Vol 40 No 44, Friday April 29th, 2011

PARENTS SEEK $100 MILLION FROM BLOOMBERG OVER SCHOOLS - PG. 2 NATIONAL NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION

THE NATION’S ONLY BLACK DAILY 35 Cents

Final

PAINTING THE TOWN FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE

Some ambitious students, many described as “at risk” and “disadvantaged,” are enrolled in programs sponsored by Publicolor an organization that paints and spruces up schools and community sites throughout the city. Photo: Schools Chancellor Den-

nis Walcott, Publicolor founder Ruth Lande Shuman and some of the students in the organization’s programs are all smiles during the recent anniversary celebration.

SEE PAGE 3.

WWW.DAILYCHALLENGENEWS.COM

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

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Parents seek $100 million from Bloomberg over schools New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be fined $100 million of his own money over his unpopular education chief’s short and controversial tenure, a group of parents said in legal papers on Wednesday.

They say Bloomberg chose to burnish his three-term mayor legacy over improving education when he nominated his friend and former Hearst Magazines chairman Cathie Black as schools chancellor, despite her lack of credentials and experi-

N EW S BR I EF S ADVOCATES ASK CITY TO MANDATE BARCODES ON PARKING PERMITS Advocates have asked the city to buckle down on parking permit abuse.

Transportation Alternatives called for a renewed push for the Authentic Permit Act, which would mandate barcodes on permits.

This comes as the group released a report that shows public officials widely abuse parking permits.

The report found more than half of permits used in the survey were either illegitimate or legal permits used illegally.

The group estimates there are 10,000 to 25,000 fake permits used in the city.

The New York City Police Department said in a statement Wednesday, “The NYPD had the most rigorous placard enforcement of any police agency in the country. Since the NYPD established its special IAB placard enforcement program in April 2008, we have issued 28,000 summonses, towed 6,000 vehicles and arrested 32 individuals for unauthorized use/duplication of official placards. Federal and state agencies issue their own placards.

So there are issues related to bar codes that have to be examined.”

DRIVERS, OFFICIALS DIVIDED OVER NEW BILL ON CABS Taxi drivers and officials faced off at City Hall Wednesday.

At issue is a bill proposed by the mayor that would raise fines for taxi drivers who refuse to take a passenger anywhere in the five boroughs, overcharge a passenger, or in the case of livery cabs, pick up a passenger without pre-arranged service.

Drivers said they cannot afford to take passengers out of Manhattan.

“It’s a condition of the license that the driver will serve New Yorkers in all five boroughs and take passengers to any destination that he or she wishes to go to within the five boroughs, and we mean to insist that that rule is obeyed,” said Taxi Limousine Commission head David Yassky.

If the bill passes, the fine for a first offense would jump from $350 to $500.

Second offenses would cost $1,000 and third offenses could lead to a license revocation.

The council will hold another hearing before voting on the bill.

ence.

Black quit the post this month after just 95 days in office and was replaced by her deputy.

The papers by Advocates for Justice, a law-firm and advocacy group representing the 14 parents, are a preliminary notice of a lawsuit handed to the City’s Comptroller’s office. The group has yet to file a formal legal complaint in a New York court.

“The mayor’s ego, and his insistence on ‘selling’ the school system rather than building it from the ground up, led to this disaster,” said the group’s attorney Arthur Schwartz in a statement.

“The mayor took a lot from the city’s school children with this error, and he should be required to make

repairs — in a sum that he is uniquely qualified to do,” Schwartz said.

The $100 million in damages should be paid personally by the billionaire mayor, the legal papers said, and be pooled in a fund to help train teachers.

“This suit so lacks merit it’s not even worth me commenting,” said Kate O’Brien-Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the City’s Law Department. A representative from the mayor’s office was not immediately available to comment.

The parents, who are seeking class-action status to represent all New York City public school parents, said Bloomberg had committed “misfeasance of office” by ramming Black’s appointment through the state bureaucracy.

After being appointed in November, Black clashed repeatedly with teachers and parents who saw her as a friend of Bloomberg with no experience that would suggest she had the credentials to succeed in one the most challenging jobs in U.S. education.

Black never seemed to recover after her comment in January that birth control “would really help us” solve the problem of overcrowded schools drew the ire of many parents of the city’s 1.1 million public school students.

Black’s resignation on April 7 came just days after an NY1-Marist poll found Bloomberg’s approval rating had dropped to 40 percent, with 21 percent saying they believe his performance in office is poor.

Tornadoes and storms rip South, at least 259 dead

By VERNA GATES TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — Tornadoes and violent storms ripped through seven southern U.S. states, killing at least 259 people in the country’s deadliest series of twisters in nearly four decades.

The clusters of powerful tornadoes — more than 160 in total — combined with storms to cut a swath of destruction heading from west to east over several days. In some areas, whole neighborhoods were flattened, cars flipped over and trees and power lines felled, leaving mounds of tangled wreckage.

At least 162 people died in Alabama, the worst-hit state which suffered “massive destruction of property,” Governor Robert Bentley said on Thursday.

The mile-wide monster twister that on Wednesday tore through the town of Tuscaloosa, home to the University of Alabama, may have been the biggest ever to hit the state, meteorologist Josh Nagelberg said on the AccuWeather.com website.

Many people told tales of narrow misses. “I made it. I got in a closet, put a pillow over my face and held on for dear life because it started sucking me up,” said Angela Smith of Tuscaloosa, whose neighbor was killed.

President Barack Obama was to visit Alabama on Friday to view damage and meet the governor, the White

House said.

In preliminary estimates, other state officials reported 32 killed in Mississippi, 30 in Tennessee, 11 in Arkansas, 14 in Georgia, eight in Virginia and two in Louisiana.

The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Alabama was expected to be shut for days, possibly weeks, as workers repaired damaged transmission lines.

But the backup systems worked as intended to prevent a partial meltdown like the nuclear disaster in Japan.

“The reactors will remain shut until we have restored the reliability of the transmission system,” said Ray Golden, spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which owns the 3,274megawatt plant.

Up to 1 million people in Alabama were left without power.

It is too early to estimate the financial cost of the storms, Alabama’s state insurance department said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate said it is too early for his agency to give a confirmed overall death toll and authorities are concentrating on rescue and recovery.

Some of the worst devastation occurred in Tuscaloosa, where at least 37 people were killed, including some students.

“It sounded like a chain-saw. You could hear the debris hitting things.

All I have left is a few clothes and tools

that were too heavy for the storm to pick up. It doesn’t seem real,” said student Steve Niven, 24.

“I can buy new things but you cannot replace the people. I feel sorry for those who lost loved ones,” Niven told Reuters.

Shops, shopping malls, drug stores, gas stations and dry cleaners were all flattened in one section of Tuscaloosa, a town of around 95,000 in the westcentral part of Alabama.

Tornadoes are a regular feature of life in the U.S. South and Midwest, but they are rarely so devastating.

Obama declared a state of emergency for Alabama and ordered federal aid.

“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation and (we) stand ready to continue to help the people of Alabama,” he said in a Twitter message on Thursday.

Governor Bentley also declared a state of emergency in Alabama and said he was deploying 2,000 National Guardsman. Governors in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee also declared states of emergency.

Wednesday was the deadliest day of tornadoes in the United States since 310 people lost their lives on April 3, 1974, weather forecasters said.

“We have never experienced such a major weather event in our history,” said the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the Browns Ferry nuclear plant and provides electricity to 9 million people in seven states.

Not guilty plea in wrong school case NORWALK, Conn. — A homeless woman facing 20 years in jail for illegally sending her son to a Norwalk, Conn., elementary school pleaded not guilty to larceny charges.

Tanya McDowell (right), 33, was arraigned Wednesday in state Superior Court on charges of first-degree larceny and conspiracy, accused of costing Norwalk taxpayers more than $15,000 by allegedly using a fake address to enroll her son, A.J., in Brookside Elementary School while she and the boy were homeless, stamfordadvocate.com reported.

McDowell said she and her son, who was 5 years old at the time, were

homeless and staying with a friend in Norwalk when she enrolled him in the school system, WTIC-TV, Hartford, Conn., reported.

A prosecutor in the case, Suzanne Vieux, is the stepdaughter of Norwalk

Mayor Richard Moccia, who has publicly condemned McDowell — who has a criminal past. She was convicted 10 years ago of robbing a bank in Trumbull, Conn., and was arrested in November for possession of marijuana and crack cocaine with intent to sell.

She has pleaded not guilty to those charges in a case that is still pending, stamfordadvocate.com said.

Defense attorneys Darnell Crosland and Michael Thomas told Judge Bruce Hudock they sought to transfer the high-profile case out of Norwalk in hopes of finding a more impartial jury.

Her next court date is May 11.

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

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Painting the town for a brighter future

Publicolor students danced, sang and painted at the orgainization’s recent 15th anniversary celebration.

Some ambitious students are painting the town — one school building at a time — to make a brighter future for themselves and the youngsters who attend them.

The students, many described as “at risk” and “disadvantaged,” are enrolled in programs sponsored by Publicolor, an organization that paints and spruces up schools and community sites throughout the city.

“We start at the bottom with failing schools and failing students who are stuck in environments filled with lethargy and hopelessness and offer them the option to paint their way to a brighter future,” Publicolor

founder Ruth Lande Shuman said.

The organization oversees students’ work in a number of programs and workshops that help them develop skills for academic success.

The organization celebrated its 15th anniversary earlier this week with a gala fundraiser.

Since its start, Publicolor has transformed 132 school buildings and 144 community sites. The students’ work is more than just a paint job.

Last year, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities gave Publicolor a Certificate of Excellence for its programs. And principals at schools where the students

have painted say they are appreciative of the work.

Antoinette Martin at the Dr. Betty Shabazz Elementary School in Brooklyn said visitors, staff and students “feel warm and welcomed” by

Publicolor students’ makeover of the lobby there. Geraldine Ambrosio of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx said the students work gave “an uplifting spirit” to areas of the building.

Study: Post-crash mortgages scarce for minorities CHICAGO — Funds for refinancing home mortgages were much more available in predominantly white sections of major U.S. cities than in minority areas after the recent housing crash, a study showed on Thursday.

The study’s authors called for more investment by lenders in poor communities and for improved disclosure requirements for mortgage lenders to protect unwary borrowers.

“Paying More for the American Dream V,” found that in the seven metropolitan areas included in the study — Boston, Charlotte, Chicago,

Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York City and Rochester, New York — conventional mortgage refinancing in minority communities decreased by an average of 17 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year.

But in predominantly white neighborhoods, mortgage refinancing loans jumped by an average of 129 percent.

This is the fifth in a series of reports that began in 2007, compiled by a coalition of nonprofit groups across the country, including the California Reinvestment, the Woodstock Institute in Chicago and the

Ohio Fair Lending Coalition.

The study also found lenders “were more than twice as likely” to deny refinancing applications by borrowers in minority communities than in majority white neighborhoods.

Previous reports by the coalition showed that during the recent property boom minority borrowers were more likely to obtain high-risk subprime loans than white Americans, even if their credit was good.

“These findings build on our past reports, which have documented ongoing racial disparities in mort-

Taxi drivers want pay raise, so fare hike possible Could your cab fare soon be going up?

New York City cab drivers hope that will be the case after announcing Wednesday they will petition the Taxi and Limousine Commission for a pay increase next week.

The news came on the same day City Council brought up a bill that would punish cabbies who refused

fares headed to the outer boroughs.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is putting forward what it calls a “modest increase,” which would include a 50-cent increase in the per-mile metered rate and a 10-cent bump for idling charges.

The bottom line? The meter rate would increase from $2.00 to

$2.50 per mile and idling charges — instituted in traffic or when traveling below 6 mph — would go up a dime from $0.40 to $0.50.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the taxi workers union, said the petition was quite reasonable given that cabbies have not seen a pay hike since 2004.

gage lending,” Adam Rust, Director of Research at the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, said in a statement. “Lenders are loosening up credit in predominantly white neighborhoods, while continuing to deprive communities of color of vital refinancing needed to aid in their economic recovery.”

Subprime loans — offered to borrowers with poor credit — and risky products like “stated income,” or “liar loans” where banks did not check borrower’s income, exploded during the housing boom. Irresponsible lending contributed to a housing market crash in 2007 that triggered America’s worst downturn since the Great Depression.

The crash also resulted in an unpopular bailout program for the U.S. banking sector that continues to have political repercussions.

A separate study published in the American Sociological Review in October found that predatory lending aimed at predominantly minority neighborhoods led to mass foreclosures and directly contributed to the crash.

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DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

JOURNAL OF THE PEOPLE’S PASTOR ‘WRITING THE HISTORY I’VE LIVED, LIVING THE HISTORY I WRITE!’

Fifty-two nights and half-a-day in the hospital: My experience

THOMAS H. WATKINS

Don’t rock the boat!

By REV. DR. HERBERT DAUGHTRY

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Part Eight After the operation, for the duration of my stay in the SICU at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, I was fed intravenously except for the time when my arm became infected. My arm became swollen and bluish.

This necessitated a cessation of the IV, which meant I was without any food for many days. I also couldn’t swallow. It became clear to me that there was a serious problem regarding my inability to swallow and talk. After a few days, I began to regain sufficient command of my voice to speak in whispering tones, but my swallowing did not improve.

On January 26, 2011, Barium Swallow X-rays of my throat were taken. I was given small amounts of liquid and pudding, but I couldn’t swallow them. I was told that I would have to do speech therapy. Because the doctor had gone through the front of my neck to reach the discs in the back, my throat was affected, which explained my difficulty of swallowing and speaking.

What was not clear to me at

that time was the reason for the operation to be done through the front and rather through the back, which seemed more logical. What I didn’t know wasn’t Dr. Cohen’s fault. When the procedure was explained, my mind was elsewhere. I knew my family and delegation, especially Dr. McIntosh — the family doctor, friend, and parishioner, would explain everything to me later in clear and simple terminology. My mind was on sermons, articles, church plans, future programs, telephone calls, etc. “Later” never came. I didn’t get the explanation until Monday, April 25, 2011 when I was preparing for this article. I realized that I didn’t fully understand and know enough to write about it.

