Detroit

Records show mayor ran up tab on city card

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose city is struggling with a projected $230 million deficit, has charged at least $210,000 for travel, meals, a bottle of pricey champagne and other items on his city-issued credit card over nearly three years, public records show.

The charges cover the first 33 months of Kilpatrick’s four-year term that began in January 2002. The Detroit Free Press said Tuesday that it obtained the records last month through a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request.

The purchases include 78 charges for meals over the 33 months, including a $283 bill at Danny’s Grand Sea Palace in New York in January 2002 and a $456 bill at the Capital Grille in Washington in September 2003.

Kilpatrick spokesman Howard Hughey told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the mayor’s travels and entertainment have been part of his effort to attract business to the city, which has struggled with a steep population decline since the 1950s and the resulting erosion of the tax base.

Chicago

Researchers call for end of unneeded episiotomies

For years, some doctors believed that an episiotomy, an incision to enlarge the vaginal opening during childbirth, would prevent spontaneous tearing that would be harder to repair.

They also believed the procedure would help women avoid incontinence and improve their sex lives.

It turns out those beliefs were myths.

A new review of 26 research studies shows that episiotomies are linked with a higher risk of injury, more trouble healing and more pain.

Episiotomies also had no effect on incontinence, pelvic floor strength or sexual function. Women who had the procedure waited longer to resume sex after childbirth. And their first post-birth intercourse caused them more pain.

“This review puts together in one place all the evidence that we’re not getting the results we want,” said Dr. Katherine Hartmann, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the University of North Carolina.

Denver

Air Force to investigate religion at academy

The U.S. Air Force, responding to allegations of religious intolerance, on Tuesday announced the creation of a task force to investigate the spiritual climate at the Air Force Academy.

The decision comes in the wake of complaints about proselytizing and harassment by evangelical Christian cadets and staffers toward those of other faiths — or those whose Christian beliefs do not mirror their own.

Last week, Americans United for Separation of Church and State released a report on cases of alleged religious insensitivity at the academy and sent a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that raised the possibility of a lawsuit.

Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director, said the situation was one of the worst he’d ever seen in a military setting.

New York

GOP operative launches anti-Hillary Web site

A veteran GOP operative launched an anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton Web site Tuesday, complete with a warning that she and her husband are trying to “pull the wool over America’s eyes once again.”

Meanwhile, Clinton was out with a fund-raising letter claiming Arthur Finkelstein’s “Stop Her Now” effort is part of a growing mound of evidence that Republicans “are prepared to do anything to defeat me.”

“We know one thing for sure, the Republicans and their right-wing allies are going to be hitting us hard with false charges,” the former first lady wrote to potential donors, calling herself “the Republicans’ number one target in 2006.”

Clinton is seeking re-election next year to the New York Senate seat she won in 2000 and Republicans claim she wants to use that race as a stepping stone to a 2008 presidential run. She insists her sole focus is on getting re-elected.

Finkelstein has long been a top adviser to New York Republican Gov. George Pataki and worked on the campaigns of former Sens. Alfonse D’Amato of New York and Jesse Helms of North Carolina.