Florida Courier - January 08, 2016

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CELEBRATING OUR 10TH YEAR STATEWIDE!

Primaries and other key dates leading up to presidential election See Page B1 www.flcourier.com

JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

VOLUME 24 NO. 2

HEMMED IN

President Obama announces a crackdown on gun purchases, but illustrates the limits of the presidency in the process.

Read an edited transcript of passionate. We have to be just as Obama’s speech on Page A5. organized in defense of our kids.”

Obama’s blueprint to address gun violence touches every maCOMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS jor aspect in the gun control deWASHINGTON – President bate: background checks, mental Obama joked, preached and wept health issues and flaws in the fedin the East Room of the White eral system that tracks who can House on Tuesday, outlining how buy a gun. But his gun safety meahe’ll use his authority to fight gun sures aren’t as weighty as the proviolence but revealing along the posals he’s tried to persuade Conway that an appeal to the heart gress to pass in recent years. may be the most powerful tool he Much of Obama’s executive accan muster. tion playbook relies on simply imWith tears falling at one point, proving existing regulations and Obama mourned the deaths of inclarifying rules already enforced nocents and preached the right of children to attend school without by federal agencies. And some fear of a mass shooting, and he of his initiatives could fall flat if voiced anger about the country’s budget writers in Congress refuse epidemic of gun violence and his to allocate money for improved mental health services and addiwell-funded opposition.

“Yes, the gun lobby is loud and tional federal agents who police it is organized in defense of mak- gun ownership.

Here’s a look at how backing it effortless for guns to be available for anybody, any time,” ground checks are currently done he said. “Well, you know what, the and why Obama is using execurest of us, we all have to be just as tive powers.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/TNS

President Barack Obama cries during a press conference to announce executive actions intended to reduce gun violence, as Vice President Joe Biden looks on.

Current federal law Only federally licensed firearms dealers – generally retail stores, manufacturers, pawnshops and others who make a living selling guns – are required to perform background checks on

every sale. Private sales, which make up nearly 40 percent of all gun sales, are exempt from background checks under federal law.

Such an exemption has led to use of the phrase “gun show loophole,” a term that gun control advocates sometimes use to point

out gaps in federal gun law.

But a patchwork of state laws governs the issue, too. For example, states such as California and New York require universal background checks for every gun sale, See OBAMA, Page A2

10 issues to watch

FLORIDA COURIER / OUT AND ABOUT

Still balling at age 88

Legislatures heading to Tallahassee

BY JIM SAUNDERS THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Florida lawmakers will return to the Capitol next week for an election-year legislative session.

Expect the 60-day session to start amicably enough, with the House and Senate poised to quickly pass bills about water policy and boosting opportunities for people with disabilities – priorities of House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, ROrlando.

But as always, the true legislative sausage-making will happen near the end of the 60-day session as lawmakers race to pass bills, tack on amendments and negotiate a budget.

Here are 10 issues to watch during the session, which starts Jan. 12 and is scheduled to end March 11: • Budget – Lawmakers will enter the session with a surplus as they prepare to negotiate a budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Gov. Rick Scott has proposed a $79.3 billion spending plan as a starting point. Among other things, Scott wants to set a record for per-student funding in public schools, boost economicdevelopment incentives and cut taxes. But a key question could

CHARLYN HARPER BROWNE

Florida Courier Senior Managing Member Julia T. Cherry shot a few baskets during a holiday visit to relatives in Atlanta.

Mrs. Cherry, a 1945 graduate of A.S. Staley High School in Americus, Ga., was a star basketball player there.

Congressman targets Cosby’s Medal of Freedom

BY ALEX GANGITANO CQ-ROLL CALL / TNS

WASHINGTON – Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., is attempting to assist in the removal of Bill Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Arizona congressman was to hold a news conference on Thursday to promote his legislation affirming a mechanism for the president to strip the Medal of Freedom – the nation’s highest civilian award – from the actor. In July, when asked about revoking the medal from Cosby, President Obama said, “there’s no precedent for revoking a medal. We don’t have that mechanism.”

The president added, “If you give a woman – or a man, for that matter – without his or her knowledge a drug and

ALSO INSIDE

then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape.”

Gosar’s bill would also impose a criminal penalty on someone who publicly displays a Medal of Freedom that has been revoked. According to a statement, Gosar has been working on this bill since July.

According to his office, Gosar works closely with Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment, PAVE, a D.C. nonprofit that works to prevent sexual assault, as well as help survivors.

Cosby faces three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault. More than 50 women have accused him of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault.

Cosby received his Medal of Freedom in 2002.

See ISSUES, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Thousands of rape kits untested New FPL plant moves forward TRAVEL | B3

Florida getting new cruise ships WORLD | A6

Report outlines problems with Haiti election TNS

Comedian Bill Cosby, right, puts on the Presidential Medal of Freedom with help from baseball legend Hank Aaron at a January 2002 ceremony at the White House. Aaron was also honored with the medal.

COMMENTARY: RAYNARD JACKSON: TRUMP WILL INVEST TIME, MONEY FOR BLACK VOTE | A4 COMMENTARY: ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ.: THE IRONIC REGRET OF OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY | A5

FOOD | B4

Quick-fix dinners for the family

FOCUS

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

In my humble opinion, nothing matters “Black Lives Matter!

“Black Lives Matter!” is a phrase that is heard a lot these days.

In fact, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, as it’s called, has inspired a bunch of spinoffs like All Lives Matter, Better Matters and The Gantt Report’s own phrase, “Cat Lives Matter!”

Seen it before To some Black thinkers, Black intellectuals and Black philosophers, the Black Lives Matter movement is little more than a collection of marchers and marches.

I’m old enough to have seen this type of thing before.

There was the abolitionist movement that opposed slavery before it was replaced by slave-type Jim Crow laws. There was a “Freedom Riders” movement. But Black folks are far from freedom in many ways.

There was the famous

LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

civil rights movement, but things still aren’t “civil,” and Black people still don’t have some rights that White citizens have – economic, political, judicial due process, and other rights.

There was even an Occupy Wall Street movement that came and went like a thief in the night!

The Florida-based “Dream Defenders” appeared on a lot of talk shows, but their dreams resulted in nightmares!

One description One way to describe what is going on is to say, “Nothing Matters!”

We need to plan Black progress. We need to plan Black survival. We need to plan for better Black lives!

Who decided that the best way for Black people to deal with life situations was to march, pray and lock arms with devils and enemies and sing “We Shall Overcome?”

Since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched and prayed, young people have been led to believe that’s all they need to do. Don’t disrespect Dr. King like that!

King marched for equal rights and justice. King marched for better salaries and working conditions for Black workers. King marched to oppose unjust wars and world imperialism.

Want to march?

If you want to march to get the mayor of Chicago to resign, why don’t you march to get every rednecked Klansman, neoNazi or skinhead in elected office to resign? Politicians like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are in office in every city and every state in the United States!

Why don’t Black Lives Matter marchers march down to the ‘hood, register every eligible Black resident to vote, and educate them about why they should vote out devilish candidates – including both Democratic and Republican political devils – and vote in candidates that put them first and sponsor and pass legislation that will benefit Black people?

Why don’t they march to the ‘hood and patronize Black businesses that hire Black workers, and if there are none, the marchers should start Black businesses of their own?

Why don’t they march to the ‘hood and patrol Black neighborhood streets to stop our people from killing each other so our community can be a safe place for children to play and for seniors to sit on their front porches?

Why don’t marchers pool their money and financial resources together? Why don’t they clean

their neighborhoods up, help Blacks that are homeless or disabled ?

Behind closed doors Perhaps it’s because marches will be televised.

There are no news reports about organizing your community, starting Black banks, or uniting with Black people around the world!

Your enemies want you to have nonviolent, praying marches! They don’t want you to stand up, speak out or literally fight for your rights. They don’t want you to think. They want you to react – peacefully!

In a capitalist society, a capitalist country and a capitalist-controlled world, the only lives that matter are the lives with money and land!

If the Black Lives Matter movement suggests that 2016 problems can be solved with poorly-imitated 1950 community strategies, they will be disappointed.

ISSUES from A1

focus on the size of the surplus.

State economists have predicted a $635.4 million surplus, while Scott’s administration contends the number could be as high as $1.6 billion. The resolution of that issue could help determine how much money is available for education, health care, economic-development incentives and tax cuts.

• Economic development – Scott, who has made job creation the hallmark of his administration, clashed last year with the Senate about providing economic incentives to try to attract businesses to Florida. Scott has kept up the pressure, requesting that lawmakers set aside $250 million for incentives and make changes in the incentives process. Senate leaders, however, have questioned the need to plow such a large amount of money into incentives and whether incentives programs have been effective.

• Education – Continuing to face pressure from educators and parents, the Legislature could again grapple with making changes to Florida’s high-stakes testing system. As an example, Senate Education Appropriations Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, has raised the idea of allowing schools to use tests other than the state’s Florida Standards Assessments. Another closely watched issue could be whether lawmakers decide to continue a controversial program that offers bonuses to teachers based on their ACT or SAT college-admission test scores.

• Gambling – Lobbyists likely will swarm as the Legislature debates whether to make potentially far-reaching changes in the gambling industry. Much of the debate has been prompted by a

OBAMA from A1

including gun shows and private sales. Other states, like North Carolina, require buyers to undergo background checks to obtain handguns or concealed carry permits.

Key definition Obama’s proposal seeks to clarify how the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives enforces background check requirements. Anyone “engaged in the business” of selling a gun, according to White House officials this week, will need a federal firearms license and will be required to do background checks on buyers.

The ATF, under Obama’s announcement, may consider a person to be a gun dealer even if he or she is selling firearms only online or at gun shows. Previously, those individuals may have been considered private sellers exempt from background checks.

By choosing an emotional speech over a more sober argument designed to persuade lawmakers, Obama further illustrated what his executive action itself does as well: that he can do only

FILE PHOTO

The Florida Legislature convenes earlier than usual in this election year.

Get organized!