Lesson #3: Do not completely depend on other people to grasp the facts concerning your medical situation however loving, well-meaning, and intelligent they are. GET THE FACTS AND UNDERSTAND THEM YOURSELF. Essentially, Dr. McIntosh told me that the surgeon went through the front because there were less complications.

If the surgeon were to go through the back, he would have to cut through more bone.

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Going through anteriorly provides an easier access than going through posteriorly. It’s easier for the anesthesiologist to support or maintain the intubation tube if the patient is on his/her back than on his/her stomach.

When the surgeon goes in anteriorly, he/she uses a retractor to move the esophagus to the side. When it’s moved to the side, two things can happen with the retractor in place. The nerve that innervates the esophagus can get stretched or paralyzed, causing the esophagus not to move.

It usually comes back to its original state in a few days.

In my case, the left side of my esophagus was still paralyzed, and it did not return to its original state as expected. It was weeks later before the esophagus showed signs of returning to normalcy. In addition, I had a rare condition called a fistula (a small hole) that developed in the esophageal wall which led into the subcutaneous tissue (fat).

If any substance went through the fistula to the subcutaneous tissue, serious problems would arise. An infection had also developed in the esophagus.

With the esophagus not fully

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DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

FORUM

What bothered me about the Barry Bonds case? due to his own arrogance, but certainly due to the steroids scandal itself. Other players are ducking for cover. More than likely this will all fade like an early morning fog.

It seems, however, that it is far easier for the powers that be to focus their attention on one baseball player possibly involved in questionable activities rather than on an industry—big Finance—which crushed the lives and futures of so many people who were simply trying to live an honest life.

Go figure?

By BILL FLETCHER, JR. I don’t particularly like the attitude of former San Francisco Giants player Barry Bonds. I don’t care for the way that he treated his fans and supporters. I don’t appreciate his smugness. Yet, at the end of the day, that is not what was at stake in the Barry Bonds court case.

Barry Bonds faces up to 10 years based on his conviction for obstruction of justice. This is not what prosecutors were looking for and it remains unclear how much jail time he will actually serve, if any. Nevertheless, when I think about the amount of money and attention that has been focused on this case, I cringe. And I ask myself, toward what end?

Don’t get me wrong, I am against performance-enhancing drugs.

That said, it is clear today that such drugs were accepted as standard operating procedure in Major League Baseball for years. That does not make it right. It means that when a line is actually being drawn it cannot be drawn backwards. If owners, players, and the media were all involved in this culture of steroid use, then the bottom line is that there needed and needs to be total enforcement, which includes changing the culture of baseball so that it is understood that such drugs are unacceptable. Saying today that what was done in the past was unacceptable when, in fact, the industry accepted it rings of hypocrisy.

Yet what really bugged me about

the Bonds trial is what sportswriter Dave Zirin discussed recently in a column. No one has yet been prosecuted for the circumstances surrounding the financial collapse of 2008. No one has gone to jail, and yet millions of people, yes, quite literally millions of people were affected by the double-dealing and shenanigans of Wall Street, thereby losing their homes, pensions, and jobs. A crime the scale of the 2008 financial collapse should have been the subject of thorough investigations followed by a wave of indictments.

Such actions certainly would have changed the culture of Wall Street. The failure to take prompt and stern legal measures is the equivalent of Major League baseball having taken a pass on performance-enhancing drugs for so many years. When no steps are taken, then the behavior is understood to be acceptable, if not permitted outright.

Instead of such actions, we are treated to the Barry

Bonds show-trial, and the resources that were put into it.

So, i don’t know whether Bonds or anyone else will go to jail. His career has been wrecked, in part

Swipe fee reform will create jobs in our community As a small business owner, I was thrilled when Congress finally passed commonsense swipe fee reform last year. We needed the relief, as swipe fees have increased dramatically over the years. The reforms, which are due to take effect in July, would allow me to grow my business, create jobs, and pass along savings to my customers.

But the big banks are using their political muscle to try to delay these reforms. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)

In the hospital: My experience Continued from page 4 functioning, food might go from the esophagus to the trachea, leading into the lungs, causing even more serious problems. To avoid aspiration pneumonia, which is the inflammation of the lungs and airways to the lungs (bronchial tubes) from breathing in foreign materials such as food, and the other problems as already stated, it was decided that attempts at food consumption should cease for at least a couple of weeks, which would give time for healing. At the same time, throat therapy continued.

The infection and paralysis slowed the healing process. It took longer than two weeks to achieve a semblance of normalcy. Several infections developed during my stay in the hospital. There was an infection in the esophagus, the IV, and the stomach plug. The stomach plug came during my stay in another part of the hospital, which I will discuss later. … to be continued.

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OBAMA HITS THE ROAD President Barack Obama takes his deficit reduction events in three states that are important to his reproposal on the road this week with town hall-style election bid in 2012.

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6

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

Lawmakers protest for-profit schools rule

By DIANE BARTZ WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of 113 lawmakers has written to President Barack Obama, urging the withdrawal of a rule aimed at reining in for-profit trade schools and colleges.

The for-profit school sector has been battling the Education Department’s so-called “gainful employment” rule that would refuse federal loans to students if former students in the same programs fail to pay back loans.

The department accuses some schools of helping students apply for federal loans and then failing to educated

them.

“While the regulations attempt to address real problems, they miss the target,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “Instead, the implementation of these new rules will be so burdensome and the projected impact so broad that many reputable schools, particularly those serving the most at-risk students, will be adversely impacted.”

They argued that poor and part-time students disproportionately opt for the for-profit schools, and these students would be hardest hit if the schools were declared ineligible for loans.

The proposed regulation would make a school pro-

gram ineligible to accept students paying with federal loans if fewer than 35 percent of former students are paying back loans after three years.

The rule is slated to take effect in mid-2012.

Losing access to the loans could put some schools out of business.

Lawmakers that signed the letter include Democratic Representatives Alcee Hastings, Carolyn McCarthy and Jim Matheson, along with Republicans, including Virginia Foxx, Michele Bachmann, Vern Buchanan, Jeff Flake, Howard P. “Buck” McKeon and Ron Paul.

According to Education Department data, 25 percent

of students who either graduated or dropped out of forprofit schools in 2008 defaulted on their loans within three years, compared with 10.8 percent of public schools and 7.6 percent of private schools.

The department has finalized other rules aimed at reforming the sector, including a rule to ban the practice of basing recruiters’ pay on how many students they enroll.

Other new rules require disclosure of graduation rates and job placement rates to new students and strengthen the department’s hand in taking action against schools that fail to advertise honestly.

Schools are responding to

the proposed rules by tightening up on enrollments, which is hurting their bottom line.

Apollo Group, the biggest company in the sector and owner of Phoenix brand schools, said it saw a 45 drop in new enrollments in its fiscal second quarter that ended February 28.

New enrollments at Apollo have dropped by an average of 32 percent over the last three quarters.

Other companies in the foreducation sector profit include Career Education Corp., which owns the Sanford-Brown schools; Corinthian Colleges, DeVry Inc.; Education Management Corp and ITT Educational Services.

Oklahoma Senate Alabama leaders seek to kick OKs bill targeting racist language from constitution illegal immigrants

By STEVE OLAFSON OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would create criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants who work in Oklahoma and those who smuggle them into the state.

It would also give police officers more authority to question citizenship status of suspects.

The bill, approved by a 378 vote, originated in the Oklahoma House and underwent revisions in the Senate.

The two chambers must reconcile differences in the bill before it can go to Governor Mary Fallin. Senators faced a deadline on Thursday to pass bills that originate in the House.

Oklahoma is one of several states — including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — where Republicans are pushing immigration measures reminiscent of the one that became law in Arizona a year ago. The Arizona law required police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the country illegally.

Under the Oklahoma measure, local police officers trained through a federal

program would be authorized to ask about immigration status.

The bill would also make it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants to work, apply for work or solicit work in a public place. Convictions could result in up to a year in jail and/or a $500 fine.

In addition, the measure: - Targets the common practice of employers hiring day workers who gather along roadways by making it a misdemeanor to stop a vehicle in a roadway and impede traffic while picking up workers. In addition, it prohibits undocumented workers from entering vehicles stopped in a roadway.

- Prohibits employers from hiring workers who do not have proper identification issued by state or federal authorities, but it does not call for any specific punishment for violations.

- Makes human smuggling for profit a felony offense punishable by no less than a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine; it also allows for the forfeiture of vehicles used to smuggle illegal immigrants into the country.

- Repeals a section of Oklahoma law that enables undocumented immigrants in the state to pay in-state tuition for college.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Alabama Senate approved a measure on Wednesday that would eliminate references to “Jim Crow” or segregationist laws as well as all mentions of race from the state constitution.

The legislation passed in a 22-9 vote, with all Republicans voting in favor after an all-night session, said Republican Senator Jabo Waggoner.

The proposed amendment

would eliminate language that calls for separate schools for Black and white students and poll taxes, the latter generally viewed as instituted to keep Black residents from voting.

“Even though federal laws nullify these old wordings, it remains a black eye on the state,” said Cam Ward, another Republican senator.

Some lawmakers have tried for years to rewrite the entire state constitution,

which they criticize as outdated and cumbersome.

Written in 1901, the document has 827 amendments and 340,000 words, making it 40 times longer than the U.S. Constitution.

The proposed amendment will now move to the House of Representatives for consideration. If signed by the governor, it must go to voters for approval.

A similar bill passed by the Legislature in 2004 was defeated in a statewide vote.

Poll: Most Americans say U.S. in recession despite data

By DAVID MORGAN WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans say the U.S. economy is in a recession or a depression despite official data that show a moderate recovery, according to a poll.

The April 20-23 Gallup survey of 1,013 U.S. adults found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing.

Twenty-nine percent said the economy is in a depression and 26 percent said it is in a recession, with another 16 percent saying it is “slowing down,” Gallup said.

The poll findings have a 4 percentage point margin of error, according to Gallup.

The health of the U.S. economy is expected to be a major issue as President Barack Obama, a Democrat, seeks reelection in 2012.

The government reported on Thursday that U.S. economic growth slowed more than expected to 1.8 percent in the first quarter of the year, as soaring food and gasoline prices drained consumer spending power.

A slowdown in first-quarter growth was acknowledged on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve, which described the U.S. economic recovery as proceeding at a “moderate pace.” That was a step back from the “firmer footing” that Fed officials cited for the recovery in March.

The Gallup poll found that

Democrats are the most likely to say the economy is growing. Forty-three percent of Democrats said the economy is in a recession or depression, 13 percent said it is slowing down and 42 percent said it is growing.

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans and supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement said the economy is in a recession or a depression. Fourteen percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Tea Party supporters said the economy is growing.

Fifty-seven percent of independent voters — a crucial segment of the electorate for Obama’s re-election bid — said the economy is in a recession or depression and 24 percent said it is growing.

DAILY D CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

INTERNATIONAL

7

Syria’s Assad facing dissent over Deraa crackdown

By KHALED YACOUB OWEIS AMMAN - Syrian President Bashar alAssad faced rare dissent within his Baath Party and signs of discontent in the army over violent repression of protesters that a rights group said on Thursday had killed 500 people.

Two hundred members of the ruling party from southern Syria resigned on Wednesday after the government sent in tanks to crush resistance in the city of Deraa, where a sixweek-old uprising against Assad’s authoritarian rule erupted.

Diplomats said signs were also emerging of differences within the army where the majority of troops are Sunni Muslims, but most officers belong to Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

The Baath Party says it has more than a million members in Syria, making Wednesday’s resignations more a symbolic than a real

challenge to Assad’s 11year rule.

But along with the resignations last week of two Deraa parliamentarians, they would have been unthinkable before nationwide pro-democdemonstrations racy flared last month.

One diplomat said soldiers had confronted secret police at least once this month to stop them shooting at protesters.

“No one is saying that Assad is about to lose control of the army, but once you start using the army to slaughter your own people, it is a sign of weakness,” he said.

Criticism of Assad has intensified since 100 people were killed in protests last week and tanks rolled into Deraa.

The United States says it is considering tightening sanctions and European governments will discuss Syria on Friday.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called on Thursday for international sanctions on Syria over the crackdown and said the United Nations should send a special envoy to investigate the killings.

But a European push for the U.N. Security Council to condemn the crackdown was blocked

by Russia, China and Lebanon. China said on Thursday that Damascus should resolve its problems through talks, while Russia said Syrian authorities should bring to justice those responsible for the killings.

The upheaval could have major regional repercussions since Syria straddles the fault lines of the Middle East conflict.

Assad has bolstered an anti-Israel alliance with Shi’ite Iran and both countries back the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups, although Syria still seeks peace with the Jewish state.

CLASH NEAR LEBANON BORDER Syria has blamed armed Islamist groups for the killings and accused politicians in neighboring Lebanon of fomenting violence, allegations they have denied.

Around 1,500 Syrian women and children crossed into northern

Lebanon on Thursday, witnesses said, fleeing gunfire in the Syrian border town of Tel Kelakh. It was not clear how many people were hurt in the clash but Lebanese security sources said the army had stepped up patrols in the area.

Syria has expelled most foreign correspondents, making it difficult to verify the situation on the ground.

Al Jazeera television said on Thursday it had suspended some operations in Syria, a move which a media watchdog said was the result of restrictions and attacks on Jazeera staff.

Syria says dozens of soldiers and police have been killed in the unrest, and state television has broadcast many funerals, but diplomats say some have been killed by Assad’s own forces.

“The largest funerals in Syria so far have been for soldiers who have refused to obey orders to shoot protesters and were summarily executed on the spot,” a senior diplomat said.

