Washington, D.C.: Yucca Mountain bill signed

President Bush formally approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the nation’s high-level nuclear waste dump on Tuesday, ending a 20-year political fight and shifting the battle to the courts.

Bush signed the measure with no fanfare. Reporters were not allowed to witness the bill-signing and no one from Nevada’s congressional delegation was invited.

Nevada officials, who fought bitterly against the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, acknowledged they had lost a round, but pledged to block it through lawsuits. The state has five suits pending.

Washington, D.C.: House votes to allow Americans to travel to Cuba

The House voted late Tuesday to block the Bush administration from enforcing a ban on most Americans visiting Cuba, a move that suggests growing bipartisan support for lifting the decades-old economic embargo.

By a vote of 262-167, House members voted to block the administration from using funds to enforce the travel ban against Americans.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved a version of the Treasury spending bill that includes an end to travel restrictions. The bill is awaiting a full vote in the Democrat-majority Senate.

In the Kansas delegation, only Rep. Jim Ryun opposed the measure. Fellow Republicans Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt and Democrat Dennis Moore voted in favor of it.

Washington, D.C.: Bush job approval dips

President Bush’s job approval ratings dipped into the 60s this week, dragged down by worries about the stock market and the economy.

A bit of a fade was inevitable, analysts said. “One way to put it is that the law of gravity wasn’t repealed,” said political scientist David Rohde of Michigan State University.

Bush’s ratings hovered just above 70 percent in most polls for the past few months. Now a Newsweek poll shows his job approval at 65 percent. He’s at 67 percent in an Ipsos-Reid poll done for the Cook Political Report and in an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll.

Bush’s ratings soared to 90 percent and stayed high for an extraordinary period “because the war on terrorism was going pretty well as far as people could tell,” Rohde said.

“Now things are going worse on the domestic front, particularly with the economy and the stock market,” Rohde said.