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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

U.S. ski season begins in Colorado

Compiled from wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Denver The nation’s ski season opened under sunny skies Friday, the sixth straight year Loveland Ski Area has been the first in the nation to open for continuous operation.

“It was a little bit icy for the first run but it warmed up. There were no rocks showing anywhere,” said Ken Rosendale, 73, a skier for 57 years who has often been at Loveland for opening day.

Most major resorts don’t open before November, when many shoot for Thanksgiving weekend.

The National Weather Service says snowfall amounts will be difficult to predict this winter; most of the nation expects above-average temperatures. But Colorado was already walloped with more than 20 inches of snow earlier this week.

Loveland spokeswoman Kathryn Johnson said the mountain 60 miles west of Denver was open from top to bottom. She said nearly 1,000 people turned out.

Arapahoe Basin likely will be the next in Colorado to open, tentatively Oct. 21.

Clinton has $14 million for 2006 Senate race

Albany, N.Y. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has nearly $14 million in the bank for her 2006 re-election campaign after raising more than $5 million in the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, aides said Friday.

Statewide polls have shown the Democrat far ahead of declared or potential opposition, while national polls have her as the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Republican Gov. George Pataki on Friday endorsed Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro as the GOP challenger to Clinton.

That prompted one of Pirro’s rivals for the Senate nomination, Manhattan lawyer Edward Cox, to quit the race. Cox is a son-in-law of the late President Richard Nixon.

Wisc. governor vetoes ‘conscience clause’ bill

Madison, Wis. Wisconsin’s governor vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed health care workers to opt out of a half-dozen procedures, including withdrawing a person’s feeding tube and using embryonic stem cells, on religious or moral grounds.

The “conscience clause” also would have protected medical workers against punishment from their bosses or state regulators if they refused to refer people elsewhere to get the procedures.

“Because it puts a doctor’s political views ahead of the best interests of patients, this legislation ought to be called the ‘unconscionable clause,’ ” Gov. Jim Doyle said in a statement. “It is a disservice to patients and to our health care system.”

Doyle, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill in 2004.

Wisconsin Right to Life, a group that opposes legalized abortions, pushed this latest measure.

Under current state law, medical workers already can opt out of abortions and sterilization procedures on moral or religious grounds without fear of reprisal from their employers or state examining boards and licensing agencies.

The bill laid out six more procedures medical workers could refuse for ethical objections: destroying embryos or using cells from destroyed embryos; procedures on an embryo that won’t benefit it; procedures involving a child growing in an artificial womb that don’t help the child; procedures, such as transplants, that use fetal organs; pulling a feeding tube from a person who isn’t terminally ill; and assisting in a suicide.