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Exhibit explores St. Augustine’s sentimental ‘Journey’ Page B1

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VOLUME 22 NO. 20

WHAT’S NEXT?

US aid won’t solve Nigeria’s Boko Haram troubles, experts say

BY NANCY A. YOUSSEF MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU / MCT

WASHINGTON – Amid growing international outrage, the U.S. government has sent 30 military, intelligence and law enforcement advisers to Nigeria to help find 270 teenage girls kidnapped a month ago by Boko Haram, that nation’s most feared armed faction.

But in a nation where government forces are distrusted and

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MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

politicians are resistant to accept help, how much can the U.S. effort help to, as the Twitter hashtag urges, #bringbackourgirls?

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the United States had deployed manned fixed-wing aircraft and drones in the search for the girls, who were taken from their school April 14.

Many think the girls are being hidden in small groups deep in Nigeria’s northeastern forests, in an area the size of New England, where spotting them will be difficult even with the best technology. And once they are spot-

COURTESY OF YOUTUBE

A video released by Boko Haram claims to show the schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Nigeria. is wide and thorough, running through every sector of government. A year ago Wednesday, Nigeria declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states, Government infiltrated saying terrorists had created “fear Boko Haram’s grip on Nige- among our citizens and a nearria, particularly in the northeast, breakdown of law and order in where the girls were snatched, parts of the country.” ted, military officials and experts agreed, the United States must be judicious in how it shares its intelligence with Nigerian officials.

NBA PLAYOFFS 2014

The Heat stay focused

Since 2010, at least 300 students have been killed in attacks by Boko Haram, which loosely translates as “Western education is forbidden.” The group has said it kidnapped the girls because they needed to be married off rather than schooled.

See NIGERIA, Page A2

Oil drilling?

In the Everglades?

Fracking-like activity raises alarms

BY WILLIAM E. GIBSON SUN SENTINEL / MCT

WASHINGTON – A Texas company has been caught using frackinglike blasting methods to drill for oil near the Everglades, raising alarms from state officials and inflaming a long-simmering controversy over energy exploration in the midst of a cherished ecosystem.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., urged federal officials to investigate. The state fined the company and demanded a temporary halt to five new exploratory wells.

And the frackinglike episode drew widespread attention to an emerging oil rush at the western edge of the Everglades, rousing opposition from environmentalists across the state who worry about the impact on water quality and wildlife.

‘Watershed’ event

CHARLES TRAINOR JR./MIAMI HERALD/MCT

The Miami Heat’s LeBron James dunked the ball over the Brooklyn Nets’ Paul Pierce and Shaun Livingston in during Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs in New York on Monday. Miami is now in the thick of its championship title defense.

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Cutbacks in California court system produce long lines, short tempers

TALLAHASSEE – Florida A&M University has received notice from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that the football and men’s basketball teams will not be permitted to participate in 2014-15 postseason tournaments after falling below academic standards.

Appeals of the postseason ban were denied, Director of Athletics Kellen Winslow, Sr. announced Wednesday.

SCIENCE | B3

Taking responsibility

Man visiting Florida is second MERS case in US NATION | A6

Obama hopes to win voters with focus on climate change

ALSO INSIDE

“This is our watershed,” said Vickie Machado, of Fort Lauderdale, a Florida organizer for Broke the law Food & Water Watch.

The Hughes Co. last “They are using millions year asked the state for of gallons of clean water, mixing it with chem- permission to use highicals with known car- pressure injection of discinogens, and pumping See DRILL, Page A2 it underground to break

FAMU teams get one-year ban from postseason play ering the academic years 200910, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13.

The men’s basketball’s multiyear APR score was 900 and football’s score was 885, both falling short of the 910 benchmark set forth by the NCAA for limited resource institutions. (A perfect APR score would be 1,000.)

SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Millions already flowing to pro-Scott election ads

up the protected rock formations out there.

The potential is pretty scary.”

State officials last month cited the Dan A. Hughes Co., of Beeville, Texas, for using an “enhanced extraction procedure” in December akin to fracking without a permit in defiance of a cease-and-desist order to stop the practice.

The Department of Environmental Protection said the enhanced procedure, which some call fracking, “had not previously been used in Florida.”

Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, blasts open rock formations through high-pressure injections of chemicals and water while filling fissures with sand to hold them open, drawing out trapped oil or natural gas. Environmentalists scorn the practice and some communities are considering banning it, largely because it produces large amounts of toxic wastewater.

“We take responsibility for our failure to meet academic performance standards (APR) set by the NCAA,” said Director of Athletics Kellen Winslow, Sr. “I am confident that the processes and

No MEAC championships procedures that we have put in place, along with the adoption of best practices, will address this issue. We look forward to overcoming this challenge and returning to post season competition as quickly as possible.”

FAMU’s sanctions are a result of the multiyear APR calculations – a four-year measurement cov-

Although neither team will be eligible for Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) regular season championships in 201415, games played against conference opponents will count in the standings. Rattler football and basketball players will be eligible for all individual conference honors during the season.

“FAMU is committed to the success of our student-athletes

both on and off the playing field,” said FAMU President Elmira Mangum, Ph.D. “Their academic success is our first priority and we take the regulations of the NCAA very seriously because they are designed to be applied consistently across all programs, at all member institutions, and represent best practice.”

FAMU’s APR improvement plan includes a partnership between its Department of Athletics and the Office of University Retention to enhance academic support to all athletes. The initiative includes monitored study hall and tutorial sessions; resources to enhance study and time management skills; and required coaching staff attendance in Academic Eligibility Rules Education sessions, to name a few.

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: GEORGE E. CURRY: A BETTER WAY TO COMPENSATE COLLEGE ATHLETES | A5

FOCUS

A2

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

Nigerian army, Gaddafi murder assist the rise of Boko Haram A chorus of outraged public opinion demands that the “international community” and the Nigerian military “Do something!” about the abduction by Boko Haram of 280 teenage girls.

It is difficult to fault the average U.S. consumer of packaged “news” products for knowing next to nothing about what the Nigerian army has actually been “doing” to suppress the Muslim fundamentalist rebels since, according to BAR columnist Margaret Kimberley, the three U.S. broadcast networks carried “not a single television news story about Boko Haram” in all of 2013.

Army atrocities The Nigerian army has been bombing, strafing, and indiscriminately slaughtering thousands of mainly young men in the country’s mostly Muslim north.

Rivers of blood have already flowed in the region. Those Americans who read would have learned in the New York Times of the army’s savage offensive near the Niger border last May and June.

Shot on the spot In the town of Bosso, the Nigerian army killed hundreds of young men in traditional Muslim garb

Thousands murdered GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

“Without Asking Who They Are,” according to the NYT headline.

“They don’t ask any questions,” said a witness who later fled for his life, like thousands of others.

“When they see young men in traditional robes, they shoot them on the spot,” said a student. “They catch many of the others and take them away, and we don’t hear from them again.”

The Times’ Adam Nossiter interviewed many refugees from the army’s “all-out land and air campaign to crush the Boko Haram insurgency.” He reported: “All spoke of a climate of terror that had pushed them, in the thousands, to flee for miles through the harsh and baking semi-desert, sometimes on foot, to Niger. A few blamed Boko Haram – a shadowy, rarely glimpsed presence for most residents – for the violence. But the overwhelming majority blamed the military, saying they had fled their country because of it.”

In March 2014, fighters who were assumed to be from Boko Haram attacked a barracks and jail in the northern city of Maiduguri. Hundreds of prisoners fled, but 200 youths were rounded up and made to lie on the ground.

A witness told the Times, “The soldiers made some calls and a few minutes later they started shooting the people on the ground. I counted 198 people killed at that checkpoint.”

All told, according to Amnesty International, more than 600 people were extrajudicially murdered, “most of them unarmed, escaped detainees, around Maiduguri.”

An additional 950 prisoners were killed in the first half of 2013 in detention facilities run by Nigeria’s military Joint Task Force, many at the same barracks in Maiduguri.

Chibok, where the teenage girls were abducted, is 80 miles from Maiduguri, capital of Borno State.

Executed leader, members In 2009, when the Boko Haram had not yet been transformed into a fully armed opposition, the military summarily executed their handcuffed leader and

killed at least 1,000 accused members in the states of Borno, Yobe, Kano and Bauchi, many of them apparently youths from suspect neighborhoods. A gruesome video shows the military at work.

“In the video, a number of unarmed men are seen being made to lie down in the road outside a building before they are shot,” Al Jazeera reports in text accompanying the video. “As one man is brought out to face death, one of the officers can be heard urging his colleague to ‘shoot him in the chest not the head – I want his hat.’”

None of the above is meant to tell Boko Haram’s “side” in this grisly story. Fundamentalist religious jihadists find no favor at BAR. (We merely) emphasize the Nigerian military’s culpability in the group’s mad trajectory – the same military that many newly-minted “Save Our Girls” activists demand take more decisive action in Borno.

Staying the course Barack Obama certainly needs no encouragement to intervention. He broadened the war against Somalia that was launched in 2006 by George Bush in partnership with the genocidal Ethiopian regime – an invasion that led directly to what the United Nations called “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.”

He built on Bill Clinton and George Bush’s legacies in the Congo, where U.S. client states Uganda and Rwanda caused the slaughter of 6 million people

DRILL from A1

solving acids at a production well in Collier County. The environmental protection officials, concerned about this new procedure, told the company not to move forward but later found that it did anyway.

The department slapped the company with a $25,000 fine for “unauthorized actions,” which the agency called the maximum civil penalty under Florida law, and ordered it to hire an independent expert approved by the department to monitor groundwater near the site. Then on May 2, under pressure from the state, the company agreed to stop drilling five new wells until a review of the impact of the fracking-like episode is completed, probably in December.

Spokesman David Blackmon said the company is “confident the results are going to show that the groundwater hasn’t been negatively impacted” and that its operations do not pose a threat to contamination.

“The way these wells are constructed, there are multiple layers – five layers of concrete and heavy steel – that prevent any of the fluids going through the well

EMILY MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/MCT

Tourists walk the trail that leads to the observation tower at Shark Valley in Everglades National Park. bore from contacting the groundwater formation,” Blackmon said.

‘Not fracking’ The company denies that the new practice amounts to fracking because it uses an acidic solution instead of the usual fracking chemicals and a “modest volume” of water and sand.

But state officials remain wary of the practice. And Sen. Nelson has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the groundwater data once it is submitted by the company and state officials.

To environmental activists, already concerned that oil drilling will contaminate

NIGERIA from A1

Yet until this case, the Nigerian government was reluctant to publicly pressure Boko Haram.

Other attacks In February, for example, at least 29 male students were killed, many of them burned alive, after Boko Haram forces stormed their dormitory in the state of Yobe, setting it ablaze.

The female students were reportedly told to leave and get married instead. In the hours before the attack, the school guards mysteriously vanished.

In July, Boko Haram attacked another school in Yobe State, killing 42 people, mostly students. Both attacks spurred little response from national officials.

Five years ago, Boko Haram operated as a quasi-legitimate organization with the backing of some politicians. Since then it’s wrested control of the northeast from government forces, who either are aligned with it or don’t act against it out of fears of attacks on their families.

As one former defense official who worked on U.S. Africa Command issues explained: The U.S. “will have to be careful who it shares the intelligence with.” The official spoke only on the condition of anonymity, in order to talk freely.

water supplies and damage the Everglades, the episode seemed to confirm their worst fears.

“It doesn’t reassure many people that they are pumping acid into the ground under high pressure to break up rock and draw out more oil,” said Matthew Schwartz, of Lake Worth, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association.

“Those liquids could move around laterally, but also up and down and into the drinking water supply.”

History of drilling Energy companies have been extracting small amounts of oil on lands near the western Ever-

Challenging rescue Even if the girls are spotted, rescuing them poses its own challenges. On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called for U.S. Special Forces to enter Nigeria if U.S. officials spot the abducted girls.

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in U.S. troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without the permission of the host country,” McCain said. Referring to Nigeria’s president, McCain said: “I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.”

Didn’t want help Nigeria is unlikely to accept help, even on a case with this much international focus, and it would aggressively reject help were it to be forced on the country.

