Daily Challenge 6-14-11

PROGRAM TO FAST TRACK STUDENTS, REDUCE DROPOUT RATE - PG. 3 NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

THE NATION’S ONLY BLACK DAILY 35 Cents

Final

PLAXICO BURRESS TO WARN CHILDREN AWAY FROM GUNS

Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, a week after his release from prison on gun charges, pledged to preach against gun violence to the nation’s children. Photo: Burress, seated, accompanied by his wife

Tiffany, Marc Morial, left, President and CEO of the National Urban League, and Paul Helmke, right, President of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, signs a pledge agreement.

SEE PAGE 3.

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

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N E W S B RI E F S OBAMA: WEINER’S ACTIONS ARE A “DISTRACTION” Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One today, a White House spokesman said President Barack Obama thinks Congressman Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal is “inappropriate” and a “distraction.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney would not say whether Obama thinks that Weiner should resign, saying that the president and Congress need to focus on the U.S. economy and safety issues.

The House of Representatives is going back into session today, but the Brooklyn-Queens representative is on a leave of absence while he undergoes treatment for his habit of online dalliances.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the national Democratic Party head, called on Weiner to resign over the weekend.

Representative Steny Hoyer, the number-two House Democrat, said it would be “extremely difficult” for Weiner to represent his constituents efficiently.

Yesterday, more lewd pictures of Weiner were released by the gossip website TMZ. They show Weiner both undressed and in exercise clothes, posing in the House gym.

Weiner has said he did not use any congressional resources for his communication with women, but the photos taken in the government gym blur that line.

TMZ says Weiner sent the photos to at least one woman online.

People outside of Weiner’s office in Forest Hills, Queens agreed this morning that the congressman is in a tough spot.

“I don’t know if he should resign or not, but it does appear the pressure for him to leave office in significant,” said one Queens resident.

“And recently Nancy Pelosi asked him to leave, so I think that it would count for something. I think ultimately he will have to leave.”

BROOKLYN MAN CHARGED WITH BRIGHTON BEACH SHOOTING A Brooklyn man was arrested in connection with the shooting on the Brighton Beach boardwalk that left a 16-year-old girl dead last week.

Iloune Driver, 19, was charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to cause serious injury.

Tysha Jones was shot dead when police say two men opened fire on the boardwalk Thursday afternoon.

Four men in their 20s who were also shot survived.

The aftermath of the shooting was caught on cellphone video.

Investigators say the gunmen meant to shoot someone in Jones’ group, and that the shooting was in response to an earlier fight on the beach.

Police are still looking for the other shooter. Anyone with information on his whereabouts should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.

Obama jobs-creation panel suggests modest steps

By ALISTER BULL DURHAM, North Carolina — With few tools left to heal the economy, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to act on job-boosting ideas from a panel of top executives whose modest proposals fell short of a quick fix for stubbornly high unemployment.

Obama’s jobs council, led by General Electric Corp chief Jeffrey Immelt, called for measures to cut red tape, provide more loans and invest in construction, manufacturing, healthcare and tourism, many of which have been suggested before.

The president, whose 2012 re-election prospects hinge heavily on his ability to boost the sagging economy and create jobs, said he was “excited” by the panel’s recommendations but made no specific commitments.

The president faces strong opposition to any new spending from Republicans who control the House of Representatives.

“I promise you we we’re going to act on a range of these recommendations,” Obama said, pointing out that the private sector could adopt many of the panel’s ideas.

“There are some common-sense ideas that we can all embrace to make ourselves more competitive that should not be subject to the usual political gamesmanship.”

With a raft of opinion polls show-

ing Americans unhappy with Obama’s stewardship of the economy, he has been counting on fresh ideas from the jobs council, which also includes the CEOs of Eastman Kodak, American Express, DuPont and Xerox.

Monday marked the second meeting of the full panel, which Obama inaugurated in March to brainstorm on the economy and find ways to encourage business growth and employment.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, dismissed the North Carolina event as a “photo op” and signaled more pressure from Congress on Obama to cut deficits, not spend more in the run-up to the election.

“Photo ops with business leaders only reinforce that no one in this administration has ideas to create the private sector jobs our economy desperately needs,” he said. “Republicans have a Plan for American Job Creators, and we hope the president will work with us to implement it.”

Analysts see little scope for the president to deliver much more economic stimulus with Republicans opposing any more government spending that adds to the U.S. debt and deficit.

Obama said an agreement between the White House and Republicans on raising the federal government’s $14.3 trillion debit limit and cutting the U.S. deficit, which is estimated to

reach $1.4 trillion this year, could help give businesses the confidence to hire more workers.

“The steps that we take do not have to create a sudden drastic cliff in 2012 or 2013 while the economy is still recovering. We have a 10-year time horizon and a 20-year time horizon that we are offering off of. That gives us a little bit of room to do smart things,” he said.

A weak jobs report in May, in which unemployment rose to 9.1 percent from 9 percent in April, hardened national unease over the economy, which many Americans think has barely climbed out of recession.

Immelt outlined the jobs council’s proposals in an opinion piece with American Express Co. boss Ken Chenault in The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

“The economic decisions we make now will determine American job creation and competitiveness in the years to come. Government, business and labor need to work together to get this done,” the two chief executives said.

Southern Baptists poised for historic election

By TRAVIS LOLLER NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The man expected to be in the running to become the first African-American in the No. 2 position of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination didn’t choose to become a Southern Baptist. By Fred Luter Jr.’s account, it just sort of happened.

In 1986, Luter was hired at the head pastor at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliate. Ever since, he has been breaking racial barriers in the predominantly white denomination.

In 1992, he was the first AfricanAmerican elected to the executive board of the Louisiana Baptist Convention. In 2001, he was the first African-American to preach the convention sermon at the SBC annual meeting.

When the Southern Baptist Convention elects new officers at its annual conference in Phoenix beginning Tuesday, the 54-year-old Luter will be in the running for first vice-president.

And some prominent Southern Baptist leaders already have said they hope that position will lead to his election as president next year when the 2012 convention is held in Luter’s hometown.

Luter said he doesn’t want to speculate on that.

“I’m a street kid from the Lower

Ninth Ward of New Orleans,” Luter said in an interview on Friday. “It’s very humbling. It’s really an honor just to be nominated.”

Technically, Luter hasn’t been nominated yet. But Danny Akin, President of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., has already announced that he will nominate Luter.

“To my knowledge, no one has announced to run against him,” Akin said, “and I would be very surprised if anyone does.”

Akin called Luter a “much-loved, much-respected pastor” who “can be elected on his own merits regardless of skin color.”

The move to elect Luter comes at the same time the SBC is making a push for greater participation among what it sometimes calls its “nonAnglo” members in the life of the convention, particularly in leadership roles.

Luter’s church is one of an estimated 3,400 black churches in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, a small minority of more than 45,700 total SBC-affiliated churches with about 16 million members total.

In 1994, the convention elected its first African-American to an executive position when the Rev. Gary Frost was named second vice president. In 1995, the denomination issued an apology to blacks for slavery. That same year, Luter was elected to succeed Frost as second vice president.

The push for increasing minority participation comes at a time of decline for the SBC. According to figures released on Thursday by the denomination’s Lifeway Christian Resources, baptisms were down almost 5 percent in 2010 over 2009.

Total membership declined slightly, by 0.15 percent to 16,136,044, the fourth straight year of decline.

Statistics on the number of ethnic churches have not yet been released, but Roger S. Oldham, SBC vice president for convention communications and relations, said they have been growing.

Ethnic congregations made up about 13 percent of SBC churches in 1998. That had increased to 18 percent by 2008, with African-American and Hispanic congregations each making up about 6 percent of SBC churches, Asian churches at about 3 percent and other ethnic churches making up another 3 percent.

The SBC’s executive committee released recommendations in February for increasing minority participation in the denomination. The group will present those recommendations this week. They include encouraging the president to give special attention to appointing ethnically diverse representatives to SBC committees and encouraging the officials who organize annual meetings to make sure those speaking during the program represent the diversity of the denomination.

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

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NFL’s Plaxico Burress to warn children away from guns Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, a week after his release from prison on gun charges, pledged yesterday to preach against gun violence to the nation’s children.

The 2008 Super Bowl star said the volunteer effort was the right move after serving nearly all of his 20month sentence for weapons possession.

In November, 2008, Burress carried a gun into a Manhattan nightclub and accidentally shot himself in the leg.

“I paid a tremendous price for a bad decision,” said Burress at a news conference organized by his partners in the effort, the National Urban League and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

“All those 20 months and all those days I was saying to myself how can I take the next step and how can people learn from what happened to me,” he said.

Plaxico Burress, center, is flanked by retired Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, left, and Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, during a news conference.

Burress, 33, who hopes to return to play in the National Football League, said he plans to speak with audiences around the country and

will be mentored by former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who has helped disgraced football star Michael Vick resurrect his reputation.

His particular focus will be convincing children to stay in school and stay away from guns because “kids will listen to a person like myself,” Burress said.

“I know that I won’t be able to save everybody. But if I can just help a child to think about the decision of carrying a firearm or making the decision not to carry one out of the home that... saves lives in itself,” Burress said.

Burress caught the game-winning pass in the last minute of New York’s 17-14 upset of the unbeaten New England Patriots in the Super Bowl 42 in February, 2008.

Released by the Giants following the shooting incident, he has been expected to market his talents as an NFL free agent once the ongoing labor dispute between NFL owners and players is resolved.

“I’m a champion on the field and my goal is to be a champion in life and off the field,” Burress said.

Program to fast track students, reduce dropout rate

By SHERNAY WILLIAMS Special to the NNPA from the AFRO-American newspapers It’s a crisis that in 2010, President Barack Obama declared cannot be accepted or ignored—high school dropout rates. Roughly 1.2 million students renounce school every year, the White House reported, and about half of the dropouts are Black or Latino.

Obama vowed to pour $900 million worth of grants into states and school districts that undergo sweeping reforms to address the issue, and two alternative public high schools in Baltimore City plan to do just that.

The schools may not have ties to Obama’s grant initiative, but this fall, Reginald F. Lewis and W.E.B. DuBois high schools in East Baltimore are launching a joint, accelerated program that will cater to older students that are roughly two or more years behind their peers in academic credits.

The goal is to put the “over-aged and under-credited” students on a faster and more accommodating pace toward graduation—offering flexible bell schedules, combined classes, and non-traditional classrooms.

“If we do nothing, it’s a high probability that they will drop out,” said Reginald F. Lewis Principal Barney Wilson, who is working with W.E.B. DuBois Principal Delores Berry Binder on the endeavor.

The school officials have identified 170 students that qualify for the voluntary program.

Earlier this year, Wilson said, the principals were approached by school district leaders to develop an innovative plan to encourage students that are truant or falling behind academically to remain in school.

“We have to decide as a system to be educational leaders or followers and the city has decided to be leaders,” Wilson said.

High school officials traveled to New York to visit schools with like-

minded programs and held focus groups with targeted students and their families to ask what would motivate them to stay in school and earn their diploma.

The students “overwhelmingly” said they would attend the accelerated program, Wilson said, if classes were held in a non-traditional setting and were more engaging.

“In their hearts, they do want to graduate and they do want to succeed,” he said. “And they have ideas; it’s just that no one ever asked them.”

Wilson adds that school officials are serious about considering student input for many aspects of the new program including its future name, mascot, and colors.

Accelerated students will take classes in a separate wing of the W.E.B. DuBois and Reginald F. Lewis’s shared school building. Construction for that division is scheduled for this summer.

Instead of a two semester structure with four or six classes at a time, as is customary, accelerated students could have trimester or even five semester grading periods and enroll in seven or eight classes at a time.

Classes would also be interdisciplinary; courses such as world literature and history would be combined—not only allowing students to earn more credits, but gain a deeper understanding of the content, officials say.

The classroom structure would also be nontraditional—chair rows would be eliminated, students would work in groups more frequently and portfolios and projects would be considered as varying means of measuring student progress.

Participating students would choose whether to begin their school day in the morning or afternoon, giving them the opportunity to have a set work schedule.

Wilson said it will take “out-of-thebox thinking” to successfully tackle the dropout rate.

“We keep using models that we observed and imitated in our own upbringing without taking the time

to reinvent and modernize education,” he said. “If what we had in place worked, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

Researchers say varying factors impede teenagers from earning their diploma including the need to work to support their families, fear of walking through troubled neighborhoods to get to school, embarrassment about learning disabilities or behavioral problems, and some might even have criminal records and restrictions on when they can leave their home.

Cameroon E. Miles, founder and director of Mentoring Male Teens in the Hood, who’s worked with young adults at Reginald F. Lewis High School, said that’s why schools can’t approach school with the “one-sizefits-all” mentality.

“Anything the schools can do to

help young people get through and get their diploma to move on is a positive thing,” Miles said.

He’s pleased, he added, that Reginald F. Lewis and W.E.B. DuBois leaders are working closely with teens to formulate the accelerated program.

“Too many times we create a program for young people and we haven’t asked them what they want, especially in the juvenile justice system,” he said.

The program is still in the development stages as school officials plan for the fall and search for a program director.

A spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Public School System confirmed the program, and said district leaders will be “putting the finishing touches on it” within the next few weeks.

Nigerian woman guilty of ‘modern day slavery’ WASHINGTON — A Nigerian woman has been convicted of human trafficking and several other charges after forcing two women to work unpaid for her for years, in what prosecutors called “a case of modern day slavery.”

Bidemi Bello, 41, was convicted by a federal jury Friday of eight counts: two counts of forced labor, two counts of trafficking for forced labor, one count of document servitude, one count of alien harboring and two counts of making false statements in an application to become a US citizen.

“The defendant both physically abused and psychologically intimidated these women for her own personal gain,” said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, after a verdict was reached in the week-long trial.

“This was a case of modern day slavery hidden within an expensive home in an upscale neighborhood,” said US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Sally Quillian Yates.

“The two women who were abused here thought they were going to be

nannies; instead they were treated inhumanely.

“The laws of the United States protect all victims from such abuse, regardless of where they came from or how they came to be in the United States,” Yates said.

According to evidence and testimony presented during the trial, the two women were separately recruited in Nigeria by Bello and brought to the United States to work as her nanny.

The Nigerian woman had promised to send the young women to school in the United States, and in the case of one victim, had promised to pay her as well.

But the testimony showed, however, that once in the United States, Bello became verbally and physically abusive to both young women, who were forced to sleep on the floor even though her upscale home had multiple bedrooms and bathrooms. They were given little to eat and forced to work unreasonably long days in harsh conditions.

Officials said sentencing for Bello has been set for August.

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

FORUM

Latest right-wing lie: Obama made the economy worse

By GEORGE E. CURRY

THOMAS H. WATKINS

Child Watch -

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Give conservatives credit: They have a loud echo chamber.

It usually begins with a lie or, at best, a clever distortion, and the rest of the right-wing crowd are immediately off to the races. The most recent example is the assertion that President Obama made the economy worse.

That point was advanced in a Wall Street Journal column by Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and, briefly, George W. Bush. She is the author of 10 books, including When Character was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan and The Case Against Hillary Clinton.