Assad sent the ultraloyal Fourth

Mechanised Division, commanded by his brother Maher, into Deraa on Monday.

Reports from opposition figures and Deraa residents, which could not be confirmed, said that several soldiers from another unit had refused to fire on civilians.

The state news agency SANA denied the reports.

Gunfire was heard in Deraa on Wednesday night. Water, electricity and communications remained cut and essential supplies were running low, residents said.

Rights campaigners reported shooting and arrests on Thursday in Zabadani, about 35 km (20 miles) southwest of Damascus.

The Syrian rights group Sawasiah said the death toll in six weeks of protests had risen to at least 500.

“We call on civilized governments to take action to stop the bloodbath in Syria and to rein in the Syrian regime and halt its murders, torture, sieges and arrests. We have the names of at least 500

killed,” confirmed Sawasiah said in a statement. “The shelling of Deraa is a crime against humanity.”

Turkey’s intelligence chief met Assad on Thursday as part of a delegation sent to Damascus to suggest reforms to help end the uprising. Assad lifted Syria’s 48-year state of emergency a week ago, but opposition figures said the death of 100 people in protests the next day made a mockery of his move.

Syria has been dominated by the Assad family since Bashar’s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, took power in a 1970 coup. The younger Assad kept intact the autocratic political system he inherited in 2000 while the family expanded its control over the country’s struggling economy.

Assad’s decision to storm Deraa echoed his father’s 1982 attack on the city of Hama to crush a revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhood, killing anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people.

B ahrain sentences four to die for police killing MANAMA - A Bahraini military court ordered the death penalty for four men on Thursday for the killing of two policemen in recent protests, state media said, a move that could increase sectarian strife in a close U.S. ally.

The ruling came amid heightened antagonism between Bahrain’s Shi’ite Muslim majority and its Sunni ruling family after the island kingdom crushed anti-government protests last month with military help from fellow Sunniled Gulf Arab neighbours.

It was only the third time in more than three decades that a death sentence had been issued against citizens

of Bahrain, a U.S. ally which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

One of the prior death penalty cases came in the mid-1990s, during the greatest political unrest Bahrain had seen before this year. A protester was put to death by firing squad for killing a policeman during that time.

Three other defendants in the current case got life sentences, state media said.

Rights groups and relatives of the condemned men, all Shi’ites, dismissed the proceedings as a farce.

“They were activists in their villages and we think they were targeted because of their activities,” said Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. “This will deepen the gap between the ruling elite and the pop-

ulation.”

Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah condemned the sentences, saying they were part of the “continuous crime committed by the regime in Bahrain against the people of Bahrain ... (who) are exposed to severe oppression because of their request for their legitimate rights.”

Bahrain’s state news agency said the verdicts could be appealed and defendants had “every judicial guarantee according to law and in keeping with human rights standards,” a statement disputed by relatives of the condemned men who attended the sentencing.

“Even the accusations contradicted each other,” said a relative of one of the men sentenced to death. He said there were discrepan-

cies between statements by prosecutors and coroner reports issued at the time of the killings.

Rights group Amnesty International said Bahrain should not use the death penalty.

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa, noted that the accused had been tried by a military court and could only appeal to a military court “raising great fears about the fairness of the entire process.”

At least 29 people have been killed since the protests started, all but six of them Shi’ites.

The six included two foreigners — an Indian and a Bangladeshi — and four policemen.

FURTHER PROSECUTIONS LOOMING The recent turmoil began with Shi’ite-led political protests in

February demanding greater political liberties, a constitutional monarchy and an end to sectarian discrimination. A few Shi’ite groups called for the abolition of the monarchy.

Bahraini Shi’ites say the ruling family systematically denies them equal access to employment and land.

Bahrain, blaming the protests on regional powers including Shi’ite neighbor Iran, declared martial law and called in troops from Sunniled Gulf neighbours to back its forces.

Earlier this week it expelled an Iranian diplomat it said was part of a spy ring based in Kuwait, which in March sentenced two Iranians and one Kuwaiti citizen to death for espionage.

Bahrain’s crackdown signaled the end of a

tentative experiment with political liberalisation that began in 2000 and saw the end of security courts used to prosecute dissidents in the 1990s, one analyst said.

“It’s clear hardliners in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are moving to deliver a fatal blow to Bahrain’s political opposition,” said Toby Jones, a historian of the Gulf at Rutgers University. “They see it as an opportunity to crush what has been a nagging presence for the last decade.”

Government officials have said that four policemen were killed during the recent protests, at least three of them run over by cars around March 16.

Since then, Bahrain’s security forces have detained hundreds of people, at least three of whom have died in custody.

AFRICAN SCENE

88

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

Police arrest, tear gas Uganda’s opposition leader

By GODFREY OLUKYA KAMPALA, Uganda Police cracked open the window of Uganda’s top opposition leader and fired tear gas into his vehicle on Thursday, wounding him in the eye during a fifth protest march over rising costs.

Kizza Besigye’s arrest came one day after his release from prison for leading a similar “walk to work” protest march last week.

Besigye says the demonstrations are to protest corruption in Uganda’s government and the rising cost of food and fuel.

A police spokeswoman, Judith Nabakooba, said Besigye was arrested for not following police orders and for leading a chaotic demonstration that snarled traffic and saw his supporters hurl stones at passing vehicles.

Besigye was arrested about 1 mile (1.5 kilometers) from Kampala’s city center.

In Besigye’s first protests he attempted to walk to Kampala from his country home. But during his last two marches he drove closer to the city center and then walked toward town, where he attracted hundreds and

perhaps thousands of supporters in the street.

An Associated Press reporter who witnessed Thursday’s arrest said that Besigye briefly got out of his vehicle but locked himself in it when police moved in. The police used an ax and the butts of their guns to smash open a window, and then fired tear gas into the vehicle. About 100 Besigye supporters were near the scene.

AP photos afterward showed Besigye using his shirt to wipe his eyes from the effects of the gas. On his right hand is a white cast, from when he says police broke one of his fingers last week by firing a rubber bullet during a demonstration.

Besigye came second in Uganda’s February presidential election to President Yoweri Museveni. It was his third straight loss to Museveni and threatened to end his political career. But Uganda has seen huge price spikes in food and fuel in recent months, giving Besigye - and his “walk to work” protests - a political resurrection.

Besigye appeared in court Thursday and was released on bail. Besigye’s lawyer said the opposition leader had been wounded in the eye by the gas and fell sick.

A Red Cross spokeswoman said 11 people were injured

Central African rebels call ceasefire BANGUI - The Central African Republic’s CPJP rebel group, which has been behind a series of attacks in recent months, announced a ceasefire Thursday so it can take part in peace talks with the government.

The Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace said in a statement that it had “decided to observe a ceasefire to enable the opening of negotiations with the government so we can end the suffering of the civilian population”.

“The CPJP has high hopes that these negotiations can begin as soon as possible for the resolution of the conflict.

After so many years of conflict, the Central African Republic needs to have a lasting peace.”

The CPJP, which draws most of its support from the northeast and south, had long refused to enter into a peace talks and has charged that its leader, Charles Massi, was murdered while in detention in January last year.

President Francois Bozize’s government has refused to confirm what happened to Massi, and the CPJP has made a detailed explanation of his death a key precondition of entering any talks.

In the statement, which was signed by the group’s secretary-general and spokesman Assan M?bringa Togbo, the CPJP said it wanted to enter the talks in good faith.

by the gas, including two pregnant women and one 4month-old baby when tear gas was fired at a hospital.

Museveni has vowed to crack down on the protests and has said repeatedly his government won’t be overthrown like those in Egypt and Tunisia. Museveni has led Uganda for 25 years.

Official returns showed him winning 68 percent of the February vote, though Besigye says those returns were falsified and that both he and Museveni got just under 50 percent.

The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, said he spoke to Uganda’s foreign minister on Thursday.

“We have expressed our concern about what appears to be harassment of Dr. Besigye,” he said. “I have myself spoken to the Ugandan foreign minister about this and have urged that the Ugandan government act both in a responsible and civil fashion in dealing with the arrest of individuals attempting to carry out peaceful protests.”

The U.S. Embassy in Kampala this week said it was troubled by reports that the Ugandan government has sought to restrict media coverage of the protests, including on Internet net-

A Ugandan police officer tear gasses opposition leader and former presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye in his car before arresting him in the Kampala city center. working sites. The embassy before being dismissed for said that “freedom of expres- saying in 1999 the governsion and peaceful assembly ment was becoming a oneare fundamental human man dictatorship. rights and a critical compoUganda is a young counnent of democracy.” try, with half its nearly 35 Besigye told AP in an million citizens under 15. An interview at his home last estimated 1.2 million have week that many Ugandans HIV/AIDS. The average yearface a “crisis of survival,” ly income is just $1,200, that the health care system though many here have has broken down and that hopes - and fears - over newly young people cannot find discovered oil that will soon jobs. He said that Museveni’s be pumped. An oil curse has government is terrified of the befallen several African protest marches, the reason countries, providing more he has been arrested for incentive for corrupt leaders walking toward the capital. to remain in power in order Besigye was the presi- to steal from public coffers. dent’s personal physician

Jury convicts 2, acquits 2 in Liberia-NY drug case

By LARRY NEUMEISTER NEW YORK - A drug investigation initiated by the son of Liberia’s president after a drug organization tried to corrupt the country’s officials resulted in two convictions and two acquittals Thursday after a monthlong trial.

The trial featured testimony by a Drug E n f o r c e m e n t Administration agent who said U.S. authorities began investigating after Fumbah Sirleaf contacted the DEA in May 2009. Sirleaf, the son of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was director of the Republic of Liberia National Security Agency at the time.

Sirleaf and his deputy director, Tony Soul, posed

as corrupt Liberian officials to assist the DEA in a sting operation, agent Eric Stouch testified during the trial.

The DEA secretly recorded a May 2009 meeting where Sirleaf and Soul played their roles as they met with a man described as an organizer of the drug conspiracy and two Colombian associates representing a South American drug trafficking organization, Stouch testified.

Renegade warlord killed in Ivory Coast

By SERME LASSINA ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast Ivory Coast’s president on Thursday expressed his condolences over the death of renegade warlord Ibrahim “IB” Coulibaly, a two-time coup plotter who began the pro-democracy battle for Abidjan and was killed in fighting with one-time allies turned enemy.

He died Wednesday after his top aide said Coulibaly’s troops were waiting for U.N. peacekeepers to disarm them.

A commander for Defense Minister Guillaume Soro said Coulibaly appeared to have killed himself rather than surrender when his troops seized Coulibaly’s stronghold in Abidjan’s poor neighborhood of Abobo on Wednesday night.

The senior commander

spoke on condition of anonymity and it was not possible to get details late Wednesday of how exactly Coulibaly, 47, died.

“Chief Sergeant Ibrahim Coulibaly has been killed this evening during fighting with the FRCI” Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, state television announced in a late-night headline running at the bottom of the TV screen.

D CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011 DAILY

AFRICAN SCENE

9

Pro-Kadhafi forces recapture border post: source TUNIS - Forces loyal to Moamer Kadhafi Thursday regained control of a border post lost to rebels a week ago after fighting on both sides of the Libya-Tunisia frontier, witnesses and a Western military source said.

Witnesses said rebels had fled into Tunisia, pursued by their enemies for about one kilometre (half a mile).

“The situation is very confused, and there is fighting on both sides of the border” at Dehiba, a military source told AFP, adding that Tunisian soldiers were “involved”, without elaborating.

A witness said Tunisian troops had arrested fighters on both sides of the conflict, but this could not

be confirmed independently or by Tunisian officials.

“About a dozen missiles hit Tunisian territory, near houses,” an employee at the Dehiba youth centre told AFP by telephone.

“Pupils had to leave school, and residents have taken shelter in their homes.”

Dehiba was taken by rebels last Thursday, and there had been fears of a counterattack as troops loyal to Kadhafi amassed on the area in recent days.

Thousands of Libyans have crossed into Tunisia in anticipation of a counter attack.

Sources said Kadhafi’s men have also retaken Wezen, the first Libyan village after crossing the border at Dehiba from Tunisia, with about 5,000 inhabitants.

“The loyalists

entered Wezen with about a dozen vehicles,” said one witness, while the TAP Tunisian news agency reported that the battle for the town caused “numerous deaths” among Kadhafi’s fighters.

“The clashes terrorised the residents and Libyan families who had taken refuge in Tunisia,” said the agency.

Fighting between rebels and Kadhafi loyalists intensified in the west of the country in the last week.

The rebels still control Nalut, the last big town before the Dehiba crossing as well as the highway leading to the town of Zintan, nearly 200 kilometers (around 120 miles) east.

Kadhafi troops fired rockets on Zintan on Sunday evening, killing four and wounding nine, according to

residents.

On Wednesday, thousands of insurgents defending the city managed to drive Kadhafi’s forces back several kilometres after a day of fighting and bombardments.

Massive protests in February — inspired by the revolts that toppled long-time autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia — escalated into war when Kadhafi’s troops fired on demonstrators and protesters seized sever-

al eastern towns.

The mountainous area of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, was one of the first to rise up against Kadhafi’s regime.

Bomb attack in Morocco tourist cafe kills 15

By YOUSSEF BOUDLAL MARRAKESH - A bomb killed 15 people including 10 foreigners in Morocco’s bustling tourist destination of Marrakesh, state television said on Thursday, in an attack that bore the hallmark of Islamist militants.

The blast ripped through a cafe overlooking Marrakesh’s Jamaa el-Fnaa square, a spot that is often packed with foreign tourists. A Reuters photographer said he saw rescuers pulling dismembered

bodies from the wreckage.

State-run 2M television said the 15 dead comprised six French nationals, five Moroccans and four foreigners whose nationality it did not give.

“Analysis of the early evidence collected at the site of the blast that occurred on Thursday at a cafe in Marrakesh confirms the theory of an attack,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official MAP news agency.

