On Friday, the New York Times’ Ethan Bronner broke the news that the State Dept. had decided to withdraw the coveted Fulbright scholarships it rewarded seven students in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Now they’ve reversed course.

Today Bronner reports that State, citing the value of a westernized education, acceded to pressure and reinstated the Fulbrights. Still not allowed to leave Gaza for security reasons, however, are more than 600 other students that had planned to study abroad. Read Bronner here. MB

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus scours the federal contracting proposals made public in May and finds a bunch that would require a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq. These include everything from mentors for the infamous Iraqi Defense Ministry to food for detainees in a soon to be built Baghdad prison.

Pincus’s investigative reporting is astute as usual. But his take away—that these contracts are another sign that the U.S. is locked into Iraq, may be too dramatic. What would be truly surprising is if the Bush administration wasn’t proposing new contracts out of deference to a possible Obama administration or some other political change in course. Read Pincus here. MB

Prosecutions of immigrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexican border are way up, reports the Washington Post’s Spencer S. Hsu. The Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Streamline,” instituted in December 2005, has started the practice of jailing and prosecuting all border crossers.

One result of the policy is that human traffickers and drug smugglers aren’t receiving extra attention. Also, the Justice Dept. is prosecuting more border crossing cases than every other type of crime combined.

DHS says all the police action is worth it as apprehensions on the border are going down. Of course, if apprehensions were going up, DHS could spin it to show that they’re increasingly stopping illegal immigration. Read Hsu here. MB