In her attempt to make a case against Obama, Noonan wrote in the June 3 Wall Street Journal:

“Two years ago I wrote of Clare Booth Luce’s observation that all presidents have a sentence: ‘He fought to hold the union together and end slavery.’

‘He brought America through economic collapse and a world war.’ You didn’t have to be told it was Lincoln or FDR. I said that Mr. Obama didn’t understand his sentence. But Republicans think they know it. “Four words: He made it worse.

“Obama inherited collapse, deficits and debt. He inherited a broken political culture. These things weren’t his fault. But through his decisions, he made them all worse.”

Fox, the network that likes to blame all bad things on Obama all the time, was quick to amplify what is certain to be a GOP campaign theme in 2012.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said dur-

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COLMES: They made it better.

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O”REILLY: … For you to sit there and say the Obama administration has not made it worse.

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ing a June 7 Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, “…And I think you can argue strongly that the Obama administration made it worse. In the midterm election last year, the idea that Republicans ran on was that he’s a left liberal. What they’re going to run on in 2012 is he’s a failure. He tried all of this stuff. He promised us we’d get improvement, and it hasn’t worked. It was a huge Keynesian experiment, and it hasn’t panned out.”

Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox, argued Peggy Noonan’s point against resident liberal Alan Colmes [June 7].

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Remembering the Chaldean Model

By HARRY C. ALFORD Part II I got my first promotion and was transferred to the Windy City known as Chicago. Chi-town was very, very good to me. I was single and in good shape with my military physique still intact. It was competitive to me to win the prettiest girl in the room. We would go to the Playboy Club and I would come out with a bunny. I earned the nickname “Killer”. Besides that, the skills I learned in the grocery distribution and product marketing business from Detroit came in very handy. My team was constantly hitting “homeruns” from the western suburbs. In 10 months, I was promoted again and transferred to Buffalo, NY. Upstate New York was totally different from Chicago or Detroit. I was there a year and hated every minute of it, except for a few great jazz clubs in Buffalo and the proximity of Toronto. When my boss asked me if I would be willing to go back to Detroit, I jumped up and started dancing. Now my career was back in stride again. The Chaldean store owners were equally happy. They never had a representative of a major corporation, like Johnson & Johnson, treat them

with respect and true friendship.

The only major chain to stay in inner city Detroit was Farmer Jack and it was a great decision. The Chaldeans and Farmer Jack were growing big time as they filled the void left by stores like Chatham, Kroger and Great Scott, who gave up on the Black communities of inner Detroit. As their business rolled so did ours. The national average market share for Johnson & Johnson Disposable Diapers was 8.5 percent. In Detroit, we had a share of 42 percent. We were the leaders and the predominantly white managed division of this Fortune 100 company was perplexed. I had five sales reps and four were Black and the white sales rep wore an impressive Afro. We were blazing the trail thanks to Farmer Jack and the entrepreneurial Chaldeans.

Most corporations would entertain clients with dinners, plays or baseball games. We would take our clients to a Thomas Hearns boxing match or a Pistons basketball game.

They were as much “street” as us and we were almost like family.

They enjoyed giving us more store shelf space and bigger displays along with more newspaper advertising. We were on first name basis; knew the names of their wives and children and would always let them know that we gratefully appreciated

Latest right-wing lie Continued from page 4 O’REILLY: — is for you to just ignore the statistics.

Clearly, Bill O’Reilly is the one ignoring the statistics.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a report issued last month on the effectiveness of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, noted that President Obama’s economic stimulus plan had helped local and state governments by raising federal matching funds under Medicaid and increased funding for transportation projects.

The stimulus program also provided tax relief for individuals and businesses, increased business write-offs and helped people in need by extending and expanding unemployment benefits as well as increasing benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the Food Stamps program.

According to the CBO, the stimulus program had the following effects in the first quarter of 2011: · Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) between 1.1 percent and 3.1 percent · Lowered the unemployment rate between 0.6 percentage points and 1.8

percentage points · Increased the number of people employed between 1.2 million and 3.4 million · Increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by 1.6 million to 4.6 million compared with what would have happened otherwise The Center on Policy and Budget Priorities, an independent think tank in Washington, noted that economic activity as measured by inflationadjusted gross domestic product (GDP) was contracting when the financial stabilization bill known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were enacted.

Since then, however, the economy has grown for seven straight quarters.

Media Matters, the watchdog group, observed: “Economists also agreed that the stimulus was effective.

A March 2010 study in the Wall Street Journal found that 70 percent of economists surveyed said the stimulus ‘boosted growth and mitigated job losses.’ ABC News reported on February 18, 2010, that most of the economists on its panel thought the economy ‘would be worse today without the big aid package.’ And a February 2010 survey of 203 members of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) found that

their businesses. After all, they made us look special to our upper management.

Each Chaldean store was like a clan. All the stores together became one great tribe. When challenges would appear they would come together and deal with them directly. A fine example is when Allied Food Distributors filed for bankruptcy. Its rival, Grosse Pointe Quality, made a daring move. It upped the costs of its services to all Chaldean stores without fearing the Chaldeans had any options. The tribe thought it through. They went to the fragile Allied and cut this deal: All Chaldean stores will immediately do all business with Allied, if they would meet this attractive cost. This would swell their business and get them out of bankruptcy (pleasing their stockholders). Allied agreed and soon they were out of bankruptcy. On the other hand, Grosse Pointe Quality’s business fell through the “floor” and it was them now in bankruptcy with little hope for the future. The tribe told Allied we were glad to help you and let’s be friends forever. Then the tribe did something that was absolutely bodacious. They went to the bankruptcy court and bought out Grosse Pointe Quality Foods. Now they owned their own distribution cen‘eighty-three percent believe that GDP is currently higher than it would have been without the 2009 stimulus package.”

Those are the statistics that Bill O’Reilly chooses to ignore.

None of this campaign to blame Obama for everything wrong in America should be surprising. It is part of a pattern by conservatives: Make up an outrageous lie – such as the President was not born in the United States and is therefore unqualified to hold office – keep repeating that lie over and over until a large segment of ill-informed people believe it and even when the lie is proven to be

5

ter, which meant they can now buy goods at factory price and deal directly with the manufacturers.

Their future became most bright.

Keep in mind this success story was possible because the Black community of Detroit could not figure out how to sell groceries to themselves (lack of entrepreneurship). The white man’s “ice” was colder and the Chaldean “ice” was the coldest.

The Chaldean community did not rest on the above success. They took their profits and started expanding their business ownership of inner Detroit. Gas stations, dry cleaners, real estate offices, etc.

They created an entrepreneurial kingdom right there in the hood.

All the while, they started moving their families to the northern suburbs such as Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, etc. Their children were applying and being accepted to the University of Michigan, University of Detroit, Michigan State University, and other prestigious schools.

Soon their lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants, etc. will be members of the tribe. Oh yes, their political PACs are the most respected by local elected officials.

The Chaldeans now have great political clout. They followed the four principals of Booker T. Washington and became a great American story.

— Mr. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®.

Website: www.nationalbcc.org.

Email: halford@nationalbcc.org. a lie, continue claiming it is the truth while you make up yet another lie.

Perhaps we should send O’Reilly and the folks at Fox News the lyrics to Sunshine Anderson’s Heard it all Before: “Heard it all before. All of ya lies…But your lies ain’t working now.”

— George E. Curry, former editorin-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him atwww.twitter.com/currygeorge.

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Obama pledges $250 million to upgrade aging U.S. electric grid

By BRIAN WINGFIELD The Obama administration outlined a plan to upgrade the U.S. electric grid, providing as much as $250 million in loans for rural towns and urging steps that would bar utilities from using market power to raise prices.

The strategy encourages state and federal regulators to favor “smart-grid” technologies such as advanced meters that can increase energy efficiency. It advises protections for consumers anti-competitive against actions as companies develop services to take advantage of new technologies.

State and U.S. antitrust agencies should “address the possibility that some firms with substantial market power are in a position to impede the market entry of new products and energy management applications,” according to the plan released today.

The administration is seeking to coordinate public and private efforts in replacing aging infrastructure as federal and state agencies adopt measures to encourage development of renewable

energy such as wind and solar power.

President Barack Obama wants to put 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 and double clean-energy use in the U.S. by 2035. Congress is considering measures to protect the grid from cyber attacks.

The U.S. government invested $4.5 billion in grid upgrades in the 2009 stimulus bill, matched by $5.5 billion in private investment.

Investor-owned utilities are planning at least $61 billion in high-voltage power-line projects through 2021, according to the Edison Elec-

tric Institute, a Washingtonbased industry group.

Smart-grid policies have been adopted in 25 states, creating a patchwork of different approaches, according to the White House plan.

“While there is no one-sizefits-all set of smart-grid solutions, there are important unifying policy strategies that can advance U.S. leadership in the 21st century clean-energy economy,” according to “A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid” issued by the administration.

The White House plan has

four goals: spurring innovation, speeding investment to help cut utility bills, giving consumers greater control over their energy use and steps to secure the grid against cyber attacks. It also allocates $250 million in loans through the Agriculture Department to promote grid upgrades in rural communities.

“By unlocking the potential of innovation in the electric grid, we are allowing consumers and businesses to use energy more efficiently even as we help utilities provide cleaner energy and more reliable service,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a statement.

Regulators “should strive to reduce the generation costs associated with providing power” during periods of extreme temperatures, when electricity costs are highest, according to the White House plan.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in March adopted a rule to promote smart-grid technologies and energy efficiency. The rules may aid companies such as EnerNoc Inc. of Boston and Comverge Inc. of Norcross,

Georgia, which provide utilities and consumers with software and hardware to improve energy efficiency.

Power providers including PPL Corp. of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Constellation Energy Group Inc. of Baltimore opposed the rule, saying the agency didn’t have jurisdiction to set rates for energy efficiency.

Constellation and Exelon Corp. of Chicago are seeking merger approval from FERC, which must determine whether the acquisition is the public interest. Duke Energy Corp. of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Progress Energy Corp. of Raleigh also need agency approval for their merger, which would create the biggest U.S. utility.

The Obama administration said in its plan that it would “make sure grid operators have access to actionable threat information to the electric grid” in order to prevent cyber attacks.

Joseph McClelland, director of FERC’s Office of Electric Reliability, told a House committee last month that the agency lacks comprehensive legal authority to quickly respond to cyber attacks on the grid.

Transit cop convicted Gas prices headed downward, survey finds in killing released LOS ANGELES — A former California transit officer was released from jail Monday after serving 11 months of a 2-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, police said.

The day before Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle’s release, several hundred demonstrators marched peacefully through Oakland to protest the release of the BART police officer who fatally shot unarmed train rider Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.

Although Mehserle was sentenced to state prison for the conviction, he never was placed in the state prison system because of safety concerns. Mehserle’s attorney, Michael Rains, successfully argued to keep Mehserle in a Los Angeles County jail, where he had his own cell and was segregated from other inmates.

A federal lawsuit and an appeal of Mehserle’s convic-

tion are still in the court systems, the Oakland Tribune reported.

Members of Grant’s family said they don’t think Mehserle was held accountable for his actions, Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle and a family spokesman, said earlier this month.

“We were totally let down by the judicial system,” Johnson said.

Mehserle was charged with murder for killing Grant on a BART station platform in Oakland. The killing captured national attention and sparked violent demonstrations after videos recorded by BART passengers showed an unarmed Grant being shot in the back as he lay on the station platform with another BART police officer holding him down. At trial, moved from Oakland to Los Angeles because of publicity, Mehserle testified the shooting was an accident caused when he mistook his gun for his stun gun.

The average per-gallon gas price in the United States has dropped nearly 17 cents in the past three weeks, and likely will continue to drop further, according to a survey published Sunday.

The Lundberg Survey found the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline as of Friday was $3.74.

Prices so far this year peaked on May 6, when the price hit $4 per gallon nationwide — just 11 cents shy of the all-time record set in July 2008. On May 20, the last survey conducted, the price was $3.90. That means there has been a drop of nearly 26 cents per gallon over the past five weeks.

“There’s a very good chance that pump prices will continue down, because there is an oversupply of gasoline at a time when our demand is weakening from unemployment conditions,” as well as reports of a possible output hike from Saudi Arabia, said publisher Trilby Lundberg.

The crude oil price is below $100 per barrel, she said. The closing price on

June 10 was $99.29.

But Lundberg said she believes that even without increased output from Saudi Arabia, “we will still see lower prices at the pump, because supply is high and demand is weak. ... There’s a very good chance it will continue falling.”

However, the current price is about a dollar higher than a year ago, as are diesel prices, she said.

The drop would likely have been greater, she said, but for increasing ethanol

prices.

Within the selection of cities updated, the highest average price was found in Chicago, at $4.29 a gallon.

The lowest was Jackson, Mississippi, at $3.41.

Here are the average prices in some other cities: - Charleston, South Carolina $3.49 - Albuquerque, New Mexico $3.55 - Denver $3.63 - Atlanta $3.66 - Philadelphia $3.77 - Los Angeles $3.93 - Boston $3.84

DAILY D CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

INTERNATIONAL

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Syrian forces round up hundreds near northwest town

By KHALED YACOUB OWEIS AMMAN - Syrian troops rounded up hundreds of people in a sweep through villages near Jisr al-Shughour on Monday, fleeing residents said, after President Bashar al-Assad’s army retook the rebellious northwestern town.

Nearly 7,000 Syrians have fled the region around Jisr alShughour, seeking sanctuary in neighboring Turkey, while thousands more are living rough in rural areas just inside Syria, activists say.

Hours of thunderstorms and drenching rain made conditions even more miserable for the thousands of people waiting in the hills Monday, ready to flee across the border if Syrian troops advance toward them.

Monday’s wave of arrests followed an assault by troops, tanks and helicopters to regain control of the town, one week after authorities said 120 security personnel were killed there in fighting they blamed on “armed groups.”

Darwish Mohammad Sebo, looks to Syria on the Syrian refugees who fled the unrest in Syria Turkish side of the border zone between Turkey fill water from a well at a makeshift refugee and Syria in the Turkish border town of Guvecci camp in the northern Syrian city of Idlib. in Hatay province.

Some residents said March. agency said groups” of burning news those killed were solResidents said the land as sabotage.

Sunday. diers who had army unit that took the It said a soldier and Syrian rights groups mutinied, refusing to town was commanded say 1,300 civilians have two armed men were shoot protesters and by Assad’s brother been killed since the killed in clashes around joining demonstrators Maher. start of the uprising. the town. The army calling for an end to Ahmad Yassin, 27, One group, the Syrian defused explosives Assad’s rule. said he left his 7,000 sq Observatory for Human planted on bridges and The town of 50,000, meter plot of land east Rights, says more than roads and uncovered just 20 km (12 miles) of Jisr al-Shughour 300 soldiers and police mass graves holding south of the Turkish early Monday when a have also been killed. mostly mutilated bodies border, is the latest force of 200 soldiers Syria has banned of 12 security men focus of a military and men wearing black most foreign correspon- killed by armed groups, crackdown on the came in armored per- dents, making it diffi- it said. protests which have sonnel carriers and cult to verify accounts Conscript Darwish swept Syria for nearly cars and poured petrol of events.