Two residents in Marrakesh who were near the square told Reuters the explosion

was carried out by a suicide bomber, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

If confirmed as the work of Islamist militants, the attack would be the first such major attack in Morocco since 2003, when suicide bombings in the commercial capital, Casablanca, killed more than 45 people.

Morocco’s ruler, King Mohammed, has promised to reform the constitution to placate protesters who have been inspired by uprisings in other part of the Arab world. But a fresh

round of protests is planned for this Sunday.

The latest blast is likely to hurt Morocco’s tourism trade — a major source of revenue — which is already struggling to recover from the effects of the global downturn.

A doctor at a Marrakesh hospital said at least one of those killed was a French citizen, and that some of those injured had lost limbs in the blast.

“I heard a massive blast. The first and second floors of the building were destroyed,” said one local woman,

who did not want to be identified. “Some witnesses said they have seen a man carrying a bag entering the cafe before the blast occurred.”

The cafe is in the Marrakesh medina, or old city, which is designated by the United Nation’s cultural arm as a World Heritage Site. It is usually packed with stalls, story-tellers and snake-charmers seeking to attract tourists.

“You can’t find a more emblematic target than Jamaa el-Fnaa square,” said a Frenchman who owns a restaurant in the city.

“With this attack and amid the worrying unrest in the region, tourism will hit the doldrums for some time,” said the businessman, who did not want his name published.

The roof over the cafe’s upstairs terrace was ripped off by the force of the explosion and pieces of plaster and electrical wires hung from the ceiling.

The body of one of the victims lay amid the rubble, covered by a blanket, with one hand sticking out. Blood stained the floor of the cafe red in several places.

No recognition for south Sudan if it claims Abyei: Bashir Abyei region, President Omar alBashir warned Thursday.

KHARTOUM, “If they put Abyei in Sudan - Khartoum the constitution of the will not recognise new state of south the new state of Sudan, we will not south Sudan when recognise the new it declares inde- state,” Bashir told thoupendence in July if sands of supporters at a it insists on claim- local election rally in ing the disputed South Kordofan, in

By SIMON MARTELLI

which the flashpoint border area currently lies. The speech was broadcast live on state television.

Abyei is the most intractable of several issues north and south Sudan are struggling to negotiate ahead of partition, after southerners voted almost unanimously to split with their former civil war

enemies in January’s referendum.

Last week, a draft interim constitution for the south was presented to southern president Salva Kiir at a ceremony in Juba, explicitly stating that Abyei fell within the territory of south Sudan, as confirmed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2009.

Bashir was addressing a rally in Fula, a town in north Sudan’s key oil-producing state of South Kordofan, where gubernatorial and state assembly elections are due on May 2.

He and other senior northern officials have campaigned energetically on behalf of Ahmed Harun, the existing governor and a stalwart of

the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).

Harun, who like the Sudanese president is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in the Darfur, is running for re-election against his deputy, Abdelaziz alHilu, the leader of the northern branch of south Sudan’s ruling party the SPLM.

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CARIBBEAN NEWS DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

Airport video monitoring for Barbados immigration BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said surveillance cameras will be installed at the Adams Grantley International Airport as Barbados continues to deal with the controversy sparked by allegations made by Jamaican Shanique Myrie of sexual abuse by immigration officials on her Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart arrival in Barbados government following Kenneth Baugh, said soon as it became aware last month. the death of Prime that the matter could be of it, adding, “There was The Jamaica Gleaner reported that in his first televised news conference with the state owned Caribbean B r o a d c a s t i n g Corporation (CBC) on Tuesday night, Stuart, who became head of

Minister David Thompson last October, said that Myrie is free to return to Barbados and identify the person who assaulted her.

Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister,

headed to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) if Bridgetown and Kingston cannot work out their differences.

The prime minister said that his administration had moved to deal with the incident as

also a coordinated investigation into the affair by the police. I have in my possession a full report by the police on the issue.”

He made it clear that no obstacles would be put in place to prevent

the 20-year-old Jamaican woman from returning to the island.

Last month, Jamaica sent a high level delegation to Bridgetown for talks with Barbadian authorities on the issue after Myrie said she was subjected to invasive cavity searches by a female immigration officer when she arrived in Barbados on March 14.

In the meantime, a leading regional entertainer has called on the Barbadian immigration officials to stop pressuring Jamaicans.

The Barbados Nation reported that dancehall deejay Beenie Man called on the Barbadian authorities to “ease up Jamaican. Stop pressure Jamaican,” he said from the stage at the Reggae Beach Party in Brandon Beach St. Michael, on Sunday

In reference to the ongoing dispute about alleged mistreatment of Jamaicans by Barbados immigration, the well known entertainer, whose real name is Moses David, claimed that several of his friends had similar experiences.

“Sometimes you get fed up ah one thing, yuh know. Cause you have been all over de world and den sometimes you doan really need to come to Barbados. The immigration need to think twice,” he said.

Beenie man said that he had been arrested on his last visit to Barbados but that he bore no grudge.

“Vibes nice and de people dem enjoy demself and me like that.

Thank you, Barbados,” he said.

Bahamas public servants Guyana presidential candidate calls on business demand more money community to help solve ethnic problems

By KRYSTEL ROLLE NASSAU, Bahamas — The Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) is petitioning the government to lift the freeze it placed on public service promotions and increments, arguing that inflation is overwhelming the resources of public servants.

This comes nearly a year after Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced the freeze in the 2010/2011 budget in May 2010.

Ingraham said public service promotions would be frozen, except in special cases, and that public service employment would also be frozen, except in extenuating circumstances.

The move came during the middle of an economic crisis that led to massive job losses across the country and widespread budget cuts.

At the time Ingraham said the government was making such adjustments to avoid job losses in the public service.

But BPSU President John Pinder said now that the economy is on the rebound, the union expects the government to put an end to the freeze.

“We have agreed that increments have to be paid,” Pinder told the Nassau Guardian on Wednesday.

“They have to lift the freeze on promotions. They are demoralizing too many people. A lot of people are at the max of their salary scale and the only thing that can help them is a promotion or the increments. That is according to our industrial agreement, once they perform above average in the form of a lump sum payment.

“Inflation is eating up our members’ salaries and we have to try our best — and I know it’s hard economic times — but we have to try our best to bring some level of relief to our members and the only way we can do it is by money,” Pinder continued.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The first of a series of presentations by Guyana’s presidential candidates was delivered on Wednesday when the Alliance for Change (AFC) nominee, Khemraj Alliance for Change Ramjattan, told the (AFC)presidential business communi- candidate Khemraj ty that it should Ramjattan play a major role in The AFC presidential addressing ethnic candidate emphasised that businessmen and insecurity.

Ramjattan charged business leaders to help solve the ethnic divide and to help deliver peace and happiness through reconciliation, unity and harmony.

politicians must do everything in their power to create a more enduring trust among all ethnicities.

He added that, if his party is successful at the polls, there would

be a total constitutional reform that would see the removal of presidential immunities.

He also said that there is need to cut back government expenditure by scaling back payments to super-salaried consultants and slashing the number of government ministries.

The lectures are being organised by the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA).

The second debate of the GMSA sponsored programme will be delivered by the presidential candidate for the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), David

Granger, on May 11, while the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) candidate, Donald Ramotar, will speak on May 25.

In the meantime, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) has admonished President Bharrat Jagdeo for statements made to PPP supporters on March 13, describing his remarks as a dangerous and unnecessary precedent.

The Kaiteur News reported that the decision by the ERC was in response to public comment and opinion that the statement attracted, including accusations that they were racially divisive and inflammatory.

Future depends on regional integration, says Venezuela president HAVANA, Cuba — Nobody will derail the efforts for regional integration, since the future of our nations depends on it, asserted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday, while addressing participants at the 2nd Meeting of Latin American and Caribbean Foreign Ministers in Caracas.

During the meeting, Chavez

pointed out that these are times of search for consensus in the continent by way of arguments and diplomacy, with genuine respect for the particular characteristics of each country.

Participants at the meeting prepared the agenda that the region’s heads of state will debate on July 5 and 6 in Caracas, when the Community of Latin

American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will be constituted.

The meeting will coincide with celebrations for the bicentennial of the signing of the Venezuelan Independence Act, and will have, among its main objectives, the creation of a fund for the eradication of poverty, in keeping with development strategies at a regional level.

NEW JERSEY

11

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

Voters across N.J. approve school budgets in greater numbers than last year One year after New Jerseyans rejected school budgets in record numbers, leading to major cuts in classrooms across the state, voters appeared to deliver better news to their local districts today, approving a majority of the spending packages put before them.

Voter turnout was light for the rare Wednesday election, but it was enough to pass 301 of 373 budgets for which results were available as of 12:33 a.m. In all, 538 budgets went before voters.

Last year, at the urging of Gov. Chris Christie and in a full-on assault of school spending and increasing property taxes, voters defeated more than half the state’s budgets for the first time in 40 years.

The rejections led to cuts in programs, teacher layoffs and higher fees for extracurricular activities and courtesy busing. In Edison, for example, the district

eliminated its full-day kindergarten program after the budget was rejected.

“I think people are frustrated about losing all they lost last year,” said Suzanne Dean of Edison, who cast her ballot at Menlo Park School and said she voted to approve the district’s budget. “It really had an impact on parents.”

Districts where budgets were approved today after having been rejected last year included Edison, Parsippany and Woodbridge. However, spending plans were rejected for the second year in a row in Rahway, Monroe and Linden.

Based on early returns, budgets were approved overwhelmingly in districts throughout Essex, Union and Morris counties.

In Somerset County, voters approved at least 13 of 17 budgets today, according to early returns. Last year, 15 of 17 budgets were rejected.

New Jersey School Boards Association spokesman Frank Belluscio said it seemed the passing rate was up

from last year even though only a handful of results were tallied by 11 p.m.

Efforts by individual school boards to keep spending under control as well as a state-mandated 2 percent tax levy cap likely led to more budgets being approved, he said.

“Our prediction was that at least half would pass this year,” Belluscio said. “These are still early results, but it certainly looks like a much better situation than last year.

These were austere budgets. There were some tough decisions that were made, and I think the public understands that.”

Despite today’s balmy temperatures, turnout at the polls was low.

In Berkeley Heights, voters trickled into the polling station at the municipal complex throughout the afternoon. At around 5 p.m., retiree Marlene Simone was the only voter casting a ballot.

“We’ve got to reel in spending somewhere,” said Simone, adding that she voted against.

“The burden cannot always be on the tax-

16-year-old Jersey City boy is charged in street shooting that sent man to hospital with two bullet wounds

By RON ZEITLINGER A 16-year-old Jersey City boy has been charged with shooting a man on a Jersey City street Tuesday night, police said.

The McDougal Street resident was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and other offenses, reports said.

A 20-year-old Jersey City man, Hassan Carlisle, was also arrested and police say

he was given a gun by the boy and discarded it while being chased by cops. Carlisle was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, obstruction, resisting arrest and tampering with evidence.

A 21-year-old Whiton Street man was shot twice on Claremont Avenue at around 6:15 p.m.

Tuesday, police said.

He was treated for gunshot wounds to his left buttocks and left foot, said Jersey City Medical Center spokesman Mark Rabson. Police initially

reported that the man was shot in the back.

Rabson said the victim was treated and released Tuesday night.

Police said they were tipped off to the alleged shooter by a man who flagged down cops from his car on Bergen Avenue, pointed to the boy, and said “He just shot somebody, he has a gun!” reports said.

When police attempted to stop him, the boy pulled out what appeared to be a handgun and fled north on Bergen Avenue and then east on Kearney Avenue, cops said.

payer.”

Poll workers in some districts said the mood surrounding this year’s election seemed much “calmer” than last year, when Christie slashed state aid to schools, then urged voters to defeat budgets if teachers in their schools refused one-year wage freezes.

At the Menlo Park School in Edison, poll worker Elvira Colbeth suggested something else may have affected today’s turnout: voting this year was on a Wednesday rather than the traditional Tuesday.

“I talked to someone last night who went to the polls yesterday,” she said.

Late tonight, after Edison’s budget passed by 283 votes, Superintendent Richard O’Malley said the approval means reinstatement of middle school sports, which were cut last year, the hiring of 27 new staff members and an investment of more than $1 million in technology.

“We wanted to try to restore some of the programs that were cut last

Dan Kurinzi (center) signs the ledger as he and his wife Marie (left) cast their ballots at Battin Middle School in Elizabeth. Voters appeared to be less harsh than last year on New Jersey's school budgets.

Photo/Andrew Mills year, invest in instructional programs and ensure we were cognizant of economic times and our taxpayers,” he said. “We are elated that the community came out to support our public schools.”

Steve Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the higher approval rate this year

reflects increased voter knowledge about the effects of cuts in education spending.

“People have seen the damage done to schools in the last year, how much schools have suffered and how much students have lost.”

Baker said. “They’ve realized that they do not want to put the burden of the state’s budget problems on children.”

Christ Hospital in Jersey City to open comprehensive cancer treatment center with $6 million gift from cancer patient’s estate

By TERRENCE T. McDONALD Christ Hospital in Jersey City is building a comprehensive cancer treatment center in large part because of the generosity of a former patient.

The estate of Sarah Stickler, the former patient who was treated for cancer at Christ Hospital in the 1990s, has donated $6 million to the hospital.

Stickler died in 1999

and left the money to the hospital specifically so it could open a comprehensive cancer treatment center.

Work has already begun demolishing the interior of a one-story childcare center on the campus that will soon be home to a state-ofthe-art chemotherapy/infusion center, one component of the cancer treatment hub.

The center, slated to open this summer, will join a breast imaging center that will be located in the professional building adjacent to the hospital,

and the radiation oncology facility currently operating in the hospital’s basement.

The new treatment center is part of the hospital’s effort to provide cancer patients with one location for all their treatment needs, said CEO Peter Kelly.

Kelly said the three components will help the hospital succeed in its mission to provide better care to an underserved population.