Accepting U.S. and French advisers was a major departure from previous practice and likely wouldn’t have happened were it not for the worldwide Twitter campaign. Days after the girls were kidnapped, the government claimed it had rescued all the girls, in an effort to defuse pressure, only to be called out by the girls’ parents and principal.

Suspicious of America Nigeria is top contributor to the United Nations peacekeeping missions and prides itself on offering help to other nations

glades since the 1940s without a major spill. Some 162 wells are operating in Florida, and the state has granted 37 drilling permits over the past five years.

New drilling techniques, the high price of oil and the depletion of deposits elsewhere have prompted energy companies to intensify the exploration while looking for “black gold” under deepwater areas offshore and near delicate ecosystems like the Everglades.

The Hughes Co. well is within a few miles of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

The company also is drilling on a site adjacent to the Florida Panther Na-

rather than needing it. In recent years, it’s viewed American military expansion into Africa through the creation of the U.S. Africa Command with deep suspicion. It had previously rejected a U.S. drone presence to tackle Boko Haram.

There also are domestic politics at play.

“My sense, always, on the political side was there was a fear that if they accepted help, the opposition would point and say, ‘See, this government is not capable of solving problems on their own,’ ” the former defense official said.

Local effort Students of the country say local leaders must take the initiative to rescue the girls. But that’s also fraught with difficulty. Tribal sheikhs in the area fear Boko Haram and distrust a central government that’s done little to stop the group’s spread.

Among the recommendations the U.S. has made to the central government, the State Department said Wednesday, is urging it to develop better communications with the country’s local governments.

Experts say another recommendation should be to reject a proposal from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau to exchange the girls for imprisoned militants. He made the offer in a video released Monday that showed some of the girls.

“Put pressure on locals to find

since 1996 – the greatest genocide of the post-War World II era.

He welcomed South Sudan as the world’s newest nation – the culmination of a decades-long project of the U.S., Britain and Israel to dismember Africa’s largest country, but which has now fallen into a bloody chaos (as does everything the U.S. touches these days.)

Destabilized after Gaddafi Most relevant to the plight of Chibok’s young women, Obama led “from behind” NATO’s regime change in Libya, removing the anti-jihadist bulwark Muamar Gaddafi (“We came, we saw, he died,” said Hillary Clinton) and destabilizing the continent all the way to northern Nigeria.

As BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka writes in the current issue, “Boko Haram benefited from the destabilization of various countries across the Sahel following the Libya conflict.”

The once-“shadowy” group now sported new weapons and vehicles and was clearly better trained and disciplined.

In short, the Boko Haram, like other jihadists, had become more dangerous in a post-Gaddafi Africa – thus justifying a larger military presence for the same Americans and (mainly French) Europeans who had brought these convulsions to the region.

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

tional Wildlife Refuge. It has asked the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to dig an injection well next to the site to store wastewater dredged up from the drilling, a bid strongly opposed by many homeowners in Naples and activists across the Everglades watershed.

National Preserve. He said aquifers in that area are separate from the Biscayne Aquifer underlying southeast Florida, making any underground contamination from one region unlikely to affect the other.

Cost of business?

An estimated 702 million barrels of oil or natural gas – the equivalent of 29 billion gallons – are contained in a band of deposits known as the Sunniland Trend that stretches from Florida’s west coast to Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report.

That’s enough to attract smaller independent “wildcatter” companies, said Jorge Pinon, an oil industry expert at the University of Texas.

He said drilling techniques, including fracking, have improved markedly since the Deepwater Horizon spill fouled the Gulf of Mexico four years ago.

But oil drilling is inherently risky, he said.

“I don’t think there’s enough oil there for the major companies to take the risk – the political risk, the image risk, the reputation risk – of drilling in the Everglades,” Pinon said. “But you are going to see some of the independent companies taking that risk.”

The fracking-like episode “shows us how far they will go to get the oil out. They will even break the law, knowing the fine is so nominal that they can just add it into the cost of drilling,” said Karen Dwyer, of Naples, who has organized opposition to drilling.

“Hopefully, there will be enough local, state and national attention so we can shut down Dan A. Hughes permanently in Florida before we get a catastrophic accident. We don’t need an onshore BP oil spill that could wipe out our Everglades.”

The Hughes well, 13,500 feet deep, is on private farming land owned by a Collier family company that has leased mineral rights to several oil companies exploring the region.

The drilling is unlikely to contaminate underground aquifers unless it springs a leak from pipes or casings, said Don Hargrove, minerals management specialist at the nearby Big Cypress

these girls because Boko Haram is among the population,” said Jacob Zenn, an expert on Boko Haram with the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research and analysis firm.

Intervention a challenge That the United States chose to help three weeks after the kidnapping was a response in part to the worldwide Twitter campaign.

That also presents its own challenges.

The last time the United States sought to intervene militarily in Africa was in 2011, when the Obama administration, responding to a mandate from Congress, deployed a small group of troops to Central Africa to help hunt down Joseph Kony, the elusive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Months later another Twitter hashtag campaign, #Kony2012, erupted on the heels of a movie about Kony’s war crimes. The U.S. efforts to find the elusive guerrilla leader have failed, however, and Kony remains on the run.

The former defense official said the Kony mission not only failed to find him but also diverted “assets that we would have preferred to use elsewhere, to challenges that were more threatening to the United States.”

Help Nigerians fight Many think the greatest help the United States could extend,

Attracting ‘wildcatters’

beyond rescuing the girls, is to help Nigerians fight for a government that isn’t so vulnerable to the burgeoning Boko Haram influence.

“I think there is a role for the U.S here,” said retired Army Gen. Carter Ham, who led the African Command until last year. Citing the U.S. designation of Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, Ham said the U.S. now could identify the group’s international financiers and search for links between it and al-Qaida’s North Africa affiliate, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Most importantly, the United States can press Nigeria to solve the country’s internal economic issues.

Fix local issues “The greatest impact we can have is to press the Nigerian government to address the pressing issues that make young men vulnerable to Boko Haram recruiting,” Ham said. “Our efforts on the non-military front can be more helpful.”

Zenn, of the Jamestown Foundation, proposed a special task force assigned to Nigeria to tackle the country’s leadership issues with the goal of isolating Boko Haram once the girls are rescued.

“It’s about shaping the environment, from the most local tribal leader to the politician to the soldier, to make it difficult for Boko Haram to do this again,” he said.

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

FLORIDA

A3

Man visiting Florida is second MERS case in US

BY KATE SANTICH ORLANDO SENTINEL / MCT

ORLANDO – A growing global threat of the potentially deadly MERS virus has spread to Orlando with the case of a 44-yearold man visiting from Saudi Arabia, health officials reported Monday.

He becomes the second U.S. patient with the respiratory illness, which has infected more than 500 people worldwide and killed 114.

No specific treatment MERS – or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome – is considered serious because of its fatality rate of about 30 percent and because there is no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment. But health officials emphasize that it is spread only through close contact, including touching, coughing or contaminated fluids. About one-fifth of those infected are health care workers, as is the Orlando patient.

The man, who works in

a Saudi Arabia hospital, arrived in Orlando on May 1 but did not seek treatment until May 8, when he went to the Dr. P. Phillips emergency room. A trio of laboratory tests confirmed MERS. “The patient is in good condition and is improving,” said Dr. Antonio Crespo, an infectious disease specialist and chief quality officer for the hospital, part of Orlando Health.

“We are taking every precaution, but believe the risk of transmission from this patient is very low since his symptoms were mild and he was not coughing when he arrived at the hospital.”

Symptoms of the virus include congestion, cough, fever higher than 100.4 degrees, shortness of breath, pneumonia, body aches and diarrhea.

The man’s family members and hospital workers who had contact with him are being monitored for signs of the disease. Following protocol from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the exposed hospital

MERS virus spreading There have been more confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus so far this year than in all of 2013.

Known cases (deaths) from MERS

U.K.

4 (3)

Germany 2 (1) Italy 1 Greece 2 (1)

Tunisia

Kuwai 3 (1)

1

France

Jordan 4 (3)

3 (1)

Symptoms

345 cases, 107 deaths

Qatar 7 (4) U.A.E. 42 (9) Oman 2 (2) Saudi Arabia

Philippines 1

272 (81)

• Fever, cough and shortness of breath • 65 percent death rate among infected • Caused by a relative of the virus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak

Malaysia 1 (1) NOTE: Totals from April 2012 through April 23, 2014

Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Graphic: Melina Yingling

workers are being placed on temporary paid leave and asked to stay home.

More cases coming CDC officials said Monday they expected additional MERS cases in the United States because of

© 2014 MCT

a recent spike in cases in the Arabian Peninsula, primarily in Saudi Arabia.

The virus was first identified there in 2012.

Florida Department of Health officials in Orlando emphasized that the patient – whose name is not being released for privacy

Scott signs election-year tax cut package

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Gov. Rick Scott signed a wide-ranging tax cut package Monday that fulfills an election-year pledge and could boost sales for businesses through a series of tax-free periods during the typically slower summer months.

The signing of the package (HB 5601) lets Scott campaign that he got law-

makers to make $500 million in tax and fee cuts, even if the total won’t reach that figure in the upcoming budget year, while providing shoppers with sales-tax holidays on hurricane gear, school supplies and energy saving appliances.

“The bill we signed today is $121 million right back in to Florida citizens’ hands,” Scott said during a news conference after he addressed the Governor’s Hurricane Conference at

the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

Fees rolled back Lawmakers already sent a larger part of the tax and fee cuts to Scott, rolling back vehicle registration fees that were increased in 2009. Scott signed that bill (SB 156) on April 2, giving motorists on average savings of $20 to $25 per vehicle.

The vehicle fee reduction is expected to collectively save motorists about

If you think you can can spot a person with HIV, consider this: Did you even spot the error in the first six words of this headline?

$309 million during the upcoming 2014-15 budget year, with the new lowered rates going into effect Sept. 1. Those savings are expected to grow to about $395 million a year, once they are in effect for the full 12 months of a fiscal year.

Lawmakers approved the other tax-cut package May 2 and said it would save Floridians about $105 million. But Scott put the number Monday at $121 million, and his office also repeated that number in a news release.

The tax cut law, dubbed the “patchwork of awesomeness” by House Finance & Tax Chairman Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, goes into effect immediately. The three sales-tax holidays are projected to save $36.9 million for Floridians, according to the Legislature’s estimates.

“Retailers like the tax holidays because they boost store traffic considerably during the tax-free periods,” said John Fleming, a spokesman for the Florida Retail Federation.

Various targets

reasons – did not visit local theme parks or other tourist spots.

In the current case, the patient left Saudi Arabia April 30 and began experiencing muscle aches, health officials said. He flew first to London, then to Boston and Atlanta before arriving in Orlando on May 1. By then, he had a slight fever, and he later developed diarrhea and ultimately a cough. According to CDC officials, more than 500 passengers on U.S. segments of those flights were exposed and are being notified.

So far, no one exposed to the man has reported symptoms, which typically take five to 14 days to develop.

Dr. Kevin Sherin, director of the state health department for Orange County, said only those who have had some contact with an infected individual are at risk.

“If they weren’t in Saudi Arabia or had exposure to someone from Saudi Arabia, I don’t know that (we) would even start thinking about MERS … ” he said. ing car seats and bicycle helmets for their children, college students buying meal plans and pet owners.

Scott focused Monday on hurricane preparations, with an emphasis on the recent heavy flooding in the western Panhandle.

The hurricane sales-tax holiday runs from May 31 through June 8.

During that time, no state or local sales taxes will be collected on items such as tarpaulins selling for under $50, first-aid kits worth $30 or less, self-powered radios at $50 or less, gas tanks at under $25, portable generators worth up to $750, and non-electric food storage coolers priced at $30 or less, and most battery packages under $30.

Hurricane season begins June 1.

Two-day holiday The back-to-school holiday, meanwhile, will run from Aug. 1 through Aug. 3 and will allow Floridians to buy clothes, school supplies and personal computers without paying sales taxes. The backto-school holiday expands a discount introduced last year on computers and raises the tax-free bar from $75 to $100 on the prices of clothing, bags and backpacks.

Last year, sales taxes weren’t collected on personal computers and re-

“We would probably (suspect) flu.”

