Disco queen Donna Summer dies at 63
By Alan Duke, CNN
updated 1:05 AM EDT, Fri May 18, 2012

(CNN) -- Donna Summer, the "Queen of Disco" whose hits included "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "Love to Love You Baby" and "She Works Hard for the Money," has died, a representative said Thursday. She was 63.
Her publicist, Brian Edwards, said Summer was suffering from cancer. She died surrounded by her family in Florida, he said.
"Early this morning, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith," a family statement said. "While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy. Words truly can't express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time."
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Native Sun News: School balks at honor song during graduation
THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2012

CHAMBERLAIN, SOUTH DAKOTA –– A request to have a Native American honor song performed at this year’s high school graduation has been met with strong resistance by this small, dual-reservation border town’s school board.
The request came recently from a Native American parent and community member in recognition of the school district’s large population of Native students. Situated on the eastern banks of the Missouri River in the south-central portion of South Dakota, Chamberlain sits in the shadow of not one but two reservations: Crow Creek and Lower Brule, which both lie just to the northwest, separated from each other only by the river.
Jim Cadwell, who asked the seven-member, non-Native American Chamberlain School District 7-1 Board of Education to seriously consider allowing a traditional Lakota honor song for the May 20 commencement, is a member of the Santee Sioux Tribe and grew up on the Crow Creek Reservation.
Cadwell says he figures it’s about time.
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Indian tribe ‘employee’ thrives on payday loans
BY BARB SHELLY
The Kansas City Star

While Missouri’s many brick-and-mortar payday loan shops have been the focus of public ire and reform efforts over the last few years, an even more insidious operation has thrived across the state line in Overland Park.
According to a class-action suit, Johnson County businessman Scott Tucker for years has presided over a vast web of Internet payday loan operations. A separate lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission alleges that those operations seek to deceive and entrap consumers.
Tucker, 50, seeks glory on the auto racing circuit and flies between his home in Leawood’s pricey Hallbrook neighborhood to his $8 million vacation home in Aspen, Colo., on a private Learjet.
According to the FTC lawsuit, Tucker and affiliated businesses and individuals make short-term loans. But instead of claiming a one-time finance charge on an agreed-upon date, the companies gain access to consumers’ bank accounts and make multiple withdrawals, assessing a new finance charge every time.
In a typical example, a consumer borrowed $300 and received a loan disclosure stating she would pay a $90 finance charge. So the loan should have cost $390. By the time the woman closed down her account, it had been drained of $735.
Various authorities have been on to Tucker since at least 2003, when the Kansas Bank Commission brought an enforcement action against one of his companies. Regulators in at least five states have tried to shut down his businesses.
Tucker eluded authorities by forming partnerships with small American Indian tribes. By claiming to be a mere employee of tribal-owned businesses, Tucker could claim sovereign immunity from government regulators.
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