“This is what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said.

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

12

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Baby, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s You!â&#x20AC;&#x2122; A New Musical on Broadway

By JEANETTE TOOMER INSIDE NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the performances of the ultra-talented female group who make up the Shirelles and one Geno Henderson that make â&#x20AC;&#x153;Baby, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s You!â&#x20AC;? this seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feel-good Broadway musical.

Although the story centers around the life of the late music producer Florence Greenberg, the glowing smiles and velvet delivery of Christina Sajous, Erica Ash, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr and the fascinating Geno Henderson as the narrator/disc jockey make this show so entertaining.

Tony Award winning actress Beth Leavel stars as Greenberg, a New Jersey housewife and mother who wants to work outside the home.

In the late 1950s that decision is comparable to a feminist revolution, especially when her husband, Bernie Greenberg (Barry Pearl), objects to the idea. Although her husbandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responses are sexist and predictable, the amusing part is that the audience loudly supports Greenberg with audible groans in response to Bernieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s offensive remarks. In spite of him, Florence resolves to follow her dream of working as a music producer after discovering a group of high school girls rehearsing in a local playground and signing them to her own record label.

When these three women sing, led by the full-powered, melliflu-

Geno Henderson wows the crowd with his performance of songs by Chuck Jackson, Ronald Isley and Gene Chandler. ous voice and charm of Christina Sajous as Shirley, the play takes off, helped considerably by the sprinkling of performances by chart topping acts of the early 1960s when hot R&B torch songs and rock & roll begin to take over the music scene.

Henderson first appears as the legendary disc jockey Jocko Henderson (no relation), introducing new artists via his radio show and accepting payola from producers for spinning records.

Soon he is expertly singing, dancing and rocking his way through hits like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Shout,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Duke of Earlâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since I Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Have You.â&#x20AC;? At one point he takes to a guitar and treats the audience to a thrilling solo.

Leavel gives a worthy portrayal of Greenberg, but her role suffers from being upstaged by the singing sensation of the Shirelles and Henderson. Songwriter Luther Dixon, portrayed superbly by Allan Louis, joins Greenbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s label and adds an interracial romantic affair that contributes to the marital conflict. Directors Floyd

Producers face Lawsuit Dionne Warwick, Chuck Jackson and the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;60â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rock and roll group The Shirelles have filed a lawsuit against producers of the new Broadway musical â&#x20AC;&#x153;Baby Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s You,â&#x20AC;? claiming their likenesses are being used without their permission.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. The musical opened Wednesday night.

Mutrux and Sheldon Epps do their best to incorporate Leavel into songs and familiar hits like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mama Saidâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;You Really Got A Hold On Me,â&#x20AC;? but the attractive magnet tends to be the songstresses even when trying to downplay their popularity in the second act.

The Shirellesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hits parade came to an end in the early 1960s with the rise of Motown and the Supremes. Greenberg dropped the act after record sales took a nosedive and signed another unknown singer from New Jersey, Dionne Warwick. Ash doubles as Warwick singing â&#x20AC;&#x153;Walk on By.â&#x20AC;?

Like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Memphisâ&#x20AC;? the Black performers take a second place standing, but they are responsible for the fortunes made and the new trends in music that everyone enjoys.

Unlike â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dreamgirlsâ&#x20AC;? of an earlier decade, the authentic stories of these Black performers remain untold. Here again in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Baby, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s You!â&#x20AC;? the Black talent gives their all, but receives very little in exploration of their real lives.

Conceived by Floyd Mutrux and written with Colin Escott the skeletal framework of Goldbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life story is an entertaining vehicle for Broadway audiences.

With exquisite choreography by Birgitte Mutrux, creative direction by Mutrux and

(L-R) Crystal Starr, Christina Sajous, Beth Leavel, Erica Ash and Kyra Da Costa in a scene from "Baby, It's You!" on Broadway

(L-R) Erica Ash, Christina Sajous, Kyra Da Costa, Geno Henderson, Crystal Starr dance and sing.

(L-R) Beth Leavel, Allan Louis (background) and Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr, Erica Ash, Christina Sajous in a scene from "Baby, It's You!" Sheldon Epps, and fabu- Wolf, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Baby, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Youâ&#x20AC;? run at the Broadhurst lous costumes by Lizz stands to enjoy a long

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

13

President Barack Obama Fundraisers Reach Out to the Wealthy and the Youth in New York

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE NEW YORK â&#x20AC;&#x201D; President Barack Obama plunged into donor-rich New York on Wednesday, his first fundraising sweep of the city since announcing his re-election bid this month, with a lament that he has not seen his wish for less-polarizing politics realized.

"The hope that I had that we'd start coming together in a serious way ... has been resisted," Obama told 60 contributors gathered for dinner at the Central Park home of financier and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

His intention, Obama said, is to make the 2012 campaign an "election in which we're not just talking slogans ... but we are looking soberly at the choices we face."

The president's donor outreach came on a whirlwind day that began by taking on "birthers" who dispute that he was born in the United States and by producing his detailed birth certificate. He also flew home to Chicago to help pal and supporter Oprah Winfrey close out her syndicated talk show with a "big get" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an interview with him.

Seeking to tame wars overseas and budget deficits at home, President Barack Obama announced a major remake of his national security team Thursday aimed at ensuring leadership continuity during a perilous time.

"Today was a fun day," Obama said at his

President Obama speaks during a Democratic National Congress fundraiser at The Town Hall in New York.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are pictured with Oprah Winfrey during a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show at Harpo Studios in Chicago. first fundraising event bles. He said the letters lion and $3 million at Corzine's apartment. are both inspiring and from the fundraisers, to "Nobody checked my ID heartbreaking and that be shared by the at the door. But it was they remind him of Democratic Party and also a serious day why he wanted to be his campaign. He was due back at the White because part of what president.

"It's to be an advocate House in the wee hours happened this morning was me trying to for all those families, to of Thursday.

OBAMA ON OPRAH remind the press and make sure that America In Chicago, Obama trying to remind both is as good to the next parties that what we do generation as it's been and his wife, Michelle, in politics is not a reali- to all of us," he said took turns answering questions before launching into Winfrey's ty show. It's serious."

Before an audience of his argument about during a taped inter350 people at his second why his budget propos- view at her studio, her stop, The Waldorf- al would be less painful show's first interview Astoria hotel, Obama for the poor and the with a sitting president talked about the 10 let- powerless than one and first lady. Winfrey ters he reads nightly advanced by House has announced that she's ending her topfrom ordinary Republicans.

Obama was expected rated program on May Americans who write to him about their trou- to raise between $2 mil- 25 after a quarter-cen-

Members of the band 'The Roots' perform before President Obama spoke at a Democratic party fundraiser, the third of three such events Obama attended in one night, in New York, Wednesday. cial industry, which felt tury on television.

The Obamas' inter- battered by Obama's view is scheduled to air rhetoric blaming the financial crisis on "fat on Monday.

Wall Street The show released cat" one excerpt from the bankers. The industry interview, an exchange also chafed at the overover his decision to pro- haul of financial reguduce his Hawaii birth lations.

Corzine now heads certificate. Laughing, he said: "Can I just say? MF Global Inc., a finanI was there, so I knew cial services firm, and that I knew I had been Obama has begun trying to repair his relaborn. I remembered it."

Winfrey's relation- tions with the business ship with the Obamas sector.

'THEY CAN STAY' dates to their days in Obama's final Chicago, and she lent her credibility and fundraiser was a concelebrity status to his cert-style event with 2008 presidential cam- 1,300 people at the paign with her first- Town Hall theater, priever political endorse- marily for his younger supporters and featurment.

Corzine, the host of ing The Roots, a hipband from Obama's first New York hop fundraiser since he Philadelphia.

Interrupted twice by announced his re-election, lost his political separate groups of peojob in 2009 despite ple whose shouts were Obama's efforts to help inaudible to reporters, Obama directed securihim get re-elected.

He is a former chair- ty personnel to let them man and CEO of stay. He encouraged Goldman Sachs with any others in the hall to deep ties to the finan- speak up.

New American

The

14

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

‘Fast Five’ brings utterly preposterous fun

One Thought - One Humanity

For the conclusions of these stories check out the April 28th - May 4th, 2011 issue of The New American, which hits newsstands every Thursday Jennifer Hudson is convinced losing weight has improved her singing ability as her vocal range is now nearly as extensive as it was during her The teenage years. singer/actress embarked on a strict diet after giving birth to her son David in 2009, dropping 80 pounds within months and becoming a spokesperson for healthy eating plan WeightWatchers. She has now revealed shedding the weight has not only given her more confidence; it is also helping her voice.

Hudson tells British TV show Daybreak, “When I was in high school, I could do (sing) the whole piano. Now I’ve lost weight my voice is getting back to that same state.”

Warren G is seriously rising to the occasion -- because the guy’s peddling PENIS pills on brand new infomercials ... and even claims to use the sexual enhancement products to regulate himself.

Mariah Carey will not be adding to her family once her twins are born in the coming weeks. In an interview with Life & Style magazine, the pop superstar admits she’s “ready to be done” as a mom. She admits her pregnancy has been difficult at times and it would take “a much stronger person” than her to go through it all again.

But Carey admits she has cherished the experience of pregnancy after miscarrying a child in 2009. She tells the publication, “It’s all worth it.” The Hero singer is due to give birth next month but a series of recent scares suggest the babies could be born any day.

Stic Man from Dead Prez is gearing up for another solo album

release.

Toni Braxton has no plans to legally end her marriage to estranged husband Keri Lewis because she can’t bear to break the news to the couple’s two young sons. The star split from Lewis, a former member of R&B band Mint Condition, in late 2009 but the pair has remained close for the sake of their boys Denim, nine, and Diezel, eight. And Braxton admits she can’t see herself filing for divorce to finalize their split for fear of upsetting her children.

She says “We co-parent together. Sometimes he stays over with the kids; he’s very involved with his kids...April would have been 10 years (since we wed).

We’re, like, the best of friends. “We told the kids, ‘Sometimes mommy and daddy need a little break.’

That’s probably why I haven’t done a straight divorce yet.”

Jadakiss is prepping his new solo album but he may have abandoned his latest title.

Rihanna is being accused of causing costly re-editing delays on a commercial that she thought she looked fat in. After seeing the final cut of her charity public service announcement for UNICEF, she complained she looked heavier than usual.

According to Page Six, Rihanna’s “selfinvolved demands caused ‘extensive delays’” and held up the “the project’s launch for more than a week at a cost of more than $15,000.” However, a UNICEF rep is refuting the rumors, saying, “We’re surprised to hear that. She was not unhappy. We were very thankful.

Rihanna was very collaborative and very participatory.

What

was shot was what exists now.

No reshoots were done.”

This year at ASCAP’s 5th Annual “I Create Music” Expo, producer Pharrell Williams will host and may lend a few pearls of wisdom to attendees. The event, to take place in Los Angeles April 28-30, will feature performances, celebrity panels, and technology demonstrations, will educate artists and rising stars about the music industry and the latest hot issues. Last year’s event featured panels and performances by singer Bill Withers, Quincy Jones, Justin Timberlake and producer Dr. Luke.

Farrah Franklin a former member of Destiny’s Child was arrested for disorderly conduct over the weekend.

According to TMZ, Farrah was taken into custody in the Culver City area of Los Angeles, and alcohol may have played a part in the incident. The singer was released hours later on $100 bail. Farrah was fired from Destiny’s Child by fellow members Beyonce Knowles and Kelly Rowland in 2000, after being with the group for just five months.

On May 18, at Atlanta, Georgia’s Buckhead Theatre, the 14th annual BMI Unsigned Urban Showcase will take place.

Hosted by Grand Hustle Records’ DJ Drama and Lil Duval, the event is designed to provide information and entertainment to BMI members, looking to break further into the urban music industry. Performers for the event were announced this morning, and will include Def Jam Records star Rick Ross, as well as DJ Khaled protege Ace Hood.

By ROBERT KOEHLER The 10-year run of the “Fast and Furious” roadshow isn’t slowing down a bit in “Fast Five,” by most measures the best of the bunch, combining fresh casting choices, interesting Rio locales and literally smashing bookended action sequences. With the street-racing gang on the lam, they must confront two forces -- pursuing feds and an intimidating drug kingpin -- that push their heist skills to new, genuinely exciting limits. Pic’s ideal balance of familiar and new will ensure high-octane theatrical returns, setting a breakneck pace for vid and ancillary down the road.

In a movie era lacking in many of the brawny leading men of the ‘80s or the manly stars of the ‘50s and ‘60s, the pic’s match-up of Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson (first on opposite sides of the law, then drawn together as allies) reps a welcome injection of tough-guy vigor. “Fast Five” is an entertainment that knows it’s working, and it makes perfectly clear by the end (spiced

with an uncredited cameo by Eva Mendes) that the Vin and Dwayne show isn’t over with this fifth entry in a series that looks as if it could go on for another decade, if everyone stays in shape.

After breaking Dominic (Diesel) out of his 25-year California jail sentence by staging a massive prison bus accident on a highway, Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) head down to Rio, where partner Vince (Matt Schulze) has a new job lined up for them. But since it involves shady-looking cohorts, a speeding train and three hot cars under DEA jurisdiction, everything that can go wrong does in a brilliantly paced, suspensefully edited sequence flecked withbits of humor.

Dominic and Brian are captured by the king of the Rio drug trade, the appropriately named Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida, smartly cast), who demands to know where his stolen cars are located. The two realize they’re up against a powerful bad guy with greater reach, more thugs and bigger guns than their enemies in the previous installments.

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-981</==398+6 >/=>3798C

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

16

THE RELIGIOUS ROUTE

BY VELMA HART Thank God for Spring 2011. Yes, Spring, in all of its splendor. The master artist, God, is at work. Just a friendly reminder: in case you take it for granted, we should enjoy the most welcome season of the year. It is so said that April showers bring May flowers, true. But many special events take place, especially in many houses of welcome worship gathering.