Mohammad Sebo, 23, three months and con- on the wheat crops. sneaked into the ARMY TAKES tinue despite the deaths “I tried to save my Turkish border village CONTROL of hundreds of civil- three cows but there The government says of Guvecci Monday, ians. was no time. I put my the protests are part of nearly a month after Refugees from Jisr wife and two children a violent conspiracy deserting his post near al-Shughour said the in the car and drove backed by foreign pow- Homs on May 14. military was combing straight to the border,” ers to sow sectarian “I was in the front villages to the east of he said. line against protesters, strife. the town and arresting His account of troops Army units “have armed with a baton and hundreds of men setting fire to crops taken total control of a shield. Behind me between the ages of 18 echoed reports from Jisr al-Shughour and were ‘shabbiha’ and and 40, in a pattern other refugees, but the are chasing remnants forces they trust more seen in other military official state news of the armed terrorist to shoot, armed with crackdowns since the agency has accused gangs in the woods and automatic rifles. No unrest started in “armed terrorist mountains,” the Syrian Syrian would have

accepted being in my position, seeing his compatriots slaughhe said. tered,“ “Shabbiha” are gunmen loyal to Assad.

“I paid a bribe to a lieutenant to give me sick leave and I never went back. Many more were like me. Morale is very low.”

“I have been going back and forth carrying wounded people to Turkey by car or taking the martyrs to be buried in the villages,” said Sebo.

Thousands of people from Jisr al-Shughour, located on a vital road junction, had already fled the town before Sunday’s assault.

Turkey has grown increasingly critical of Assad and has now set up four camps to accommodate refugees.

In a sign of tension between the neighbors, which had close trade and political ties before the crisis, supporters of Assad protested outside Turkey’s embassy in Damascus Sunday.

Turkey’s Anatolian news agency said some people climbed the embassy walls and hung a Syrian flag, and Syrian security forces prevented some protesters from trying to lower the Turkish flag. The crowd then tore down tourist posters outside the embassy.

Lebanon gets Hezbollah-led cabinet after 5-month lag

By LAILA BASSAM & YARA BAYOUMY BEIRUT - Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced Monday a long-delayed government dominated by Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies, which is likely to cause alarm among Western powers at a time of regional turmoil.

Formed after five months of political stalemate, the new Lebanese leadership was welcomed by President Bashar al-Assad of neighboring Syria,

another Hezbollah sponsor now beset by international censure of its crackdowns of antiregime protests.

“This government is committed to maintaining strong, brotherly ties which bind Lebanon to all Arab countries, without exception,” Mikati said at the Baabda Presidential Palace.

“Let us go to work immediately according to the principles ... (of) defending Lebanon’s sovereignty and its independence and liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy.”

Mikati was appointed

after Hezbollah and its allies toppled U.S.aligned former premier Saad al-Hariri in January over a dispute involving the U.N.backed probe into the 2005 assassination of statesman Rafik alHariri, Saad’s father.

Shi’ite Hezbollah and its Christian and Druze allies secured 18 posts in the new government, up from 11 under Hariri’s coalition, enabling them to pass or block decisions more easily.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has thrown his weight behind Assad, saying that

should the Syrian government fall it would serve American and Israeli interests.

Lebanese media said Assad had telephoned Mikati to congratulate him.

Mohammed Safadi, Lebanon’s former economy minister, was named finance minister and will try to improve growth expected at around 2.5 percent this year, dampened by delays in key cabinet appointments and a rash of violent incidents.

The deadlock had also snagged both the 2010 and 2011 budgets, holding up $2 billion in infrastructure projects.

HARIRI STAYS OUT The configuration of Mikati’s government — which Hariri refused to join — marks a reemergence of Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon, a proxy arena for Middle East powers.

Officials say a core aim of the government will be to agree on a unified stand to confront indictments by the U.N.led tribunal, which is expected to implicate members of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, which denies any role in the 2005 killing, and its allies quit Hariri’s cabinet in January after he refused to disavow the investigation. Efforts by

Syria and Saudi Arabia to broker rapprochement between Hariri and his rivals failed.

For the first time since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, Sunnis outnumber Shi’ites in the 30-member cabinet, by seven ministers to five ministers.

Mikati, a telecoms tycoon from northern Tripoli who deems himself politically neutral, is Sunni, in accordance with the Lebanese power-sharing system that allots senior political roles along sectarian lines. The president must be a Maronite Christian and the parliament speaker a Shi’ite.

AFRICAN SCENE

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

South Sudan accuses north of second airstrike

By JEREMY CLARKE & ALEX DZIADOSZ JUBA/KHARTOU M - South Sudan’s army said northern warplanes bombed its territory Monday, after fighting in the border state of Southern Kordofan spread across the illdefined north-south border.

The northern army has been battling southern-aligned troops in Southern Kordofan, the north’s main oil state, since June 5.

Humanitarian organizations fear a mounting

death toll, although few casualties have been confirmed so far.

South Sudan is due to become independent on July 9.

Analysts see Southern Kordofan as a flashpoint in the buildup to the split because it is home to thousands of fighters who sided against Khartoum during the last civil war.

The southern army accused the northern military of bombing its territory in Unity state Friday and again Monday.

“There has been another bombing of the south. It was this morning, at the same location (as Friday), at Jau in Unity state. It was more Antonovs from Khartoum,” southern

military spokesman Aguer told Philip Reuters.

“We are in defensive positions and continue to monitor what they are doing.”

A spokesman for the northern military was not immediately available to comment.

CIVILIANS FLEE More than 53,000 people have fled fighting — including bombardments and artillery shelling — in Southern Kordofan, the United Nations estimated Monday.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said its partners had reported the “burning of tukuls, looting of humanitarian assets and emer-

gency relief stocks, and the presence of land mines” in the state capital Kadugli.

“As the security situation shows no sign of improvement, the number of displaced civilian populations who are in urgent need of relief assistance is increasing with unconfirmed reports of more than 53,000 people displaced,” it said in a statement.

The United Nations previously estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 may have fled Kadugli alone.

The OCHA statement said fighting “has spread to Pariang County in Unity State, southern Sudan.”

Officials from the northern and southern

ruling parties have traded blame over who started the fighting in Southern Kordofan, which has since spread across the state.

Leaders in the northern branch of the south’s dominant Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) said it began when the northern army tried to disarm fighters. The northern army has blamed southern-aligned armed groups for provoking the clashes.

The north’s ruling National Congress Party Sunday warned the south against supporting what it describes as a “rebellion” in the state.

The southern military says the fighters in

Southern Kordofan are no longer part of its army, despite sharing a name and historical ties.

Southerners voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war. That conflict cost some 2 million lives.

The two sides have yet to settle a number of issues, such as where to draw the common border and how to divide oil revenues.

The north’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and the south’s President Salva Kiir continued talks over unresolved issues ahead of the split in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on

Mozambique to step up diamond controls MAPUTO Mozambique is speeding up preparations to join an international conflict diamond monitoring scheme amid widespread gem smuggling from Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange mines, state media said on Monday.

Mining Minister Esperanca Bias said Mozambique, which hopes to start mining its own diamonds soon, wants to join the Kimberley Process diamond certification scheme by December, Noticias newspaper

reported.

“Government’s idea is that we shouldn’t lose time. We are in the prospecting phase, yes, but we have to join the Kimberley Process already, so that we are familiar with it when we start mining activities,” Bias said.

Currently 27 companies and individuals are prospecting for diamonds in Mozambique under 40 separate licences.

Tests are already being done to see if some samples are commercially viable, Bias said.

Her announcement comes amid reports that diamond smug-

glers are trading in gems worth millions of dollars from neighbouring Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond mines through the central Mozambican border town of Manica.

The Marange fields, touted as Africa’s richest diamond find of the decade, have been at the centre of a years-long controversy over reported abuses by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s military.

Monitors say the military seized control of the fields in late 2008, violently evicting tens of thousands of small miners and then beating and raping civilians

to force them to mine the gems.

Human rights groups say about 200 people were killed, and Kimberley Process investigators later documented “unacceptable and horrific violence against civilians by authorities”, prompting a ban on exports of the gems.

The Kimberley Process last year allowed two special sales of Marange diamonds.

In March, Zimbabwe’s deputy mines minister announced that the Kimberley Process would again allow the country to sell diamonds from the mines.

File photo shows a man checking raw diamonds at the Gold and Diamond department in the Sierra Leone Central Bank in Freetown.

Mozambique is speeding up preparations to join an international conflict diamond monitoring scheme amid widespread gem smuggling from Zimbabwe's controversial Marange mines, state media said.

Photo/Issouf Sanogo The watchdog’s cur- with Mugabe — was rent chairman, Mathieu subsequently criticised Yamba of the for acting unilaterally Democratic Republic of in authorising the sale.

Congo — who has links

Suspect in S. African honeymoon murder has tumor

By THANDISIZWE MGUDLWA CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Doctors discovered a brain tumor in a suspect in the murder of a Swede whose British husband is accused of orchestrating her death while the two were honeymooning in South Africa, prosecutors said Monday, postponing a trial that has gained international attention.

Magistrate Jackie Redelinghuys received a medical report on Xolile Mngeni from prosecutors on Monday, when the trial

was to have started in a South African court.

Redelinghuys postponed trial until Aug. 2 for both Mngeni and his co-accused,

Mziwamadoda Qwabe.

The medical report did not say what Mngeni’s prospects for recovery were, but said he had surgery last week and remained hospitalized.

Co-accused Qwabe is jailed pending trial.

Anni Dewani was found shot dead in an abandoned taxi in Cape Town’s impoverished Gugulethu township in November. Her relatives were in Cape Town Monday for what

they had thought would be the start of the trial.

Her uncle Ashok Hindocha spoke to reporters on behalf of the family, thanking “the whole world for the support” they have received.

In a confession last year, taxi driver Zola Tongo said Dewani’s husband, Shrien, offered him 15,000 rand (about $2,100) to arrange the murder and make it look like a

carjacking. Tongo said he recruited Mngeni and Qwabe to carry out the murder.

In a plea bargain, Tongo was convicted of kidnapping, murder, aggravated robbery and obstructing justice, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

He is expected to testify against the other suspects.

Shrien Dewani denies involvement. He had been allowed to return to Britain

before Tongo’s confession and is fighting extradition.

During extradition hearings, South Africa’s lawyer said 31-year-old Shrien Dewani told a witness six months before the murder that he felt pressured into getting married and wanted a way out. The unnamed witness is willing to give evidence if Shrien Dewani stands trial, according to South African authorities.

D CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011 DAILY

AFRICAN SCENE

Zimbabwe’s neighbors to take more active role

By DONNA BRYSON JOHANNESBURG - A regional bloc of southern African states said it wants three of Zimbabwe’s neighbors to appoint officials to a committee charged with preparing for elections in Zimbabwe, but the country’s long-ruling party indicated on Monday it would resist such a move.

The 15-nation Southern African Development Community SADC urged member states South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique late Sunday to appoint officials to the Zimbabwean committee and said Zimbabwean leaders should hasten to create an environment for free and fair elections. President Robert Mugabe has been accused of using violence and election fraud to hold onto power in Zimbabwe. Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

The ZANU-PF released a statement indicating it would resist including the three countries on the committee even as Mugabe was quoted by Zimbabwean state media Monday as welcoming the outcome of the SADC summit in Johannesburg. Mugabe’s supporters are calling for polls this year to replace his shaky coali-

tion with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Independent groups say the possibility of a vote has led to attacks on Mugabe’s opponents.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a news conference in Tanzania on Monday that the U.S. is encouraged by the regional bloc’s stance, saying it emphasizes that Mugabe must follow an agreement that paved the way for the coalition after inconclusive and violent 2008 elections.

The agreement calls for reforms before a new vote. Both sides in the conflict have turned to SADC, of which Zimbabwe is a member, to mediate.

The Zimbabwean committee, the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee, is currently comprised of members of Mugabe’s party, of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change and of a third party allied with the MDC. Zimbabwe was once the region’s breadbasket, but now its main export is millions of people who have fled economic collapse.

Observers blame Mugabe’s orders to seize thousands of white-owned farms in 2000, disrupting the country’s agriculture-based economy.

In addition to the economic misery, Zimbabwe is politically isolated because of the Mugabe regime’s brutality.

But Zimbabwe’s neighbors have been

reluctant to completely shun Mugabe, saying he must be part of a negotiated solution.

Dewa Mavhinga, spokesman for a coalition of Zimbabwean rights and development groups, said SADC’s action shows it wants to step up involvement in solving Zimbabwe’s festering political situation.

“There is definitely a shift that ZANU must contend with,” Mavhinga said.

Still, Mavhinga said it will be difficult to translate words in a communique into change on the ground.

In a related development, two leaders of the MDC’s youth wing learned after leaving Zimbabwe for Johannesburg for a SADC briefing that police are seeking them on murder charges in the death of a police officer, according to Sibanengi Dube, a party spokesman in Johannesburg.

Several party activists have been arrested after the killing of police officer Petros Mutedza on May 30 in Harare. Tsvangirai supporters deny involvement in the policeman’s death and say the arrests are politically motivated.

Dube said the two canceled the briefing because they feared being attacked by ZANU-PF agents in Johannesburg. Dube said they would return to Zimbabwe Tuesday to face arrest and trial to prove their innocence in the homicide case.

Alleged spy in Egypt immigrated to Israel from U.S.

By JEFFREY HELLER JERUSALEM - An alleged Israeli spy arrested in Egypt is a U.S. immigrant to Israel who once wrote that he hoped to promote Israeli policies in the Arab world, according to information he and others posted on websites.

The man, detained Sunday in a development that could strain Israel’s relations with Egypt’s new leaders, was identified by the Egyptian MENA news agency as Ilan Chaim Grabel, a misspelling of his family name, Grapel.

Ex-Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-

Eliezer, a former pointman in Israel’s relations with Egypt, said on Israel Radio he hoped the arrest was not an attempt to “put peace into total freeze.” Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 which ordinary Israelis refer to as “the cold peace.”

Israel’s ambassador to Cairo said Monday that Israel was looking into the case. The U.S. embassy in Cairo said it was working to confirm Grapel’s identity and citizenship.

On his Facebook page, Grapel made no secret of his presence in Egypt, writing that he was “preaching at alAzhar,” an Islamic university in Cairo, and

that he had studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The reference to al-Azhar later disappeared from the page.

A judiciary source in Egypt said the arrested man had been active in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolt against Hosni Mubarak, after the former president stepped down.

A statement issued

by Egypt’s public prosecutor said the suspect, ordered held for 15 days, had been sent to Egypt to recruit agents “trying to gather information and data and to monitor the events of the January 25 revolution.”

Photographs of Grapel on the Facebook page, on the website of the Israel Project — a pro-Israel group where he trained in media relations in 2008, and in the online newsletter of an organization that raises funds for Israeli soldiers, matched those in a video clip of the suspect released by Egypt.

Grapel’s mother, Irene, said her son had been working for Saint Andrew’s Refugee Services, a non-governmental organization, in Cairo. In a telephone interview with Israel’s Channel 2 TV, she said he holds U.S. and Israeli citizenship and that she had not spoken to him since his arrest.