Lab tests necessary The patient was placed in isolation once MERS was suspected. He remains there in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery, Crespo said. The virus was confirmed through a series of laboratory tests on blood and other bodily fluids.

So far most cases have been transmitted through caring for or living with an infected person. The fatality rate is expected to drop as more patients with mild symptoms or even no symptoms are identified through laboratory testing.

The first confirmed case of MERS in the United States was reported in a traveler Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That person had traveled to London, then on to Chicago and Indiana before being hospitalized in Indiana April 28. The patient is now recovering, the CDC reported. lated gear worth under $750. This year, no sales taxes will be collected on the first $750 of any computer and related gear, regardless of the overall cost of the piece of electronics.

After the back-to-school holiday, shoppers from Sept. 19 through Sept. 21 will be able to avoid sales taxes on the first $1,500 of the price of new Energy Star and WaterSense products, an energy conservation proposal from Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.

The tax package also includes such things as a permanent elimination of the taxes on college meal plans. Also, pet lovers can receive a tax discount on therapeutic pet food only available from licensed veterinarians.

Among other things in the package are permanent sales-tax exemptions for car seats and bicycle helmets for kids; an expansion of the New Markets Tax Credit program for investments in low-income communities; a temporary lifting of sales taxes on the purchase of cement mixers; a measure that would reduce by 20 percent the insurance premium tax on Florida-based bail bond premiums; and a projected $14.7 million savings through a community contribution tax credit that benefits Habitat for Humanity.

ANYBODY CAN HAVE HIV. USE PROTECTION.

The package has a wide swath of targets, including reducing electricity taxes for businesses and helping bail bondsmen, Habitat for Humanity, construction contractors, parents buy-

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Millions already flowing to pro-Scott ads

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Be smart: Use protection, and get tested. For a testing site near you, text your zip code to 477493.

BY JIM SAUNDERS THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

More than six months before the general election, a committee backing Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election spent $5.1 million on advertising in April, newly filed campaign-finance reports show.

The spending by the “Let’s Get to Work” committee was far greater than the combined $1.3 million raised last month by the committee and Scott’s re-election campaign.

But the committee still had roughly $18.4 million available to spend and the campaign had about $3.1 million as of April 30.

Monday deadline The Scott campaign and the committee released the numbers as state candidates and political committees faced a Monday deadline for filing reports detailing contributions and spending through April. Reports trickled onto the state Division of Elections website throughout the day.

A committee back-

ing Scott’s leading challenger, Democrat Charlie Crist, reported raising nearly $1.3 million in April, buoyed in part by a $500,000 contribution from the Democratic Governors Association.

The committee, dubbed “Charlie Crist for Florida,” had raised $6.6 million through April while spending only $617,900.

The updated totals for Crist’s campaign account had not been posted late Monday afternoon on the Division of Elections website.

Partial picture With money flowing into the political parties and outside political committees, the contributions to Scott and Crist only provide a partial picture of how the campaign’s finances are taking shape.

The Republican Party of Florida, for example, sent out a news release Monday indicating it had raised $1.72 million in April and that at least part of that money would go toward helping Scott.

“We look forward to continuing to paint a clear and accurate picture for

voters of Charlie Crist‚s failed economic record vs. the turnaround Florida has experienced under Rick Scott,” state party Executive Director Juston Johnson said in a prepared statement that repeated one of the GOP’s common lines of attack against Crist, a former Republican governor who later became a Democrat.

Overall, the reports filed Tuesday showed continuing huge fund-raising leads for Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater. Bondi had raised a total of nearly $1.16 million for her campaign account through April, while Putnam and Atwater had each topped $1.7 million.

Former Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon, a Democrat running for attorney general, had raised a total of $212,386 through April. But none of the other Democratic candidates for the three Cabinet seats had collected more than $102,392; the total raised by attorney-general candidate Perry Thurston.

EDITORIAL

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MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

The EPA has become a criminal enterprise The Environmental Protection Agency always had a shady purpose. Its origin lies with the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon. President Nixon was very concerned about the civil rights movement linking up with with the Anti-Vietnam War movement. He needed a diversion and came up with the fledgling environmental movement. He took the EPA which was a small bureau buried in the Department of Interior and made it a freestanding agency. He also fully supported the annual Earth Day event with the new and empowered EPA supporting it in grand fashion. Even today many civil rights groups believe in the concept known as Environmental Racism or Environmental Justice. It is a “Boogey Man.”

Any means necessary HARRY C. ALFORD NNPA COLUMNIST

President William J. Clinton came to power in 1992 and directed his Vice President Al Gore to take the EPA to the top. Their EPA Administrator was Carol Browner who in my opinion is a pure zealot when it comes to global warming or climate change. This was the beginning of the Environmental Protection Agency becoming more than part of the Executive Branch of government. It became a monster.

The new players sought power – pure, out of control power by any means necessary. Business coalitions feared the economy would falter under the new onslaught of rules and regulations.

Congress would defeat any obscene legislation that was tried; thus they used rules and regulations that slipped through and, in effect, became law itself.

The Clinton Administration was checked, at least boxed in. Things cooled off under the succeeding Bush Administration. But after six years of the Obama Administration the extremists are on the attack and business is finding itself reeling from expensive and unnecessary rules and regulations.

Browner is an advisor to the Ad-

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: NIGERIAN ABDUCTIONS

PARESH NATH, THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 211 My hometown, Daytona Beach, had only three high schools when I grew up: all-White Mainland High, all-White Seabreeze High, and all-Black Campbell High. In the late 1960s, the Volusia County School Board reacted to the Brown vs.

Board of Education case as did many Southern school boards: they refused to desegregate public schools until they got sued; then they shut down the Black public schools, and scattered the students and the teachers, staff and principals among the remaining White schools. (The damage those shutdowns caused in Black communities is a subject for another column.)

Black kids didn’t want to be there any more than many Seabreeze kids wanted us there. Even worse, Black kids who grew up with each other were split between the two high schools, which were bitter archrivals.

The Black athletic talent was diluted, and in many ways wasted, because of an unspoken racial quota in sports at Seabreeze that saved slots for White kids.

Rather than having a strong Black high school which would have consistently won city championships (if Mainland and Seabreeze dared play Campbell), and being taught by strong, no-nonsense Black teachers we knew from living in the same community, we were thrown into an academic and cultural environment that was

QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER

indifferent to us at best – and often downright hostile.

That’s the backdrop of my tenure at Seabreeze High, which began in 1971.

But as I look back at my high school career, and at the Donald Sterling-NBA controversy, it was the unifying nature of sports – and the desire to beat Mainland at everything – that began to slowly help change the culture and environment at Seabreeze. Coaches, and more importantly White parents, began to understand that if you wanted to beat Mainland, you better let your best players play.

So last week, it was good to memorialize and celebrate a rite of historical passage with all my Seabreeze classmates and fellow trailblazers Percy Williamson, Sr., Maurice Gainey, my first-grade classmate Lucy Stewart Desmore, and former cheerleaders Atawa Washington Rollins and K’Netha Laws Jones. God bless us all.

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com.

Opinions expressed on this editorial page are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the newspaper or the publisher.

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Charles W. Cherry, Sr. (1928-2004), Founder Julia T. Cherry, Senior Managing Member, Central Florida Communicators Group, LLC Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Cassandra CherryKittles, Charles W. Cherry II, Managing Members Dr. Glenn W. Cherry, Chief Executive Officer Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher Dr. Valerie Rawls-Cherry, Human Resources Jenise Morgan, Senior Editor Linda Fructuoso, Marketing Consultant/Sales, Circulation Angela VanEmmerik, Creative Director Chicago Jones, Eugene Leach, Louis Muhammad, Lisa Rogers-Cherry, Circulation Andreas Butler, Ashley Thomas, Staff Writers Delroy Cole, Kim Gibson, Photojournalists MEMBER National Newspaper Publishers Association Society of Professional Journalists Florida Press Association Associated Press National Newspaper Association

ministration and Gore cashed in on his vile and false predictions.

He’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a billionaire. Yes, there is big money in this environmental hustle. Let’s look at some of the horrors that are coming out of this “basket of fraud and deceit.”

Since 1997, every rule concerning air quality standards are based on false calculations. How did this happen? Believe it or not there were some executives at the EPA who were just plain corrupt and lazy. The ringleader was a guy named John Beale who is currently in prison for the things he was doing. We are learning more and more from the criminal who is now starting to talk to authorities. There should be indictments flying all over the place at EPA but, of course, we now have an attorney general who protects criminals by avoiding any prosecution of them. Beale might still be there doing his dastardly duties if he didn’t confess his sins. In the end, they will be going to jail by the dozens with or without Attorney

General Holder. Read all about this: http://1.usa.gov/1mhmZTU Another thing the EPA is doing is called “sue and settle.” This is when extremist environmental groups like Sierra Club will file a suit against the EPA and the EPA immediately settles the case by agreeing to do whatever the environmental group wants. In effect, this is writing new rules and laws without legislative approval.

Finally, the EPA has established a new office within itself. This is the Office of Homeland Security.

As investigators start digging into their mess they will claim “national security” and and won’t produce any evidence or documentation. It is clearly meant to make these crooks immune to prosecution.

For the love of God and our nation, where is the outrage?

Mr. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Write our own response at www.flcourier.com.

JET magazine and me JET Magazine’s becoming an online-only publication is not something to cheer about.

For me personally, especially pre-1990s, JET was the magazine that I read most often and most thoroughly.

It played a significant role in my becoming what my grandfather and his friends used to call me, “a race man.”

As a child growing up in the small town of Tuskegee, Ala., it was JET - along with the Pittsburgh Courier - that kept me abreast of what was happening in the national Black community. Because of Jackie Robinson, I had become a devoted fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was these two publications that helped me to know about his every move. It was delivered to our home weekly and I devoured every single word of JET and the Pittsburgh Courier.

Brought awareness It was also JET, by publishing that horrific photo of Emmett Till, that made me much more aware of the terrorist viciousness of white supremacist /racists.

I was 17 years old when that photo was published in JET and until today it is seared in my memory. Before that, of course, I was aware of Jim Crow and its physical and psychological attacks on Black people. But, fortunately I had never personally had to confront it as a child in a place like Tuske-

ter his departure from the Nation of Islam.

A. PETER BAILEY TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

Personal memory In the summer of 1967, JET wanted coverage of an incident in Long Island, N.Y., in which a White female summer school student, angry over a C grade, accused her Black male teacher of molesting her. When the event broke, the JET editor and one EBONY editor were away on assignments. The other EBONY editor was ill.

Knowing my desire to be a journalist, the JET editor recommended that JET send me to cover the trial.

That’s how I got my first JET by-line. A few weeks later, I was brought on EBONY’s staff as an assistant editor in its New York office. Again, I am eternally thankful to JET. I once heard Mr. John H. Johnson say that his magazines reflected where Black people are as a community at any give time. Unfortunately, too many - if not the majority - of our people have been living in kind of a fluffy fantasyland since the 1980s.

Most Black magazines, including JET, have reflected that fluffiness. That same affliction probably contributed to JET’s demise as a valuable source of information for Black folk in the United States.

gee whose population was overwhelmingly Black and which was the home of major employers, such as then Tuskegee Institute and the Veterans Hospital.

This made Black folk not so economically susceptible to the Whites. That JET photo of Emmett Till brought home to me, like nothing else, the true evilness of the proponents of White supremacy/racism. For that I am eternally thankful to the magazine.

The third way that JET impacted my life was as a journalist. It was the first nationally distributed magazine to send me to cover a news event. In early December 1965, I was hired as the mailroom clerk in Johnson Publishing Company’s New York office located in Rockefeller Center. The editorial staff in that office, which main focus was advertising sales, consisted of two EBONY editors, a JET editor, two photographers and a secretary. I made myself useful to them in numerous ways, including assisting in research. At the time my only journalistic experience had been as editor of the newsA. Peter Bailey's latest letter published by The Organization of Afro-Ameri- book is "Witnessing Brothcan Unity, which was found- er Malcolm X, the Master ed by Brother Malcolm X af- Teacher.

Indenturing our young people The young in America are being forced into cruel levels of debt, and this debt is already curbing their life prospects. Its economic effects are damaging to everyone. Yet with Washington frozen, the debt burdens on the young are likely to get worse.