Stop being reactionary and stop fighting about who gets the sound bites on morning radio and Fox News. Organize a united Black movement that will understand we all have a role to play in Black progress – the marchers, the prayers, the rioters, the fighters, the thinkers, the writers and everybody else.

If we can’t unite the old, the young, the political, the religious, the philosophical and the warriors in the Black community, nothing will matter!

Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net.

“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.

portunities for people with developmental disabilities – or as he calls them, “unique abilities.”

The Senate and House are poised to approve a package of changes that would seek to spur state agencies to hire people with disabilities, expand educational opportunities and create a financial literacy program. Also, lawmakers likely will create a program to recognize businesses that hire people with disabilities.

• Tax cuts – Florida businesses will watch closely during the legislative session to see how much of Scott’s proposed $1 billion taxcut package will get approved by lawmakers. The package, in part, would permanently eliminate a tax on manufacturing equipment, reduce a tax on commercial leases and make smaller cuts, such as holding a back-to-school sales tax “holiday” and extending a temporary elimination of sales taxes on college textbooks. Scott also wants to eliminate income taxes on manufacturers and retailers. But it remains unclear how far lawmakers will go with tax cuts, with a particular concern about the long-term financial impact of permanent or “recurring” tax cuts.

• Water – Crisafulli and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam have made a top priority of passing a wide-ranging bill to set new water policies for the state. And with the House and Senate going into the session with identical proposals, it appears Crisafulli and Putnam will quickly get their wish. The proposal, which has drawn criticism from many environmental groups, includes establishing water-flow levels for springs and setting guidelines for the Central Florida Water Initiative. Also, it includes steps such as further establishing management plans for farming around Lake Okeechobee and waterways in surrounding areas.

proposed $3 billion agreement that Scott reached last month with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. In exchange for payments to the state, the tribe would be able to offer craps and roulette at its casinos. But the deal also opened the door to a series of other issues, ranging from allowing slot machines at a greyhound track in Palm Beach County and at a new facility in Miami-Dade County to allowing dog and horse tracks to stop running live races.

• Guns – In the months leading up to the session, gun bills have drawn perhaps the most public attention. Lawmakers are considering a controversial proposal that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns on college and university campuses. Second Amendment groups are supporting the proposal, while university-sys-

tem leaders have opposed it. In a separate proposal, lawmakers are debating whether to allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry firearms.

• Health care – After the 2015 session was dominated by battles about health-care issues, lawmakers will go into this year’s session still dealing with major budget and policy decisions. Part of the focus again will be on the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program, which helps hospitals care for poor and uninsured patients.

Federal officials have said the program will receive $608 million during the upcoming year, down from $1 billion this year. Meanwhile, House leaders are pushing a series of proposals aimed at reducing regulations in the health-care industry. One of the most-contentious would eliminate what is known as the “cer-

tificate of need” approval process for new or expanded hospitals.

• Justice system – With critics arguing that Florida charges too many juvenile offenders as adults, the House and Senate are looking at possibly limiting the ability of prosecutors to make such decisions. Lawmakers are debating how much discretion prosecutors should have in using a practice known as “direct file.”

Among other issues involving the courts, some House members are backing the idea of seeking term limits for members of the Florida Supreme Court and appeals courts. Such a proposal, if approved by the Legislature, would need to go before voters.

• People with disabilities – For Gardiner, whose son has Down syndrome, this is personal.

Gardiner has long made a priority of trying to provide more op-

so much without Congress.

Even after months of study, Obama’s actions on guns amount to a few relatively minor steps on a policy matter that has long been a personal priority.

Under his plan – not an executive order but rather “guidance” for agencies – law enforcement officials will warn private gun sellers that they may be vulnerable to prosecution if they don’t register with the government and begin conducting background checks on gun buyers.

The Justice Department will also launch an intensive education campaign to push more private sellers to become licensed, while hiring investigators to complete faster and more thorough background checks. And mental health records will be included in them.

broad plan in 2014 to temporarily shield millions of people from deportation is held up in a lawsuit. And the Republicans vying to succeed him have all vowed to roll back various programs he’s implemented.

Still, he’s long felt he had to act to curb gun violence.

After the mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Ore., in October, he directed staffers to scour existing gun laws for steps he could legally take to strengthen them, apparently concluding that he would get nowhere with a Republicanled Congress. Obama had pushed hard for new legislation on universal background checks after the 2012 schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn., but the proposal ultimately failed on Capitol Hill.

Following Obama’s instruction this time that the actions should withstand court challenge, lawyers found little wiggle room.

As Obama himself noted, Congress has repeatedly defeated efforts to pass meaningful gun control, making it more difficult for public health experts to study gun violence and installing roadblocks to data collection for researchers.

If any outside event influenced the White House’s decision to act, even if only in a narrow capacity, it was the decision

by congressional Republicans to reject proposals that would have barred people on the no-fly list from buying guns, one aide said.

It became clear to Obama advisers that lawmakers would not move to reduce gun violence and that the president’s response would be the only one for a while.

Tim Daly, director for campaigns, guns and crime at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research center that made similar recommendations in 2013 and has worked closely with the administration.

GOP reacts

In the end, advocates who gathered in the East Room said Obama’s measured actions were meaningful in that he took them at all.

“This is really significant, both in the range of specific issues that are covered by the actions and in the administration’s willingness to really be bold and make this a priority even in the face of congressional inaction,” said Nina Vinik, a lawyer and program director for the Gun Violence Prevention Program at the Joyce Foundation in Chicago.

Still, she acknowledged, it doesn’t obviate the need for Congress to act.

Legal risks In the past, Obama has made more sweeping use of executive power, as in 2012 when he ordered his administration to defer deportation for young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. With his powers on immigration policy less clearly defined by law, Obama’s lawyers found a great deal more running room to act when Congress would not.

But even when he does act unilaterally, Obama faces risks. His

Although the steps Obama took were relatively modest, Republicans were nonetheless furious, labeling it a dangerous overreach by the executive and a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

“His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday morning, describing Obama’s announcement as “another reason” a Republican must win the White House and undo his actions.

Some gun safety advocates had been pushing Obama to act far more broadly, inviting a fight that would fire up sympathetic voters.

Some privately wondered why he’d waited until his final year to act. They have been asking him to impose similar executive actions for years, most forcefully after the Newtown shooting.

“A lot of these ideas existed for several years,” acknowledged

Still grateful

Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg News; Bridget Bowman of CQ-Roll Call; Anna Douglas and Anita Kumar of the McClatchy Washington Bureau; and Christi Parsons of the Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS) all contributed to this report.

JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

FLORIDA

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FDLE: Thousands of rape kits untested statewide

BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – More than 13,000 rape kits that could include evidence from sexual assaults are untested statewide, according to a report released Monday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The report – based on a survey conducted from mid-August to mid-December – shows that 13,435 untested rape kits are waiting in the evidence rooms of 279 law-enforcement agencies. That’s in addition to about 3,500 rape kits that come to FDLE each year.

Rape kits contain DNA evidence collected during investigations of sexual assaults. Testing the evidence could help law enforcement agencies solve crimes and prevent future attacks – but as the report notes, Florida does not have a law requiring the kits to be submitted for testing. The decision to submit rape kits rests with local law-enforcement agencies.

That could change in the upcoming legislative session.

Legislators react A bill (HB 179) filed by Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, would establish time limits for local agencies to submit rape kits to FDLE for testing. The measure has passed one House panel and faces two more. A similar measure

by Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, faces three committees during the session, which starts Jan. 12.

“There is no doubt in my mind that people who commit this crime commit it again and again and again,” Adkins said. “And they won’t stop until they’re caught.”

The report comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi in September called on lawmakers to increase funding for crime labs to address the testing backlog. In its report, FDLE recommended that the state spend at least $8 million over a three-year period to do so.

“I would hope $8 million would be a very small price to pay to resolve even one unsolved rape,” Bondi said Monday.

‘Not a surprise’ Of the untested rape kits, 6,661 fall

within FDLE’s jurisdiction. Another 6,774 are the responsibility of Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Pinellas counties, which operate their own labs.

Meg Baldwin, director of Tallahassee’s Refuge House, which helps victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults, said the numbers come “as a shock but not a surprise.” She also praised the state for doing the assessment.

“We’re one of the few states I know of that have done that,” she said. “And FDLE also reports that the response and cooperation from all the local law enforcement agencies was very positive.”

The report found that kits were not tested for several reasons, including victims declining to proceed with investigations, state attorney’s offices declining to prosecute and suspects pleading guilty.

Also, some victims do not wish to file police reports. In those situations, kits may be held by local law enforcement or by rape-crisis centers for periods of time in case victims change their minds. Kits are forwarded to laboratories for testing only if reports are filed and victims have consented to testing.

National issue The backlogs are a national problem, Bondi noted.

“If you look nationally, some big cities alone have as many untested kits as we do in Florida,” she said.

According to FDLE, New York City in 2000 began to test its entire backlog – 17,000 rape kits – resulting in more than 2,000 DNA matches and 200 cold-case prosecutions. In Michigan, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office identified 188 potential serial rapists and obtained 15 convictions. In Houston, the testing of 6,663 rape kits resulted in 850 matches in the federal DNA database.

In its report, FDLE offered several “business plans” for addressing the backlog, costing from $8 million to $32 million. That included possibly outsourcing the testing of the kits, buying additional equipment to conduct tests faster and hiring more crime-lab analysts.

“I’m sure the Legislature will respond affirmatively to the price tag and also the call to action generally,” Baldwin said.

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COURTESY OF FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT

Above is an artist’s conceptual rendering of the FPL Okeechobee Clean Energy Center.

Regulators back FPL on new Okeechobee plant Scott and Cabinet still have to give their approval

time jobs once opened in mid-2019, must still get approval from Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Cabinet members, who act as a power-plant sitting board.

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Earthjustice responds

TALLAHASSEE – Regulators decided Tuesday that a $1.3 billion, natural gas-fired power plant – proposed in rural Okeechobee County by Florida Power & Light – is needed to meet the demands of the state’s growing population.

The decision by the Florida Public Service Commission came after objections from a pair of environmental groups, the state Office of Public Counsel and the Florida Industrial Power Users Group. The Office of Public Counsel represents consumers in utility issues, while the Florida Industrial Power Users Group represents large electricity users.