9

AFRICAN SCENE

f Clinton: African leaders must heed Arab revolts ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning African leaders that unless they enact broad social, economic and political reforms, they will face the same kind of revolts now sweeping the Arab world.

In a speech Monday to diplomats at the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, Clinton said that the repressive governance is no longer accepted in the world. She said discontent, mainly among exploding youth populations, cannot be suppressed in the era of the Internet and social media.

Clinton said the status quo has been broken and that governments must treat their people with dignity, respect their rights and deliver economic opportunity. She said unprecedented uprisings in the Arab world were sign that African leaders ignore their citizens’ demands at their own peril.

- MATTHEW LEE

Nigerian Islamists ready to talk to govt KANO, Nigeria - A Nigerian Islamist sect behind a spate of bombings and shootand-run killings on Monday said it would lay down arms and open dialogue with authorities provided some conditions are met.

One of the conditions Boko Haram set was the strict application of Sharia law in 12, or a third, of Nigeria’s 36 states.

“We demand for the strict enforcement of sharia legal system in the Muslim-dominated states in the north as part of conditions for dialogue with the government,” the group said in a statement anonymously delivered to journalists in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

The 12 states re-adopted Sharia in 1999, but Boko Haram — whose name means ‘Western education is sin’ in the local hausa dialect — believes the law is cosmetic and not adhered to.

Written in the widely-spoken northern language of hausa, the statement titled “conditions for dialogue with President Goodluck Jonathan and governor Kashim Shettima” was released in Maiduguri where the sect has concentrated its attacks.

The statement was in apparent response to overtures for talks with the militants by the newlyelected governor of Borno state, Shettima, with the backing of Jonathan.

Jonathan last week told reporters in New York that he would support attempts to talk to the Islamic militants in the predominately Muslim north to end months of deadly attacks in this region of Africa’s most populous country.

The group, demanded the prosecution, under the Islamic Sharia law, of some politicians, traditional and security forces accused of responsibility for the extra-judicial killing of sect members in the 2OO9 uprising.

1 10

CARIBBEAN NEWS DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

CARIBBEAN BRIEFS

Suriname finance minister resigns

ONE FAMILY.

Whether West Indian, African or African American.

One God, One Aim, One Destiny.

Death toll rises from floods in Haiti PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti — Floods caused by heavy rainfall and mudslides in Haiti claimed the lives of 23 people and damaged 470 homes last week, the United Nations humanitarian office reported, citing information provided by the country’s authorities.

Eight people were injured and six others remain missing after the Artibonite River broke its banks, flooding the Grande Saline commune in Artibonite Department of northwestern Haiti, according to an update issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Tents, tarpaulins, and non-food items have been distributed in community shelters housing those displaced by the floods.

Drainage in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) needs to be improved and there is also a scarcity of for water treatment tablets in those settlements.

This year’s humanitarian appeal for Haiti that seeks $915 million is currently 24 percent funded, with $223 million having been received, according to OCHA. Meanwhile, the UN Stabilization Mission for in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said it is examining an incident that allegedly took place last Sunday at the Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-auPrince between a Haitian customs official and the mission’s military personnel over baggage inspection.

MINUSTAH is probing the exact circumstances of the incident and has informed the Haitian authorities of

its investigation, the mission said in a press release.

The mission said that it takes the allegations very seriously and stressed that under the agreement between the United Nations and the Haitian Government, MINUSTAH and its staff must “comply with all laws and regulations of the country.”

According to media reports a group of armed MINUSTAH soldiers forced their way into the airport and prevented customs officers from inspecting the luggage of their colleagues. Once outside the airport, the soldiers are alleged to have fired shots into the air.

Brazil to join Guyana and Suriname in Islamic bloc JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — South America’s largest nation and home to a large Arab Diaspora, Brazil is seeking observer membership in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). Sergio Luiz Canaes, the Ambassador of Brazil to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Yemen, made an official request on behalf of the Foreign Minister of Brazil indicating Brazil’s interest in getting observer status in the OIC on an official visit recently to the OIC Secretariat in Saudi Arabia.

The 57-member grouping of mainly African, Asian and Arab nations is predominantly Islamic but many countries like Guyana and Suriname with Muslim minorities are members. The Russian Federation is an observer member of the OIC as well.

Wonnie Boedhoe

By IVAN CAIRO PARAMARIBO, Suriname — Citing “personal circumstances”, Suriname’s minister of finance, Wonnie Boedhoe, resigned late Friday afternoon. In a press release, the Office of the President subsequently announced that President Desi Bouterse had accepted her resignation, bringing the number of cabinet ministers who have stepped down since he came into office in August 2010, to

two.

In December 2010, forestry minister Martinus Sastroredjo, was sacked by the government leader after his spouse submitted proposals to acquire stateowned land.

According to the president’s office, in consultation with Boedhoe, how she could serve the government and the country in another position will be examined.

Boedhoe, a former banker, was Bouterse’s personal choice for the position of minister of finance, when his National Democratic Party came into power after the May 25 general elections last year.

Meanwhile Minister of

CARICOM, FAO to tackle high food prices at regional consultation GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations will next week tackle the recent upsurge in food prices that has reached unprecedented levels in the region.

Against the backdrop of the FAO Global Food Price Index, in January 2011, indicating that it had surpassed the high level reached in 20072008, the FAO Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), has organised a regional consultation on policy and programmatic actions to address high food prices in the Caribbean, 13-14 June.

Trinidad and Tobago will host the consultation, which is aimed at assisting the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) to identify various options in the immediate, medium and long-term, in response to the crisis.

Recent efforts to address food security in CARICOM included a full assessment of food prices by the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), at its thirty-second meeting in Georgetown, Guyana, 19-20 May 2011.

Against this backdrop, part of the agenda of the consultation in Trinidad and Tobago focuses on existing policy measures to address the food crisis at regional and national levels.

Foreign Affairs, Winston Lackin, will be in charge as acting minister of finance until a new official has been appointed.

Meanwhile Boedhoe has refuted claims that she was forced to resign.

“I, myself have requested to be relieved of my duties. It is purely personal and I am grateful that he (the president) has accepted my resignation. We had a very pleasant relation the president and I, and together we worked long hours,” she told de Ware Tijd newspaper.

Although the government presented its budget to parliament in October 2010, the legislature is still to debate this bill.

Barbados prime minister to pay official visit to China

By CATHY LASHLEY BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (BGIS) — Prime Minister Freundel Stuart heads a five-member delegation which Barbados on Thursday for an official visit to China from June 12 to June 16.

Stuart first travelled to London, where he will meet Barbadians living in the Diaspora, before proceeding to China.

Other members of the delegation include Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Maxine McClean; Barbados’ Ambassador to China, Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford; Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Keith Franklin; and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Charles Burnett.

Barbados and China established diplomatic relations in 1977 and since then the two countries have enjoyed highly rewarding and mutually beneficial relation.

The state visit is expected to further strengthen and deepen ties between the two nations.

D CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011 DAILY

CARIBBEAN NEWS

11

US fears Chinese migration as a result of Bahamas project

By BRENT DEAN N A S S A U , Bahamas — One of the major fears the United States has with the Baha Mar project in The Bahamas is that, as a result of the large number of Chinese coming into the country to build the resort, the smuggling of Chinese into the US from The Bahamas will increase dramatically, according to a cable from the US Embassy in Nassau.

“Regardless of whatever number of workers the parties agree upon, the continuous arrival of thousands of lowwage Chinese workers in The Bahamas will likely lead to a significant increase in illegal migration of Chinese from The Bahamas to the United States,” said the November 2009 secret cable obtained by The Nassau Guardian via WikiLeaks.

“The GCOB

(Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas) does not have the institutional capacity to effectively monitor the movements of the Chinese workers nor effectively detect inauthentic travel documents.”

The $2.6 billion Baha Mar resort is being financed by the ExportImport Bank of China.

The China State C o n s t r u c t i o n E n g i n e e r i n g Corporation is building the resort.

As a part of the deal, 8,150 foreign workers will help build the resort, along with 4,000-plus Bahamian workers. The majority of the 8,150 workers will be Chinese.

Citing a conversation an embassy official had with former Chamber of Commerce president Dionisio D’Aguilar, the cable said that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was very wary of allowing that number of Chinese into the country, hoping only 1,000 to 2,000 Chinese would be needed.

Before the deal was sealed Ingraham pub-

licly expressed his concerns about the labour component of the deal.

The Americans had private conversations with Baha Mar senior vice president Robert Sands on the Chinese labourer issue, according to the cable.

“Sands did emphasize that Baha Mar and the GCOB were concerned with [the] legitimacy of individual [workers], or those that would come to The Bahamas solely to illegally migrate to the United States,” said the cable.

“He noted that the workers would be ‘highly regulated, close to the site in a fully contained camp,’ though the men ‘will be let out occasionally.’

Sands indicated that they were looking into biometric identifications to help manage the workforce.”

According to the cable, at the time, Baha Mar wanted to establish a large work camp for the Chinese labourers at the Cable Beach Golf Course.

“Baha Mar executives and the GCOB are clearly cognizant of the negative message they

will send to tourists, as well as the Bahamian public, by maintaining a 4,000-strong Chinese labourer camp in a highly visible and affluent section of town,” said the cable.

“Still, the GCOB believes that the completion of this massive project is a vital component of its long-term plan to provide thousands of new jobs for Bahamians.”

A February 2009 also labeled cable, secret, indicated that Bahamian officials were so concerned about the labourer issue that they approached the Americans for help.

“Senior GCOB officials expressed concern to the Charge over the Chinese request for foreign workers. They requested US assistance with obtaining background checks and mused that it would be preferable if the Chinese workers were first routed through the UK or US so that they would be properly vetted,” said the cable.

“Of primary concern is ensuring that... adequate accounting methods are in place to track

Hugo Chavez recovering after surgery in Cuba

By PATRICIA RONDON ESPIN C A R A C A S , Venezuela Ve n e z u e l a n President Hugo Chavez said Sunday he is quickly recovering after undergoing surgery in Cuba last week for a pelvic abscess and noted that medical tests have shown no signs of any Hugo Chavez “malignant” illness. interview broadcast by tion or complications Chavez, who is recuperating in Havana, said the operation has not slowed him down and he is diligently attending to day-to-day duties while closely following events in Venezuela.

“Each passing day I feel better,” said Chavez, speaking during a brief telephone

the Caracas-based Telesur television network.

“I’ve gone through biopsies, studies, microbiology, different laboratories and there’s no sign of anything malignant.”

A pelvic abscess is an accumulation of pus that can have various causes, including infec-

from surgery.

Chavez recalled that he felt an acute pain in his pelvis during a meeting with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and knew it was important to act quickly with the surgery. He said that Castro immediately expressed concern upon seeing Chavez in

pain and urged him to undergo an operation.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said Chavez began to feel pain during a tour through Brazil and Ecuador, before he flew to Havana.

“We had to act quickly,” Maduro said.

Supporters of Chavez gathered at plazas in several cities on Sunday to wish their leader a speedy recovery.

Carmen Zerpa said she felt reassured knowing that Chavez would bounce back.

“We’re sad because this happened to you, but we feel better because we know you’re going to recuperate,” she said.

Last month, Chavez injured his knee while jogging, prompting the self-proclaimed socialist to postpone his trip to Brazil, Ecuador and Cuba.

that those that enter eventually leave.”

ZunigaTimothy Brown was, and is, the US Charge d’Affaires referred to in the cable.

Weary Partners In 2008, Harrah’s Entertainment pulled out of an earlier joint venture deal with Baha Mar to develop the mega-resort. Chinese financing and partnership revived the Cable Beach redevelopment plan.

Ingraham The administration always appeared less enthusiastic to the Baha Mar project than Perry Christie and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP). The last PLP administration began negotiations with Baha Mar. A March 2009 cable, also labeled secret, said that Bahamian officials told the Americans they were not, at the time, enthused about Chinese involvement in the deal.

“Senior GCOB officials privately expressed that China is not their preferred partner and acknowledge that negotiations are difficult,” said the cable.

The Bahamian offi-

cials expressing that view were not named. cables also The revealed that the Chinese expressed their concerns to the Americans about getting so deeply involved with Baha Mar. “Chinese Embassy officials privately told (an embassy official) the China Ex-Im Bank would prefer another investor in the mix in order to diminish the financial risk,” said the March 2009 cable.

Baha Mar has said it will not comment on the cables.

The company has said 11,000 Bahamian jobs will be created as a result of the project.

There will be 6,500 to 7,000 permanent jobs when the resort is completed; and 4,000 construction jobs for Bahamians will be created during the build phase of the project.

There will be six hotels at the property, almost 2,250 new rooms and condos, the largest convention centre in The Bahamas, the largest casino in the Caribbean, a worldclass golf course and a retail village.

More land in Grenada to be brought under agricultural production ST GEORGE’S, Grenada — The Grenada government is strongly supporting two initiatives designed to bring more land under agricultural production, a local monthly newspaper has reported.

Barnacle, in its June edition, said that both initiatives involve the renting or leasing of idle farm land.

The paper quotes Ferron Lowe, policy advisor in the Ministry of Agriculture, as saying that a “substantial amount of land” that once was under cultivation in Grenada is now “abandoned and underutilized.”

He said government is offering to act as a mediator between owners of abandoned or underutilized agricultural fields, and Grenadians who are desirous of working the land.

The Ministry of Agriculture, under the National Democratic Congress administration of Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, is encouraging private land owners, who can no longer cultivate their lands, to rent or lease them to people interested in doing so, Lowe said.

“The ministry will not be directly involved but will facilitate the relationship between private land owners and the renters,” explained Lowe, a lawyer and farmer. “Both parties can seek independent legal advice to come up with a workable agreement.”

New American

The

12

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

One Thought - One Humanity

Can Beyonce still please all of her fans with new album?

For the conclusions of these stories check out the June 2nd - June 8th, 2011 issue of The New American, which hits newsstands every Thursday British singer Leona Lewis has taken aim at critics of her personality, insisting she “couldn’t care less” if they think she’s dull. The star shot to fame as a and retiring shy wannabe on Simon Cowell’s British show The X Factor in 2006, and went on to superstardom in the U.K. and the U.S. after winning the competition.

However, Lewis is angry music fans presume she’s boring just because she’s not as outlandish as the likes of Lady Gaga, and she’s adamant her strengths lie in good quality songs. She says, “I don’t care what anyone says. I’m not boring.

Unless you know me, I don’t really care about your opinions. I couldn’t care less. Lady Gaga does her crazy thing and she is great. I definitely have something different to offer. I’m all about the music and songs.”

passed we lost so much. It was just like, ‘Who else...?’ ‘How can I show him that all of his work was not in vain?

The song hurts me (because) there’s so much genuine pain.”

