Some Teenagers Are Losing Their Jobs as a Result of the Minimum Wage Increase

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

You're Fired

The minimum wage increase that took effect in Arizona last month has brought with it some unintended consequences — many teenagers are losing their jobs. The Arizona Republic reports some employers say payroll budgets have risen so much since the minimum wage went from $5.15 per hour to $6.75 — they have had to cut jobs and hours.

The owner of one Phoenix pizza restaurant says his payroll has shot up 13 percent and he's had to lay off three teenagers and cut hours for others. Another shop owner said expenses rose by $2,000 a month.

A Federal Reserve study showed that for every ten percent increase in the minimum wage — there is a corresponding two to three percent decrease in employment.

"Worst Hit Job"

Arizona Senator and likely presidential candidate John McCain is calling a Washington Post article from the weekend "the worst hit job" of his career. McCain made the comment to CNN following a story that said the senator is using the same tactics he once condemned in his effort to win the presidency.

The story alleges McCain has welcomed some fundraising heavyweights into his campaign who are experts in the soft money system that he helped ban with the McCain-Feingold legislation five years ago.

McCain told FOX News today, "The assertion that I'm somehow violating the Campaign Finance Reform law I authored is as ridiculous as it is unfair."

False Alarm

The president of the Czech Republic says global warming is a false alarm. Vaclav Klaus tells a Czech newspaper that environmentalism is, "a new incarnation of modern leftism," and a "metaphysical ideology" that has nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate.

He is critical of the U.N. panel that recently issued a summary report blaming humans for climate change: "IPCC is not a scientific institution. It's a political body."

And when asked if humans are ruining the planet, Klaus says, "Perhaps only Al Gore may be saying something along these lines — a sane person can't."

Up, Up and Away

And we have a couple of updates from last week's "Grapevine" — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did hitch a non-stop ride on a military jet to fly home to San Francisco Thursday — following a week full of controversy over reports of her request for a bigger jet than the one used by her predecessor.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Pelosi flew aboard a 12-seat C37A — the same type of plane used regularly by former Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Insulting Textbooks

And the Islamic school in London accused of using textbooks that referred to Jews as "repugnant" and Christians as "pigs" has decided to remove the offensive chapters. The director of the King Fahad Academy insists those passages were never actually taught in class.

But she tells The Guardian newspaper that some students and parents had suffered discrimination because of the media reports — so she decided to get rid of the offending comments.

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.