Guard arrives at border

Fifty-five National Guard members from Utah arrived in Yuma on Saturday afternoon – the first troops to be sent to the Arizona-Mexico border in a new crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Utah troops had been scheduled to work on fences and other projects as part of the Guard’s long-standing efforts at the Arizona border, officials had said as late as Wednesday. But their mission has since been folded into President Bush’s plan to send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to the four southern border states to supplement federal immigration agents.

DES MOINES, Iowa

Prison program unconstitutional

Prison Fellowship Ministries, which was sued in 2003 by an advocacy group, was ordered Friday to cease its program at the Newton Correctional Facility and repay the state $1.53 million, funds that violate the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause.

“This calls into question the funding for so many programs,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the suit. “Anyone who doesn’t stop it is putting a giant ‘sue me’ sign on top of their building.”

Lynn’s group accused Prison Fellowship Ministries of giving preferential treatment to inmates participating in the program. They were given special visitation rights, movie-watching privileges, access to computers and access to classes needed for early parole.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Clinton voices library audio tour

“There were lots of times when Republicans thought I was right about an issue, but they were determined not to let anything happen,” Bill Clinton says in a new audio tour of his presidential library.

“I know that when I got elected president, a lot of those folks just went into denial,” he says.

The library, along the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock, will begin offering the audio tour Saturday. The tour was Clinton’s idea and is a first for presidential libraries, said Jordan Johnson, spokesman for the William J. Clinton Foundation.