Opponents questioned the need for the plant and argued it will hinder conservation efforts and slow the growth of renewable energy sources such as solar.

600-plus jobs Commissioners agreed with a staff conclusion that the proposed 1,633-megawatt plant would increase FPL’s already-heavy reliance on natural gas. But Julie Brown, who formally began a two-year term as chair of the commission Tuesday, said the plant is the “most cost effective option” to bring more power to the state.

“We know there is a need. We know that it’s present. It will continue to grow,” Brown said.

The plant is planned for 250 acres of a 2,842-acre site that FPL owns in northeast Okeechobee County.

FPL has said the plant will be more fuel efficient than other plants, which will save money for customers in fuel costs.

The plant, expected to create about 600 construction jobs and some 30 to 40 full-

Online voter registration moves forward NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

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Work that will allow Floridians to register to vote online – after this year’s presidential election – remains on schedule, according to a progress report submitted to state lawmakers.

The online voter-registration system, mandated by lawmakers last year over the objection of Secretary of State Ken Detzner, requires the state Division of Elections to develop an online voter-registration application by Oct. 1, 2017.

“DOS (the Department of State) has formulated and begun a six-phase development and implementation plan, of which the initial discovery phase is now complete,” according to the conclusion of the report. The Department of State, which includes the Division of Elections, submitted the report last week to the House and Senate.

Group wants legislators to push ethics reform Florida is no longer the state with the most federal convictions for public corruption, according to a report released Tuesday by the advocacy group Integrity Florida. It’s now third, following Texas and California.

The report said Florida is making progress in ethics reform, but co-author Ben Wilcox said the state has a long way to go.

“Bottom line is: Florida has gone too long neglecting public corruption and ethical abuses,” Wilcox said. “And citizens have paid a real price for corrupt government practices that have cost taxpayers public funds and damaged the state’s reputation.”

Anti-corruption proposals backed Integrity Florida is urging lawmakers to pass further reforms during the leg-

However, Tuesday’s approval was considered the largest remaining pre-construction hurdle.

Bradley Marshall, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, derided the commission’s decision as “protecting FPL’s bottom line.”

“Today’s decision shows that the Public Service Commission is once again failing to look out for consumers,” Marshall said in a prepared statement. “This plant is unnecessary. The only reason FPL is building this new power plant is because the company gets a guaranteed profit if it builds a new plant.”

FPL, which in recent years has increasingly moved to using natural gas to generate electricity, argued that the Okeechobee plant is part of a series of projects that have helped phase out older oil- and coalfired plants.

As an example, a new Port Everglades plant is scheduled to begin operating later this year, and FPL has also opened new plants in recent years at Cape Canaveral and Riviera Beach.

No rate hike FPL also contends construction of the Okeechobee facility won’t impact customers’ rates until after the facility is online, at which time costs will be partially offset by savings on fuel costs.

“The FPL Okeechobee Clean Energy Center represents another major milestone in our successful program of phasing out older power-generating units and investing in new, high-efficiency clean energy centers that reduce emissions and save our customers money on fuel costs,” FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy said in a release.

The report notes that once the system is launched, Florida will join 26 other states, including California and New York, in operating online voter-registration systems.

Florida’s system is being crafted by the Department of State, the 67 county supervisors of election and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Cybersecurity concerns When Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill into law in May he raised concerns about cybersecurity.

“Cyberattacks are on the front pages almost every day, and fraud and identification-theft issues arise whenever a new avenue for information transmittal is created,” Scott wrote when he signed the bill.

The progress report notes that as part of the voter-registration modernization effort, the state has already installed new hardware with “the latest state-of-the art equipment reflecting the choice of major data centers in the public and private sectors.” Lawmakers included $1.8 million to pay for setting up the system.

islative session that starts next week.

The group is backing a proposal (SB 582), filed by Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, that would expand the definition of “public servant” so that government vendors and contractors could be prosecuted under bribery and misuse-of-office laws.

The bill would also lower the burden of proof for prosecutors in corruption cases. They would have to show people acted “knowingly” rather than “with corrupt intent” to gain convictions.

Integrity Florida also backs a proposal (SB 686 and HB 593), filed by Gaetz and Rep. Larry Metz, R-Yalaha, that is known as the “Florida Anti-Corruption Act of 2016.”

Among its provisions, the measure would require city officials to file full financial disclosures. Wilcox said the group would like to see that requirement in place for all elected officials.

– News Service of Florida

EDITORIAL

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

Donald Trump and the Black vote The year 2015 brought tectonic changes in several areas of our lives that the media has ignored or under-reported. Too often, media – both left and right – only talk to people who view the world from the same prism as they do.

The same argument can be made about the political establishment from both parties.

There is a total disconnect between the establishment of both parties and their respective bases, as personified in the presidential candidacies of businessman Donald Trump and independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

GOP loses big To this end, the Republican establishment is by far the biggest loser of 2015.

They told Republican voters that if they raised and contributed money to help them gain control of congress, they would shrink the size of government, defund Barack Obama’s amnesty for illegals, and stop these trade deals that would subjugate America’s sovereignty to international organizations. We helped Republicans to gain control of Congress, and they quickly “moonwalked” on every issue they promised us they would fight for.

Then Trump launches his presidential campaign based on all the promises the Republican congress made and broke.

The Republican Congress created Donald Trump’s candida-

Actively engaged RAYNARD JACKSON GUEST COLUMNIST

cy. Now the same Republican establishment that created Trump is actively trying to destroy and sabotage his campaign.

No more Message to the establishment: Trump is not the problem. Republican voters don’t want amnesty for illegals, increased debt ceilings, more H1-B visas, more trade deals, more continuing resolutions, or more omnibus budget bills passed, among other things. If the establishment would spend more time fighting for the values it campaigned on, there would be no Trump candidacy.

However impolitic you may think Trump’s verbiage is, he makes voters believe he is sincere. He projects strength and leadership and has proven that he is willing to take it hard to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Trump has the uncanny ability to connect with average voters and tap into what they are feeling at any given moment. Most of the other candidates wait on polls to tell them what to think and what to believe. Trump somehow always seems to just instinctively know what is going on within the electorate.

The ironic regret of Obama’s presidency Here is how acclaimed communication strategist Richard Greene rated President Obama as a communicator a few years ago: “Barack Obama, at his best, in some ways is an even better orator than FDR or JFK and more accomplished than ‘The Great Communicator’ Ronald Reagan, a trained actor and Bill Clinton, by far the greatest one-on-one communicator in politics, if not the history of mankind.

I agree Yet, from the first year of his presidency, Obama has been trying in vain to explain why he gets so little credit for doing so much.

He did it again last month during an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep.

CNN reported on six times during his presidency when Obama “blamed the message, not the policy,” for this abiding disconnect as follows: • In October 2010, he said the

ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ. FLORIDA COURIER COLUMNIST

American people were not crediting his policies for rescuing the economy from the brink of another Great Depression because he was “not advertising properly what was going on.”

• In July 2012, he said the biggest mistake of his first term was not realizing that doing a good job was not enough. Evidently, he had to feed the American people feel-good stories too.

• In September 2013, he said Congress failed to support his plan to launch airstrikes against Syria because it “wasn’t packaged properly for lawmakers.”

• In November 2013, he said the American people were an-

In Oregon, White Christian lives matter The armed right-wing activists that seized control of a federal wildlife sanctuary compound in eastern Oregon have already committed – and conspired to commit – enough serious criminal violations of U.S. law to land each of them in federal prison for the rest of lives.

Of course, as Wajahat Ali points out in The Guardian newspaper, if the gunmen were Muslim or Black, they’d already be dead.

We already know This is not a great revelation. Every Black child knows that White lives carry a premium value in the United States, while Blacks are casually killable. In a society where Walking While Black, Driving While Black

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OREGON TAKEOVER

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

or simply Breathing While Black is so often treated as a capital crime, the racial double standard is the norm.

That’s why it’s insane to think that this society can be made worthy of Black habitation through tinkering with the system, piecemeal reforms, and appeals to the federal government for protection and relief.

This is the same federal government that framed poor Black

Trump is totally rewriting the playbook on how to run for president. He is the only candidate to actively engage with the Black community in any meaningful way during the primary. He has even gone so far as to hire Blacks and then put them on TV representing his campaign. WOW, what a novel thought!

Because of Trump’s business background, I think he understands that the Black community is open to a message of economic empowerment; I think he understands how to penetrate or create a new market, i.e., the Black vote.

Most of the other candidates are too busy listening to their pollsters and other establishment figures tell them that going after the Black vote is a waste of time.

As I have written repeatedly, Blacks are looking for the Republican Party to give them a reason to vote for them, but only Trump has even remotely began to see this possibility.

Republicans have absolutely no idea of the chasm that exists between Blacks and Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t have the connection to Blacks like Bill Clinton and to a lesser extent, Obama.

She will attempt to scare Blacks into voting for her by telling them that Republicans are racists, etc.

She will also pay Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to do their dirty work for her.

ADAM ZYGLIS, THE BUFFALO NEWS

No track record Hillary has no substantive track record to take to the Black community. She shows up for all the right symbolic events in the Black community, but has done nothing of any substance.

She insults the Black community by equating homosexual entitlements to civil rights. She supports amnesty for illegals, though everyone knows it will devastate the Black community.

The real sign of what these Republican presidential candidates think about the Black vote will be shown in two weeks when the nation celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday on January 18.

Each campaign should do an event on King’s birthday within the Black community and give a major policy speech on their vi-

gry that Obamacare was forcing them to change their health plans because he “failed to communicate the realities of the law.”

• In November 2014, he said Republicans took over both houses of Congress because he spent too much time “implementing policies instead of selling them.”

• In December 2015, he said the American people are anxious about his strategy to defeat ISIS because he has “failed to highlight the plan’s successes.”

In other words, his abiding regret has been his failure to communicate. Not for want of trying, mind you; after all, I wrote in January 2010 that, “The very articulate Obama has spent more time speaking directly to the American people than any other president in the first year of his presidency.