For the young, a college education or post-high school professional training is the equivalent of what a high school degree was a generation ago. College is the necessary but not sufficient ticket to the middle class. For the nation, educating the next generation beyond high school is essential both for producing the citizens we need for a healthy democracy and for producing the work force we need for a healthy economy. And yet college costs keep soaring, growing faster even than health-care costs.

Government support for public universities and community colleges is down 25 percent since 2000. Students and their families must pay more and more of the cost. But family incomes have stagnated, failing to keep up with soaring costs of college, health care and housing.

Overwhelming debt The result is an explosion of student debt. It has nearly quadrupled since 2003, soaring to nearly a trillion dollars. Two-thirds of all students now graduate with

REV. JESSE L. JACKSON, SR. TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

debts averaging $27,000.

The poorer the family, the higher the percentage of students with debt. These debts are brutal; 12 percent are more than 90 days delinquent, but that figure is misleading because nearly one-half (47 percent) are in deferment (students can defer payment on their debt while in school, for example).

That means nearly 1 out of 4 working loans are delinquent. Staggeringly, over 20 percent of loans for those 30-49 — in the peak of their earning years — are more than 90 days delinquent.

Because of the force of the bank lobby, student loans can’t be discharged with bankruptcy. They cannot be refinanced. They burden students for a lifetime.

The feds will even garnish your Social Security to repay them. As Slate contributor David Dayen argues, this is very much like indentured servitude that Americans suffered at the beginning of the Republic.

Then impoverished workers and peasants traded years of labor for the cost of passage to the new world.

For three to seven years, depending on the contract, they would labor, virtually

like slaves, for masters who paid their way.

More than pockets This injustice offends America’s tradition. Historically, America prided itself on its public education. We were first to provide secondary school free for all.

With the GI bill, 3 million veterans received tuitionfree college or advanced training.

Not surprisingly, researchers at the Federal Reserve worry that the debt burdens will harm the economy, as the young put off buying cars or renting apartments or starting new families. This is the down side of Gilded Age extremes in wealth. As the rich get richer, they rig the rules to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Top rates go down; tax dodges proliferate.

The only way this will change is if students, parents and indebted graduates make their voices heard. But all of us should demand action. It is unacceptable that the sons and daughters of America’s working families must face indentured servitude simply to get the education they need.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is the founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

EDITORIAL

A better way to compensate college athletes Athletes at Northwestern University shocked the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the governing body of college sports, by taking steps to unionize student/athletes. Surprisingly, NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell, former NFL great Jim Brown and Harry Edwards, who organized a human rights protest at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City that culminated in Tommy Smith and John Carlos giving a clenched fist salute when they mounted the winners platform, do not support the idea.

It’s not that Bill Russell, Jim Brown or Harry Edwards have mellowed – they have not. Rather, they think there’s a better way to help athletes who generate $500 billion a year to major universities, athletic vendors and others.

“I am totally against the unions in college,” Brown said. “I don’t like the NCAA. I think it’s a greedy organization, a dictatorial organization, an organization that’s totally unfair to the players…But on the other hand, I think we have all gotten away from the value of an education.”

Just another business Russell and Brown made their comments recently as part of a sports panel moderated by Edwards at the University of Texas.

The discussion was part of 3-day summit at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

GEORGE E. CURRY NNPA COLUMNIST

Russell said the NCAA’s money machine should be viewed within the context of other successful U.S. businesses.

“All great fortunes are amassed on cheap or slave labor,” he explained. “The NCAA – the one group everybody is focusing on – has this money machine. To keep it this way, the labor force has to be free or paid low wages.”

As Everett Glenn, a former sports agent, pointed out in a 3-part series for the NNPA News Service: “College sports is big business – for everyone except the athletes who make it possible. College basketball and football have long operated as quasi-farm systems for professional teams by discovering talent, training players, and highlighting performance.”

For example, Glenn noted, “Black athletes represent 52.9 percent of Ohio State University’s basketball and football rosters and dominate among its star players, fueling a nearly $130 million athletic department budget on a campus where Black males represent only 2.7 percent of the student body. The disparity between the graduation rate for OSU’s Black football players, at 38 percent, and all student-athletes, at 71 percent,

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VISUAL VIEWPOINT: THE CLASS OF 2014

represent the highest disparity in the Big-10.”

If colleges are serving as farm teams for the pros, players are spending less and less time on the farm.

This year, for example, Kentucky freshmen basketball stars Julius Randle and James Young have announced that they will enter the 2014 NBA draft. It’s one-and-done for the Wildcats. Randle is projected to be among the top five picks, which means he may earn $6.1 to $7.5 million over two years.

Quickly broke But many pro athletes have received a truckload of money, only to squander it. Terrell Owens, Allen Iverson, Antoine Walker are just a few who come to mind.

Sports Illustrated reported that by the time former NFL players have been retired for two years, 78 percent of them “have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.”

Within five years of retirement, approximately 60 percent of former NBA players are broke.

Athletes have to cope with other issues as well, said Harry Edwards.

“Fifteen percent of the athletes who show up for the combine having already been in concussion situations before they even get to the NFL – and concussions are not something that you get over. That’s something the unions can’t address.”

Instead of unions, Edwards said, the emphasis should be put on

DAVID FITZSIMMONS, THE ARIZONA STAR

making sure athletes get an edu- complete their education in four cation so that even if they end up years, they should be given anothbroke, they will have other skills er two years for graduate study. with which to support themselves.

“Ninety-eight percent of athletes who play college football will Add to the pot never be on a professional roster,” “When we talk about young stu- Edwards explained. “They are godents, I think there are other con- ing to have to go with what they siderations that take priority over achieve educationally.”

He should know. Edwards has the monetary aspect,” Edwards told me after a press conference a Ph.D in sociology from Cornell in Austin, Texas. “Money shifts the University and has been a longfocus even more than already is time professor at the University of the case and away from the educa- California-Berkeley. tion imperative that these instituGeorge E. Curry, former edtions are obligated and should be itor-in-chief of Emerge magacommitted to delivering on.”

Edwards said rather than rush- zine, is editor-in-chief of the Naing into the pros, student/athletes tional Newspaper Publishers should have scholarships that al- Association News Service (NNlow them to complete college PA.) Write your own response at within six years. For those who www.flcourier.com.

Undoing racism by undoing the attacks we put on ourselves Racism will never go away, at least that’s what it appears like.

The comments made by Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers were a reminder to all of us that the old way of thinking about people of color hasn’t diminished. Truth be told, we are living in a world whereby too many people have replaced visible signs of racism with private conversations. Because there have been many articles and stories written about Donald Sterling, I won’t bother to repeat them. However, I want to draw your attention to us (as a people) moving from simply talking about ending racism to doing something that’s relevant.

Preconceived notions of African-Americans as being lazy, incarcerated, and/or always asking for a hand out is etched in the minds of too many people. It’s etched in the psyche of many ethnic groups and what’s disturbing is

DR. SINCLAIR GREY III GUEST COLUMNIST

that it is even etched in the minds of many African-Americans. Sadly and sinfully, we have allowed the actions of a few to give representation to the masses. Let me say it this way. If African-Americans ever experienced something less than average service from a Blackowned establishment, there’s the notion that you can’t do business with Black-owned businesses.

Undo this thinking This concept is both ridiculous and corrupting to the future of African-American growth and prosperity. Unless we undo this thinking, our Black-owned business-

es will not be able to thrive locally, nationally, and internationally.

Let me pose this to you. Why is it that African-Americans (in general) continue to patronize businesses that don’t hire them and support their community? I’m at a loss for words. Could it be the fact that too many African-Americans are operating with a slave mentality - accustomed to receiving less than from others that don’t look like them?

Not only in the business community must we demand better, we must demand better from those within the entertainment community. Songs and videos that cause us to degrade and demean ourselves will never do any good in helping change the perspective others have on us and about us. At definitely, the reality shows are a joke. Is it really necessary to make yourself look like a fool for profit? It’s fair to say that I’m not talk-

Slow response to Nigerian atrocity Long after completing his 8-year presidency, William Jefferson Clinton acknowledged that he should have intervened in the conflict in Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands perished from the genocide that shaped the country. In his zeal for international peace, President Clinton intervened in Ireland, the Middle East and Bosnia. He acknowledged that had the United States intervened in Rwanda, at least 300,000 deaths may have been prevented.

Now nearly 300 Nigerian girls have been kidnapped from their school by an extremist group that calls themselves Islamic (I don’t know of any legitimate Islamic group that approves of this kind of activity). Beyond the 300 stolen from their schools for the sole purpose of marrying them off, or selling them, it is not clear how many others have been taken from their schools. This extremist group opposes “Western education" and uses their beliefs to justify their action.

Someone else’s concern Some have shrugged that this is a “cultural” or internal matter that Nigerians must settle among themselves. The United States and the United Nations are nodding on Nigeria if they choose to do little more than offer lip service in this crisis situation. It has been documented in Bosnia and Rwanda that rape was an instrument of war. What

Too long of a wait DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

about Nigeria?

Dozens gathered outside the White House and outside the Nigerian Embassy to plead that the powers that be “bring back our girls.” First Lady Michelle Obama has also carried a sign to that effect. Nearly a month after the girls were seized the international community has begun to pay attention to this vile kidnapping. Again, this capture may well be the tip of the iceberg. Who knows how many girls have been captured from their homes or their schools?

Women have too often been tools in genocide, yet too often this form of genocide has been ignored. The United Nations spews pithy pronouncements and declares one year or another the year of human rights.

But as former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has often declared, “women’s rights are human rights.”

Now, every woman in the United States Senate has called for relief for kidnapped girls in Nigeria, President Barack Obama, referencing his own daughters, has offered relief.

There have been “high level” meetings to talk about the ways that U.S. can intervene in this repugnant situation.

Our intervention is spot on, but why did it take so long? Were these Bosnian women would there have been so much “deliberation?” As grateful as I am for U. S. intervention, the pace of it saddens me. Were we nodding on Nigeria?

The status of women and girls should be a global concern. Nigeria is one of the countries that visibly impose inequality. We have intervened in human rights that have no gender component all over the world, but have been notably silent when the African continent is involved. We say that these are “internal matters” that countries must settle on their own, but when human rights activists are massacred in China, we manage to get involved.

Our country has been a champion of human rights all over the world, and when we nod on Nigeria we are suggesting that women’s rights do not matter.

We know about 300 Nigerian girls today. How many will we learn about tomorrow? How many in another country? How many will be swallowed in world patriarchy because we refuse to act?

Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer. She is President Emerita of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

ing about every actor/actress, but tions, and HBCUs must take the there needs to be a sense of self- lead. These three institutions have love and self-worth to not sell out. the greatest voice to bring about change and I’m urging all of them Address the issue to reach across the isles and invite In order for us (as African-Amer- different groups to engage in an inicans) to deal with the whole issue tellectual discussion. We know the of racism, we can’t merely pray it problem of racism as a collective away as some Christians want you group, now it’s time to educate our to think and believe. We must ad- fellow brothers and sisters in enddress it spiritually, mentally, emo- ing this sickness. Will it be easy? No tionally, and physiologically. We it won’t. Will there be opposition? must have an open dialogue with Of course. However, the struggle to other cultures and ethnicities to end racism is a never-ending proexplain to them why we must not be marginalized and devalued. In cess. Remember, if you’re not part addition to this, we must undo the of the solution, then you’re part of negative stereotypes we have to- the problem. wards one another. Think about Dr. Sinclair Grey III is a speakit for a moment. When we particier, activist, author and commitpate in the foolishness of bringing each other down for one reason or ted advocate for change. Conanother, it opens the door for other tact him at drgrey@sinclairgrey. org or on Twitter @drsinclairgroups to do the same.

Here’s the clarion call: t the Af- grey. Write your own response at rican-American church, radio sta- www.flcourier.com.

Advice? What advice?

Do you ever wonder why you get the same political emails and direct mail pieces over and over again?

Most Black voters are registered Democrats but any Black person that contributed to President Barack Obama’s election or reelection campaigns will get at least four or five emails a week encouraging you to vote for anybody, devil or angel, Democratic that runs for office as a Democratic candidate.

We get emails but White folk get all of the campaign money!