Take note: on May 1 at 4 p.m. at the Merrick Park Baptist Church, Jamaica, there will be a lovely sight of “100 Women in White.” All are invited. Mother’s Day is May 8. Get it very clear in your planning. On May 11-15, the Amity Baptist Church, Jamaica, will be celebrating its 95th Church Anniversary. Rev. Jeffrey S. Thompson is the pastor. The celebration will begin with a revival service on the 11th at 7 p.m. A gala banquet will be on May 13. Please call the church at (718) 739-8278 for more details. All are invited and welcome to any part of the celebration.

On May 14, the New Jerusalem

Baptist Church, Jamaica, Rev. Calvin Rice, pastor, the Brotherhood Ministry will have a one-day retreat at Parish Resource Center. The center is located at 919 Elmont Road, Elmont, NY. For more info, call the church at (718) 978-5777.

On May 15 at 7 and 11 a.m., the Calvary Baptist Church, Jamaica, Rev. Victor T. Hall, sr., pastor, will have its Women’s Day. All are welcome.

During my travel I received a varied bit of information and literature.

The following piece I thought I would share with my readers: A SURVIVAL KIT FOR EVERYDAY Toothpick — It reminds you to pick out the good qualities in others (Matt.

7:1).

Rubber band — To mind you to be

flexible. Things might not always go the way you want, but it will work out (Romans 8:28).

Mint — To remind you that you are worth a mint to your heavenly Father (John 3:16-17).

Band-Aid — To remind you to heal hurt feelings, yours or someone else’s (Col. 3:1214).

Pencil — To remind you to list your blessings everyday (Eph. 1:3).

Chewing gum—To remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything with Jesus (Phil.

4:13).

Hershey Kiss — To remind you that everyone needs a kiss or hug every day (1 John 4:7).

Tea bag — To remind you to relax daily and go over that list of God’s blessings (1 Thess. 5:18) A u t h o r unknown

Happy May Day. Until next time, show love.

For egg-allergic kids, one-dose flu shot may be OK

By AMY NORTON Children with egg allergies may be able to safely get their flu shot in one dose, just like other kids, a new study suggests.

Because the flu vaccine is grown in chicken eggs, there have traditionally been concerns about the safety of flu shots for people with egg allergies — most of whom are young children.

To be safe, children with egg allergies often get their flu shot divided into smaller doses. They might, for instance, get 10 percent of the dose, then if they have no allergic reaction get the remainder of the dose 30 minutes later.

Children with a history of severe allergic reaction to egg could get up to five small doses.

However, today’s flu vaccines actually contain “vanishingly small” amounts of egg protein, said Dr. Susan Laubach, the senior researcher on the new study and a physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. And studies have been suggesting that flu vaccination is safe for most children with egg allergies. A study last year in the journal Pediatrics found that of 171 egg-allergic children who received a two-dose flu shot, upwards of 95 percent had no significant reaction. A few had mild symptoms like hives and itchy skin.

The new study, published in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, looked at the safety of single-dose vaccination.

Laubach and her colleagues reviewed the records of 152 egg-

allergic patients — mostly young children — who had gotten a seasonal flu shot and/or the vaccine against “swine flu” during the 2009-2010 flu season.

All of the patients underwent skin-prick testing to see if they were likely to have an immune reaction to the flu vaccine. Only one child had a positive result on the skin test, while six had unclear findings.

So, most of the study group was given a single-dose flu shot.

Overall, Laubach’s team found, none of the patients had a serious reaction to the vaccine, whether they got one dose or divided doses.

That included the 22 percent of patients with a history of severe reactions to egg.

“The results of this study, com-

bined with others, suggest that most kids with egg allergy can probably receive the flu vaccine safely,” Laubach told Reuters Health.

These latest findings also suggest that many kids can be vaccinated, literally, in one shot — which would offer the advantage of having to jab young children only once.

However, more research is needed to confirm that, according to Laubach. She said a clinical trial is now underway comparing two- and single-dose vaccination in egg-allergic kids.

Such clinical trials, Laubach noted, “are our ‘gold standard’ for proof.”

For now, she recommended that parents of children with egg aller-

Report names U.S. cities with foulest, cleanest air The nation’s 25 most smoggy cities improved air quality over the last year, but half the nation’s residents still live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to an American Lung Association report released on Wednesday.

Weighing the pluses and minuses in U.S. air quality over the past year, the “State of the Air 2011” report concluded that the U.S. Clean Air Act, the federal law aimed at limiting pollution in the nation’s skies, is

working.

“The progress the nation has made cleaning up coal-fired power plants, diesel emissions and other pollution sources has drastically cut dangerous pollution from the air we breathe,” Lung Association President Charles Connor said in a statement.

The most dramatic improvement has been controlling ozone, commonly known as smog. The report found all 25 cities most polluted by

gies talk with their doctor about flu vaccination.

In general, experts recommend that all children age 6 months or older get an annual flu shot.

Although the flu causes no more than a week or so of misery in most kids, children younger than 5 are at increased risk of flu complications like pneumonia, bronchitis and sinus infections.

There are probably many children with egg allergies who have never gotten the flu shot, Laubach noted. “I hope that will change in the future,” she said.

It’s estimated that about 1.5 percent of children are allergic to eggs, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. ozone had cleaner air than they did last year, Still, the report found that 154.5 million people, just over half the nation’s population, live in areas where the air is filled with dangerous levels of ozone and particle pollution, also known as soot.

Cities with the foulest air were broken down into three categories and the worst three in each were Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Visalia, all in California, as most ozone polluted; Bakersfield and Fresno, both in California, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as most polluted by shortterm particle pollution; and Bakersfield, Los Angeles and Phoenix as most polluted by year-round particle pollution.

Cities with nation’s best overall air quality were Honolulu and Santa Fe, New Mexico, the report said.

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

17

Aretha Franklin will never retire Shirelles and Dionne Warwick Despite her little health episode, the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin declared she will never retire from music.

Now that she’s 85 pounds lighter and back on track with her health, the singer admitted it was a thought before, but she’s tied to her music for life.

“I’ve considered retiring before, but I’d get so emotional about it. And people were like, ‘You’re kidding — you can’t.’ So there isn’t going to be any retirement,” she said.

She also said the weight loss has ultimately affected her voice, but her commitment to good music is unraveled.

“Your weight affects your voice,” she admitted. “It does mine, anyway.

The tone is a little fuller when you’re heavier. At the weight I was at before — what I would call my fighting weight — I had my best, best, best voice,” she explained. “It’s still generally the same, but I can hear that little bit of difference.”

In other news, an upcoming biopic of her life is on its way to production. She originally had Halle Berry in mind to play the role of her,

sue new Broadway show

but the seasoned actress wasn’t up for it.

Next on the list is Jennifer Hudson or Fantasia.

“They’re both very good singers and very good actresses,” said Franklin, revealing that there will be a younger and older Aretha — perfect for two actresses. “My feeling is that we’ll end up with two Arethas, one younger and one older. And you never know who we’ll find.”

Out May 3 is her 38th studio album, “Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love.”

The producers of a new Broadway musical about the 1960s girl group The Shirelles have been hit with a lawsuit charging them of pilfering the names and likenesses of the original members.

Singer Dionne Warwick, who is also portrayed in the show “Baby It’s You”, joined the legal action which was filed in New York Supreme Court a day before Wednesday’s opening night.

Three of the four women — surviving member Beverly Lee, who owns the trademark to “The Shirelles” name and the estates of Doris Coley Jackson and Addie Harris McFadden — filed their lawsuit on Tuesday.

“Baby It’s You!” is the story of Florence Greenberg, a suburban housewife from New Jersey who discovered the all-girl group and created Scepter Records. It has been running in preview at New York’s Broadhurst Theater for several weeks.

The Shirelles had hits in the 1960s with records like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” “Dedicated to the One

I Love” and “Soldier Boy.” They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Oren Warshavsky, an attorney for the four, said that like many other recording artists in the 1960s, his clients were not treated well even as they were growing in popularity.

“It’s unfortunate that they have to live through it again and watch their stories be told, again without their consent,” he said.

The lawsuit accuses Warner Bros.

Theater Ventures Inc., Warner Bros.

Entertainment Inc. and Broadway Baby LLC, of “cashing in on plaintiffs’ stories and successes, while using plaintiffs’ names, likenesses and biographical information without their consent and in violation of the law.”

Paul McGuire, a Warner Bros. spokesman, declined comment.

Warshavsky said the timing of the suit on the eve of opening night was a coincidence. The plaintiffs had been in discussions with Warner Bros., but they could not resolve their differences and took legal action, he said.

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DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

18

Nasdaq hits 10-year high after Fed rate decision The Nasdaq Composite index hit its highest level in more than 10 years Wednesday as U.S. stocks pushed upward after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged.

The tech-rich Nasdaq added 22.34 points (0.78 percent) at 2,869.88, the highest close since December 2000, when it was plummeting as the dot-com bubble famously burst, plunging the country into recession.

Riding news that the Fed would not raise ultra-low interest rates, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also surged, adding 95.59 points (0.76 percent) to finish at 12,690.96.

The broad-market S&P 500 advanced 8.42 points (0.62 percent) to 1,355.66.

The blue-chip Dow and the S&P 500 finished at their highest levels since 2008, in May and June, respectively.

“US stocks moved solidly higher on the day, after receiving a nice afternoon jolt from the comments of Fed

chairman Ben Bernanke in the inaugural postpolicy meeting news conference,” Charles Schwab analysts said in a client note.

The Fed, citing the economy’s only “moderate” recovery, also kept the door open for more economic stimulus,

while saying its current $600 billion program would be allowed to run its forecast course through June.

Helping to underpin the market, on the ninth day of a solid rally, was a report that durable goods orders had risen 2.5 percent in March, a

Higher costs hit soap, diaper makers

By JESSICA WOHL CHICAGO — Makers of soap, diapers and other household products are spending much more for fuel and raw materials than expected, which means more price increases are on the way for consumers.

Procter & Gamble Co. lowered the high end of its profit forecast for the year on Thursday, as it does what it can to trim expenses and raises some prices to offset rising costs for materials.

Smaller rival Colgate-Palmolive Co. also said higher costs cut into its margins. Its quarterly earnings met analysts’ expectations, while P&G’s profit was just short of the average forecast. Analysts said that P&G’s higher profit was helped by a tax benefit.

Consumer goods makers are paying more for transport and a variety of materials, from pulp used to make tissues to resin used to make detergent bottles.

P&G, the world’s largest household products maker, expects its costs to soar about $1.8 billion this fiscal year,

or about triple what it planned heading into the year, Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller said. It is trimming operational costs before it resorts to price increases.

P&G and its rivals have started to roll out a variety of price increases on products ranging from diapers to detergent, adding to pressure on shoppers, especially in markets such as the United States, where growth was sluggish.

Unilever Plc/NV is

also feeling a pinch from higher commodity costs. The Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise said it would squeeze more cost-savings out of its operations.

The companies are banking on increasing demand in countries such as China and India as growth in developed markets such as the United States and Western Europe has stagnated.

“We do believe economies are improving around the world,”

P&G CEO Bob McDonald said. “The rate of improvement in developed markets is obviously slower than we had originally forecasted.”

Higher materials costs are spreading across the packaged goods industry. Softdrink and snack food maker PepsiCo Inc. posted a lower quarterly profit on Thursday, hurt by rising commodity costs.

P&G’s shares fell 1.4 percent to $63.13, while Colgate slipped 1.2 per-

sign that U.S. industry continues to expand and companies are investing in and upgrading equipment. report “Today’s brought two important positive signals — the rise in the March core component and a significant upward revision of the February figure,” said analysts at Natixis.

“Indeed, the ‘core’ nondefense ex-aircraft capital goods orders which are supposed to be an indicator of the business spending on equipment and software got back to a strong upward trend observed at the end of 2010.”

Among companies reporting earnings, shares of oilfield operator Baker Hughes leaped 4.3 percent to $77.28 after its firstquarter net income beat

estimates handily.

Boeing rose 0.7 percent to $76.12 after posting better-thanexpected quarterly earnings.

Corning shares surged 2.3 percent to $21.08 on strongerthan-expected revenues from sales of glass for the huge LCD television and computer monitor industry.

Online retailer Amazon jumped 7.9 percent to $196.63 dollars as investors shrugged off disappointing earnings and focused on higher sales forecasts.

The bond market slumped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.37 percent from 3.32 percent late Tuesday. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.46 percent from 4.40 percent.

cent and PepsiCo was up 0.5 percent.

Unilever’s shares fell 3 percent.

P&G is bringing out new products, such as Tide Pods single-dose laundry detergent, in an effort to win over shoppers with fresh goods rather than just raising prices on items already on the market.

McDonald also said that P&G needs to work on improving its Pantene hair care line, whose updated products failed to win over women in North America.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Mark Astrachan said that he believes

P&G is “best positioned to outperform in the current environment given its innovation pipeline and deep pockets.”

The new Tide product, which includes a stain-fighting ingredient, is priced in line with Tide and could ultimately capture up to 30 percent of the North American detergent market, McDonald said.

P&G said it now expected fiscal-year core earnings, which exclude some items, of $3.91 to $3.96 per share. The high end of that forecast previously was $4.01 per share.

Hoteliers reap benefits of rise in business travel

By HELEN CHERNIKOFF Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Host Hotels & Resorts said they had more guests in the first quarter as a gradual economic recovery sent more workers back on the road to do business.

Both companies focus on the high-end business traveler.

Starwood raised its outlook for the year and reported a higherthan-expected quarterly profit.

The company topped

Wall Street forecasts in large part because its brands, including Sheraton and St. Regis, outperformed those of rival Marriott International in the quarter, said FBR Capital Markets analyst Patrick Scholes.

The weakness in some Marriott brands hurt the results reported by Host, a real estate investment trust that owns many Marriott hotels, Scholes said.