Cee Lo Green has confirmed speculation Gnarls Barkley’s fan favorite tune Who’s Gonna Save My Soul is all about the passing of James Brown. The Crazy singer made the big reveal during a recent taping of VH1 show Storytellers, explaining the song is supposed to empower anyone grieving the loss of a loved one - and he wrote it as he was dealing with the 2006 death of the Godfather of Soul. He says, “The song is actually about the passing of James Brown... It has to do with everyone; heartbreak, loss, regret, helplessness, hopelessness, and I felt all of the above when we lost James Brown - because he embodied everything. “James Brown is my father... I got what I needed from him - I got guidance, I got style... integrity, I got consistency...

He taught me how to dance too. When he

New dad Nick Cannon struggles to fit all his projects in to his busy schedule, surviving on just four hours of broken sleep every day. The star and his wife Mariah Carey welcomed twins last month, but Cannon has refused to cut back his working commitments, still broadcasting his New York radio show and hosting reality series America’s Got Talent, which premiered its sixth season in the U.S. on Tuesday night. But Cannon pays a hefty price for his busy schedule as he can only fit in just a few hours of sleep around work and his duties as a dad.

In a recent interview, Lauren London revealed that Lil Wayne almost wifed her. She also explained that she and Wayne were not some one-night stand.

Lauren London: “I met Dwayne when I was 15 years old. I’ve known him a very long time, and we were in a relationship that didn’t make it. We tried more than once to revive it, and we were engaged briefly years ago, but we eventually parted ways. People see the “Lil’ Wayne” persona and think they know who he really is. My son’s father is an intelligent, loving and lovable person who will always be a dear friend.

That is all.”

Rihanna stopped by The Today Show to talk about her hair, pre-performance rituals, and what she would’ve become if she wasn’t an entertainer. Not sure of the exact name of the color of her hair, she said it’s a mixture of

different reds. She said, “ It’s like copper-ish, red-ish.” If she wasn’t an entertainer, Rihanna said she would’ve studied psychology.

“Something I was also interested in. I really enjoy observing, reading, and analyzing situations for what they really are,” she said.

Before hitting up the stage, Rihanna warms up, drinks tea, prays and then gets dressed as a ritual. Lastly, she would love to collaborate with Depeche Mode because she really likes them.

Queensbridge, New York rap star Nas has announced the title of his new upcoming solo album. The rapper took to Twitter early this morning (May 28th), to reveal the name of the album, which is titled Life is Good. In published reports, the 37year-old rapper said Life is Good will feature production from a variety of new producers, as well as veteran Salaam Remi and other notable producers. Nas’ last official studio album was 2008’s Untitled release.

Cadbury recently released advertisements for their Bliss chocolate bars, a “dreamy chocolate truffle.” On one of the ads, the British confectionary company included the tagline ‘Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town.” Upon seeing this, Naomi Campbell, 41 year old supermodel, was not pleased. The way Campbell sees it, Cadbury is placing her in the same league as chocolate. In a statement sent to CNN, Campbell complains that the ad is “insulting and hurtful.” This kind of reaction isn’t surprising, as Campbell is known for her, well, diva-like antics.

She’s been accused several times for violence and abuse against

By LJ Knight

ly falling in love with the single, there are others who are less inclined to simply accept anything that the queen gives us. Myself included. I have to be honest, the song sucks. Big time.

I am a Beyonce fan. Not her biggest fan. But I dig much of her music. I also am a part of the generation that grew up with Beyonce. I remember the first time I saw the video for Destiny’s Child’s single “No No No”. I remember when they blew up into super stardom. I was there to see the ugly break up of the group and all of the nasty rumors about Beyonce. I was also there when “Crazy In Love” blew and made her an official super star; out shining her time in Destiny’s Child.

I was also there to see her grow and mature with the content of her music. Sure she has her make your booty roll ladies singles but she also has singles that touch women on a deeper level. Deep as one can get from a Beyonce single. For instance touching on women giving too much in love and never being reciprocated from the man that they love.

The Queen is back. Well, the queen to some. I am referring to Beyonce Knowles. While it can be argued that she is a queen to some and a toad to others, there is no doubt that the chick is bad. Bad meaning good. So bad that every time she drops an album or a single, we expect for it to be hotter than chicken grease on a June morning.

For her not to deliver said hotness would be an atrocity to some. So after months of blogs hyping us up with news of her being in the studio working with hot producers, and finally a release date for a single, we expect that s**t to be hot. Some expect it to be life changing. Yes, there are some people who really feel this strongly towards Beyonce.

Unfortunately for her, the first single to be released from Beyonce titled “Girls Who Run The World” has been receiving mixed reviews.

Some of them luke warm. While many of her devoted drones, who would cherish a Beyonce turd straight from her rectum, are quick- Full Story In This Week’s New American Newspaper -

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

14

Crawling culprit seen in urban kids’ asthma

By ALISON MCCOOK Researchers have identified cockroaches as a potential explanation for dramatic variations between neighborhoods in asthma rates among New York City children.

In some New York City neighborhoods, 19 percent — nearly 1 in 5 — children have asthma; in others, the rate is as low as 3 percent.

Heavy traffic, industrial incinerators, and other outdoor air pollution sources have been blamed in the past as potential contributors to asthma differences across the city.

Now, researchers at Columbia University have found that children living in neighborhoods with high rates of asthma were twice as likely to carry antibodies against a cockroach protein in their blood, a sign the kids had been exposed to the insects and were likely aller-

gic to them.

In addition, homes in the neighborhoods with high rates of asthma contained more of the allergen produced by cockroaches in household dust.

This study provides “further evidence that cockroach exposure is part of the story,” study author Dr. Matthew Perzanowski told Reuters Health. “Cockroach allergen really could be contributing to disparities in asthma prevalence, even in an urban environment like New York City.”

These findings also suggest that controlling cockroaches may help eliminate some of those disparities, Perzanowski noted. But parents don’t want to spray tons of harmful chemicals, which could “have other detrimental effects,” he added.

Instead, people can take simple steps such as sealing up any cracks, and removing food and water sources. (The New York City Department

of Health and Mental Hygiene offers advice for combatting roaches at http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh /html/ehs/ehscroach.shtml) To investigate why some city neighborhoods have more asthma cases than others, Perzanowski and his team visited the homes of 239 seven- and eight-year-olds, half of whom lived in areas with high asthma rates.

Previous research has linked poverty to an increased risk of asthma in childhood. To eliminate the influence of income on the results, the authors only included families with the same middle-income health insurance plan, to ensure they had the same income and access to health care.

More than half of the children already had asthma.

During home visits, the researchers collected dust from the children’s beds, then took blood samples to look for antibodies against various allergens associated

with asthma — including cat, dog, mouse, dust mite and cockroach proteins.

Nearly 1 in 4 kids living in neighborhoods with high asthma rates appeared to be allergic to cockroaches, compared to 1 in 10 kids living in areas where asthma is less common.

Homes in high-asthma communities also had higher concentrations of the cockroach allergen, as well as allergens associated with mice and cats, the authors report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

In addition, kids who were allergic to cockroaches and mice were more likely to have asthma, noted Dr. Joanne Sordillo at the Channing Laboratory, affiliated both with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who reviewed the findings for Reuters Health.

“Mouse or cockroach allergen exposure may increase the risk of allergic sensitiza-

tion (allergies), which is in turn related to the development of asthma in children,” she said in an email.

Although cockroach protein sensitization was more common in kids in highasthma neighborhoods, overall, children who were allergic to dust and cats were also more likely to have asthma.

Perzanowski explained that cockroaches leave behind proteins that people inhale and can become allergic to, which in turn increases the chance they will develop asthma.

But when it comes to cat ownership, the picture gets a bit murkier, he explained.

Some previous research has found that kids in homes with cats were more likely to be allergic, but in this study, having a cat did not predispose kids to asthma.

“It’s complicated,” the researcher said. “Avoidance of cats doesn’t seem to reduce your risk of developing asthma.”

Donors pledge $4.3 billion to provide vaccines

By KATE KELLAND and ADRIAN CROFT LONDON — International donors including Britain and billionaire Bill Gates pledged $4.3 billion on Monday to fund vaccination programs to protect children in poor countries against diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia.

The funding would allow more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children to be vaccinated by 2015 and would prevent more than 4 million premature deaths, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) said.

“Today is an important moment in our collective commitment to protecting children in developing countries from disease,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who attended the pledging conference in London.

“But every 20 seconds, a child still dies of a vaccinepreventable disease. There’s more work to be done.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has defended increased spending on aid at a time of sharp state spending cuts, pledged almost a third of the total raised, which beat the $3.7

billion target.

“Britain will play its full part. In addition to our existing support for GAVI, we will provide 814 million pounds ($1.33 billion) of new funding up to 2015,” Cameron told the conference, winning a standing ovation from the audience.

“This will help vaccinate over 80 million children and save 1.4 million lives.”

Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Gates, a major GAVI backer

who helped set up the alliance more than a decade ago, also announced more funding.

“We are pledging an additional billion dollars,” Gates said, adding that the money would be spread over the next five years.

“It’s not every day that we give away a billion, but for a cause like this it’s exciting to be doing this.”

GAVI says it has helped prevent more than 5 million child deaths in the last

decade with its immunization programs.

The alliance funds bulkbuys of childhood vaccines against diseases such as pneumococcal pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib disease, diphtheria, pertussis or whooping cough, tetanus, measles and rotavirus.

The World Health Organization considers vaccination to be “one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions.” It

estimates that between 2 and 3 million deaths are averted each year through immunization.

A series of academic studies published last week found that if 90 percent of children in the more than 70 poor countries supported by GAVI were fully immunized, some 6.4 million children’s lives and more than $151 billion in treatment costs and lost productivity could be saved over 10 years, producing economic benefits of $231 billion.

Study recommends against autism screening

By FREDERIK JOELVING There is no solid evidence to support screening toddlers for autism, a new study concludes.

It’s estimated that autism spectrum disorders, which range from mild Asperger’s Syndrome to severe mental retardation and social disability, affect nearly one percent of kids in the U.S., putting a significant burden on families and society at large.

Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourage

routine screening for the disorders.

But the new report, a review of the medical literature, suggests those recommendations are premature.

“We don’t have research evidence to show how well screening works and whether we do more good than harm,” Dr. Jan Willem Gorter, a pediatrician at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, told Reuters Health.

While many screening tests exist — usually based on simple questions about the child’s use of eye contact and gestures — none of them are very accurate, Gorter and colleagues report in the journal

Pediatrics.

Often the tests will misdiagnose healthy kids, such as one recent test that yielded false positives a quarter of the time, or they will fail to detect autism.

“The potential burdens on families of receiving a misdiagnosis (either a false-positive or a false-negative) may be enormous,” the researchers write, “and there might be labeling effects that can be hard to remove.”

They found other reasons to avoid screening, too.

For instance, there is no cure for autism, and interventions to help the kids function better on a daily basis often

have shaky underpinnings and cost a lot.

Such treatment programs may not be easily available either, the researchers note, adding that offering screening without providing helpful services would be “pointless, and almost certainly unethical.”

“The reality is there are already waitlists of up to a year, or over a year,” Gorter said.

At this point, he added, the best way to help children with autism is probably to make parents understand how their kids communicate and make sure they meet other children.

NEW JERSEY

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

15

Gov. Christie plans to use ARC tunnel money to pay for repairs to N.J. bridges, TRENTON - The Pulaski Skyway and the Route 7 bridge don’t have the same magic ring as the notion of boring a grand tunnel to Manhattan, but the governor argued Thursday they were the best place for New Jersey’s transportation dollars.

Gov. Chris Christie said he plans to redirect money from the Hudson River train tunnel he terminated 10 weeks ago to help shore up the nearly broke trust fund that pays for New Jersey’s road and bridge repairs.

Turning aside pleas that he find the money by raising New Jersey’s low gas tax, Christie unveiled an $8 billion, five-year transportation capital projects plan, which calls for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to pick up about $1.8 billion in costs.

Among the Garden State projects the Port Authority will take on are the renovation of the Pulaski Skyway New Jersey’s most famous and decrepit

bridge - and the Route 7 Wittpenn Bridge in Kearny.

The governor said there would be no toll hikes as part of the plan.

Standing next to enlarged photos of the crumbling Route 46 bridge in Dover and Route 21 bridge in Newark, Christie said, “That kind of condition of roadways in the state of New Jersey is dangerous and is unacceptable.”

Christie said past transportation plans relied almost exclusively on debt and required enormous balloon payments at the end of the 30-year bond cycle.

“It was irresponsible and it was done for one simple reason: Because people were unwilling to stand up to the plate and do what needed to be done to make difficult decisions, to make a system work and be responsible fiscally,” he said during a news conference in Trenton.

Critics said the governor’s plan relies on the thing he campaigned against more debt - and a oneshot gimmick to divert money from the canceled Access to the

Region’s Core commuter rail tunnel.

“I thought debt was a dirty word to Republicans,” noted Sen. President Stephen Sweeney (DGloucester).

“The governor doesn’t just kick the can down the road - he punts it there,” added Assemblyman John Wisniewski (DMiddlesex), who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Wisniewski said New Jersey Turnpike toll hikes set for next January were predicated on the money going toward the Hudson River train tunnel, known as ARC, which was to double rail capacity to New York City.

Christie scrapped the S e c a u c u s - t o Manhattan tunnel in October, saying it was expected to go over budget by billions of dollars.

“The ARC tunnel project was supposed to be a lifeline for the region’s rail network,” Wisniewski said.

“Now, Gov. Christie is using the project’s funding as a lifeline to keep his national conservative credentials intact.”

“Until we’re willing

to really come up with a comprehensive solution, we’re just going be stuck in traffic, going nowhere, while our roads are crumbling,” Jeff Tittel, N.J. Sierra Club director, said outside the governor’s news conference.

“These are, at best, a Band-Aid.” The costs for the $8.7 billion ARC tunnel were to be split three ways, with the Port Authority and federal government each chipping in $3 billion and New Jersey paying $2.7 billion, part of which included $1.25 billion from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

Christie again reiterated his aversion to increasing New Jersey’s 10.5 cent per gallon gas tax, America’s third-lowest behind Georgia and Alaska.

“With rising gas prices right before us, the idea of raising taxes in this economy is something that this administration simply will not do under any circumstances,” he said.

The transportation fund was set to run out of money early this year.

In addition to the Wittpenn Bridge and

the Pulaski Skyway an engineering marvel in 1932 that has fallen into disrepair New Jersey projects that the Port Authority will salvage include work on Route 139 and a proposed roadway connecting St. Paul’s Avenue along the CSX railroad crossing over New County Road and ending at Secaucus Road in Jersey City.

The plan also includes $672 million for NJ Transit and $200 million a year for local projects through the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Christie touted the jobs the projects will create.

“The governor’s plan to fund our state’s transportation capital plan for the next five years is a positive step,” said Raymond M. Pocino, vice president and eastern regional manager for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, representing more than 40,000 construction workers in New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and Delaware. “At a time when New Jersey needs to grow its economy and create jobs,

the state has made a commitment to invest in its infrastructure.”

Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline, C o n v e n i e n c e , A u t o m o t i v e Association, said the governor was justified in allocating unspent ARC tunnel dollars to pay for transportation projects.

“The simple fact is that those dollars would be better spent on projects that the majority of New Jersey residents make use of - namely our infrastructure and roadways,” Risalvato said. “We are a state of commuters.”