In fact, in “Obama’s First Year: By the Numbers,” CBS news documents that he gave 411 speeches, comments and remarks; 158 interviews; 42 news conferences; and 23 Town Hall meetings.

“This begs the question: What the hell does Obama think he was talking about all year – if not about core values like good jobs and healthcare, and about fixing the economy and reform-

ing health insurance coverage to match up with those values?”

men from Miami and Newburgh, New York, on terrorist conspiracy charges, and that condones conspiracy indictments carrying life in prison for 100 Black youngsters from New York City housing projects based on their postings in Facebook.

The reason is really quite simple: the U.S. criminal justice system was not created to control White militias or greedy ranchers or gun-toting racists and Bible-thumpers. For most of U.S. history, these were prime stakeholders in the American project to build a White Man’s Nation.

The gunmen in Oregon have plenty of historical reasons to believe that land-grabbing is their birthright – and that a significant segment of White America empathizes with them. The federal government treads lightly, because White Christian lives do matter.

No confrontation But the White right-wing land grabbers who are in armed occupation of federal property can’t seem to buy a confrontation with President Obama’s FBI or any other armed federal agency.

How is it, the people of the world must be wondering, that a country that runs by far the world’s biggest prison system, with the most heavily armed cops on the planet, equipped with the most advanced evidence gathering devices known to man – how is it that the Superpower of Policing and Prosecution seems to fear a confrontation with groups with names like the Oregon Bearded Bastards?

Making excuses In other words, Obama has just been making excuses for the American people’s failure to comprehend.

From the first year of his presidency, Obama has had an enviable record of accomplishments, which I’ve hailed and delineated in such numerous commentaries.

Thanks to his policies, gas is now under $2 dollars; unemployment is five percent; the stock market has more than doubled; the economy has fully recovered; and, despite all the political and media fear mongering, ISIS has managed only one lone-wolf attack in San Bernardino, which, to be honest, could easily have been mistaken for just another shooting rampage in gun-crazy USA. If any other president had this record, communicating it wouldn’t be an issue. The American people would be singing his praises. Therefore, only willful ignorance – born of rabid partisanship or liberated racism – explains why so many refuse to acknowledge Obama’s accomplish-

Control and contain For almost 50 years, the primary mission of the U.S. criminal justice system has been to control, contain and incarcerate Black Americans. It has spent half a century refining the tools to terrorize Black people on the streets, in their homes and in their schools. It is so efficient at

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sion for civil rights should they become president. I will be stunned if any campaign does anything substantive on King’s holiday. If a candidate only issues a perfunctory press statement, then you know that campaign is not serious about the Black vote.

For any Republican to win the White House, he will have to think outside the box and be able to get at least 15 percent of the Black vote. The only person I see willing to invest the time, money and effort to do this is Donald Trump.

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ments.

And only willful ignorance in spades explains why so many think a race-baiting megalomaniac like Donald Trump would make a better president. Incidentally, the term “irrational exuberance” describes Trump’s presidential appeal perfectly.

‘Post-racial’ presidency?

Today, we look back with moral indignation at the racism Jackie Robinson faced integrating Major League Baseball. Years from now, people will look back the same way at the racism “postracial” Obama faced integrating the U.S. presidency. How’s that for irony?

In any event, I hereby urge Obama to stop making excuses for this ignorance. Even these ignoramuses will miss him when he’s gone.

Anthony L. Hall is a Bahamian native with an international law practice in Washington, D.C. Read his columns and daily weblog at www.theipinionsjournal.com.

what it does, that one out of every eight prison inmates on the planet is an African American.

The Mass Black Incarceration State was designed to pre-empt any insurgency by Black people – not to deal with the Bundy family and the Bearded Bastards of Oregon.

That’s why I think the Lords of Capital are much more afraid of Donald Trump than they are of Bernie Sanders. They think Trump might stir up more of those White bearded bastards, many of whom hate Wall Street almost as much as they do the federal government – which is a real problem for U.S. law enforcement.

Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. Email him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

‘The gun lobby…cannot hold America hostage’ Editor’s note – President Obama delivered this speech from the White House on Tuesday, January 5.

Five years ago this week, a sitting member of Congress and 18 others were shot at, at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. It wasn’t the first time I had to talk to the nation in response to a mass shooting, nor would it be the last.

Fort Hood. Binghamton. Aurora. Oak Creek. Newtown. The Navy Yard. Santa Barbara. Charleston. San Bernardino. Too many.

Thanks to a great medical team and the love of her husband Mark, my dear friend and colleague Gabby Giffords, survived. I was there with Gabby when she was still in the hospital, and we didn’t think necessarily at that point that she was going to survive. And that visit right before a memorial – about an hour later Gabby first opened her eyes.

But I know the pain that she and her family have endured these past five years, and the rehabilitation and the work and the effort to recover from shattering injuries.

And then I think of all the Americans who aren’t as fortunate.

Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns – 30,000.

Suicides. Domestic violence.

Gang shootouts. Accidents. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost brothers and sisters, or buried their own children. Many have had to learn to live with a disability, or learned to live without the love of their life.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA lized society.

Many gun owners agree

A majority of gun owners agree that we can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, law-breaking feud from inflicting harm on a massive scale.

Today, background checks are required at gun stores. If a father wants to teach his daughter how to hunt, he can walk into a gun store, get a background check, purchase his weapon safely and responsibly. This is not seen as an infringement on the Second Amendment.

Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn’t been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation. Contrary to claims of some presidential candidates, this is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns. You pass a background check; you purchase a firearm.

The problem is some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules. A violent felon can buy the exact same weapon over the Internet with no background check, no questions asked. A recent study found that about one in 30 people looking to buy guns on one website had criminal records.

We’re talking about individuals convicted of serious crimes – Many stories A number of those people are aggravated assault, domestic viohere today. They can tell you some lence, robbery, illegal gun possesstories. There’s a lot of heartache. sion.

There’s a lot of resilience, there’s a lot of strength, but there’s also a Different rules lot of pain. And this is just a small Everybody should have to abide sample. by the same rules. Most AmeriThe United States of America cans and gun owners agree. And is not the only country on Earth that’s what we tried to change with violent or dangerous people. three years ago, after 26 AmeriWe are not inherently more prone cans – including 20 children – to violence. But we are the only were murdered at Sandy Hook Eladvanced country on Earth that ementary. sees this kind of mass violence Two United States Senators – erupt with this kind of frequen- Joe Manchin, a Democrat from cy. It doesn’t happen in other ad- West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, a vanced countries. It’s not even Republican from Pennsylvania, close. Somehow we’ve become both gun owners, both strong denumb to it and we start thinking fenders of our Second Amendthat this is normal. ment rights, both with “A” grades And instead of thinking about from the NRA, worked together in how to solve the problem, this good faith, consulting with folks has become one of our most po- like our vice president, who has larized, partisan debates – de- been a champion on this for a long spite the fact that there’s a general time, to write a common-sense consensus in America about what compromise bill that would have needs to be done. required virtually everyone who That’s part of the reason why, buys a gun to get a background on Thursday, I’m going to hold a check. town hall meeting in Virginia on Ninety percent of Americans gun violence. Because my goal supported that idea. Ninety perhere is to bring good people on cent of Democrats in the Senate both sides of this issue together voted for that idea. But it failed befor an open discussion. cause 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted against that idea.

Not about me How did this become such a I’m not on the ballot again. I’m not looking to score some points. I partisan issue? Republican Presithink we can disagree without im- dent George W. Bush once said, pugning other people’s motives or “I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make without being disagreeable.

We don’t need to be talking past sure that guns don’t get into the hands of people that shouldn’t one another.

But we do have to feel a sense have them.”

Senator John McCain introof urgency about it. In Dr. King’s words, we need to feel the “fierce duced a bipartisan measure to adurgency of now.” Because people dress the gun show loophole, sayare dying. And the constant excus- ing, “We need this amendment because criminals and terrorists es for inaction no longer suffice.

That’s why we’re here today. have exploited and are exploiting Not to debate the last mass shoot- this very obvious loophole in our ing, but to do something to try to gun safety laws.”

Even the NRA used to support prevent the next one. To prove that the vast majority of Ameri- expanded background checks. cans, even if our voices aren’t al- Most of its members still do. Most ways the loudest or most ex- Republican voters still do. treme…to come together and take common-sense steps to save lives How did we get here? and protect more of our children.

How did we get to the place I’ve said this over and over where people think requiring a again, this also becomes routine, comprehensive background check there is a ritual about this whole means taking away people’s guns? thing that I have to do – I believe in Each time this comes up, we the Second Amendment. It’s there are fed the excuse that commonwritten on the paper. It guaran- sense reforms like background tees a right to bear arms. No mat- checks might not have stopped ter how many times people try to the last massacre, or the one betwist my words around – I taught fore that, or the one before that, so constitutional law, I know a little why bother trying? about this – I get it. But I also beI reject that thinking. We know lieve that we can find ways to re- we can’t stop every act of violence, duce gun violence consistent with every act of evil in the world. But the Second Amendment. maybe we could try to stop one act We all believe in the First of evil, one act of violence.

Amendment, the guarantee of free At the same time that Sandy speech, but we accept that you Hook happened, a disturbed percan’t yell “fire” in a theater. son in China took a knife and tried We understand there are some to kill…a bunch of children in Chiconstraints on our freedom in or- na. But most of them survived beder to protect innocent people. cause he didn’t have access to a We cherish our right to privacy, powerful weapon. We maybe can’t but we accept that you have to go save everybody, but we could save through metal detectors before some. Just as we don’t prevent all being allowed to board a plane. traffic accidents but we take steps It’s not because people like doing to try to reduce traffic accidents. that, but we understand that that’s As Ronald Reagan once said, if part of the price of living in a civi- mandatory background checks

EDITORIAL VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OBAMA’S GUN SAFETY EFFORTS

could save more lives, “it would be well worth making it the law of the land.” The bill before Congress three years ago met that test.

Unfortunately, too many senators failed theirs.

In fact, we know that background checks make a difference.