Still, Host reported higher funds from operations, a measure of performance that removes the profit-

reducing effect of depreciation, a noncash accounting item.

Scholes has a “hold” rating on Starwood shares and recommends that investors buy Marriott.

“The economy is improving. These companies are benefiting from that,” he said.

Last week Marriott reported first-quarter earnings that missed Wall Street expectations.

Starwood forecast 2011 earnings of $1.60 to $1.70 per share, up from an earlier forecast

of $1.55 to $1.65.

Excluding a charge related to the earthquake in Japan last month, the company posted first-quarter earnings of $58 million, or 30 cents per share, compared with $24 million, or 13 cents per share, a year earlier.

Starwood, the eighth-biggest hotel operator in the world by room count according to Smith Travel Research, said revenue per available room, or revPAR, rose 10.4 percent in the quarter.

A commonly used gauge of a hotel’s financial health, revPAR multiples the occupancy rate by the room rate.

At Host, revPAR increased 7 percent, while FFO rose to 11 cents per share from 8 cents a year earlier.

Although the U.S. economic recovery remains sluggish, lodging has bounced back faster than many industries and asset classes due to hoteliers’ ability to adjust its room rates nightly as travel demand rises.

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

19

Exxon, Shell profits surge on higher oil prices

By TOM BERGIN and MATT DAILY LONDON/NEW YORK — Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc posted steep jumps in first-quarter profits and beat analysts’ forecasts, helped by high oil prices and buoyant refining margins.

Profits for the world’s biggest oil producers have surged as oil prices moved above $100 per barrel in the first quarter on unrest in the Middle East and Africa and growing global demand for ener-

gy.

Exxon, the world’s largest publicly listed company, posted a 69 percent increase in earnings to $10.65 billion, its biggest profit since the third-quarter of 2008, when oil prices last traded above $100 per barrel.

The company was alone among its Western peers to so far record an increase in production in the quarter, notching up a 10 percent increase from a year-earlier to 4.82 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), helped by its takeover of U.S. natural gas company XTO last year.

Shell’s earnings rose 22 percent to $6.9 billion, although asset sales pressured its oil and gas output down 3 percent 3.50 million boepd.

Still, that decline was more modest than the 11 percent drop that BP Plc reported on Wednesday and 7 percent drop in ConocoPhillips’s output.

BP has been selling assets to pay the more than $40 billion in liabilities it racked up from the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, while Conoco had been shedding assets to pare its debt load.

Shell, the largest shipper of liquefied natural gas, also benefited from higher LNG prices following the Japanese earthquake, which was expected to lead to higher LNG demand in that country as nuclear power is scaled back.

That LNG strength, plus a number of large projects coming on stream this year, sparked hopes that Shell could join Exxon and Chevron in raising its dividend payments to shareholders.

Exxon raised its second-quarter payout 7 percent on Wednesday, while Chevron, while

boosted its dividend 8 percent.

Chevron is due to release its quarterly earnings on Friday.

Fatter profit margins at both Exxon and Shell refineries that process crude oil into products such as gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel also helped their quarterly earnings.

Exxon also benefited from a jump in earnings from its chemicals arm, which recorded $1.5 billion in profits in the quarter. The company is the second largest U.S. chemicals maker behind Dow Chemical.

“It looks like chemical was really strong,”

Phil Weiss, oil analyst at Argus Research, said about Exxon’s earnings. “And production came in on the higher side relative to my expectations, especially gas.”

Shares in Shell rose 0.7 percent to 2325.5 pence on the London Stock Exchange, while Exxon shares were off 0.5 percent to $87.35 on the New York Stock Exchange.

U.S. oil and gas companies Apache Corp and Occidental Petroleum Corp both reported earnings that topped Wall Street forecasts, lifting their share prices.

Panasonic to axe thousands of jobs, close dozens of plants

By ISABEL REYNOLDS and REIJI MURAI TOKYO — Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic Corp said it would cut another 17,000 jobs and close up to 70 factories around the world over the next two years in a bid to pare costs and keep up with Asian rivals.

The maker of Viera TVs and Lumix cameras said it was aiming to trim its workforce of 367,000 at the end of last month to 350,000

by March 2013. The cull comes on top of nearly 18,000 job cuts made in the past business year, for a total of around 35,000 over three years.

“The figure is huge, but so is the company, and for an old-fashioned one like Panasonic, this is a big move,” said Toru Hashizume, chief investment officer at Stats Investment Management in Tokyo.

Panasonic set aside 110 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in restructuring expenses for the current financial year.

Company President Fumio Ohtsubo said Panasonic had about 350 manufacturing bases around the world and would look to merge operations where it could.

“I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s possible

we will cut the number of manufacturing bases by 10 or 20 percent,” he said, declining to comment on which countries might see job cuts.

A Panasonic spokesman said the company did not even have a figure for the number of countries they operate in since recently taking over some other companies.

Once unrivalled, Japan’s consumer electronic firms are facing increasing competition from cheaper Korean and Chinese producers in particular.

Panasonic is seeking to shift its focus to environmental and energyrelated businesses such as rechargeable batteries in order to duck competition from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and others in consumer technology.

As part of that strategy, it announced last year it would pay $9.4 billion to make Panasonic Electric Works and Sanyo Electric Co. wholly owned units.

Panasonic absorbed a combined 160,000 workers in that move and was now seeking to shed staff in overlapping businesses, particularly abroad, said the Nikkei newspaper, which first reported the job cuts.

The units make a wide range of products including rechargeable batteries, factory robots, electronic components,

lighting and solar panels.

Panasonic started off making electrical sockets in 1917 and now comprises almost 700 companies spread around the globe. It employs more than 220,000 people outside of Japan.

Shares of the electronics conglomerate closed up 2.4 percent in Tokyo, outpacing a 1.6 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index.

Unlike their western counterparts, Japanese companies tend to avoid dumping large numbers of workers, particularly at home.

The latest staff cuts compare with past Panasonic restructurings including 26,000 workers shed after the information-technology bubble burst, and about !& ! % * "& $!'" !$" > ( 0< -6 %C@AC/<B B= / C25;3<B =4 =@31:=AC@3 /<2 (/:3 2/B32 /<C/@G /<2 47:32 =< /<C/@G 03/@7<5 <23F #= E7:: A3:: /B >C0:71 /C1B7=< =< "/G /B B63 &C33<A =C<BG (C>@3;3 =C@B :=1/B32 /B (CB>67< =C:3D/@2 /;/71/ #3E -=@9 7< =C@B@==; /B " B63 >@3;7A3A 9<=E< /A -7-4.- >08=0 )99/ 3->08 + 69.5 9< %@3;7A3A A=:2 AC0831B B= 47:32 C25;3<B =4 =@31:=AC@3 /<2 (/:3 /<2 )3@;A =4 (/:3 C25;3<B /;=C<B >:CA 7<B3@3AB /<2 1=ABA =A3>6 '7A7 A? '343@33 /@@G .C0:7 A? /BB=@<3G 4=@ >:/7<B744

15,000 in the aftermath of the Lehman shock.

Some of the latest job cuts include headcount lost through the sale of unprofitable units.

On top of the stiff competition and a strong yen, which saps export earnings, Japanese electronics companies have had to deal with the impact of last month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, which has hit earnings hard.

Panasonic said its operating profit for the fourth quarter ended March fell by almost a third to 41 billion yen.

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cast for the current year because of uncertainties following the quake.

The SmartEstimate for the current year to March 2012 is for a profit fall to 260 billion yen as the company struggles with production woes and weak domestic demand following the earthquake.

Panasonic said with%'"$ %& & ! &+ !

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20

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

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DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

NFL players can report Friday morning Told twice in three days by a federal judge that its 45-day lockout was illegal, the league assured teams and players they could resume some of the normal day to day football operations beginning Friday, including voluntary workouts at team facilities, meetings with coaches and going over playbooks.

The league also promised to distribute detailed procedures for signing free agents, making trades and other roster moves.

That memo, the league said, will likely come Friday and spell out the timing for the start of the league year.

The guidelines were released a few hours before the NFL draft, where teams were still allowed only to swap picks, not players.

“Judge [Susan Richard] Nelson said it was up to us to determine how to proceed, and we think in light of the fact that the first round of the draft is tonight, clubs are fully focused on that,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in an appearance Thursday on ProFootballTalk.com’s daily webcast. “The best way to proceed is for the veterans to start working out at facilities [Friday], and then we’ll set up the process of starting the league year, which would include player trades and player signings.”

Things are far from normal, however. On a day members of the Tennessee Titans showed up to find two armed guards at their locked-up facility, the NFL pressed forward with the legal fight in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

The league wants a temporary stay of Nelson’s decision to lift the lockout so it can argue that it should be overturned altogether.

The players were told to respond to the league’s motion for a stay by 1 p.m. ET on Friday, and the NFL’s reply to that is due Monday morning.

Michael Gans, the appeals

court clerk, said the three-judge panel for the appeal had not yet been finalized. The venue is considered more friendly to businesses like the NFL’s $9 billion operation than the federal courts in Minnesota.

Gans told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio that a ruling on the NFL’s request for a temporary stay of the lower court’s ruling could come as early as Thursday afternoon.

“They could rule on the temporary stay at any time between now and Monday,” Gans said.

Agent Angelo Wright said he has told clients under contract not to worry about visiting headquarters this weekend out of fairness to the teams so they can focus on the draft. He said they should plan to show up on Monday, and said he’d start calling team executives about unsigned players as soon as Sunday night.

Agent Drew Rosenhaus, though, said he’d like for signings and trades to take place during the draft.

“I’ve been calling teams, and I’ve been told they’ve been advised by the NFL to hold off on signings or trades until further notice,” Rosenhaus said.

Judge Susan Nelson’s Report NFL On April 27, two days after lifiting the lockout, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson denied the NFL’s request to put her ruling on hold. Read the report here. Report (PDF) Attorneys for the players said the decision lifting the lockout “is in full, immediate force.”

“It is our view that the NFL and the clubs will be in contempt of court if they do not comply with the order,” lawyers James Quinn and Jeffrey Kessler wrote.

Quinn, in a tersely worded letter to NFL attorney Gregg Levy, said the players were tired of waiting and even accused the league of “granting itself a temporary stay” of Nelson’s order by

not immediately opening the doors for football operations.

Now, four days after Nelson lifted the lockout, there are guidelines to follow.

Mandatory minicamps and voluntary offseason practices can begin, under the rules in the old collective bargaining agreement. Team-supervised workouts will count toward such bonuses in player contracts, and players can also work out on their own at team facilities if they have health insurance in place.

The league will “promptly make arrangements” for the substance abuse and steroid programs to resume, and players can participate in team-sponsored community and charity functions.

And in the meantime, they’ll continue their fight in court.

The league told the appeals court that the players “cannot have it both ways” by threatening contempt-of-court sanctions while also asking for a delay to address the NFL’s request for a temporary stay.

And the NFL criticized Nelson, who late Wednesday rejected its request to put her order lifting the lockout on hold pending appeals. The league said her decision “blinks reality” and is “deeply flawed.”

The NFL complained that the order has forced teams to “produce their collective product” and expose themselves to antitrust claims by the players — claims that if held true can result in treble, or triple, damages. An antitrust lawsuit filed by Tom Brady, Drew Brees and other players is still pending before Nelson.

Without a stay, the NFL said, it would be impossible to “unscramble the egg in terms of player transactions (trades, signings, cuts) that would occur in the interim” before a ruling from the appeals court.

God’s Gift Achiuwa chooses St. John’s St. John’s coach Steve Lavin has to hope his newest recruit is as impressive on the basketball court as his name.

God’s Gift Achiuwa — a 6-foot-8 power forward and first-team juco AllAmerican from Erie (N.Y.) Community College — is the ninth player to commit to the Red Storm for next sea-

son. St. John’s has the No. 3-ranked recruiting class, according to ESPN Insider’s top 25.

The Nigerian native, whose father is a minister, chose St. John’s over Washington and Cincinnati.

Achiuwa averaged 22.3 points, 13.1 rebounds and 2.2 blocks for Erie last season and adds some much-needed

size to the wing-heavy recruiting class. He will have two years of eligibility with the Red Storm.

“Gift is a talented frontline player who possesses tremendous size, strength, speed and skill,” Lavin said. “He is an ideal fit for our baseline-to-baseline attacking style of play.”

DAILY CHALLENGE

21

SPORTS

SPORTS BRIEFS

Auburn cancels White House visit after storms

AUBURN, Ala. - Auburn’s football team isn’t heading to the White House this week after all.

The national champions were scheduled to fly to Washington Thursday evening and then meet President Barack Obama, who was set to travel to Alabama Friday in the aftermath of deadly storms that hit the state.

Auburn spokesman Kirk Sampson says the trip has been postponed and hasn’t been rescheduled yet.

The Tigers were to participate in a “Let’s Move!” South Lawn Series Youth Football Clinic on Friday.

Auburn rode Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton and Lombardi Award winner Nick Fairley to a 14-0 record and their first title since 1957.

Sampson says Fairley and Newton had been expected to attend even though they were in New York for the NFL draft Thursday night.

Tiki Barber: Comeback is about a ‘goal,’ not money NEW YORK - Tiki Barber says his attempt to return to the NFL after four years in retirement is not about money.

The 36-year-old former New York Giants’ running back asked the team to take him off the reserve-retirement list in March. The Giants say they will release him once the league allows it. Teams have not been allowed to make roster moves because of the labor fight.

Last year, the New York Post reported Barber was broke and couldn’t pay his divorce settlement.

Barber tells The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that he made “a lot of money” when he was playing and working in television.

He insists he now needs a goal, “something to focus on and be excited about.”

Report: Feds say OSU players traded, sold 36 items COLUMBUS, Ohio - A newspaper reports that Ohio State football players are alleged to have improperly traded dozens of items to the owner of a tattoo parlor, receiving tattoos, $14,000, and in one case a sport-utility vehicle.