Democrats must understand Black voters didn’t turn out in record numbers to vote for Democrats. Black voters turned out in high numbers in Obama’s first election to vote for a “Black” President.

In Obama’s election to serve another four years, Blacks turned out in relatively high numbers because Republicans in Congress and in state legislatures were doing all they could to suppress, curtail and deny Black voters their constitutional right to cast a ballot for the candidates of their choice.

Politically insane No matter how many times Democratic candidates send you emails begging you to send them money to pay White consultants or to buy media on White-owned broadcast stations, websites,

Have these leftovers LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

They get all of that to advise Democrats to “be more Republican than Republicans.” They tell Democrats to be ultra conservative, to be silent on issues of importance to their Black and organized labor bases and to spend every dollar you can until the weekend before the election and if there is anything left throw some political crumbs to any dark skinned person that will take it because all Blacks look alike!

No matter how much money Black people contribute to Democratic candidates, the national and state Democratic parties will never hire professional Black political consultants. Yhey will never make meaningful political ad buys with Black-owned media. Yhey will never respect the Black votes that Democrats must get in order to win any race, including a rat race!

Yes, Democrats use the same consultants every year and when they lose they say, “Blacks didn’t turn out to vote!”

They should be saying the dumb-ass consultants they hire failed to deliver a winning campaign again!

Perhaps America’s highly paid Democratic consultants are paid to lose!

and newspapers, the Democratic candidates will continue to lose because Democrats are politically insane!

I know you don’t like for me to write like this about your favorite political party but the truth is the truth whether Black voters like it or not!

Some people describe political insanity as doing the same thing year after losing year and expecting different election results. I just say the campaign plans and election plans devised by high-paid Democratic consultants is “mad”, “crazy” and exudes senselessness!

Democrats in Florida, for instance, have been losing statewide and local elections since the early 1980s, even though there are more registered Demo- crats in the Sunshine State than there are Republicans and Independents.

The high-paid Democratic consultants can make $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 a month and get 15% commission on placing millions and millions of dollars in advertising. They can also get free housing, a free car to Write your own redrive, free food, free cell phones and whatever else sponse at www.flcourithey ask for. er.com.

NATION

TOJ A6

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014 1970s, before laws were passed to speed up trial dates.

Without significantly more money in the coming year, civil cases “being filed today will not get to trial until five years, which is the mandatory dismissal date,” Jahr said. “We will be back to where we started 25 years ago.”

Economic hit

BEA AHBECK/MERCED SUN-STAR/MCT

Foreclosed homes were auctioned outside the Superior Court of California courthouse in Merced, Calif. in 2010, when crowds were much smaller.

Cutbacks in California court system produce long lines, short tempers

BY MAURA DOLAN LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT

SAN FRANCISCO – California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye remembers the moment she learned that the Kings County Superior Court had resorted to holding a garage sale to raise money.

“That was a day of extreme humiliation and embarrassment to me,” Cantil-Sakauye said.

During her three years as chief justice, recessiondriven cutbacks in California’s huge court system have produced long lines and short tempers at

courthouses throughout the state. Civil cases are facing growing delays in getting to trial, and court closures have forced residents in some counties to drive several hours for an appearance.

The effects vary from county to county, with rural regions hit the hardest but no court left unscathed. Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to announce a revised budget plan, which will determine whether more courthouses will have to close next year.

Legislators from both parties have called on Brown to raise funding.

Fights while in line Unlike in federal court, it is impossible to file all cases electronically in most state courts, and fights regularly erupt in snaking lines at clerks’ offices.

Telephone systems are antiquated, and there are not enough people to answer the calls. Court reporters who provide transcripts of hearings have been eliminated for civil cases in many counties, making it more difficult for the losing party to appeal.

Cantil-Sakauye said annual case filings have dropped by about 2.5 million statewide in the last

few years, possibly because delays, higher costs and longer drives have discouraged users.

“I don’t believe we are becoming a more lawabiding, rule-following society,” she said. “But we have closed more than 50 courthouses and eliminated 3,900 full-time positions. So are people finally getting the message they shouldn’t bother to come to court?”

Retired Judge Stephen Jahr, who heads the court’s statewide administrative office, said delays in civil trials are approaching levels not seen since the

AMERicANHicoNs

The picture is vastly different from the late 1990s, when the courts unified under one branch and funding shifted from counties to the state. New courthouses were planned. A computer system that was supposed to link all the courts was ordered.

Then the economy took a nose dive. Cantil-Sakauye had been chief for only one month in 2011 when the state issued an audit blasting the judicial branch for spending $500 million on a computer system plagued with problems. The project has since been abandoned, but the scandal damaged the courts’ credibility with state legislators.

A dissident group of judges charged that the court’s San Francisco administrative office, which receives 3.8 percent of the $3.14-billion court budget, was wasteful. Legislators have approved a pending audit of the office, and Cantil-Sakauye said she has trouble dispelling suspicions that it was hiding “buckets of money.”

Brown’s budget proposal concedes the coming year will be “challenging” for the courts. He has proposed a $105-million increase, which judicial leaders say is not enough to prevent more court closures and cutbacks. The local reserves courts tapped into in the past to cushion state cuts are now gone.

Short-staffed Many court delays stem from staff shortages. Legal documents pile up, delaying judgments. Clerks in Contra Costa County said they have received complaints from people who divorced and wanted to remarry but couldn’t because clerks had not yet processed the paperwork for judges’ signatures.

Presiding Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Barry P. Goode said he discovered 20 feet of unfiled civil law documents in a clerk’s office. Judges complained that they did not have the files before them when cases were called.

“It makes your heart sick to see what we have done to the courts,” said Goode, surrounded by unfiled legal documents in the Martinez court.

The number of public windows and their hours have been slashed at courthouses throughout the state.

The lines are so long at the Martinez courthouse that Cookie Gambucci, who files legal documents for lawyers, now brings stickers and toys for the children of parents waiting in line. “I am waiting two to three hours, and I can’t stand babies crying and parents wanting to beat their children,” Gambucci said.

Los Angeles County is down 80 courtrooms and has eliminated court reporters in civil cases. Getting a trial for a traffic case can take a year. Trials on civil matters may require a two-year wait.

“The result of all this is delays and backlogs,” Presiding Judge David S. Wesley said. “I have long lines all over the county.”

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B IFE/FAITH ST. AUGUSTINE’S

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

FSU leads way in state with seven NFL draft picks See page B4

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

‘Godzilla’ is back on the scene See page B5

|

SECTION

WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

S

SENTIMENTAL ‘JOURNEY’ Exhibit showcases 450 years of historic city’s African-American history

BY ELEANOR HENDRICKS MCDANIEL SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

S

t. Augustine, America’s oldest city, is presenting an exhibition, “Journey: 450 Years of the AfricanAmerican Experience.”

The story begins in 1565 when Africans and others stepped onshore with Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who founded St. Augustine. Those colonists resided with Native Americans, the Timucuans, thus giving birth to America’s multicultural society.

The exhibition, located at the Visitor Information Center at 10 W. Castillo Drive in St. Augustine, showcases the important role African-Americans played in the historical and cultural development of America.

Four themes According to Carl Gill, volunteer coordinator at the Center, “Africans, Native Americans and Spanish all made up the country we know today as America. Since that time, through slavery, segregation to now, I feel we’ve come full circle, especially based on this exhibit.”

“Journey” focuses on four themes that follow the thread of Africa-Americans in St. Augustine: “Genesis of the African American Experience,” “Fortress of Freedom,” “Breaking the Chains,” and “Crossroads of Change.”

This compelling exhibit includes original records, authentic artifacts, artwork, maps, posters, dioramas, state-of-the-art interactive displays, and more. A 16-minute film encompasses past events.

Among the historic records are the birth certificate of the first Black child born on American soil in 1595, a marriage certificate of an African-American couple in 1598 and a bill of sale for a female slave.

Major civil rights city Photographs depict landmark events during the civil rights movement in the city. The year 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964.

One photo shows Dr. Martin Luther King on his visit to St. Augustine. His arrest record is displayed in a showcase.

From cowboys to ‘Cabin’ The exhibition also celebrates local heroes such as Florida’s Black cowboys and the Sisters of St. Jo-

1. seph’s Church. Some objects are on loan from private collections – an old copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin’’ and the actual lunch counter from Woolworth’s variety store, owned by Mayor Joe Boles.

Don’t miss the replica of Fort Mose, the first Black settlement in the country and learn about Lincolnville, formerly called “Little Africa,” where in 1866, post-Civil War Blacks settled. Today, it’s a vibrant neighborhood.

The “Journey” runs until July 15 and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s handicapped-assessable and is across from the downtown parking garage. Docentled tours are available, or you may tour independently.

To fully experience St. Augustine’s African-American heritage, pick up the Journey Passport, a free booklet that lists all the African-American sites throughout the city that are open to visitors.

For more information, visit www.Journey2014. com.

Eleanor Hendricks McDaniel is a freelance travel journalist who lives in Ormond Beach and Philadelphia. Her travel articles appear in national and international magazines as well as online. Follow her on Twitter: @ellethewriter and on her website: flybynighttravel.com. She wrote this article for the Florida Courier.

2.

5.

1. Multiple historic events are replicated with life-sized mannequins, including the 1963 Woolworth diner sit-in in St. Augustine.

3.

2. A replica of St. Mose, the first African-American settlement.

3. Visitors to the museum view a film that outlines the area’s rich Black history.

4. This photo documents Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s visit to St. Augustine.

5. Juan Diego de Amaya was one of the first Black settlers in St. Augustine.

ELEANOR HENDRICKS MCDANIEL/ SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

4.

EVENTS

B2

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

S

Black farmer sues lawyers representing Native Americans

J ANTHONY BROWN

The Seventh Annual Memorial Weekend Comedy Festival is May 25 at the James L. Knight Center. Comedians will include J Anthony Brown, Lunell, Earthquake and Marcus Combs.

WASHINGTON – John W. Boyd, Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association, filed a federal lawsuit seeking “reasonable compensation” for the time, effort and resources he says he expended to help D.C.-based lawyers earn almost $100 million in legal fees.

Boyd, a fourth-generation farmer who is the nation’s leading Black farmers advocate, said he worked “tirelessly” on behalf of the law firm of Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, LLP and Washington lawyer Dennis M. Gingold.

Kilpatrick Townsend and Gingold represented Native Americans in a case against the United States Department of the Interior that sought damages for the mismanagement of Native American trust John W. Boyd, Jr. assets. The case was resolved in December 2009 with a $3.4 billion settlement agreement.

Boyd’s lawsuit alleges that Kilpatrick Townsend and Gingold were unjustly enriched because they received $99 million in legal fees as a result of Boyd’s efforts to help pass the legislation that funded the settlement.

Long-time advocate

LIONEL RITCHIE

Lionel Richie: All the Hits All Night Long tour featuring Cee Lo Green stops in Tampa on July 14 at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre and the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach on July 15.

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Port St. Lucie: Scholarships are available for Christian Cultural Cathedral’s Pathways to Mind and Body Building Summer Program for children in grades 3 to 6.

Call 772-607-2628 or 772807-7771 for details.

Margate: Broward County Expo takes place May 22 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at JM Lexus, 5350 W Sample Road. Cost: $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Exhibitor info: www.BrowardCountyExpo.com.

Miami: An Old School Throw Back Hip-Hop event is May 17 at the James L. Knight Center in Miami featuring Slick Rick and Rob Base.

The show starts at 7 p.m.

KELLY PRICE

Catch Kelly Price at the Miami Love Parade 3 Homeless Benefit Concert on June 7.

Naples: The national NAACP Leadership 500 Summit will convene at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel May 22-25. Details: www.1500.org.

Sunrise: Tickets are on sale for Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, which takes place May 23 and May 24 at the BB&T Center.

Miami Beach: Tamar Braxton will perform May 16 at

Washington Monument reopens The 555-ft. (169 m) tall masonry obelisk was damaged during a 5.8 magnitude earthquake Aug. 23, 2011. Exterior and interior repairs are complete and visitors are again lining up to get in.

