Washington, D.C.: Senate debate continues on federal spending bill

Republicans stood firm Friday and shot down Democratic attempts to boost the price tag of a mammoth $390 billion spending bill already loaded with hundreds of home-state projects for senators from both parties.

The Senate debated the bill for a third day on Friday as GOP leaders abandoned hopes of finishing it until at least next week. The measure combines 11 spending bills that were supposed to be finished by Oct. 1, when the current federal budget year began. It covers every federal agency but the Pentagon.

With all 50 GOP senators holding firm, the Senate voted 52-46 to reject the Democratic effort to block the across-the-board cuts.

Texas: Texas A&M officials work to cancel offensive party

Texas A&M University officials are trying to stop some students’ plans to mark Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with an off-campus party at which guests are encouraged to mimic stereotypes about blacks.

“It’s hard to understand how students could live in today’s world and think a party playing on stereotypes of African-Americans would be acceptable,” said Ron Sasse, director of dormitories at the College Station campus, where 85 percent of the students are white and 3 percent are black.

Fliers at the Walton Hall dormitory advertised the event and encouraged partygoers to mimic stereotypes and “think ghetto.”

Mexico City: Mexican drug agency closed; agent corruption suspected

Mexican army units effectively shut down the federal government’s anti-drug agency this week because of allegations of rampant corruption.

The action was part of President Vicente Fox’s crackdown on corrupt police officers, an effort that in two years has netted hundreds of federal agents and military personnel linked to drug cartels.

Hundreds of soldiers took control of 17 compounds run by the Drug Task Force late Thursday and launched inquiries against two dozen agents.

Ivory Coast: U.N. agency offers assistance to refugees caught in fighting

Using buses and canoes, the U.N. refugee agency on Friday started repatriating thousands of Liberians caught in fighting in southwestern Ivory Coast.

Tensions between the refugees and residents have escalated since Liberian fighters appeared in the ranks of two Ivorian rebel factions operating in the coffee- and cocoa-rich west.

Nearly 2,400 Liberians — who came to Ivory Coast to escape fighting in their own country — have registered to go home over the past three days at the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Tabou, about 20 miles from the border with Liberia, agency officials said in Geneva.

Buses took the first 100 of them Friday from Tabou to the Cavally River, where 28 were ferried in canoes to Liberia. The remainder were completing the journey today after U.N. officials decided the river was too dangerous to cross and better boats were needed.