After Connecticut passed a law requiring background checks and gun safety courses, gun deaths decreased by 40 percent. Meanwhile, since Missouri repealed a law requiring comprehensive background checks and purchase permits, gun deaths have increased to almost 50 percent higher than the national average.

NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

No rights infringed One study found, unsurprisingly, that criminals in Missouri now have easier access to guns. And the evidence tells us that in states that require background checks, law-abiding Americans don’t find it any harder to purchase guns whatsoever. Their guns have not been confiscated. Their rights have not been infringed.

And that’s just the information we have access to. With more research, we could further improve gun safety. Just as with more research, we’ve reduced traffic fatalities enormously over the last 30 years. We do research when cars, food, medicine, even toys harm people so that we make them safer.

When it comes to an inherently deadly weapon – nobody argues that guns are potentially deadly – weapons that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, Congress actually voted to make it harder for public health experts to conduct research into gun violence…to collect data and facts and develop strategies to reduce gun violence. Even after San Bernardino, they’ve refused to make it harder for terror suspects who can’t get on a plane to buy semiautomatic weapons. That’s not right. That can’t be right.

So the gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they cannot hold America hostage. We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.

Congress still needs to act The folks in this room will not rest until Congress does. Because once Congress gets on board with common-sense gun safety measures, we can reduce gun violence a whole lot more. But we also can’t wait. Until we have a Congress that’s in line with the majority of Americans, there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence and save more lives – actions that protect our rights and our kids.

After Sandy Hook, Joe and I worked together with our teams and we put forward a whole series of executive actions to try to tighten up the existing rules and systems that we had in place. But today, we want to take it a step further. So let me outline what we’re going to be doing.

Number one, anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks, or be subject to criminal prosecutions. It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it over the Internet or at a gun show.

It’s not where you do it, but what you do.

Expanding checks We’re also expanding background checks to cover violent criminals who try to buy some of the most dangerous firearms by hiding behind trusts and corporations and various cutouts.

We’re also taking steps to make the background check system more efficient….(W)e’re going to hire more folks to process applications faster, and we’re going to bring an outdated background check system into the 21st century.

And these steps will actually lead to a smoother process for law-abiding gun owners, a smoother process for responsible gun dealers, a stronger process for protecting the public from dangerous people.

Number two, we’re going to do everything we can to ensure the smart and effective enforcement of gun safety laws that are already on the books, which means we’re going to add 200 more ATF agents and investigators. We’re going to require firearms dealers to report more lost or stolen guns on a timely basis. We’re working with advocates to protect victims of domestic abuse from gun violence, where too often, people are not getting the protection that they need.

A5

Number three, we’re going to do more to help those suffering from mental illness get the help that they need. High-profile mass shootings tend to shine a light on those few mentally unstable people who inflict harm on others.

But the truth is, is that nearly two in three gun deaths are from suicides. So a lot of our work is to prevent people from hurting themselves.

Covered by ‘Obamacare’ That’s why we made sure that the Affordable Care Act made sure that treatment for mental health was covered the same as treatment for any other illness. And that’s why we’re going to invest $500 million to expand access to treatment across the country.

It’s also why we’re going to ensure that federal mental health records are submitted to the background check system, and remove barriers that prevent states from reporting relevant information.

If we can continue to de-stigmatize mental health issues, get folks proper care, and fill gaps in the background check system, then we can spare more families the pain of losing a loved one to suicide.

And for those in Congress who so often rush to blame mental illness for mass shootings as a way of avoiding action on guns, here’s your chance to support these efforts. Put your money where your mouth is.

Number four, we’re going to boost gun safety technology.

Today, many gun injuries and deaths are the result of legal guns that were stolen or misused or discharged accidentally. In 2013 alone, more than 500 people lost their lives to gun accidents – and that includes 30 children younger than five years old. In the greatest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth, there is no reason for this.

We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer. If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns?

If there’s an app that can help us find a missing tablet – if we can do it for your iPad, there’s no reason we can’t do it with a stolen gun. If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun.

Some cooperate And some gun retailers are already stepping up by refusing to finalize a purchase without a complete background check, or by refraining from selling semi-automatic weapons or high-capacity magazines. And I hope that more retailers and more manufacturers join them – because they should care as much as anybody about a product that now kills almost as many Americans as car accidents.

All of us should be able to work together to find a balance that declares the rest of our rights are also important – Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. And we have to be able to balance them.

Because our right to worship freely and safely – that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, S.C. And that was denied Jews in Kansas City. And that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights, too.

Our right to peaceful assembly – that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette.

Our unalienable right to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – those rights were stripped from college students in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine, and from first-graders in Newtown.

And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun.

Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad. And…it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.

Stand up So all of us need to demand a Congress brave enough to stand up to the gun lobby’s lies. All of us need to stand up and protect its citizens. All of us need to demand governors and legislatures and businesses do their part to make our communities safer. We need the wide majority of responsible gun owners who grieve with us every time this happens and feel like your views are not being properly represented to join with us to demand something better.

And we need voters who want safer gun laws, and who are disappointed in leaders who stand in their way, to remember come election time.

Some of this is just simple math.

Yes, the gun lobby is loud and it is organized in defense of making it effortless for guns to be available for anybody, any time.

The rest of us all have to be just as passionate. We have to be just as organized in defense of our kids. This is not that complicated. The reason Congress blocks laws is because they want to win elections. And if you make it hard for them to win an election if they block those laws, they’ll change course, I promise you.

And, yes, it will be hard, and it won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen during this Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency. But a lot of things don’t happen overnight. A woman’s right to vote didn’t happen overnight. The liberation of AfricanAmericans didn’t happen overnight. LGBT rights – that was decades’ worth of work. So just because it’s hard, that’s no excuse not to try.

And if you have any doubt as to why you should feel that “fierce urgency of now,” think about what happened three weeks ago.

Gave his life Zaevion Dobson was a sophomore at Fulton High School in Knoxville, Tennessee. He played football; beloved by his classmates and his teachers. His own mayor called him one of their city’s success stories.

The week before Christmas, he headed to a friend’s house to play video games. He wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. He hadn’t made a bad decision. He was exactly where any other kid would be. Your kid. My kids.

And then gunmen started firing. And Zaevion – who was in high school, hadn’t even gotten started in life – dove on top of three girls to shield them from the bullets. And he was shot in the head. And the girls were spared.

He gave his life to save theirs – an act of heroism a lot bigger than anything we should ever expect from a 15-year-old. “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

We are not asked to do what Zaevion Dobson did. We’re not asked to have shoulders that big; a heart that strong; reactions that quick. I’m not asking people to have that same level of courage, or sacrifice, or love. But if we love our kids and care about their prospects, and if we love this country and care about its future, then we can find the courage to vote. We can find the courage to get mobilized and organized. We can find the courage to cut through all the noise and do what a sensible country would do.

That’s what we’re doing today. And tomorrow, we should do more. And we should do more the day after that. And if we do, we’ll leave behind a nation that’s stronger than the one we inherited and worthy of the sacrifice of a young man like Zaevion.

WORLD

TOJ A6

JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016 functioned since January 2015,” said Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, in a statement. “In this regard, [the Secretary General] underlines the importance of inaugurating the new legislature within the constitutional time frame to ensure the renewal of democratic institutions and consolidate political stability in Haiti.”.

Tally sheets modified

TRENTON DANIEL/MIAMI HERALD/TNS

Haitian presidential candidate Jude Celestin, right, has alleged vote-rigging and ballot-stuffing in the Oct. 25 election.

Report: Haiti presidential election is plagued with irregularities Council leader says new runoff date is Jan. 24

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES MIAMI HERALD (TNS)

A commission charged with evaluating Haiti’s Oct. 25 presidential and legislative elections has found that egregious irregularities and a high presumption of fraud plagued the vote, while the electoral machine requires sweeping changes in order to hold a runoff.

According to official results, government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise received 32.76 percent of

the votes while Jude Celestin, the former head of the state construction agency, garnered 25.29 percent. Celestin, however, called the results a “ridiculous farce” and refused to campaign.

Alleging vote-rigging and ballot-stuffing, Celestin and other opposition candidates called for an independent Haitian-led commission to probe the disputed balloting. The commission was created by President Michel Martelly on Dec. 22, five days before the postponed second round.

On Jan. 3, members issued their findings, which critics say do not resolve the political crisis despite pointing out a series of major sys-

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Analysis urged Haiti’s postponed presidential and legislative runoffs and elections for local offices will take place on Jan. 24, the head of the Provisional Electoral Council announced Tuesday.

Pierre-Louis Opont disclosed the date in a letter to President Michel Martelly after a meeting of the nine-member council.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Opont had informed Martelly that it was impossible to organize the elections for Jan. 17 — the final date, he said, voting could be staged to guarantee the handover

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of power from one elected president to another in time to meet the constitutionally imposed Feb. 7 deadline.

Opont’s new position comes as top U.S. State Department envoys Thomas Shannon and Kenneth Merten head to Haiti on Wednesday to meet with him, Martelly and top presidential finishers Jovenel Moïse and Jude Célestin.

Their goal: To salvage Haiti’s electoral process, which began unraveling this week.

The worrying political developments prompted U.N. Secretary General Ban Kimoon to express concerns about next week’s planned inauguration of parliament.

“Parliament has not

The report, pointed out that voters’ signatures or fingerprints were missing from 57 percent of the audited documents. Voter registration numbers were missing from 31 percent of the partial voting list and were written incorrectly on another 47 percent.

Meanwhile, 60 percent of voters were allowed to vote by proxy, and the commission noted that 43 percent of the tally sheets had been modified.

While commission members visited the vote-tabulation center to audit documents, the commission’s work is more an evaluation of the electoral process rather than a verification of the 1.5 million ballots cast.

As a result, the report stops short of saying who benefited most from the irregularities or fraud, a conclusion that requires more technical expertise and analysis, the commission notes.

Plenty of questions There’s mounting speculation in Haiti about the fate of the presidency should Célestin officially boycott the runoff. Among the widespread questions: Will elections officials move to the next candidate in the lineup? Will Martelly remain until May 14 — the anniversary of the date he took office — even though the amended constitution

doesn’t authorize an extension of his mandate? Or will the country be ruled by a transitional government?