Others gave the Christie plan mixed reviews.

“The proposal presented by the governor (Thursday) begins to head in the right direction,” New Jersey Future executive director Peter Kasabach said. “It addresses the immediate need to replenish the Trust Fund, moves away from excessive reliance on debt and back toward the ‘payas-you-go’ model on which the fund was founded. ... This is not, however, a sustainable solution to the Trust Fund.”

N.J. Gov. Christie approves toughest anti-bullying law in the country

By MATT FRIEDMAN TRENTON - Gov. Chris Christie has signed a bill that, advocates say, gives New Jersey the toughest anti-bullying law in the country.

The news reached Garden State Equality Chairman Steven Goldstein during a Somerset conference on reducing the risk of suicide for gay and lesbian teens.

“This is no overstatement.

Today is one of the most

important civil-rights days in New Jersey history,” said Goldstein. “Gov. Christie signed a law that is so different and so much better than anti-bullying laws that exist elsewhere across the country, that it’s stunning.”

The “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights” is intended to eliminate loopholes in the state’s first anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002, that encouraged school districts to set up programs to combat bullying but did not mandate it.

The bill, in the works for almost a year, gained momentum after the suicide

in September of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi, whose roommate streamed a romantic encounter between him and another man over the internet.

“The Tyler Clementi tragedy was certainly uppermost in legislators’ minds in acting as quickly and boldly as they did,” said Goldstein.

“New Jersey would have passed some law, but it wouldn’t have happened as quickly and it would have no where as strong as the law that just passed.”

The new law will require training for most public

school teachers, administrators and other employees on how to spot bullying and mandate that all districts form a “school safety team” to review complaints. School districts would be graded by the state on their efforts to combat the problem.

Administrators who do not investigate reported incidents of bullying would be disciplined, while students who bully could be suspended or expelled. School employees would also be required to report all incidents they learn of, whether they took place in or outside

of school.

The bill sailed through the Assembly and Senate in November. It passed 73-1, with 5 abstentions, in the Assembly, and 30-0 in the Senate.

Christie signed the bill Wednesday, spokesman Michael Drewniak said.

Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen), a sponsor, said she thinks the bill will protect vulnerable students.”I also hope when they go to school they have a sense of safety and be free from being intimidated or harassed,” she said.

16

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Kelly Rowland’s biological father explains his absence The long lost biological father of Kelly Rowland has done an interview with a London tabloid, saying he regrets the destructive behavior that cost him the chance to see his daughter grow up.

Christopher Lovett, who has not seen his 30-year-old daughter since she was seven, reportedly pleaded through tears: “Kelly, I love you with all my heart. Please forgive me and let me be your dad again.”

The interview was done in advance of Rowland’s role as a judge on UK’s “X Factor,” which begins a new season this summer.

Read an excerpt below: Lovett admits his failure to provide for his family, a drinking problem and a vicious temper tore his family apart. But he still idolizes his daughter, and treasures the memories of their time together.

Christopher, 65, says: “I loved her from the moment she took her first breath. I remember as clear as day Kelly and I singing together, from the moment she could talk. Our favorite songs were by Stevie Wonder. I would put one headphone in my ear and the other in hers and we would sing and sing, so happy to be together.

“But then I lost my job at a transportation company, sank into a depression about money and began drinking more and more. The failure

to provide for my family fueled an anger that I will be ashamed of until my dying day.

“It wasn’t physical between me and Kelly’s mom, but there were many days and nights when Kelly would be bawling her eyes out, clutching my leg begging me, ‘Please daddy stop shouting at mommy.’ That image of her howling, begging me to stop will haunt

me forever.

“I really hoped I would get to make it up to her. Sadly I am still waiting for that day.

But I can’t give up hope.

That’s why there is a room in my house which I have decorated especially for Kelly, just in case she comes through the front door.”

Destiny’s Child star Kelly has spoken of her father in the past, saying: “I don’t know where he is but I hope

he’s not dead. That would break my heart.

“I remember my dad being drunk and aggressive towards my mom but not me. I don’t know if he knows who I am or what I’ve done.

He must be hiding under a rock if he doesn’t.”

Kelly was born on February 11, 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia. Christopher and her mom Doris, who married four years later, named her Kelendria.

Christopher says: “She was just this joyous, happy smiling baby who could melt my heart just by looking at me. She was a real daddy’s girl.”

“When she started to talk things just got even better.

My heart would burst with pride when she belted out Whitney Houston songs. I saw her jumping round the front room singing like a pro, when she had barely just learnt to walk.”

But Christopher lost his job when Kelly was six and things started to fall apart.

He says: “I am a proud man and wanted the best for my family so when I lost my job I was utterly ashamed and hid from that shame with drink.

“When Doris challenged me, I would just lose it. No parent should scream and shout in front of their child, and I am sorry to say there were too many times to mention that Kelly heard me screaming abuse at her

mother. Sometimes she would run to her bedroom screaming, other times she would cling to my trouser leg begging me to stop.

When the electricity was cut off and we received an eviction letter we agreed for Doris to take Kelly to her aunt’s house while I sorted things out.

“Little did I know the day they left would be the last time I would see my wife and daughter ever again.

“Every time I phoned her aunt’s house she told me Kelly and her mom were out.

I had no job, no money, no car and just no way of getting the 20 miles to where they were staying.

“When six months had passed I begged a friend for a ride to her aunt’s house and she told me they had moved to Texas. I begged her to give me an address, but she flat-out refused.”

For the next 23 years, Christopher did everything he could to find Kelly, who will appear on the “X Factor” in August. He says: “I knew I had to stop drinking, get a job or I would never see my daughter again.

“And I did. But by then it was too late and they were gone, the two people I loved with all my heart and that tore me up and still does today.”

At one point he drove 800 miles to Texas and walked Continued on page 17

Fantasia tapped to play It’s going to cost more at Disney World gospel great Mahalia Jackson in new biopic Fantasia Barrino is heading to the big screen. The “I’m Doin’ Me” hitmaker has been summoned to play famed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in a new biopic. The biopic, based on Jules Schwerin’s 1993 book Got To Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel, is currently in pre-production.

Mahalia Jackson, born in New Orleans, LA in 1911, is known to be one of the best vocalists of all time and the first gospel singer to ever perform at Carnegie Hall.

She also used her influence to support the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

According to the New York Post, the film, endorsed by Jackson, has a $23.9 million dollar budget and Fantasia has a deal that will get her a percentage of the film’s box office gross.

Barrino portrayed herself in her 2006 biopic, the Lifetime Channel’s ‘Life Is Not a Fairy Tale’ and earned a 2007 Theater World Award for her performance in The Color Purple on Broadway.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The price of admission to Disney World is going up for the second time in less than a year, the Florida amusement park says.

It will cost $85 plus tax to spend a day at Disney World, the Orlando Sentinel reported. That’s a 3.7 percent hike from $82.

Buying longer-term passes won’t be as good a deal as in the past. A five-day ticket will rise 5.9 percent from $237 to $251, the newspaper said. A seven-day pass is being bumped up 8.1 percent to $267 and a 10-day pass spikes 11.1 percent to $291.

The price hikes follow increases invoked last August.

“Our research tells us that nearly all of our guests agree that a Disney themepark experience is a strong

value,” spokesman Bryan Malenius said.

Ticket prices are also going up at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., the Sentinel said.

The increases come as Disney tries to get away from

the discounts it used to attract vacationers during the recession. Disney is not alone in that regard, the Sentinel said, with SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment also recently ending its “Fun Cards” incentive.

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Drake reveals October 24 ‘Take Care’ release date

By ROB MARKMAN Drake can have just about any woman he wants, but on his new song “Marvin’s Room,” the Young Money rep has his eye on another man’s squeeze.

It’s unclear whether the track, released on Thursday (June 9), will appear on Drake’s upcoming Take Care, but in the post accompanying the song on his October’s Very Own blog, Drizzy writes, “Another piece of the story. Single coming in July. Take Care coming Oct. 24th.” The “another piece of the story”

in Drake’s message likely refers to a May 20 post in which he dropped “Dreams Money Can Buy.” The Toronto MC wrote of “Dreams,” “Not my single. Just a piece of my story.” But for fans eagerly awaiting his sophomore album, the announcement that it will drop on the 24th of October required no deciphering.

“Marvin’s Room” opens with a phone conversation between a young lady and an unheard party. The young lady explains that she went out to a couple of clubs, came home and then “went to bed.”

The story begins to unfold with Drake’s opening lyrics: “Cups of the rosé, bitches in

my old phone/ I should call one and go home/ I’ve been in this club too long.”

Drizzy goes on singing about how the object of his affection is happy in a committed relationship before he drops the telling hook: “F—that n—-a that you love so bad/ I know you still think about the times we had.”

The track’s slow thump and pounding kick drum is reminiscent of Drake’s previous R&B ventures like “Shut It Down,” from last year’s Thank Me Later, and his Internet leak “I Get Lonely Too.” “I think I’m addicted to naked pictures/ And sittin’ talkin’ about bitches that we almost had/ I don’t think I’m

Kelly Rowland’s biological father conscious of making monsters out of the women I sponsored, until it all goes bad,” he raps.

As fans eagerly await the release of Take Care, details remain scarce. One thing is certain, though: When Drake is around, you may want to watch your girlfriend.

Springsteen sideman Clemons suffers stroke LOS ANGELES — Clarence Clemons, the saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has suffered a stroke, according to a pair of media reports on Sunday.

Reuters could not confirm the reports, and late-night emails sent to publicists for Clemons and Springsteen were not answered.

The news was broken by entertainment gossip website showbiz411.com, which said Clemons was “seriously ill”

after suffering the stroke at his Florida home. Rolling Stone magazine said it independently confirmed the stroke, but not its severity.

Clemons, 69, started playing with Springsteen in 1971, and had notable solos on such tunes as “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road” and “Badlands.” He was dubbed “Big Man,” which was also the title of a 2009 memoir he co-wrote with Don Reo. Away from the E Street Band, Clemons enjoyed a hit

single in 1985 with “You’re a Friend of Mine,” a duet with Jackson Browne. He also dabbled in acting, and worked with other artists including Ringo Starr, Aretha Franklin and Lady Gaga.

Clemons underwent double knee-replacement surgery in 2008, and walked for the first time in three months when Springsteen and the E Street Band played the Super Bowl early in 2009.

E. Lynn Harris novels coming to the big screen soon Although we won’t be getting anything new from late novelist E. Lynn Harris, all of his fans will have a brand new way of connecting with his work. The Root recently reported that Tracey Edmonds of Edmonds Entertainment and Proteus Span of Proteus E2 productions have developed a series of films based on the library of the

writer.

The first novel up for the project is “Invisible Life.” The film will be a joint production with Shelia Ducksworth, Glendon Palmer and Jovan Johnson.

It was only two years ago Harris passed, but he made the deal before his death.

Shortly after making everything final, he passed away

from a heart attack in his hotel room.

“E. Lynn Harris entrusted Proteus and myself with his dream of seeing his books translated into film,” says Edmonds about Harris.

“After his tragic passing, we are even more determined to see his dream become a reality. With his first blockbuster novel, ‘Invisible Life,’ we begin

Sonny Rollins named jazz musician of year Veteran sax man Sonny Rollins was named Musician of the Year this weekend at the annual Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards in New York.

The 80-year-old Rollins, who also won the award for best tenor sax, was not pre-

sent for the event because he was touring Australia and New Zealand to rave reviews.

The JJA said in a written statement despite Rollins’ longevity, it was Jimmy Heath who received the Lifetime Achievement

award.

Other awards went to Blue Note (Record Label of the Year), the Joe Lovano Us Five (Small Ensemble of the Year) and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (Up and Coming Artist of the Year).

17

the journey that millions of his fans have traveled.”

Spann adds, “My dear friend E. Lynn was a man with an unshakeable spirit and an unbreakable passion to inspire and change lives. He entrusted with me his vision and the responsibility to produce this American coming of age love story accurately through the lens of sensitivity in which it was originally created. This project is a must for his millions of fans.

Because if we were all honest, we would acknowledge, that we all live a portion of our lives ‘invisible.’”

Edmonds‘ most recent success is “Jumping the Broom,” which so far has brought in over $36 million at the box office. It was budgeted at only $6.6 million.

Continued from page 16 from hotel to hotel in a failed attempt to find Kelly and her mother. Then, years later, he heard how his daughter was part of a successful girl band – Destiny’s Child – and felt a surge of hope.

He says: “I had heard she was doing well singing, but I didn’t know how well until I turned on the TV and saw her performing. I cried and cried, with sadness but also with pride at what a wonderful, talented young woman Kelly had grown into.”

In 2000 he heard Destiny’s Child were performing in North Carolina so he drove for eight hours and bought a ticket. He says: “I sat for the whole concert in one of the cheap seats at the back with tears of joy and utter despair rolling down my face. I wrote a note and begged a security guard to pass it to her.

“It said, ‘Darling I have been looking for you. I am so proud of you and I love you so much and I just long to tell you that in person. Love Dad’. But no matter how much I begged the guard he would not believe I was her father.”

Christopher –who has framed Destiny’s Child posters on the walls of the Atlanta home he shares with his second wife Gracie – says he wants nothing from his daughter.

He just wants to tell her how proud he is and how much he loves her.

He adds tearfully: “I own a big home now and have retired so I don’t want any of Kelly’s fortune, I just want her love. I just hope she does not become such a big star in England on ‘X Factor’ that she forgets about her dad completely.

“I’m getting old now – I just hope she reads this and doesn’t leave getting back in touch with me before it is too late.”

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

18

IMF cyber attack boosts calls for global action

By PETER APPS LONDON — Governments, multinational corporations and global institutions are losing the battle against computer hackers and must combine their resources if they are to lock out cyber intruders, experts say.

International The Monetary Fund has joined Sony and Google on a growing list of hacking victims but it is hard to identify the culprits who consistently manage to keep one technological step ahead of their pursuers.

“This is an example of technology developing faster than the frameworks and sometimes the regulations around that,” said Unilever chief executive Paul Polman on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Jakarta.

Cyber security experts say the only way to effectively combat the menace is for the public and private

sectors to join forces and combine greater regulation with international action.

“Clearly we are losing the battle,” said Vijay Mukhi, one of India’s leading cyber security experts.

“We are not doing enough... every year we hope things will change but now people like me have turned cynical. It requires co-operation on a global scale,” he said.

Earlier this month, Internet giant Google pointed the finger at Chinese hackers for an attempt to access the Gmail accounts of assorted rights activists, officials and others.

Entertainment giant Sony suffered serious damage to its reputation after hackers accessed the details of thousands of PlayStation users, while Lockheed Martin and Citi also reported attempts to steal data.

The growing complexity and seriousness of cyber attacks has begun to break down some of the stigma of

being a victim, firms, government and organisations realizing they must work together.

“There has been a real change,” said John Bassett, senior fellow for cyber security at London’s Royal United Services Institute and a former senior official at Britain’s signals intelligence agency GCHQ. “There is much more awareness of the threat (and) organisations are being much more open about the attacks they face. Lockheed, Google and now the IMF are showing far more openness than organisations would have done a year ago.”

