WASHINGTON

BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO REINSTATE PREVAILING WAGES ON KATRINA CONTRACTS

The Bush administration will reinstate rules requiring that companies awarded federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina pay prevailing wages, usually an amount close to the pay scales in local union contracts.

The White House promised to restore the 74-year-old Davis-Bacon prevailing wage protection on November 8, following a meeting between chief of staff Andrew Card and a caucus of pro-labor Republicans.

Democrats and the moderate Republican group both claimed their pressure caused President Bush to reconsider his open-ended suspension of Davis-Bacon starting September 8 in hurricane-affected areas.

The Republican group originally sent a letter to the White House in September arguing that suspension of the wage law only leads to shoddy workmanship, reduces federal oversight, and allows workers from outside the region to undercut the local market.

– Associated Press

GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS DO-IT-YOURSELF AIDS TEST

The OraQuickAdvance test uses a swab of saliva to reveal within 20 minutes whether a person is infected with the virus that causes AIDS. It is already widely available in health clinics and doctors’ offices and the Food and Drug Administration is considering permitting it to be sold over the counter.

Supporters of home kits say they will spur more people to get tested and get treatment sooner if infected. However, concerns have been raised about whether a doctor or counselor should be nearby when people find out they are HIV-positive. If approved, the test would become the first FDA-approved test that a person can take without the presence of a health care worker, or the requirement of mailing a sample to a lab.

The test is accurate more than 99% of the time, Ron Spair, chief financial officer of the test’s maker, OraSure Technology of Bethlehem, Pa., said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

CLINTON ACCUSERS TOUR PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Two women who once accused President Clinton of sexual misconduct toured his presidential library yesterday on a trip paid for by the publisher of a book critical of Mr. Clinton and his wife, Senator Clinton.

Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick criticized what they called a campaign of intimidation meant to silence them after they came forward with their allegations. “If [Mrs. Clinton] is such a champion of women and women’s rights and women’s empowerment, then she needs to explain her role in what they tried to do to us,” Ms. Willey, a Virginia real estate agent, said.

She has said the then president fondled her when she met privately with him at the White House in 1993 to seek a job.

Ms. Broaddrick, an Arkansas nursing home owner who claimed Mr. Clinton sexually assaulted her at a Little Rock hotel in 1978, when he was attorney general of Arkansas, said Mrs. Clinton “did everything she could to protect him to keep her own power.”

– Associated Press

BLAME FLORIDA, NOT FEMA, FOR SLOW WILMA RELIEF, GOVERNOR BUSH SAYS

MIAMI – Governor Bush of Florida took the blame yesterday for frustrating delays at centers distributing supplies to victims of Hurricane Wilma, saying criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was misdirected.

“Don’t blame FEMA. This is our responsibility,” Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Tallahassee with Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, who oversees the agency.

Many Floridians were still struggling to find food, water, ice, and gas on the third day of recovery from Wilma, waiting in line for hours – sometimes in vain. Miami-Dade’s mayor called the distribution system flawed and said at least one relief site of 11 in his county ran out of supplies. The 21st storm in the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, Wilma killed at least 27 people.

– Associated Press