On Tuesday, seven diplomats representing the Core Group of countries supporting Haiti issued a statement acknowledging the “efforts aimed at enhancing the credibility and transparency of the ongoing electoral process and ensuring a level playing field” with the commission’s report.

Foreign diplomats, however, reiterated their call for “state institutions and political actors alike to take all steps necessary to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected President by the constitutionally mandated date of 7 February.”

Adding to the country’s woes, an alliance of eight opposition presidential candidates, responding to the commission’s elections report, on Monday reiterated its call for the creation of a provisional government to complete the election process and the resignation of the CEP. Though the alliance, dubbed the G-8, had refused to meet with the commission and continued to bash its composition, it noted that the report’s findings bolstered opposition claims that the vote was tainted by vote-rigging and ballot stuffing.

“The commission is unable to identify who are the candidates who have qualified for the second round and to indicate that the results obtained by each candidate involved in the race,” Samuel Madistin, an attorney and former presidential candidate, wrote on behalf of the G-8. “The cowardice of the members of the commission makes it impossible in such conditions to continue with the electoral process.”

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The winding road to the

WHITE HOUSE

1.

An overview of key dates leading up to November’s presidential election

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

N

o sense being confident predicting how the presidential race will unfold in 2016. After all, not a lot has been predictable so far.

The big early dates this year come during February, as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina voters winnow the fields, and in mid-March, when the inevitability factor becomes apparent.

Then again, nothing has been inevitable in this campaign. Did anybody forecast Donald Trump as the Republican front-runner as the election year begins? Or that Hillary Clinton’s strongest challenger would be Bernie Sanders, a maverick independent senator?

Was Jeb Bush, with his family’s political network and a huge campaign treasury, expected to be mired in single digits? Wouldn’t Florida’s Marco Rubio and Ohio’s John Kasich, neither of whom has shown much momentum, make a hard-to-beat team?

This much can be said as 2016 dawns: Certain dates do hold the promise of providing pivotal moments.

Here’s a list of how to follow the year’s political pandemonium.

2.

January Republicans hold their first debate of the year on Jan. 14, and the main event could feature as few as six candidates. Democrats follow three days later. Voters are now starting to make up their minds, and impressions made a few weeks before they vote matter. That means huge potential for make-or-break moments.

February Iowa’s caucuses, Feb. 1: Yes, the state’s Republican race is not a true reflection of the national party since there’s a heavy Christian right vote. And the last two winners, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, faded fast. Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton has a big lead, so no drama there.

What counts here is (a) any surprise and (b) the potential to winnow the field. Ambitions are born and are dashed in this caucus. When Barack Obama beat Clinton in Iowa eight years ago (she finished third), it signaled he was formidable. Ditto Jimmy Carter, thanks to a strong showing in 1976, and George H.W. Bush when he stunned Ronald Reagan four years later.

Iowa is also last call for a lot of candidates, and Feb. 2 is likely to be the day when those who didn’t reach 5 percent give up.

New Hampshire primary, Feb. 9: The state’s voters cast the year’s first secret ballots and the candidates play the expectations game. Sanders is from Vermont, the state next door, so any stumble will hurt. Among Republicans, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fits the center-right, give-’em-hell type voters like.

New Hampshire is legendary for putting underdogs in the spotlight, and a good showing by Bush, former business executive Carly Fiorina or someone else lagging in the polls could vault them into the top tier overnight.

South Carolina, the unpredictable state: Republicans vote Feb. 20, Democrats a week later. Non-Southern candidates want to do well here to show they have true national appeal. That worked for both Bushes, John McCain and Obama. A big win by Trump or Clinton would give them important momentum.

March Big day No. 1: Thirteen states, many in the South, as well as Democrats abroad and Democrats in American Samoa vote on March 1.

Two new numbers matter: Money, because oneon-one campaigning won’t work when one-fourth of the states are voting. The other large number: Delegates to the nominating conventions, as the first big haul is available this day. Losers will have one more big chance. They’ll say the day’s results are misleading since most of the states voting lean heavily conservative.

March 8 and 15: The also-rans will aim heavily at See ELECTION, Page B2

3.

4.

1. GOP presidential candidates Dr. Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R- Texas) and Jeb Bush are shown on stage during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Venetian in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, 2015.

Their next debate is Jan. 14 on the Fox Business channel.

RICCARDO SAVI/SIPA USA/TNS

2. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gives a speech during a campaign rally at Clark Atlanta University on Oct. 30, 2015, in Atlanta.

BOB ANDRES/ ATLANTA JOURNALCONSTITUTION/TNS

3. Candidate Ben Carson shakes hands with a supporter during a book signing at the Lauderdale Barnes and Noble on Nov. 5, 2015, in Fort Lauderdale. In an NBC News/ SurveyMonkey online tracking poll released Jan. 5, the first national poll of 2016, Carson was polling at 9 percent.

4. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders participates in an interfaith roundtable hosted by The Nation’s Mosque Masjid Muhammad Imam Talib Shareef to discuss anti-Muslim rhetoric on Dec. 16, 2015, in Washington, D.C. OLIVIER DOULIERY/ ABACA PRESS/TNS

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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Fort Lauderdale: “Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays, Mainstream Politics: 2016 African American Activism in the Context of African American History” will be the subject of a talk on Jan. 24 at 12:45 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 3970 NW 21st Ave. Speaker: Dr. Mark Solomon, Professor Emeritus of History, Simmons College.

Tampa: A leadership luncheon with Dick Gregory, legendary civil rights activist, entrepreneur and comedian, is Jan. 20 at 11:30 a.m. at the University Area Community Development Center in Tampa. The event is part of the Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival. www. tampablackheritage.org.

550 North Econlockhatchee Trail. Email contact@cfanarchy.com for details.

Miami: Tickets are on sale for Katt Williams’ “Conspiracy Theory’’ show at the James L. Knight Center on Jan. 17, the USF Sun Dole in Tampa on Feb. 6 and the CFE Arena in Orlando on Feb. 19.

Hollywood: Kevin Hart’s What Now Tour makes a Dec. 26 stop at Hard Rock Live Hollywood. The show begins at 8 p.m.

Ponte Verde: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue will be at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on Jan. 15 Shows also are Jan. 16 at The Vinoy in St. Petersburg and Jan. 17 at the Mizner Park Amphitheater in Boca Raton.

Orlando: Central Florida Community Arts will present “The Crucible’’ Jan. 22 through Feb. 7 at Central Christian Church, 250 SW Ivanhoe Blvd. Tickets: Call 407-937-1800 ext. 710 or visit cfcarts.com/events.

Jacksonville: Catch Patti LaBelle on Jan. 28 at the Times Union Center for the Performing Arts, Feb. 5 in Miami, Feb. 6 in Fort Pierce, Feb. 20 in Orlando, Feb. 21 in Tampa and Feb. 23 in Sarasota.

Clearwater: Catch the Four Tops and the Temptations on Jan. 20 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Tampa: Tickets are on sale for a concert by the Black Violin on Feb. 3 at the Straz Center.

Orlando: The Orlando Anarchy women’s tackle football team has scheduled a tryout for Jan. 9 from 10 a.m. to noon at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico,

Jacksonville: Tickets are on sale now for Rihanna: Anti World Tour 2016. The singer also will make stops in March Miami and Tampa.

NAJEE REGINA BELLE

COLIN POWELL The 10th annual Hillsborough Community College Black, Brown & College Bound’s Dr. Sylvia M. Carley Luncheon will feature former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as the keynote speaker on Feb. 19 at the Tampa Convention Center at 12:30 p.m. Tickets are $125 each. More information and table reservations: www. hccfl.edu/bbcb.aspx.

More artists have been added to the Jazz in the Gardens lineup.

The music festival is March 18-20 in Miami Gardens. Along with Usher, Kool and the Gang and Brian Culbertson, artists will include Najee, Regina Belle. Complete lineup: www. jazzinthegardens.com.

‘Showdown’ a dramatic account of Marshall’s confirmation

BY DR. GLENN ALTSCHULER SPECIAL TO THE COURIER

Thurgood Marshall was an icon of the civil rights movement in the United States. The founder and executive director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Marshall played a pivotal role in U.S. Supreme Court decisions that declared racially restricted housing covenants, all-White primaries, and segregated public schools unconstitutional.

He served as a justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals and as Solicitor General of the United States. In 1967, Marshall became the first African-American appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Until his retirement in 1991, he remained an evangelist for equal opportunity and equal rights for all Americans.

In “Showdown,’’ journalist Wil Haygood, the author of biographies of Sugar Ray Robinson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and “The Butler: A Witness to History,’’ provides a dramatic account of the confirmation of Marshall by the United States Senate. A gifted storyteller, Haygood sets the context with vivid and moving chapters about Marshall’s early career fighting segregation in the South.

ELECTION from Page 1

these Tuesdays, as the race moves to more diverse states. Republican rules also change. As of mid-March, states can use a winner-take-all system for delegates, a change designed to crown a nominee more quickly.

Michigan goes first, on March 8, and will offer clues to what’s on tap a week later in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Florida and North Carolina. If clear front-runners emerge March 15, the races could be effectively over.

April Party leaders would love to see a virtual nominee by mid-March, and they usually get their wish. If the race becomes a free-forall, a new phase begins this month, centered in more moderate states. Wisconsin is up first on April 5, then New York on April 19 and five Northeastern states, notably Pennsylvania, a week later.

June Modern nominating fights rarely last this long. If these

BOOK REVIEW Review of “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America.’’ By Wil Haygood. Alfred A. Knopf. 404 pp. $32.50

69-11 vote Haygood sings the praises as well of previously unsung heroes, like Harry and Harriette Moore, the NAACP members who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Florida and J. Waties Waring, a White judge who was forced to flee South Carolina because of his support for civil rights.

“Showdown’’ is a worthy addition to the literature documenting the extraordinary achievements of Thurgood Marshall. There is a flaw, however, in the fundamental premise of the book. The outcome of

the “showdown” over Marshall’s confirmation was never really in doubt.