Experts like Alexander Klimburg, said the attempt to steal sensitive information from the IMF, the global lender of last resort, was a chance for all sides to come together to confront a common menace.

“This is potentially a great opportunity to launch a “communal” investigation into an attack on a “communal” institution,” said Klimburg, a cyber security

specialist at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.

“If fingers can be pointed, they should be pointed. The only way to stop such attacks is ‘naming and shaming’, and in this case, unlike those of individual national governments, there is a clear global interest at stake.”

With the volume of data stored online increasing exponentially every year, some specialists say the problem is escalating out of control and action must be taken.

While some civil liberties campaigners fear giving governments greater control of the Internet would undermine privacy, others say that same privacy is already being undermined by both criminal and state-linked hackers.

Countries such as the United States have begun to publish national doctrines on cyber security and warfare but talks on international standards and agreements seem remote.

In reality, most states engage in some form of electronic espionage but some worry it is now getting out of control.

The Stuxnet computer worm widely believed to have been built by a state intelligence agency to attack the Iranian nuclear program through reprogramming centrifuges to inflict damage on themselves is seen by some as a sign of things to come.

Both Western and emerging powers have plowed funding into cyber warfare capabilities, with China, Russia and smaller states believed to see it as an area in which they can challenge the conventional military superiority of the United States.

As Chinese and Vietnamese hackers apparently attack systems in each other’s countries as tensions over a disputed maritime border escalate, there are also growing worries about the potential risks of damaging state-onstate cyber warfare.

Although he did not mention China by name, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday announced a directive ordering government agencies to boost cyber security and increase research on prevention of cyber war.

“Many serious threats have emerged that seriously endanger the application of digital technology for socioeconomic development and ensuring national defense and security,” the directive said.

Even if international agreement were reached on a common approach, investigators face almost insurmountable technical difficulties in tracing the source of a cyber attack.

“Such attacks are very difficult to pinpoint and so responding is both difficult and dangerous as wrong reactions can cause international tensions,” said Tony Dyhouse, cybersecurity director at the UK-based Digital Systems Knowledge Transfer Network.

expanding a loan program aimed at supporting certain industries, according to sources.

Reports on U.S. industrial output and consumer sentiment will also be combed closely for signs that either business or consumer spending can steady a stumbling recovery.

Two other data releases from Washington will shed light on the nation’s inflation picture.

High energy and food costs had until

recently been rising rapidly, eating into consumer budgets. At the same time, wages have risen all too slowly, damaging household purchasing power while also preventing a more pervasive inflationary trend.

“As for the concerns of inflation hawks, the trend in wage growth provides absolutely no cause for alarm,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington.

Asking too much of U.S. consumers

By PEDRO NICOLACI DA COSTA WASHINGTON — Talk about getting it from all sides. Economists want Americans to cut down on debt and boost spending all at once, even as home values tumble and gasoline prices soar.

It may all be a bit too much for the average U.S. household, particularly with an already sluggish labor market stuttering again.

A raft of economic reports this week will help sort out just how bad things have gotten, and offer some hints as to whether the slowdown is temporary or the start of a trend.

“At this point in the cycle, everyone believed we’d be on the mend, but it looks like that’s not the case,” said William Larkin, portfolio manager of Cabot

Money Management in Salem, Massachusetts, citing high levels of applications for new jobless benefits.

As goes the world’s largest economy, so goes the world, though the relationship is hardly one-sided. Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa have helped to keep oil prices high, putting a damper on U.S. consumer spending.

In Europe, Greece’s debt saga continues to rage on with no clear resolution in sight.

Even as European paymaster Germany demanded on Friday that private investors contribute to a second bailout for Greece, rating agencies have warned that any type of restructuring would likely be considered a default.

The aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami is also of crucial importance to the

global outlook, since some economists believe it helps explain part of the recent softness.

U.S. Federal Reserve officials have remained cautiously optimistic, saying the economy will pick up in the second half of the year and will not need additional monetary support from an already highly stimulative central bank.

But their upbeat tone is perceptibly less selfassured. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week characterized the job market as “far from normal” after employment data showed only 54,000 net new jobs were added to the economy in May, while the jobless rate rose to 9.1 percent, the highest since December.

Kicking off a full calendar, U.S. retail sales on Tuesday are expected to show a 0.4 percent drop for May but a gain of 0.2 percent excluding autos, according to

a Reuters poll of economists. Weakness in the auto sector may be due in part to supply chain disruptions following the Japanese disaster.

Also of keen interest will be two reports from regional Fed banks on manufacturing activity around their districts, since they offer an early glance into the economy’s performance in June. Both are seen rising, but to unimpressive levels.

Any upsets could send already jittery financial markets into a tailspin. U.S. stocks, which fell sharply on Friday on concerns over global growth prospects, have posted six straight weeks of losses.

Japan this week will release data on machinery orders and revisions to industrial output for April. The Bank of Japan, which meets to set interest rates on Tuesday, will consider

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

19

Summers calls for new boost to economy

By JEFF MASON and CAREN BOHAN WASHINGTON — Former White House aide Larry Summers on Sunday urged expanded tax cuts on U.S. workers’ wages, warning that America’s economy was at risk of years of Japan-style stagnation without a further boost.

In an opinion piece published by Reuters on Sunday, Summers — a Harvard professor and former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton — argued that it would be “premature” to withdraw fiscal support for the economy at the end of 2011.

Summers’ comments come as Republican and Democratic lawmakers debate ways to reduce the U.S. deficit and as his former colleagues in President Barack Obama’s administration mull a temporary cut in payroll taxes for

employers.

Summers said the United States might have faced a double-dip recession if Obama had not agreed to a deal last year with congressional Republicans to extend unemployment insurance benefits and payroll tax cuts for workers.

The deal was part of a wider package that included an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

“Fiscal support should be continued and indeed expanded by providing the payroll tax cut to employers as well as employees,” Summers wrote.

“Raising the share of the payroll tax cut from 2 percent to 3 percent would be desirable as well.”

He said the cost would be a little over $200 billion.

“These measures offer the prospect of significant improvement in economic performance

over the next few years translating into significant increases in the tax base and reductions in necessary government outlays,” he said.

In an interview, Summers offered more details of his idea, saying the $200 billion would cover both the expansion of the tax-cut and its extension through 2012.

He also said the economy would benefit from an extra $100 billion in infrastructure spending over the next several years and recommended additional aid to states and cities.

Summers, who headed the National Economic Council for the first two years of the Obama administration, said that the “greatest threat” to U.S. creditworthiness was a sustained period of slow growth.

“This means that essential discussions about medium-term measures to restrain spending and raise rev-

enues need to be coupled with a focus on near-term growth,” Summers wrote.

“Substantial withdrawal of fiscal support for demand at the end of 2011 would be premature.”

During much of 2010, Obama’s economic advisers wrestled with a debate over whether to shift toward deficit reduction or pursue further fiscal stimulus.

Summers and former White House economist Christina Romer were in the camp arguing that the recession that followed the financial markets meltdown of 2008-2009 was a unique event that required aggressive stimulus to avoid a long period of stagnation similar to Japan’s “lost decade” of the 1990s.

Former White House budget director Peter Orszag was among those who cautioned against a further big stimulus that was not

coupled with deficit reduction in later years, as he warned of the danger of ballooning debt and deficits.

The payroll-tax cut was enacted late last year just before Summers returned to his teaching job at Harvard University.

He left the administration hopeful that the would be package enough to restore the economy to vigor. Solid payroll growth in the first few months of the year offered reasons for optimism.

In the interview, Summers listed several factors that contributed to the slowdown: the fallout on the global economy from Japan’s earthquake, concerns in European debt markets, high oil prices and a deceleration in China’s rate of growth.

But he also said the U.S. economy is in a “cycle that has some of the characteristics of what happened in Japan” following the

bursting of its asset bubble and that’s why it has struggled to regain its stride.

“The economy isn’t as strong as I expected last winter,” Summers. He said that in post-bubble recessions, such as Japan’s in the 1990s and the Great Depression of the 1930s, there is a tendency to assume any pickup in growth means a return to normal growth but recoveries in those cases take much longer.

Separately, Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric and head of Obama’s jobs and competitiveness council, said Washington should streamline permitting for construction projects and make it easier for tourists to visit the United States to help boost hiring and spur the economy.

In an opinion piece co-written with American Express chief executive Ken Chenault, Immelt said his panel’s “progress report” outlined ways to increase hiring in manufacturing, construction, healthcare, and tourism sectors.

Samsung and Apple to end Nokia’s smartphone reign

By TARMO VIRKI HELSINKI — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will become the world’s largest smartphone maker this quarter, overtaking struggling Nokia Oyj which has lead the market since 1996, Nomura said on Monday.

In the next quarter Nomura also sees also Apple Inc overtaking Nokia, pushing the

Finnish company to No. 3 in the rankings.

“Nokia looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown to Samsung and Apple,” Nomura analysts said in a research note. “Further emphasizing the shift in power to Asia is our forecast for HTC to almost match Nokia during 2012.”

Research firms Gartner and Canalys both said they saw Nokia — which created the smartphone market with its

1996 launch of the Communicator model — losing smartphone volume leadership later this year.

“If Nokia’s new phones are not well received in the third quarter and (with) the Galaxy S2 ramping up, Samsung might overtake them and become the smartphone leader in Q3,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Nokia has lost initiative in the smartphone

market to Apple’s iPhone and Google Inc’s Android devices, and at the lower end to more nimble Asian rivals.

Overall, Nokia still makes more cellphones than Samsung due to its strong position in basic cellphones and its wider distribution network in emerging countries.

The company is switching to Microsoft Corp’s software from its own Symbian platform as part of an overhaul of its phone business set

out in February by new Chief Executive Stephen Elop.

On May 31 Nokia abandoned hope of meeting key targets just

weeks after setting them, raising questions over whether its new boss can deliver on the turnaround he promised.

Dell, BN.com do poorly in online service survey

By ALISTAIR BARR SAN FRANCISCO — The websites of computer giant Dell Inc and book seller Barnes & Noble Inc provide some of the worst customer service, according to a survey of the largest Internet retailers released on Monday.

Crate & Barrel’s web-

site also performed poorly in the survey, which was conducted

by StellaService, an independent provider of customer-service ratings for online companies.

DisneyStore.com, the website of Walt Disney Co, was among the top performers.

StellaService graded the biggest 100 Internet retailers, based on

how long customers wait on the telephone and how long it takes to get an email response.

Among the largest 10 Internet retailers, Amazon.com Inc was the best for average call hold time and fifth for average email response, according to StellaService’s survey.

“With prices and product selection no

longer a key differentiator among online retailers, customer service has become the deal maker or breaker for today’s shopper,” StellaService Chief Executive Jordy Leiser said in a statement.

BN.com, the Barnes & Noble website, had the second-longest average call hold time at just over eight minutes, the survey found.

The worst was Etronics.com, which did not respond to telephone calls during StellaService’s survey.

Dell.com had the fourth-longest average email response time at more than 65 minutes, according to the survey. Spiegel.com, Crateandbarrel.com and Fingerhut.com ranked lower than Dell.com based on this measure.

Crateandbarrel.com was also in the bottom 10 based on average call hold time, the survey found.

DisneyStore.com was the only website ranked among the top 10 for both email and telephone support.

Amazon.com did not rank in the top or bottom 10 for either criteria among the 100 retailers surveyed.

20

DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011 !

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DAILY CHALLENGE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

DAILY CHALLENGE

21

SPORTS

Finals over, NBA heads to offseason of uncertainty

By BRIAN MAHONEY MIAMI - As Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade traded big shots in a thrilling NBA finals, with fans tuning in at levels the league hadn’t seen since the days of the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, the questions came more frequently.

The answers grow harder to understand.

How can Commissioner David Stern tell all those viewers to go watch something else?

Why are owners and players willing to throw away all the momentum the league has built since last summer?

How can they shut it down now?

“It’s an odd position, when the game is the best it’s ever been, when the ratings are the highest they’ve ever been, when the excitement is the greatest it’s ever (been),” Players Association attorney Jeffrey Kessler said last week. “It’s sort of odd to see the owners say we’re going to destroy this game unless you change this whole system. Players just want to play.”

Nobody can predict when they’ll get that chance again. When the Dallas Mavericks finished off the Miami Heat on Sunday night in Game 6, it sent the NBA into a most uncertain offseason.

Owners and players are nowhere close on a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the one that expires June 30.

Without a new deal, players say they have been told by the owners they will be locked out.

The NBA was reduced to a 50-game season by a work stoppage in 1998-99, and the loss of games is a threat now. Citing leaguewide losses of about $300 million this season, the league hasn’t budged on its desire for significant changes to the financial structure, ranging from reductions in the length of contracts and the amount of guarantees, to an overhaul of the salary cap system that would prevent teams from being able to exceed it, as they can now under certain exceptions.

And Stern said the record TV ratings and all the other positive attention the league has received doesn’t make him any more motivated to get this settled, since he’d want to do it

anyway.

“I don’t need any external prod to want to be able to make a deal,” he said.

The clincher was the highest-rated Game 6 ever on ABC, and fans have pointed to the ratings for that network, along with ESPN and TNT, as reasons why things can’t be as bad as the league claims. Yet those ratings mean nothing to the NBA: Its long-term contract with those network partners guarantee its money whether people watch or not.

Yet they are watching, in large part because of the Heat.

When LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Wade in Miami, it created a must-see team, either in hopes of watching it win or with the desire of witnessing its failure.

“Obviously, what we’ve been able to do with the star power down in Miami and obviously the city of Miami, it hasn’t hurt in the sense of whether people don’t like it or whether they like it. All year they’ve tuned in to see, is it going to be a meltdown with this team?” Wade said during the finals.

“We’ve been having a lot of record-breaking views of people tuning in to check out a lot of

our games,” he added.

“As players we appreciate the support, whether it’s positive or negative, you’re watching our game. That’s what we appreciate.

Because it’s our job to make sure as pioneers of the game that it continues to grow long when we’re done.”

The feeling was so different for the NBA a year ago. It rode a seven-game series between the Lakers and Celtics right into the offseason, knowing its historic free-agent season would dominate the headlines, giving it far more offseason press than usual. With those longtime rivals still strong, and major market cities such as Chicago and New York scoring in free agency and surging in the standings, the attention continued right into the season.

But the free agency bonanza also showed why owners want the changes. Stern has said they feel the pressure to spend as much as possible to show their fans a commitment to win.

The smaller-market teams, meanwhile, don’t have the luxury of taking those chances, knowing the money won’t be coming in through ticket sales and local TV revenue if their teams struggle. So

now they want a system that would curb their spending through a hard salary cap, which the players strongly oppose.

“We got max salaries, we got a limit on annual increases, we got restrictions on player movement, so we’ve got as far as I’m concerned pretty much a hard cap,” union executive director Billy Hunter said.