During the work, scaffolding wrapped monument Cracks filled

Internal stone ‘ribs’ External slab

Anchor brackets

West Palm Beach: The Kinfolks Soul Food Festival will be in West Palm Beach on May 23 and Lauderhill on May 24. Performers will include Bootsy Collins, Cameo, Morris Day & the Time, Confunkshun and Lakeside. More information: www.ilovesoulfood.com.

“

the comedy of the summer!

”

Ain’t it Cool news

It was gradually removed as work neared completion

Crack

the Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater.

Boyd traveled for well over 20 years on a regular basis from his farm in southern Virginia to Washington on behalf of the National Black Farmers Association to promote the rights of non-White farmers.

His lawsuit claims that Kilpatrick Townsend and Gingold recruited him to help them with their claim on behalf of Native Americans, and that Boyd worked from December 2009 until the claims legislation was passed in November 2010 and signed into law by President Obama in December 2010.

Boyd says he met with the senior advisors at the White House and with members of the United States House and Senate to promote the passage of the bill at the request of Kilpatrick Townsend and Gingold.

“Without Mr. Boyd’s exhaustive efforts, the settlement would not have been funded. Most importantly, without Mr. Boyd, Kilpatrick Townsend and Mr. Gingold would not have realized their $99 million payday,” the lawsuit states.

Shown here is a typical fracture of a panel in the pyramidion, the topmost section; such cracks were filled with strong adhesive

Anchors installed New anchor brackets connect shifted external marble panels to interior rib supports, adding stability

“the

funniest thing I’ve seen this year!”

GAmerFitnAtion

“one of the highest compliments i can pay to any film is to say

I can’t Wait to see It Again and that is absolutely true of ‘neighbors’.”

HitFix

“‘Neighbors’

delivers A film Worthy of constant Laughter.” stAsHed

“totally

Laugh out Loud!”

BlACkFilm

Examples of damage repaired during two-year operation Cracks, called spalls, and daylight showing in panel gaps

Monument completed Dec. 6, 1884

Bedrock an average depth of 80 ft. (18.3 m) below bottom of foundation; concrete and rocky rubble called gneiss

UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS A POINT GREY/GOOD UNIVERSE PRODUCTION A MUSIC NICHOLAS STOLLER FILM SETHCOSTUME ROGEN ZAC EFRON “NEIGHBORS” ROSEPRODUCTION BYRNE CHRISTOPHER MIDIRECTOR NTZ-PLASSE DAVE FRANCOEXECUTIVEBY MICHAEL ANDREWS DESIGNER LEESA EVANS OF EDITOR ZENE BAKER DESIGNER JULI E BERGHOFF PHOTOGRAPHY BRANDON TROST PRODUCERS NATHAN KAHANE JOE DRAKE BRI A N BELL ANDREWJAY COHEN BRENDAN O’BRIEN PRODUCEDBY SETH ROGEN EVANDIRECTEDGOLDBERG JAMES WEAVER WRITTENBY ANDREWJAY COHEN & BRENDAN O’BRIEN A UNIVERSAL RELEASE

BY NICHOLAS STOLLER SOUNDTRACK ON ATLANTIC RECORDS

© 2013 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Source: U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., John Milner Associates Inc. Graphic: Robert Dorrell

© 2013 MCT

checK LocAL LIstINGs for theAters ANd shoWtImes

S

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

Irreversible collapse of Antarctic glaciers has begun, studies say

BY SCOTT GOLD LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT

A slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun, and could cause sea levels to rise across the planet by another 4 feet within 200 years, scientists concluded in two studies released Monday.

Researchers had previously estimated that the cluster in the Amundsen Sea region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would last for thousands of years despite global climate change.

But the new studies found that the loss is underway now as warming ocean water melts away the base of the ice shelf, and is occurring far more rapidly than scientists expected.

Tied to climate change The warming water is tied to several environmental phenomena, including a warming of the planet driven by emissions from human activity and depleted ozone that has changed wind patterns in the area, the studies found.

“There is no red button to stop this,” said Eric Rignot, a University of California, Irvine professor of Earth system science and the lead author of one of the studies, conducted with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and scheduled for publication in a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The six glaciers have passed “the point of no return,” Rignot said, which means that total collapse – the melted retreat of the glaciers – cannot be prevented. “The only question is how fast it’s going to go.”

Antarctica, surrounding the South Pole, is the largest mass of ice on the planet, containing an estimated 80 percent of the world’s fresh water.

Massive amount Its scale is difficult to fathom. One environmental foundation said that if you loaded the ice onto cargo ships and started counting the vessels, one per second, it would take 860 years before you were finished counting.

The loss of even a portion of that ice would have consequences across the globe.

Scientists have surmised its possibility for decades, and have braced for confirmation, which in effect arrived Monday.

For the UCI-JPL study, scientists used 40 years’ worth of measurements, much of it data from satellite radar systems that can measure changes on Earth’s surface to within a quarter of an inch.

The data was used to measure the precise location of the glaciers’ socalled grounding lines – the point at which glaciers connect to a landmass. It is at this nexus where warmer ocean water encounters the ancient ice and causes it to retreat.

The problem compounds itself in several ways, scientists said.

The more grounding lines recede, for instance, the less glaciers weigh, which lifts them farther off Earth’s bedrock, which allows even more warm water to erode their foundations. Similarly, as the glaciers retreat into deeper portions of the ocean, their ice faces become steeper, rendering them increasingly unstable and increasingly exposed to warmer water.

B3

SCIENCE

Melting glaciers

Weddell Sea

ANTARCTICA

A research group has shown that glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector have shrunk so much that a larger portion of the glaciers now float where they once rested on land.

South Pole

Melting from below The glacier flows out from the land over the ocean, with its front edges afloat; ice loss is driven largely by warm water that weakens the ice from below

Amundsen Sea sector 600 km 600 miles

Cooler water Floating ice Glacier

Grounding line pushed inland

Original grounding line where glacier ice met ocean

Incoming warmer water

As warm water enters from below, the grounding line is moved farther inland, suggesting that an early-stage collapse of the glacier has already begun Source: NASA, UC Irvine, ESRI Graphic: Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune

The second study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and scheduled for publication in the journal Science, focused largely on one of the six glaciers, the Thwaites Glacier. Scientists attempted to pinpoint how quickly the giant Thwaites might disappear altogether, a development that by itself could cause global sea levels to rise by 2 feet.

Chaotic event That amount of sea level rise would have a chaotic impact. An unrelated study

© 2014 MCT

this year of the potential effect in Southern California, for instance, said that a sea level rise more modest than that would threaten portions of the Pacific Coast Highway, imperil coastal infrastructure such as power plants and wastewater treatment plants and exacerbate tides and storm surges in low-lying Los Angeles communities.

The University of Washington study used satellite measurements and computer models to determine that the Thwaites could melt in as little as 200 years,

or the melting could take as long as 1,000 years. Ian Joughin, a university glaciologist and the lead author of that study, said the most likely scenario is at the lower end of that range.

“There is quite a bit of ongoing destabilization,” he said, and the disappearance would begin slowly and accelerate over time, with no available “stabilizing mechanism.”

The Thwaites is an important test case because it is viewed as particularly unstable, and a linchpin for the stability of the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. As goes the Thwaites, many scientists fear, so goes the rest of the ice sheet – its disappearance would undermine the entire glacial system, exposing many more miles of grounding lines to the warming ocean water.

If the entire ice sheet disappeared, the global sea level could rise by a catastrophic 15 feet.

No surrender The scientists were careful to point out that an inevitability is not cause for surrender. The 800-year range for the time frame is enormous, they pointed out – and was driven by computer models that “turned up the knob and turned down the knob” on global temperatures driven by climate change, Joughin said. More emissions mean more melting and faster collapse, the researchers said, but the inverse is true, too.

“Eight hundred years is a long time,” Joughin said.

Obama hopes to win over voters with new focus on climate change

BY MAEVE RESTON AND KATHLEEN HENNESSEY TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU / MCT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – President Obama capped a weeklong focus on climate change with a push for greater energy efficiency, a pitch particular-

ly attuned to reaching two groups: big-dollar donors in the green movement and activists once inspired by his 2008 ambition to heal the planet.

Both groups will play a role in turning out Democratic voters in November, a crucial factor for the party’s hope to retain control of

the Senate. But Obama has faced palpable frustration among some supporters who had hoped for more progress on his 6-year-old promises.

Efforts abandoned Although he notched some early accomplish-

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ments, such as increasing fuel economy standards for automobiles and placing limits on air toxins from new power plants, he abandoned his pursuit of cap-and-trade and major energy legislation because of opposition in Congress.

More recently, though, Obama has pleased the environmental community by again delaying a decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which environmentalists oppose. And next month, the administration plans to issue major new regulations to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants.

Last week, the White House seized the moment to build greater credibility on climate change, a push timed to the administration’s release of a major report and a Senate debate over energy efficiency legislation.

Issue highlighted After the White House released the National Climate Assessment, which warned that the effects of climate change were immediate and widespread, Obama sought to highlight the issue in interviews with meteorologists, remarks at Democratic fundraisers across California and a speech last Friday.

The White House also touted the completion of a largely symbolic accomplishment – the installation of solar panels on the White House 28 years after President Ronald Reagan removed them and four years after Obama promised to put them back.

From a stage surrounded by racks of tube socks and glitter-encrusted flip-flops in a solar-powered WalMart store in Mountain View, Obama announced a series of corporate pledges to increase renewable energy use and several incremental steps to boost solar generation.

“Together, the commitments we are announcing today prove that there are cost-effective ways to tackle climate change and create jobs at the same time,” Obama said. “Inside of Washington, we’ve still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they’re wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate.”

Strategic shift The message was a notable detour for Demo-

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/MCT

Environment activists rallied in front of the White House in 2009 to call on the Obama administration to step up its efforts on climate change. crats, who have emphasized stagnant middle-class incomes and a higher minimum wage as their top-tier message in the midterm election. The shift reflects a strategy to use every lever to push the party’s base to the polls – and ensure that left-leaning groups have the money needed to execute that plan.

The White House said it believes its climate push speaks to voters across the spectrum.

“For voters, any time you’re taking an action that cuts pollution, it is as close as you can come to a position that has broad and deep appeal across the board,” said one White House official, who would not be named talking about the politics of what the administration said was a policy effort.

The official said the message resonated with some of the groups that Democrats are most worried may sit out the election – particularly young people, who view acceptance of climate change as a threshold issue.

A number of pollsters and political scientists said, however, that the approach has its limits. Many noted that the voters who would be most excited by Obama’s renewed focus on climate change formed a sliver of the electorate.

“There is a group of people who are intensely interested in climate change, but as a percentage of the American population, they are pretty small,” said Arthur Lupia, a political science professor at the University of Michigan.

Not a priority Only 29 percent of Americans believe global warming should be a top priority for the president and Congress, and it ranked second to last on a list of 20 issues, a Pew Research Cen-

ter survey found this year.

But a Gallup poll in March found that about 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they either worried a “fair amount” or a “great deal” about climate change.

Though young people tend to care more about the issue, John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard University Institute of Politics, noted that their “mood is so sour when it comes to politics and voting, frankly for both parties right now, that it’s unlikely that one issue will make a significant difference.”

At the same time, Della Volpe said, “There could be a series of these kinds of events between now and October where (the president) re-establishes a connection with this generation” and reinforces the notion “that there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans.”

But Stanford University professor Jon Krosnick, who has done extensive polling on climate change, said that his research on the 2008 and 2010 congressional elections showed clear evidence that candidates who publicized their support for tackling climate change gained an advantage with voters.

The president’s focus is a “smart move,” Krosnick said, “because it stands to address what is likely to be understandable feelings of disappointment and frustration among his potential Democratic supporters and independents … because he essentially made promises that he hasn’t been able to deliver on.”

Next month, when the administration unveils regulations to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants, the renewed attention to that issue could also activate the environmental donor community, which has sought a more assertive voice in the 2014 cycle.

SPORTS

B4

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

S

FSU leads way in state with seven NFL draft picks

BY MATT PORTER PALM BEACH POST /MCT

Like any NFL draft hopeful, Pat O’Donnell has plenty of confidence in his ability to play pro football. But when the phone rang?

“I was actually surprised,” he said.