When he nominated Marshall, President Lyndon Johnson knew that the southern Senate barons, James Eastland (Mississippi), John McClellan (Arkansas), Strom Thurmond (South Carolina), and Sam Ervin (North Carolina) would try to block him. But also he knew that he and not they had the votes, not only to confirm but to invoke cloture against a filibuster. In the end, the vote to confirm was 69-11, with 20 southern senators refraining from casting a ballot.

days, of course, bipartisanship is an endangered species.

Also worth noting is the “narrow window” President Johnson had to get Marshall on the court. By 1967, urban riots (one of which broke out during Marshall’s confirmation hearings) had eroded support for civil rights and ignited a white “backlash.”

And opposition to the war in Vietnam was growing.

Soldiered on In the spring of 1968, Lyndon Johnson an-

nounced that he would not seek re-election. He would be succeeded by Richard Nixon, who won the presidency in no small measure by courting Whites in a “southern strategy.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, as conservative Republican appointees joined the Supreme Court, Marshall found himself increasingly in dissent. He soldiered on, sometime cantankerously, drawing on his firsthand knowledge of poverty and discrimination to keep a light burning for a jurisprudence of racial and economic justice.

When he died in 1993, Haygood reports, in pulpits around the country, “frail Negro men and women who remembered the walls of segregation come tumbling down,” spoke one word. They said – and kept saying – about Thurgood Marshall: “Amen.”

Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He wrote this review for the Florida Courier.

Republican support The real story of Marshall’s confirmation, touched on lightly by Haygood, it seems to me, is the support given to the nominee by Republicans. Everett Dirksen (Illinois), the minority leader of the Senate, who played an essential role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, lobbied his colleagues to vote yes.

And despite Marshall’s “judicial activism” (he would later declare “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up”) and his support of controversial decisions on the rights of criminals by the Warren Court, conservative and moderate Republicans complied. These

get this far, the final delegate bonanza is available June 7, with six states, including California and New Jersey, voting. California alone offers 172 Republican delegates, or about 14 percent of the total needed to nominate. Also worth watching: If Trump loses the GOP nomination, will he run as an independent?

The speculation will be deafening.

September

July

October

Republicans go first, convening July 18 for four days in Cleveland. Should no one enter the convention with the 1,236 delegates (out of 2,470) needed to win, anything goes.

The last time a convention took more than one ballot to pick a nominee was 1952. The last time there was even a dollop of suspense about the eventual nominee at a convention was in 1976.

Democrats meet a week later, from July 25-28, in Philadelphia. With only three major candidates, no one expects a brokered convention. The drama here will involve who winds up as the vice presidential running mate; at the moment, there are few logical choices.

Two things to watch: The quadrennial speculation over an “October surprise,” some unforeseen event, either planned or spontaneous, that rocks the race. Likely to be a bigger deal are three more debates: presidential candidates Oct. 9 in St. Louis and 19 in Las Vegas, and a vice presidential showdown in Farmville, Va., on Oct. 4.

Labor Day is regarded as the unofficial kickoff of the general election campaign. Democrats usually pair with labor unions for events. Republicans tend to visit swing states. The big day is Sept. 26, when the candidates are scheduled to meet at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, for their first debate.

November Nov. 8 is the big day; 270 electoral votes are needed to crown a winner. In 1980, the result was clear by 8 p.m. EST. In 2000, the result wasn’t known until a month later. If the 2015 pattern holds, don’t even try to predict who will win, let alone when.

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TRAVEL

B3

Newer, larger ships coming to Florida cruise ports

BY RICHARD TRIBOU ORLANDO SENTINEL (TNS)

ORLANDO — Out with the old and in with the new.

That’s the theme for the Florida cruise port shuffle

in 2016 as new builds make their way to the Sunshine State.

PortMiami, Port Everglades and Port Canaveral will all benefit as newer and larger ships arrive this

year, with big shifts coming from Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival Cruise Line.

The biggest change literally will be the arrival of the new record-holder

for world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s 5,479-passenger Harmony of the Seas, which is set to debut in Europe this spring and then make its way to Fort Lauderdale by No-

vember.

The third Oasis-class ship from the line, it’s a sister ship that will be slightly larger than the current record holders for world’s largest cruise ship, the two

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Oasis-class ships that currently call Port Everglades home, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas.

To make room for Harmony, though, Royal Caribbean will see if Central Florida has a taste for giant ships, sending the 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas to Port Canaveral starting November. Port Canaveral is benefiting from the giant ship shuffle from Norwegian Cruise Line as well.

Since PortMiami is now home to both Norwegian Getaway and the new Norwegian Escape, what used to be Norwegian’s largest cruise ship and used to call the Magic City home, the 4,100-passenger Norwegian Epic, will also make its way to Port Canaveral. The line, which just this fall returned to Port Canaveral after a three-year absence, will bring Epic the same month as Oasis of the Seas.

“We’re a very strong cruise line in Florida,” said Andy Stuart, Norwegian Cruise Line’s president and chief operating officer.

“We’ve been here since the beginning. Florida for 50 years has been Norwegian’s home and we have our two newest ships in Miami, so the opportunity to put one of our big, new ships in Port Canaveral was one that we were excited about.”

Carnival Cruise Line is also bringing one of its largest ships to Port Canaveral when the 3,690-passenger Carnival Magic arrives in April. Magic is the second of the line’s three Dreamclass ships, built in 2011.

It’s shifting from Galveston, Texas, which will get the line’s latest Dream-class ship Carnival Breeze, currently sailing out of PortMiami.

That will leave PortMiami without any of Carnival’s biggest ships from May until December, when the new Carnival Vista arrives. The 135,000-ton, 4,000-passsenger Vista will be the largest the cruise line has ever built.

Not all changes are on a grand scale at the ports.

Port Everglades just welcomed the 2,260-passenger Costa Deliziosa, which brings the line back to the port after a four-year hiatus. The Italian line has not sailed from Fort Lauderdale since 2011 and will sail out of South Florida until March.

And filed under what’s old is new again, a ship will be returning to Royal Caribbean after sailing with the line’s sister line Pullmantur since 2008. Empress of the Seas, which debuted in 1990, will offer short cruises from Miami beginning in March. Also coming to Miami will be what is now Princess Cruises’ Ocean Princess, but with a new name when it is handed over to Oceania Cruises. Sirena will debut after a 35day, $40 million overhaul in November.

Older, smaller vessels, which often make way for newer builds, have proved profitable for lines such as Royal Caribbean, which also is bringing Majesty of the Seas to Port Canaveral beginning in May. At one point, Royal had planned on sending the ship, which was built in 1992, to Pullmantur, but rethought its strategy as the 2,350-passenger ship will take over 3and 4-night sailings for the Tampa-bound Rhapsody of the Seas. Tampa will also get Norwegian Jade beginning in fall 2016.

Other highlights of 2016 will be the Florida debuts of the latest ships from Holland America and Regent Seven Seas. Holland America’s ms Koningsdam, which will sail the Mediterranean beginning in April 2016, will make its way to Port Everglades to sail the Caribbean from November 2016 to March 2017. Also coming to South Florida in 2016 will be what’s billed as the most luxurious cruise ship ever built when Regent Seven Seas Explorer makes its way to Miami by December.

FOOD

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

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Tasty meals in minutes FROM FAMILY FEATURES

Busy weeknights can make for hectic meals, but these simple recipes prove you don’t have to trim out flavor or precious moments spent with family when you’re cutting minutes off your dinner prep time.

The secret to making quick meals your family will love is quality ingredients. Tasty meals are easy when you incorporate the wholesome flavor of all-natural ingredients you feel good about serving your family, such as Hunt’s tomatoes. Hunt’s peels its diced, whole and stewed tomatoes using steam from simple hot water, so no chemical byproducts get put back into the earth.

Rely on these additional tips to help save time with your weeknight dinner prep: • When you’re exploring new time-saving recipes, consider both prep time and total cook time. Many dishes can be assembled in minutes, leaving you time to help tackle chores and homework before sitting down to dinner.

• Enlist backup when the prep time is a little longer. For example, an extra set of hands from a little helper can shave minutes off the assembly of this Eggplant Lasagna, while getting a youngster excited about dig­ging into a veggie-centric dinner.

• Make what you can ahead of time. Assemble a dish such as these Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Tomatoes in the morning and slip them in the refrig­erator, so all you have to do is slide them in the oven at dinner time.

Find more family friendly recipes to fit your busy sched­ule at Hunts. com/recipes.

EASY CHICKEN PARMESAN Prep time: 10 minutes Total time: 45 minutes Servings: 6 1 can (15 ounces) Hunt’s Tomato Sauce 1 can (14.5 ounces) Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic and Oregano, undrained 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, divided 6 small boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 1/2 pounds total) 3/4 pound spaghetti, uncooked 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 375 F. Pour tomato sauce and undrained tomatoes into 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Stir in 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) Parmesan. Add chicken; turn to evenly coat both sides of each breast with sauce. Cover.

Bake 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center (165 F).

Mean­while, cook spaghetti as directed on package, omitting salt.

Top chicken with remaining cheeses; bake, uncovered, 5 minutes or until mozzarella is melted. Drain spaghetti. Serve topped with chicken and sauce.

OVEN ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH TOMATOES Prep time: 10 minutes Total time: 30 minutes Servings: 6 1 pound small fresh Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half lengthwise 1 can (14.5 ounces) Hunt’s Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, drained 2 tablespoons pure canola oil 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper Heat oven to 425 F. In large bowl, toss together Brussels sprouts, drained tomatoes, oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Spread mixture in single layer on large shallow baking pan. Bake 20 minutes or until Brussels sprouts are tender and browned, stirring once halfway through.

QUICK MINI MEATLOAVES Prep time: 10 minutes Total time: 40 minutes Servings: 6 Pam Original No-Stick Cooking Spray 1 can (8 ounces) Hunt’s Tomato Sauce 3 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard 1 pound ground chuck beef (80 percent lean) 1 can (14.5 ounces) Hunt’s Petite Diced Tomatoes, drained 1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion 3/4 cup Italian-style bread crumbs 1 egg, beaten 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper Heat oven to 400 F. Lightly spray 6 medium muffin cups with cooking spray; set aside.