The sides are scheduled to meet twice this week and say they hope for frequent discussions before the end of the month. Should those fail, the NBA could follow the NFL’s labor situation right into the court system, which both sides say they want to avoid. So

although a work stoppage in July wouldn’t seem to have much effect since games aren’t going on, Stern insists “we very much feel the weight of the deadline.”

But can they get something done before it?

“I think this is going to be a scenario where the players are going to have to sacrifice and I think at the end of the day the owners are probably going sacrifice a little bit as well,” player rep Roger Mason Jr. of the Knicks said. “I guess the biggest thing is figuring out what that middle ground is and we haven’t been able to do that at this point.”

T ita ns WR Britt faces mor e legal tr ouble in NJ

By SAMANTHA HENRY NEWARK, N.J. Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt was arrested again in New Jersey, a day after appearing in court for a previous arrest on traffic charges.

Police said the former Rutgers star was charged with resisting arrest after two plainclothes officers suspected he was carrying a marijuana cigar and attempted to handcuff him at a

Hoboken car wash Wednesday evening.

Hoboken Detective Sgt. Sam Williams said the detectives from the city’s vice squad, Det. Steven Aguiar and Det. David DiMartino, were in line to pay at the car wash when they detected an odor of marijuana, and Aguiar noticed Britt allegedly holding a brown, rolled cigar they believed to be the source.

Both detectives identified themselves as police, Williams said, and attempted to handcuff Britt, who allegedly tried to wrestle free and push away while attempting to crush the cigar

in his fist. Williams said police believe a man who was with Britt may have disposed of the cigar in the scuffle as police wrestled Britt to the floor and handcuffed him; the other man has not been charged.

Britt is charged with obstructing the administration of the law, resisting arrest and tampering with or fabricating evidence. Police did not recover the cigar or find any drugs on Britt, and he has not been charged with any drug-related offenses.

Britt was released on his own recognizance, according to police, and has a June 16

court date.

The Associated Press left a message for Britt’s attorney Thursday afternoon.

New Titans coach Mike Munchak said he didn’t know much about Britt’s latest arrest when asked by reporters after an event at the team’s headquarters with Special Olympics athletes and others. Coaches can’t contact players during the NFL lockout, and Munchak said they are trying to find out details on what he called probably a case of “making some bad decisions.”

“Unfortunately, he’s had a few things that’ve come up

for him in the offseason,” Munchak said in video posted on the team’s website. “That’s something we’ll deal with when he comes in.”

Britt pleaded guilty Tuesday to separate motor vehicle violations related to an April arrest on speeding charges in his hometown of Bayonne. He must pay a fine of more than $400 as part of that plea deal on careless driving charges. He was not present when the plea was entered Tuesday during a municipal court hearing, and Britt will have to sign a court affidavit before the plea can become official.

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Michael Vick surprises 2 grads with scholarships

By KATHY MATHESON PHILADELPHIA - In the minutes before giving his first commencement speech, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick professed to be more nervous than before a football game.

He had nothing to worry about. A lovingly raucous crowd of several hundred cheered Vick throughout his remarks Friday to graduates of the alternative Camelot high schools at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.

The fact that he surprised a pair of students with $5,000 college scholarships didn’t hurt either.

The theme of redemption proved to be the heart of the connection between the ex-con NFL superstar and the 450 graduates.

Camelot’s six campuses

in Philadelphia serve about 1,800 students with emotional, disciplinary or academic problems.

In speeches during Friday’s ceremony and in a private meeting with Vick before the big event, several graduates spoke of rebounding from previous troubles or poor choices to earn a diploma with the second chance they were given at Camelot.

Radames Quinones, 17, who met with Vick, said he ran with a gang, ditched class, assaulted someone and got kicked out of several schools before finding a home at Camelot’s Shallcross Academy in northeast Philadelphia.

He hopes to attend culinary school in the fall.

“It was like a family I never had,” Quinones said of the Shallcross staff. “They treat you like their own kids.”

Vick, of course, is the poster child for second chances. The former Atlanta Falcon has rebuilt his career with

the Eagles after serving 18 months in prison on dogfighting charges.

And the Hampton, Va., native is rebuilding his image by speaking regularly against animal cruelty to schools and community groups.

“I had all the fame and fortune; I thought I was unstoppable,” Vick told the students. But after his conviction, he said, “I lost my freedom, I lost my money, I lost my family.”

He challenged the students to make thoughtful decisions, pursue their goals and make the most of their second chances.

“I stand before you today a changed man,” Vick said. “Use me as an example at how to become an instrument of change ... you can do it as well.”

Vick then announced that grads Monique Joseph and Rickey Savage would each be receiving a scholarship.

Joseph plans to attend Penn State in the fall while Savage will go to

Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va. Neither the students nor their families - not even school staff - knew they would be receiving the funds, said Camelot CEO Todd Bock.

“I heard a little bit about it yesterday, but I had no idea how generous he was going to be to our students,” Bock said after the ceremony.

“I think our kids, our schools and our story really resonated with him.”

Savage, 19, said he is grateful to Vick for the financial aid, which will help him study business technology, and for the motivational speech.

Savage said his own second chance came five years ago after being arrested for robbery and assault. A stern talking-to from a judge made him realize he was on a dead-end path, he said.

“Michael Vick, really, he put everything in perspective,” Savage

said. “He said it’s not your journey, it’s your destination.”

Vick spokesman Andrew Stroth said the scholarship recipients were chosen based on

academic achievement, attendance and participation in student government. He said Vick plans to give out the $5,000 awards annually.

Locked-out? NFL training camp sites start to sweat

By DAVE CAMPBELL MINNEAPOLIS Jake’s Stadium Pizza has been a fast-food fixture on the Minnesota State University campus for nearly four decades.

This summer, they’re cooking that thin crust with crossed fingers in Mankato, Minn.

The NFL lockout, now headed toward its fourth month, is threatening a revenue-driving, profile-raising event for this small, family-owned business: Vikings training camp.

“We’re hoping they get it done, because it’s not just us. It’s the whole state that will suffer,” said Wally Boyer, the owner of the joint where players from Jim Marshall to John Randle have recuperat-

ed after many a draining workout. Fans, too, have long made that familiar walk down Stadium Road after watching practice to fill up and cool off.

If the work stoppage lingers long enough to keep teams holding traditional training camps, the hit would be felt far beyond Minnesota, and it wouldn’t just be about losing money.

In upstate New York, the Jets have trained on the SUNY Cortland campus the last two years.

“Just their presence alone has stimulated people. It’s just good for the mental health of the community,” said Cortland State football coach Dan MacNeill.

“For our people, it’s been fun. It has impacted the football program. We don’t have normal use of our facilities. But an

NFL franchise, no matter where you go, there’s a heck of a following.”

Seventeen of the 32 NFL teams last year held training camp at their year-round facilities, reflecting a trend toward cost-and-time efficiency in an era in which chemistry is built and conditioning established well before the two-a-day grind in August.

But the other 15 teams still take their show on the road, many of them to slower-paced cities and small colleges where their presence is a big deal - and a big financial boon.

Some people make a summer vacation out of watching their favorite team run drills and scrimmages. Day-trippers at least stop for a bite to eat on the way

out of town.

The Cardinals have held camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff since 1988, and the school’s Rural Policy Institute estimated it brought $7 million to the local economy last year, with an overall impact of $10 million.

There were over 38,000 visitors, 81 percent of those from out of town, along with 122 jobs created by the camp.

In southern Minnesota, a 90-minute drive from the Twin Cities, Vikings training camp makes a $5 million impact on the region, said Anna Thill, president of the Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Last year, it drew 60,000 visitors from at least 30 states, and a few foreign countries.

The university

charges $7 for parking near the practice fields, but that’s only part of the story. The school also receives tremendous exposure.

“They do bring people here, and young people are introduced to the campus. There’s certainly a marketing value to the Vikings being here that is difficult to determine,” said Michael Cooper, the university’s media relations director.

Whether it’s Westminster, Md., Anderson, Ind., or Spartanburg, S.C., the reflected glamour of having an NFL team in town for a few weeks can go a long way.

“You can’t put a price on it, to be honest.

Newspaper articles go out every day that have Georgetown, Ky., as the dateline. It puts the community on the map,”

said John Simpson, executive director of the Georgetown/Scott County Tourism Commission.

The Bengals train at Georgetown College, about 100 miles south of Cincinnati.

The Vikings’ presence was enough to get Jake’s Stadium Pizza a mention in Sports Illustrated once. Boyer said his business spikes about 20 percent during camp.

“It’s a lot of frosting on the cake,” he said.

Even some of the teams that don’t train off site, like the Washington Redskins, make a mark on local economies.

Visit Loudoun president Patrick Kaler said his group estimates a $600,000 impact to the Virginia county during camp alone.

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Serena Williams still just wants to win

By CAROLINE CHEESE EASTBOURNE, England - A grateful Serena Williams realizes just how close she came to losing her tennis career because of blood clots in both lungs.

“A lot of people die from that because you don’t recognize it,” the 13-time Grand Slam champion said Monday, a day before returning to action at the E a s t b o u r n e International after nearly a year away from competition.

“They (the doctors) just said it could have gotten a lot more serious a day later or two days later. It could have possibly been careerending, but for the grace of God I got there in time and I was able to recover from it.”

The 29-year-old Williams’ travails all started at a night out at

a restaurant shortly after she won her fourth Wimbledon title last summer. Wearing sandals instead of boots to show off a new pedicure, Williams stepped on broken glass.

“My coach, he took his phone, he looked down and there’s like this massive puddle of blood. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” she said. “I ended up fainting because I lost so much blood.”

The ligament damage to her foot required two bouts of surgery, 10 weeks in plaster and 10 weeks in a protective boot.

“I was debating whether I’d rather be in jail for 20 weeks or a cast, and I was leaning towards jail because I really hated that cast,” she said. “Mentally that was one of the toughest things for me.”

But then in February, she had trouble breathing.

“I always use the word ‘blessed.’ I had great people around

me,” she said. “My (trainer) forced me to go to the hospital, whereas I was actually on the way to a party, to be quite honest. She’s like, ‘No, you need to go to the hospital.’

“Glad I didn’t go to that party.”

Finally fit, she joined sister Venus in entering Eastbourne, breaking with their normal tradition of preparing for Wimbledon at home in Florida. Serena’s statement last week confirming her longawaited return ended with the words: “Serena’s back!”

She was immediately installed as one of the favorites for Wimbledon, despite her lack of preparation.

Women’s tennis has struggled to fill the void left by the sisters.

In Serena’s absence, Caroline Wozniacki has taken the No. 1 ranking, but the 20-year-old Dane has struggled to justify that status without a grand slam title to her name. Compelling

rivalries and story lines are lacking.

“We’ve missed tennis so much,” Serena said.

“If tennis has missed us half as much as we have missed tennis, we’re in a good place.”

Venus returned with a three-set win over eighth-seeded Andrea Petkovic on Monday.

Serena looks to follow her sister into the second round when she faces Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria on Tuesday.

The younger sister is adamant that while the experience of a potentially career-ending illness means she’s no longer “taking things for granted,” she isn’t coming back to play for fun.

“My attitude hasn’t changed. I still cracked a couple of rackets in practice,” she said. “But that’s good. That just still makes me feel like I have that desire, and I have that insatiable, just innate thing inside me that I just want everything and I just

want to win.”

Williams wouldn’t say whether winning a fifth Wimbledon title in three weeks’ time was a

realistic aim, although she is hoping to peak in the second week and take it from there.

7 teams have had f urloughs or cuts NEW YORK - NFL employees have had their salaries trimmed by 12 percent since April, and seven teams have instituted pay cuts or furloughs of workers outside the huddle since the owners’ lockout of players began March 12, The Associated Press has found in interviews around the league.

Miami, Buffalo, the New York Jets, Kansas City, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Arizona are the teams known to have slashed payroll.

In all, the number of affected employees who work for either the clubs or the league is likely more than 100.

Count Commissioner Roger Goodell and Jeff Pash, the NFL’s lead labor negotiator, among them. Their

salaries have been reduced to $1 each while the league’s labor impasse is unresolved.

Two teams, the Falcons and 49ers, would not comment when asked if they made any cuts, citing privacy issues.

Information about several other clubs came from people with knowledge of the cuts or furloughs who spoke on condition of anonymity because the moves had not been announced by the team.

Several team owners, particularly John Mara of the Giants, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, and Jim Irsay of the Colts, have been adamant about avoiding such reductions.

“I try to stay focused in the now. I just don’t anticipate that sort of

thing,” Irsay said. “My feeling is I’m interested in good morale around here. I look at someone who’s making $40,000, $50,000 a year, who has rent to pay, and I don’t see it for me as an owner to be asking them for anything.”

Buffalo has asked for a lot.

The Bills made across-the-board cuts to all salaried employees in March ranging between 20 and 25 percent.

“We have made prudent preparations for the possibilities of a work stoppage,” Bills CEO Russ Brandon said then. “We have, for some time, been very upfront and transparent with our staff so that they, too, could make prudent preparations. We have built a

program that focuses on shared sacrifice.

Every employee in the organization will be affected. As you move up the organization chart, the sacrifice increases in absolute and percentage terms, as it should.

“We plan no layoffs as a result of the situation at this time. Our hope is that our advanced planning will allow us to avoid them in the future as well.”

But in May the team also suspended payments into the employees’ pension and 401K plans for the duration of the lockout.

Lions employees have taken two-week furloughs, a person familiar with the moves told the AP. “Any decisions we make, the impact will

start with me,” said team president Tom Lewand, adding the names of coach Jim Schwartz and general manager Martin M a y h e w .

“Unfortunately, it is affecting the entire organization, starting with us.”

The Cardinals had a companywide weeklong furlough during the last week of May. All the coaches have in their contracts pay reductions in the event of a work stoppage.

The Jets have been requiring their dozens of non-contracted employees to take a one-week unpaid furlough every month since the lockout began.

Contracted employees in football operations, including general manager Mike

Tannenbaum, coach Rex Ryan and assistant coaches, took 25 percent pay cuts.

And the Jets implemented other cost-cutting measures, such as scaling back team events - they canceled their “Taste of the NFL” benefit and their annual golf outing.

Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland, coach Tony Sparano and his assistant coaches received a pay cut on June 1. In May, the Dolphins cut salaries of support staff 10 to 20 percent. The percentage was larger for higher-paid employees, and all employees were told they’ll return to full pay when the lockout ends. CEO Mike Dee blamed lagging ticket sales resulting from the lockout.

- BARRY WILNER

DAILY CHALLENGE

S SP PO OR RT TS S TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

AFTER FINALS FAILURE, WHERE DO HEAT GO FROM HERE ?

By TIM REYNOLDS MIAMI - LeBron James swiped at critics after the final Miami Heat game of the season, saying the quality of their lives will not improve because he failed to win a championship.

Neither will his.

His enormous fame and fortune not withstanding, the perception of

James is shaped mostly by what he does in his basketball uniform - and what he says out of it. For the eighth straight year, he failed to reach the NBA mountaintop, this time after he and the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks.

So now what? James says he’ll get better. Dwyane Wade has the same sentiments. And whenever next season begins, be it October or delayed by a lockout, James and the Heat will face the same situation they did in the season’s final game: Win or bust.