The Chicago Bears were on the other line, making him one of several in-state players selected last week in the final four rounds. O’Donnell, a Hurricanes punter and former Palm Beach Central High standout, was taken in the sixth round with the 191st pick overall.

“I think there’s so much talent across the country,” he said, calling it a “huge honor” to hear his name called.

Tops in state

ROBERT GAUTHIER/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

No state program was honored more than national champion Florida State, which saw seven of its former players taken over the three-day draft. That was more than any school besides LSU (nine) and Alabama and Notre Dame (eight each).

Running back Devonta Freeman, center Bryan Stork (both fourth round) and fifth-rounder Telvin Smith joined first-rounder Kelvin Benjamin, secondrounders Lamarcus Joyner and Timmy Jernigan and third-rounder Terrence Brooks as newly minted NFLers.

Freeman, a 5-foot-8, 206-pound running back, was selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the 103rd overall pick. He rushed for 1,016 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2013, becoming the first 1,000-yard rusher in Tallahassee since Warrick Dunn in 1996.

Stork went to the New England Patriots with the 105th pick. A big center at 6-foot-4 and 315 pounds, the consensus All-American gives the Patriots a much-needed size upgrade in the middle.

Smith (6-3, 218), a speedy outside linebacker, was taken 144th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars took former Hurricanes guard Brandon Linder in the third round (93rd).

Four from UF Three Florida players were chosen on the draft’s second day, bringing the Gators’ total to four.

Florida State players Demarcus Walker, left, and EJ Levenberry celebrate with fans after the Seminoles beat the Auburn Tigers 34-31 to win the big-college football national championship in January.

Versatile defensive back Jaylen Watkins was drafted 101st overall by the Philadelphia Eagles, opening the fourth round. Outside linebacker Ronald Powell went 169th overall (fifth round) to the New Orleans Saints.

Guard Jon Halapio was selected in the sixth round by the Patriots (179th), joining teammate Dominique Easley (first round, 29th).

Aside from O’Donnell and Linder, the other Hurricanes player selected was offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson (seventh round, 237th, Buffalo Bills). He was once the nation’s top high school recruit, but Henderson had a rocky UM career marred by at least three suspensions and a positive test for marijuana at the NFL combine.

“He’s got one chance and one chance only,” ESPN analyst Bill Polian said of the pick.

Florida’s less-heralded programs also produced draft picks. The San Francisco 49ers took South Florida defensive end Aaron Lynch (fifth round, 150th) and Florida Atlantic cornerback Keith Reaser (fifth round, 170th). The Bills grabbed FAU outside linebacker Randell Johnson (seventh round, 221st).

UCF running back Storm Johnson,

a former Hurricane, reunited with his old UCF quarterback Blake Bortles (No. 3 overall pick) and old UM offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch when the Jaguars took him in the seventh round (222nd overall).

Eight ex-Hurricanes immediately signed pro deals, most notably quarterback Stephen Morris and receiver Allen Hurns, who joined Fisch and Linder in Jacksonville. Also signing: defensive tackle Justin Renfrow (Arizona), offensive lineman Jared Wheeler (Carolina), fullback Maurice Hagens (Atlanta), tight end Asante Cleveland (San Francisco), safety Kacy Rodgers II (Kansas City) and defensive end Shayon Green (Miami).

None of those deals were confirmed

by NFL teams.

Also quickly signed, per various reports: former FSU running back James Wilder Jr. (Cincinnati) and receiver Kenny Shaw (Cleveland), and ex-UF cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy (Denver), tight end Trey Burton (Philadelphia), receiver Solomon Patton (Tampa Bay), defensive tackle Damien Jacobs and linebacker Darrin Kitchens (both Buffalo).

Ex-Auburn kicker Cody Parkey, from Jupiter High, signed with Indianapolis.

Sam could fill role for Rams but faces tough competition

BY JIM THOMAS ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH / MCT

ST. LOUIS – There’s no doubt coach Jeff Fisher and general manager Les Snead had a sense of history when making the pick. But in the end, selecting University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam was a football decision.

So as the Rams approached their backto-back compensatory picks in Round 7 – Nos. 249 and 250 overall – the placard for “Michael Sam” was placed at the top of the board along with two or three other names.

The Rams ended up picking two of those names, one of them being Sam, the first openly gay player to get drafted in the National Football League.

“We picked him within the process,” Fisher said. “And we’re going to reduce this roster within the process.”

Best defensive line?

Which raises another point. Sam is joining what many observers regard as the one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL – if not the best.

When defensive tackle Aaron Donald of Pittsburgh was selected No. 13 overall, it meant the Rams had four firstround draft picks on their front four. The others: ends Chris Long and Robert Quinn, and defensive tackle Michael Brockers.

The other starting tackle, Kendall Lang-

ford, is entering the third year of a four-year, $22 million contract. In March, the team signed backup tackle Alex Carrington to a modest oneyear, $1.5 million contract (which could double in value if incentives are met). And the Rams have good backup ends in William Hayes and Eugene Sims.

That’s already eight bodies on the defensive line, not including Sam or tackles Jermelle Cudjo and Matt Conrath.

The Rams will only keep eight or nine, so it will be a tight squeeze for Sam.

‘Very competitive’ “Well, it’s going to be very competitive for him because of the depth and the talent level at the position,” Fisher said.

“He’s going to have to come in, and like the rest of his new teammates – these rookies – they’re not in shape. Not in the condition our veterans are in. He’s going to have to work to get in great shape and we’ll blend him in the offseason program and we’ll go.”

Snead added: “Tough group to make, but I think he brings an element that he’ll give some other guys a run for their money.”

And what is the “element” Sam will bring to the roster?

“He’s very versatile,” Fisher said. “He’s got good get-off. He’s got good hand use. He’s a relentless player. He’s a chase guy. How many tackles for loss? I think it was 19 tackles for loss, a big part of their success (at Mizzou).”

Sterling’s interview deepens anger over Clippers ownership

BY JAMES RAINEY, SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA AND LAURA J. NELSON LOS ANGELES TIMES / (MCT)

LOS ANGELES – In an extraordinary television interview that deepened the anger over his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling attacked Lakers great Magic Johnson, suggested that African-Americans have not done enough to help their community and blamed the media for creating the turmoil that envelopes his team and his family.

Sterling’s attempt to show contrition in his first public comments since he was banned from the NBA two weeks ago featured several broadsides against Johnson, one of the most beloved figures in American sports. Sterling also insisted that players, fans, sponsors and fellow owners continue to support him.

Wants to stay Alternatively apologetic, defiant and seemingly on the verge of tears, Sterling said he believed he can maintain his hold on the team he has owned for 33 years.

Although small portions of the interview had been released Sunday, the bulk of the conversation that aired Monday on CNN redoubled calls for Sterling to be expelled from the pro basketball league, just as the team is in the midst of its most successful season.

“He’s in a hole and he won’t quit digging,” Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson said.

Civil rights activist and commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson said Sterling had denigrated an iconic figure in the black community, adding, “It’s almost attacking Mount Rushmore.”

Shelly Sterling chimed in from New York, where she is expected to appear on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday: “These are the ravings of a sick, delusional man.”

Apology to Magic NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who already apologized to Johnson for Sterling’s initial remarks, issued another apology late Monday for “a malicious and personal attack” on Johnson. “The NBA Board of Governors is continuing with its process to remove Mr. Sterling as expeditiously as possible,” he said.

The controversy began April 25, when the gossip website TMZ posted an audio recording of Sterling telling a frequent courtside companion, V. Stiviano, that she should not be photographed with black people and should not bring them to Clippers games.

Sterling chastised her after seeing a picture she posted on Instagram of her posing with Johnson.

Days later, Silver fined Sterling $2.5 million, banned him from the league and called on other owners to force Sterling to sell the team he bought in 1981. Last week, the league appointed an interim chief executive to oversee the Clippers.

Dick Parsons, former chairman of Citigroup and Time Warner, arrived in Los Angeles Monday.

He said he hoped to bring calm and stability to the Clippers. His comments were only a few hours old when CNN broadcast Anderson Cooper’s interview with Sterling.

‘Baited’ into remarks Sterling touched on many subjects, and although he expressed remorse, he suggested that Stiviano, 31, had provoked him. “I was baited,” he said. “I mean, that’s not the way I talk.”

His harshest comments were aimed at Johnson, who the Clippers owner also accused of setting a poor example for children and of recently misleading Sterling, perhaps in a bid to buy his NBA team.

“What does he do for the black people? He doesn’t

GARY FRIEDMAN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

Donald Sterling, center,owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, watches the Clipper game against the Boston Celtics at Staples Center in Los Angeles, on on February 26, 2011. At left is Sterling’s wife, Rochelle. do anything,” Sterling said in the CNN interview, conducted in the billionaire’s Beverly Hills home. At another point, he added: “Can you tell me, big Magic Johnson, what has he done?

“Jews, when they get successful, they will help their people,” said Sterling, who is Jewish. “And some of the African-Americans – maybe I will get in trouble again – they don’t want to help anybody.”

Sterling said that Johnson had urged, just after the recording became public, that the Clippers owner not say anything. “I think he wanted me just to do nothing, so he could buy the team,” Sterling said. “He thought maybe the whole thing would be resolved in two weeks.”

‘He has AIDS’ Sterling attacked Johnson for being promiscuous during his playing days in the NBA. “Here is a man who is – I don’t know if I (should) say this. He acts so holy,” Sterling said. “I mean, he made love to every girl in every city in America. And he had AIDS.” Johnson announced in 1991 that he had the HIV virus that causes AIDS, but never contracted the dis-

ease. He previously apologized for having unprotected sex with many women, which he said led to his illness. He subsequently has been heralded by HIV activists for using his celebrity, and his wealth, to help enhance efforts to control the disease.

Johnson, part of the group that purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers, founded the Magic Johnson Foundation in 1991.

It has granted about $20 million to organizations that work on HIV-related issues, providing scholarships and technology to community centers, among other things.

Johnson has been praised for bringing businesses such as Starbucks and chain restaurants to underserved minority communities around the country. His theater complex in South Los Angeles has added jobs and entertainment options to an area that badly needed both.

More recently, Johnson teamed up with Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, a Los Angeles investment fund, to develop properties in urban neighborhoods.

The Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds targeted $8 billion for development and

revitalization in major U.S. metropolitan areas, managers said.

Blames media Sterling said that reports of players, fans and sponsors hating him were concocted or exaggerated.

“The media hates,” he said.

“The media – it’s all the media pushing it.”

Cooper responded: “You really believe that it’s just the media?” “I believe it 100 percent,” Sterling said.

He said he based this on feedback he had received: “People call me by the thousands and give me support.”

Sterling, 80, made a fortune estimated at $1.9 billion in the apartment rental business. He said he did not think the other 29 NBA owners would vote to strip him of the Clippers, as Silver has asked them to do.

He was vague about whether he would go to court to try to stop the owners if they voted to oust him, though he suggested he did not want to oppose their will, adding: “I don’t want to fight with my partners, you know?”

‘Deluding myself’ Sterling became most

emotional when asked to discuss his feelings for Stiviano. He described her as a “street person” who helped raise a family of 15 and who he admired for that. He said he remained confused why she had recorded their argument about Johnson and blacks.

“I mean ... an 80-year-old man is kind of foolish,” he said. “And I’m kind of foolish. I thought she liked me and really cared for me. I guess being 50 years, 51 years over – older than her, I was deluding myself.”

Sterling denied he was a racist and said that a quarter of the team’s fans were African-American and that he appreciated them. He said he only raised the issue of blacks coming to games with Stiviano after she told him, “I’m going to bring four gorgeous black guys to the game.”

Sterling said that somehow triggered his “stupid, uneducated remarks.” He added: “I was a little jealous, I have to admit.”

Steading the franchise Meeting with Clippers employees and the media for the first time since being named interim CEO, Parsons said his role is to provide a “steady hand,” while the NBA proceeds with its attempt to strip Sterling and his family of ownership.

Parsons said the determination in the eyes of Commissioner Silver persuaded him that the Sterling era would come to an end.

“My goodness,” Parsons said. “There’s so much momentum for doing the right thing and so much support for doing the right thing that at the end of the day, I believe ownership will change.”