In small bowl, combine tomato sauce, brown sugar and mustard; set aside.

In large bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Add 1/4 cup reserved sauce mixture to meat mixture and incorporate. Divide meat mixture evenly and place into prepared muffin cups. Place muffin pan on baking sheet.

Bake 25 minutes or until no longer pink in centers (165 F). Top each mini loaf with 2 tablespoons sauce; bake 5 minutes more or until sauce is set.

Serve with remaining sauce.

EGGPLANT LASAGNA Prep time: 50 minutes Total time: 1 hour, 45 minutes Servings: 8 Pam Original No-Stick Cooking Spray 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 3/4 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning 1 large eggplant (about 1 pound), cut into 1/4-inch thick lengthwise slices 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 package (20 ounces) Italian-seasoned ground turkey 3/4 cup chopped yellow onion 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic 1 can (14.5 ounces) Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes, drained (or Hunt’s Organic) 1/4 cup Hunt’s Tomato Paste (or Hunt’s Organic) 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil 1 1/2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 350 F. Spray 8-by-8inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.

In small bowl, combine ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning; set aside.

Heat grill pan over medium-high heat. Brush eggplant slices with oil; sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. In batches, place eggplant on grill pan. Cook each side 1-2 minutes or until lightly browned and tender.

Remove and place on baking sheet lined with paper towels; pat to remove excess moisture.

Spray large skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium-high heat.

Add turkey and cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add onion and garlic; cook 2-3 minutes more or until onion is tender and turkey is crumbled and no longer pink. Drain. Add drained tomatoes, tomato paste and basil to skillet; stir to combine. Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes more.

Assemble lasagna by spreading 3/4 cup meat mixture over bottom of dish. Place 3 eggplant slices over meat mixture, top with 3/4 cup meat mixture, half of ricotta cheese mixture and 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers, ending with a layer of eggplant slices topped with meat mix­ture and remaining mozzarella cheese.

Spray underside of aluminum foil with cooking spray; cover dish tightly with foil. Bake 30 minutes. Let stand 10 min­utes before serving.

*LYE PEELING IS GENERALLY RECOGNIZED AS SAFE BY THE FDA AND HAS NO ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE HEALTHFUL­NESS OF TOMATOES.

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

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Meet some of

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Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

These masqueraders participated in the Seventh Annual Miami Broward One Carnival’s Parade of the Bands at the Dade County Fairgrounds recently.

The Florida Courier staff selected them as this week’s Florida’s Finest – for obvious reasons.

PHOTOS BY CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

Coming soon: O.J. Simpson documentary and TV show ed: reasonable doubt.”

Nina Jacobson, one of the executive producers, said that viewers will also see how many of the volatile issues surrounding the Simpson case, including class, privilege, police misconduct, celebrity and race — particularly in the extreme opposite reactions to the verdict between Blacks and Whites — remain hotbutton topics 20 years later.

“In the last year, it’s been remarkable to see how resonant this trial still is because the same issues are so present,” Jacobson said. “All those issues are still very much in play in terms of the differing reactions people have, depending on race.”

BY GREG BRAXTON LOS ANGELS TIMES (TNS)

Two decades after the “Trial of the Century,” O.J. Simpson remains a hot commodity.

Cable and broadcast TV have seen a deluge of specials commemorating the 20th anniversary of the murder case centered on the former football great and the brutal slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The reexaminations have included CNN’s “The O.J. Verdict: Shock of the Century” and a documentary from the Investigation Channel re-creating the saga with news reports of the day.

Though it seems that every possible nuance, detail and gesture from the case has been analyzed, probed and prodded, two epic Simpson-related projects will arrive in the coming months, each with unique perspectives that their producers contend will shed more light and cultural context on the proceedings.

ESPN documentary ESPN’s “O.J.: Made in America,” a seven-hour-plus documentary from filmmaker Ezra Edelman, will be unveiled this month at the Sundance Film Festival. The project, which will air this year, was produced under the sports network’s “30 for 30” banner and chronicles Simpson’s personal life before and during his murder trial. Edelman has promised deeper insight into Simpson and his case than other specials have offered.

RAY MICKSHAW/FX/TNS

Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrays O.J. Simpson, left, and Joseph Buttler is a polygraph examiner in “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”

Connor Schell, ESPN senior vice president, films and special content, called the miniseries an event that represents the most ambitious project from ESPN Films: “The quality and intelligence of the storytelling that Ezra achieves over these seven-plus hours is stunning.”

10-hour FX show FX will debut a markedly different take on the Simpson case in February. “The People v. O.J. Simpson” from producer Ryan Murphy (“Scream Queens,” “American Horror Story”) is a 10-hour-long dramatization that will examine the trial from sev-

eral viewpoints, including the attorneys, Simpson and families of the victims.

The show features a cast of major stars taking on the roles of the participants: Cuba Gooding Jr. (“Jerry Maguire”) as Simpson, John Travolta as defense attorney Robert Shapiro, Courtney V. Vance as defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark and David Schwimmer as Simpson’s attorney and friend Robert Kardashian.

In addition to putting his spin on the Simpson saga, Murphy is using the project to kick off “American Crime Story,” his an-

thology series designed to tackle a different true crime case in each installment. (The franchise has no connection with ABC’s “American Crime,” Oscar winner John Ridley’s culture clash/crime miniseries).

Explores case, race Press notes on the FX miniseries said that “The People v. O.J Simpson” would “explore the behind-the-scenes dealings and maneuvering on both sides of the court, and how a combination of prosecution confidence, defense wiliness and the LAPD’s history with the African-American community gave a jury what it need-

Focus on emotions Gooding said his objective in playing Simpson was to connect with his emotional turmoil. “People have a definite opinion of his guilt or innocence, and I tried to keep my face where I would play all the emotions. I really felt I could connect with the role.”

“The People v. O.J. Simpson” covers a lot of emotional ground, from a despairing Simpson in his jail cell to an emotional Clark at home who is dealing with a divorce and life as a single mom while trying to maintain a grip on the biggest case of her career.

Given the continuing fascination surrounding the Simpson trial, both projects are likely to attract viewers looking for more clues to the questions surrounding the case that remain unanswered to this day.

Scott’s daughters honor dad with touching video, letter

FILE PHOTO

Taelor and Sydni Scott are shown during an interview with the Florida Courier at the September 2015 Tom Joyner Family Reunion in Orlando.

After a long battle with cancer, ESPN anchor Stuart Scott died on Jan. 4, 2014. On the anniversary of his death, his daughters posted a moving video in his memory.

Taelor, 16, and Sydni Scott, 20, talks about how much they miss their dad and what he meant to them.

The daughters also posted this letter to their father: Dear Dad, Growing up we thought all Dads worked “inside the television.” This last year, we realized the full impact you’ve had on the world, and how important you were to so many. A whirlwind year of appearances and accepting

awards on your behalf, Lifetime Achievement Awards, Hall of Fame Inductions, your book launch and even a visit to the White House— has given us great insight into the mark you left during your lifetime. We are truly grateful for the opportunity to meet many people whom you profoundly impacted, share our grief and our memories while giving back on your behalf and continuing the legacy you started in raising cancer awareness.

You lived your life with a fierce sense of authenticity, passion and competitiveness, giving it your all and reaching for the best in everything you did. When you were diagnosed with cancer, you showed the world how to

fight with that same fierce passion, instilling a sense of hope and inspiration to so many. And in the end you taught us all how to win—live or die—by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live.

From you Dad, we’ve learned to reach for the fight we possess inside and apply it with passion to our lives. It was through your vulnerability that you taught us the real value of strength in never giving up.

Love, Tae & Syd (Your heartbeats) People on social media shared their memories of Scott as well. #DearStuartScott started trending on Monday morning. Link to video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz5RpjFHGDU

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY Means Giving Something Greater Than Yourself It’s respect for others. It’s compassion for their needs. But more importantly, it’s giving hope. Whether donating to a food drive or volunteering your time to help fight hunger, giving back can leave a lasting impression. And just like the many selfless men and women who strive to make a difference in their neighborhoods, Publix also believes in supporting the communities in which we serve. So this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, why not make it a day of service? One day can change a person’s entire life. We all have something to give. How will you make a difference?

Publix celebrates the spirit of giving back on this MLK Day.

To find out how YOU can give back please visit Publix.com/giveback

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JANUARY 8 – JANUARY 14, 2016

TOJ

36TH ANNUAL TOBA

TAMPA ORGANIZATION OF BLACK AFFAIRS MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2016 • 6:45 AM

R e v. D r . M a rt i n L u t h e r K i n g , Jr .

L E A D E R S H I P B R E A K FA S T Hilton Hotel Downtown Tampa (formerly the Hyatt)

THEME

“Remembering the Past, Honoring the Present, Paving the Future”

T I C K E T L O C AT I O N S WEST TAMPA

LaTanya’s Hair Studio • 2942 W. Columbus, Ste. 109 • (813) 253-2282 Ray Williams Funeral Home • 301 N. Howard Avenue • (813) 253-3419

EAST TAMPA

Open Cafe • 3222 N. 34th Street • (813) 248-3322 Oriental Fish Company • 3608 N. 15th Street • (813) 247-5128

DOWNTOWN TAMPA

ADMISSION

African Extravaganza • 1409 Tampa Park Plaza • (813) 228-7272

$35 PER PERSON

Bible Based Fellowship • 4811 Ehrlich Road • (813) 264-4050

$500 PER TABLE (10)

Emma’s Cakes • 10917 N. 56th Street • (813) 988-7400

PURCHASE ONLINE AT WWW.TOBANETWORK.ORG

NORTH TAMPA

TEMPLE TERRACE BRANDON

Sista Rise N’ Shine • 213 E. Robertson Street • (813) 662-0502

NO TICKETS SOLD AT DOOR

RIVERVIEW

Clinton Paris, Esquire Boardwalk of Riverview 10014 Water Works Lane • (813) 417-7924

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