. [WaPo] No Muss, No Fuss--Just Elect Russ. (Sorry... just taking an early stab at '08 presidential slogans...)
  
  
• Current Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari insisted he would continue to carry out his duties. "I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he said, referring to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's hectic arm-twisting visit to the Iraqi capital which ended on Monday. [Guardian]
  
  
• Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and other witnesses testified in front of the the House Government Reform Committee, and urged them to simplify the visa process. Most noted that increased visa security measures after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have snared not just potential terrorists but also tourists, foreign students, specialized labor and artists in a complex bureaucratic web. [WaPo]