Times staff writers Alicia Banks, Mike Bresnahan, Stuart Pfeifer and Roger Vincent contributed to this report.

STOJ

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

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.

Perrish Googins is a 2012 graduate of the University of South Carolina where he studied Information Management and Systems.

While at USC, he participated in track and field, and was a cheerleader.

He’s a personal trainer and coaches track, cheer, and song and dance.

The actor/ model enjoys playing the violin. Contact Perrish at www. facebook.com/ pharohgogg.

Christina Eliane is a Tampa resident who is outgoing, fun, and adventurous.

The 5’10 senior participated in collegiate basketball, and aspires to compete in the WNBA and become a supermodel.

T I PHOTOGRAPHY

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christina

perrish the larger-than-life action that’s taking place on screen (the film works even better on a 3-D IMAX screen; this sucker is huge).

But Edwards also makes you wait, teasing you with glimpses before you get to have a good look at his main attraction, the way Steven Spielberg teased the audience with the shark in “Jaws.”

“Godzilla” is so well-directed and assured – one highlight is a sequence depicting a train crossing a trestle bridge at night in which a monster is hiding in plain view of the characters and the audience – that you assume Edwards has been making films for a long time.

Limited experience

The remake of the Japanese classic “Godzilla” opens in theaters May 16.

New ‘Godzilla’ movie brings modern sensibility to iconic Japanese monster

BY RENE RODRIGUEZ THE MIAMI HERALD / MCT

“Godzilla,” director Gareth Edwards’ $160 million reboot of the classic monster, hasn’t even opened yet and already the movie is under attack.

According to The Japan Times, diehard fans of the creature have taken to the Internet to complain the United States has done a “Super Size Me” number on the giant fire-breathing lizard. “He got fat in America on Cola and pizza!” is a typical complaint. “Couch potato Godzilla” is another.

Criticism in stride “I don’t know which pictures they’ve seen, but I don’t think he’s fat,” the filmmaker says, chuckling. “He’s just big-boned.

Plus he’s middle-aged. You tend to get a little bulky.”

This is not meant to suggest that “Godzilla,” which opens May 16, is in any way campy or hu-

morous. Unlike the last time Hollywood tried to revive the popular monster (Roland Emmerich’s 1998 jokey, reviled misfire), the new film is dead serious in tone and mood, treating its central character and the theme of man vs. nature with the same gravity and seriousness director Ishiro Honda brought to the 1954 Japanese original.

“In the mid-1950s, Hollywood started a trend of films that addressed Cold War fears with science fiction allegories, but Japan had a special edge when it came to doing the same thing,” says David Kalat, author of “A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series.”

“When the first Godzilla film was made, Japan had endured wartime firebombings of Tokyo, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Hbomb tests in the Bikini Islands that killed Japanese citizens in peacetime and irradiated a significant amount of the food sup-

ply. They must have felt like the world was coming to an end.

“But because the country was still coming out of post-war censorship imposed by the American occupation forces, there was no way to talk about the massive cultural trauma openly. Godzilla was a way for Japan to address some of these traumas, safely disguised as a monster movie so no censors would get upset.”

Although he was originally intended as a metaphor for apocalyptic terror, Godzilla grew tamer and sillier in subsequent sequels and spinoffs over the decades, becoming a cartoonish, kidfriendly version of himself. Even Hanna-Barbera, the animation studio that spawned “The Flintstones” and “Scooby-Doo,” created a cartoon show in the 1970s built around the monster.

Different takes “There is no one Godzilla,” says Max Borenstein, who wrote

the screenplay for the new movie. “The first film is an allegory for nuclear warfare, and Godzilla is explicitly a walking manifestation of the atomic bomb. That evolved into so many reiterations over time that every movie has a different take on the monster and what he represents.

“We had to look back and find the common denominator in all of his incarnations and ask, ‘What feels resonant now? What are the visceral fears of today?’

The answer we settled on is that Godzilla is a vessel for the fears of all humanity – a force of nature that is so beyond our control, he reminds us we are mere insects on this planet.”

Unlike Michael Bay’s “Transformers” franchise, which features giant robots duking it out in fights so frantically edited they’re often incomprehensible, Edwards uses a refreshingly different approach to “Godzilla,” holding on the monster for long shots so you can process

But at 38, he has only one previous movie to his credit: 2010’s “Monsters,” a sci-fi thriller about two Americans trying to escape a region of Mexico invaded by giant extra-terrestrials. Shot at a cost of $500,000, with Edwards doing all the special effects work on his laptop, the film grossed a measly $237,301 in the United States – hardly a calling card for a giant tentpole studio picture.

“I never expected this in a million years,” Edwards says. “When we were filming ‘Monsters,’ we were driving around Mexico in a van wondering if the movie was even going to work. If someone had said at that point the next movie you’re going to make is ‘Godzilla,’ I would have had a heart attack. But when I got the offer, I had to take it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. What’s the point of life if you don’t take any risks? The hard part was just blocking out all the pressure and public opinion and concentrating on the movie we wanted to make.”

Regardless of how it fares domestically, “Godzilla” is practically guaranteed to be a huge hit overseas when it opens there in July.

“I really enjoyed conceiving this movie, and I hope audiences have the same reaction to the film that I did while we were making it. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

But I will never be able to see the movie the way you do. I can only see the places where we put the backlight or which take we used in any particular scene. I’m just too close to it to sit back and enjoy it.”

F0OD

B6

MAY 16 – MAY 22, 2014

TOJ

ALASKA SALMON PESTO PASTA SALAD Prep time: 25 minutes Servings: 8 to 10 8 ounces dry, small shell pasta 2 to 3 teaspoons garlic, finely minced 1/2 cup prepared basil pesto 1/2 cup light Italian salad dressing 1 zucchini, cut in 1/2-inch half-moon slices 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved 1 small red onion, thinly sliced 3/4 cup frozen peas, defrosted 1 can (14.75 ounces) traditional pack Alaska salmon or 2 cans or pouches (6 to 7.1 ounces each) skinless, boneless salmon, drained and chunked Salt and pepper, to taste Cook pasta according to package directions; drain well. Let cool slightly then toss with garlic, pesto and dressing. Set aside.

Cook zucchini in covered microwav­able container on high 2 minutes or until just tender and bright green.

Toss blanched zucchini, tomatoes, onion and peas into pasta and stir to combine.

Gently fold in drained salmon; season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately or chill before serving.

Nutrients per serving: 310 calories (46% from fat), 16 g total fat, 3 g saturated fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 17 g protein, 26 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 485 mg sodium, 214 mg calcium and 1300 mg omega-3 fatty acids

FROM FAMILY FEATURES

You’ve probably heard that eating seafood rich in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids can help protect against heart disease while delivering other important nutrients. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recom­mends eating seafood twice a week for such benefits. Salmon is one fish long-heralded for its nutritional value, and Alaska canned salmon offers a convenient way to add more deliciously nourishing seafood to your diet.

Whether your tastes lean toward a traditional croquette drizzled with a light dill

sauce, or a refreshing take on a pesto pasta salad, canned salmon is easy to prepare and surprisingly versatile.

Because canned and pouched salmon is shelf-stable, you can always have some on hand for a quick, tasty meal or flavorful snack. At the grocery store, simply look for “Alaska” on the lid or label to ensure a topquality, wholly natural product with nothing added but a pinch of salt for flavor.

These recipes showcase how Alaska canned salmon can be adapted to a wide range of meals and life­styles, from the indulgent to the über-healthy. For additional preparation tips and recipes, visit www. wildalaskaseafood.com.

ALASKA SALMON SALAD SANDWICHES Prep time: 15 minutes Servings: 4 1 can (14.75 ounces) traditional pack Alaska salmon or 2 cans or pouches (6 to 7.1 ounces each) skinless, boneless salmon, drained and chunked 1/3 cup light mayonnaise 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon capers, drained, chopped if large (optional) 1/3 cup finely diced celery 1/3 cup finely diced onion 1/4 cup dill or sweet pickle relish, drained Dash Tabasco sauce or pinch of black pepper 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried dill weed 8 slices whole-grain bread 24 thin slices cucumber 4 leaves green or red leaf lettuce In medium bowl, combine salad ingredients. Add salmon and stir to combine well.

Divide salad among 4 slices of bread. Top each with 6 slices of cucumber and a leaf of lettuce. Top with remaining slices of bread and cut in half, crosswise.

Nutrients per serving: 381 calories (36% from fat), 15 g total fat, 3 g saturated fat, 65 mg cholesterol, 27 g protein, 34 g carbohy­drate, 5 g fiber, 1236 mg sodium, 291 mg calcium and 1900 mg omega-3 fatty acids

ALASKA SALMON AND CHIPOTLE WRAP Prep time: 15 minutes Servings: 4 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice 1 tablespoon chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 2 tablespoons chopped red bell pepper 1 to 2 tablespoons chopped red onion 1 teaspoon chopped garlic 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1 can (14.75 ounces) traditional pack Alaska salmon or 2 cans or pouches (6 to 7.1 ounces each) skinless, boneless salmon, drained and chunked 3 tablespoons light cream cheese or light sour cream 1 teaspoon adobo sauce 4 whole wheat tortillas (8-inch) 4 large lettuce or cabbage leaves, shredded In bowl, mix lime juice, chiles, cilantro, bell pepper, red onion, garlic, salt and pepper.

Gently stir in salmon until blended.

In small bowl, blend cream cheese and adobo sauce. Spread 1/4 mixture over each tortilla to within 1 inch of edge. Spread 2/3 cup salmon mixture over cream cheese.

Top with 1/4 of lettuce and roll up burritostyle. Repeat for remaining tortillas.

• For appetizers, cut each wrap into thirds (makes 12 appetizer servings).

• As a meal, cut each wrap in half (makes 4 entree servings).

Serve immediately.

Nutrients per serving (4 entrees): 305 calories, 8.5 g total fat, 2 g saturated fat, 25% calories from fat, 88 mg cholesterol, 32.5 g protein, 26.5 g carbohydrate, 4 g fiber, 1228 mg sodium, 130.5 mg calcium and 1290 mg omega-3 fatty acids ALASKA SALMON CAKES WITH YOGURT DILL SAUCE Prep time: 21 minutes Servings: 4 1 egg 1/4 cup small-curd nonfat cottage cheese 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill weed 1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning 1/4 cup sliced green onions 1 can (14.75 ounces) traditional pack Alaska salmon or 2 cans or pouches (6 to 7.1 ounces each) skinless, boneless salmon, drained and chunked 3 tablespoons garlic-and-herb bread crumbs Vegetable oil Yogurt Dill Sauce In medium bowl, whisk egg lightly. Add cottage cheese, dill, lemon pepper and green onions; mix well. Mix in drained salmon, then sprinkle in bread crumbs and mix well. Shape mixture into 4 patties, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and 3 inches in diameter.

Heat nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and brush skillet with oil. Fry salmon cakes for about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes per side.

Cakes should be crisp and golden on the outside and still moist on the inside.

Serve with Yogurt Dill Sauce.

THE MANY BENEFITS OF SALMON Alaska canned pink salmon has four times the omega-3s EPA and DHA, and 12 times the vitamin D as many popular canned meats and fish.

It also has 25 percent of adults’ Recommended Daily Allowance for calcium and nearly meets the daily reference amount for selenium.

Traditional pack canned salmon contains skin and delicate, edible bones that are rich in calcium and magnesium. Pressure-cooked in the can, they are so soft they can be easily blended into the salmon, adding extra nutrients and flavor. Skinless, boneless Alaska salmon is also available in cans and pouches.

Pink salmon — the variety commonly found in cans — has a light color and mild flavor, while red salmon (or sockeye) has a richer, more intense flavor and color.

YOGURT DILL SAUCE 1/2 cup nonfat yogurt 1 1/2 teaspoons finely minced fresh garlic Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried dill weed 1/4 cup grated cucumber (squeeze dry) Mix yogurt and garlic, and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in dill and cucumber.

Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve.

Nutrients per serving: 217 calories (34% from fat), 8 g total fat, 2 g saturated fat, 112 mg cholesterol, 27 g protein, 8 g carbo­ hydrate, 0.5 g fiber, 897 mg sodium, 320 mg calcium and 1800 mg omega-3 fatty acids