Monday Night Links

Since we've been out of pocket for a few days, here's a bunch of stories to catch you up with what's going on in the world:

• Colorado's new law banning state spending on illegal immigrants has cost more than $2 million to enforce - and has saved the state nothing. I think Tom Tancredo's head just exploded.

• Landlords are expected to raise apartment rents for a third-straight year in 2007. With the projected rise of 5% this year, rents would be 14% higher than at the end of 2004. Over the same period, paychecks are expected to rise 4%, adjusted for inflation.

• Bowing to local business community pressure, Los Angeles officials have rescinded a controversial law that raised the minimum wage for thousands of hotel workers in the mostly non-unionized airport corridor.

• The U.S. lags far behind virtually all wealthy countries with regard to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast-feeding, a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers says.

• Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York introduced legislation last week designed to punish attempts to deceive and intimidate voters.

• Flordai Governor Charlie Crist wants to spend nearly $33 million to replace the state's ATM-style voting machines with systems that provide a clear paper trail.

• Dollars for Darfur is a national high school fundraising effort to stop the genocide in Darfur. Half of the money raised will fund humanitarian efforts for Darfuri refugees and the other half will fund the advocacy efforts of the Save Darfur Coalition. It was started by Nick Anderson and Ana Slavin of Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts.

• New York state has lifted a barrier that prevented Medicaid recipients from accessing emergency contraception medication without a prescription even after the federal government approved its over-the-counter sale last summer.