The report by The Columbus Dispatch says it obtained a letter Thursday that was sent from the U.S. Department of Justice to Ohio State officials in December. The document lists 36 items that players are said to have sold to Eddie Rife or traded for tattoos since 2008.

The newspaper reports that investigators say one player received a 2003 Chevy Tahoe, purchased by Rife for $3,500, in exchange for a watch and passes to the 2010 Rose Bowl.

Only a portion of the transactions were deemed violations by the NCAA, and five players have been suspended for the first five games of the upcoming season. A related NCAA investigation into coach Jim Tressel continues.

22

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

SPORTS BRIEFS Grizzlies can finish off improbable upset at home

The Memphis Grizzlies aren’t ready to curl up and quit against the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs, especially with Game 6 on their home court.

Grizzlies forward Shane Battier says Memphis is electric, and he sees no problem with his teammates rebounding from Wednesday night’s 110103 overtime loss in San Antonio. He says the Grizzlies have no pressure and are playing with “house money” as they try to become the fourth No. 8 seed in NBA history to topple a top seed to win a playoff series.

The Grizzlies hold a 3-2 lead going into Friday night’s. game. Tickets went on sale Thursday with the franchise notching its fastest sellout ever in hours.

- TERESA M. WALKER

Celtics hoping for full Shaq practice on Friday WALTHAM, Mass. - The Boston Celtics hope to have Shaquille O’Neal back at practice on Friday.

Celtics coach Doc Rivers said O’Neal would do a “skeleton” workout on Thursday and “hopefully” join the team on Friday for its final workout before Sunday’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Miami Heat.

O’Neal has played a total of 5 minutes, 29 seconds since Feb. 1 because of problems with his right calf and Achilles tendon.

The Celtics didn’t need him in the first round, when they swept the New York Knicks in four games.

Anderson’s early work pays off at Arkansas FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Arkansas basketball coach Mike Anderson has been busy on the road and at his new home during the past month.

That work appears to have paid off for the new coach, who says he expects to keep the Razorbacks’ highly ranked recruiting class and all the current players.

Anderson left Missouri to replace the fired John Pelphrey at Arkansas last month. He spent much of his first month on the job traveling to visit the school’s five signees. Three of the recruits are from Arkansas, one from Missouri and one from Texas.

All five were recruited and signed by Pelphrey, but Anderson says they’re all on board to be Razorbacks.

Arkansas’ returning players include leading scorer Rotnei Clarke.

- KURT VOIGT

Surprising Marlins off to fast start MIAMI - Former major leaguer Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez recently joined the Florida Marlins’ small bandwagon, bringing his Little League team to a game, and he snared two foul balls while watching the home team win.

The Marlins’ ballpark remains a great place to catch a souvenir because the abundance of elbow room ensures little competition. Fan apathy runs rampant, and few seemed to notice when the Marlins spent 18 hours alone atop the NL East this week.

Nonetheless, the perennially neglected Marlins rank as one of baseball’s best surprises.

- STEVEN WINE

DAILY CHALLENGE

SPORTS

Serena, Venus look well but unsure of French Open

By JIM SLATER WASHINGTON - Serena and Venus Williams have shaken off injuries that have sidelined them from competitive tennis, but whether or not they will be ready for next month’s French Open remains uncertain.

“The French Open is a great tournament. It’s a fun event. We definitely want to be there,” Venus Williams said. “We’re taking it week to week right now.

“Our goal is sooner than later.”

Speaking Tuesday before they served as instructors at a Washington youth clinic, the Williams sisters showed no signs of the setbacks that have kept them off the court.

“One thing we have learned from being away from the game is how much we love it,” Venus Williams said.

Serena, a 13-time Grand Slam singles champion, has not played a top-level match since winning last year’s Wimbledon title after cutting her right foot on broken glass last July, an injury that required two operations.

She also suffered a pulmonary embolism in February that led to an emergency opera-

tion to remove a blood clot from her lung, a health concern she called the scariest moment of her life.

“It was really scary,” Serena said. “I’m doing much better now. I’m feeling better.”

When she might be well enough to return to WTA or Grand Slam play remains unclear.

“I’m just starting to feel better and going back onto the court,” Serena said. “I’m taking it slow.

Sometimes it’s slower than I would like. But it will all work out.”

While she posted a Twitter message last month saying she was back on court, Serena has not said when she would return to competition. She would need to be ready by June 20 to defend her Wimbledon title.

Serena was atop the WTA rankings until being passed last October by current World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.

Serena, 29, is now ranked 10th despite her long layoff while sister Venus, 30, is ranked 16th.

Venus, a seven-time Grand Slam champion with five Wimbledon titles, has not played since she pulled out of the Australian Open in January with abdominal pain and a sore right hip.

“I’m feeling pretty good and staying fit,” Venus said.

Venus was unable to defend

her only titles from 2010 at Dubai and Acapulco but is expected to play next month in Brussels to prepare for the French Open.

Both Williams sisters have said they plan to play in World Team Tennis matches in Washington just after Wimbledon ends in early July.

They were excited to serve as instructors at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center, an academic and tennis center celebrating its 10th anniversary working with youth.

More than 4,000 children have taken part in programs in a neighborhood of the American capitol similar to the underprivileged areas near Los Angeles where the Williams sisters grew up.

“We see ourselves in these children,” Venus said. “It brings us full circle. Growing up in Compton, we see young people who really are (like) us. It helps us stay grounded, which is really important.”

Among those who received expert lessons from the Williams sisters was Kayla Williams, a nine-year-old girl who walks to the center for instruction and classes, hopes to one day rise to tennis stardom as Venus and Serena did.

“We want to follow the dream,” she said.

Titans post security guards at facility NASHVILLE, Tenn.

— Players were met by what they called “excessive” security Thursday when they arrived at the Tennessee Titans’ practice facility when they attempted to report under a federal judge’s ruling to lift the NFL lockout.

Two armed off-duty police officers in uniform joined the Titans’ director of security, Steve Berk, at the only open side gate to the facility. The main gate remains chained and locked as it has since the NFL lockout began March 12. A member of the team’s security

detail also is stationed at the players’ entrance into the building.

“It’s a little excessive,” right guard Jake Scott, the Titans’ players representative, said of the security presence.

“I guess they don’t want us in, and they don’t want what would appear to meet a judge’s orders.

“But there’s not a lot we can do as players except show up and ask and get sent away. We can’t force our way in the building. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to show up, ask and be told no.”

A person familiar

with the Titans’ security said the team has had off-duty officers at the facility to assist with security since the lockout began. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Titans have not publicly commented on security.

But, the officers weren’t seen Tuesday by reporters when a handful of Titans tried to report in pouring rain.

Scott met briefly Thursday with senior executive vice president Steve Underwood and asked to use the weight room. Underwood said

no. Scott then left, along with four other Titans who also tried to report, including tight end Jared Cook and safety Michael Griffin.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson late Wednesday rejected the NFL’s request to put her order lifting the lockout on hold pending further appeals.

The security detail may not be needed in the future. The NFL sent a memo to clubs saying players can resume voluntary workouts at facilities, meet with coaches and go over playbooks starting Friday.

DAILY CHALLENGE FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

DAILY CHALLENGE

23

SPORTS

Pacquiao and trainer sing different tune on a Mosley KO

By MARK LAMPORTSTOKES LOS ANGELES Manny Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach expressed contrasting views on Wednesday when discussing the possibility of a knockout by the Filipino in his title bout next week with American Shane Mosley.

While Pacquiao said a knockout had not been a specific focus during their preparations over the last two months, Roach felt stopping an opponent was the perfect way to end a fight.

Mosley, 46-6-1 with 39 knockouts, has yet to be knocked out during his professional career and Roach has set his sights on Pacquiao becoming the first boxer to achieve the feat.

“I think all fights should end in knockouts so I am looking for a knockout,” Roach

said on a conference call with the Filipino southpaw.

“Shane is a tough guy and a very durable guy and it would be a feather in Manny’s cap to be the first one to stop him. It would just prove to the world how much better he is than that other guy (Floyd Mayweather) that couldn’t stop him.”

Eleven months ago, Mayweather resisted a furious early onslaught

by Mosley to preserve his unbeaten professional record with an unanimous points victory in a welterweight bout in Las Vegas.

Mayweather has not fought since and boxing fans would dearly love to see the American go into the ring against Pacquiao to decide the mythical title of the world’s best pound-forpound fighter.

For the time being, though, Pacquiao and his trainer are fully focused on the WBO welterweight title fight against veteran Mosley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 7.

“Manny will fight at a fast pace and I don’t

Shane Mosley strikes a pose during a media workout at his high-altitude training facility in Big Bear Lake.

Photo/Reed Saxon know if Shane is going to be prepared to fight at that pace,” Roach said of the Filipino who has been installed as an odds-on favorite by Las Vegas bookmakers.

“But we are going to force the action and we are going to go for it (a knockout) this time. If it comes, it comes. I think Manny is definitely the guy to do it.”

Pacquiao, already

Jim Calhoun, Kemba Walker defend UConn reputation

By PAT EATONROBB HARTFORD, Conn. - Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun and star guard Kemba Walker defended the program’s academic r e p u t a t i o n Wednesday, amid concern the national champions could lose scholarships based on academic performance.

The national Academic Performance Rating is due out next

month. Connecticut is in danger of losing at least one scholarship if the rating, which measures four years of results, does not meet the NCAA minimum score of 925. The school has already been docked a scholarship for NCAA recruiting violations.

Last year, UConn recorded a four-year APR of 930, including an 844 for the 2008-09 season.

“Eight straight years, we made the APR,” Calhoun said after being lauded by the governor and lawmakers during “Husky

Day” at the state Capitol. “If because someone left early or didn’t finish, all those various things that get you...when you have 16 kids leave (for the pros) in a 10-year period, you are more likely to be more open to (a low APR) happening.”

A low rating could be costly to Calhoun personally. His contract calls for him to donate $100,000 to a UConn scholarship fund if the program doesn’t meet the APR. He also would forfeit his postseason bonus of $87,500, earned during UConn’s run to the national title.

established as one of the best offensive fighters of all time with a career record of 52-3-2 with 38 knockouts, was reluctant to talk about his chances of stopping Mosley.

KNOCKOUT FOCUS “We are not very focused on the knockout,” the 32-year-old said. “If the knockout comes, it will come. We have prepared our-

selves that we are fighting 12 rounds.”

Asked how much it would mean to him to become the first fighter to stop Mosley, Pacquiao replied: “I would be excited for that. My concern right now is the fight that we can give to the people and to the fans. I want them to be happy.”

Pacquiao will be fighting for the first time since November when he outclassed Mexican Antonio Margarito in Dallas to land an eighth world title in an unprecedented eighth weight class.

For all the talk that he should brush aside the threat posed by three-division world champion Mosley, the Filipino southpaw is not taking his 39-yearold opponent lightly.

“Shane Mosley is still strong and he moves like a 29-year-old or a 30-year-old,” Pacquiao said. “He is the kind of fighter that you cannot underestimate. He is bigger than me and stronger and of course he is a former poundfor-pound champion.

He is still good.”

Mosley did not thrive in his last two bouts dropping a unanimous decision to Mayweather in May and drawing with Sergio Mora in September — but Roach believes the American suffered against opponents renowned for their ultra-defensive style.

“We are looking at his fight against Margarito, a guy that attacks and not those two runners that he (Mosley) had a little bit of difficulty with,” said Roach.

In his third-last bout, Mosley claimed the WBA welterweight title with a stunning ninth round stoppage of Margarito at the Staples Center in Los Angees in January 2009.

“In the Margarito fight, he looked great and Margarito has an aggressive style like Manny,” Roach added.

“And the way we are going to attack him (Mosley) is going to be a little more scientific of course. We are ready for the best Shane Mosley out there.”

Court clears way for suspension in Vikings case

By STEVE KARNOWSKI MINNEAPOLIS - The Minnesota Supreme Court has cleared the way for the NFL to suspend Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Pat Williams, perhaps the final chapter in the closely watched anti-doping case.

In a one-page order without comment, the court declined to consider Williams’ appeal of a decision that had gone against both Pat Williams and teammate Kevin Williams, who are not related. The order was signed Wednesday by Chief Justice Lorie Gildea

and made public Thursday.

Justice Alan Page, a former Viking, did not take part in the decision.

The Williamses were initially suspended in 2008 for taking the weight-loss supplement StarCaps, which contained a banned diuretic called bumetanide that can mask the presence of steroids. They waged a long fight against the suspensions through federal and state courts, and the league allowed them to play pending a final resolution of the case.

Kevin Williams gave up the fight last month because his attorney said he was tired of the litigation.

On Thursday, NFL

spokesman Greg Aiello said the decision means the case is finally over.

“Every court to consider the claims of the players and the (NFL Players Association) in this case has found them to be without merit and has found the NFL’s actions to be consistent with the collectively bargained policy and with state law,” Aiello said in a statement. “We are pleased that the Minnesota Supreme Court action today has put an end to this litigation.”

The Williamses, who were never accused of taking steroids, said they didn’t know StarCaps contained bumetanide, which wasn’t listed on the label.

DAILY CHALLENGE

S SP PO OR RT TS S FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011

LEBRON’S MANDATE IS CLEAR: BEAT THE CELTICS

By ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI MIAMI - All his excuses have expired, all the artificial rehabilitating of his image is useless. Nothing else matters until LeBron James beats the Boston Celtics. He doesn’t need to wait to beat them once Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are past their primes, and Doc Rivers is done coaching, and the Celtics aura has been reduced to the rubble of rebuilding.

After all, James made a summertime pledge of multiple NBA championships for the Miami Heat - perhaps six, even seven. So winning an Eastern Conference semifinal series shouldn’t be too taxing of an assignment. This is merely a minimal expectation for the enormity of the Heat’s experiment.

“It always felt that we would have to go through Boston - and beat Boston - to get what we wanted to get,” James said on Wednesday night.

True for the Heat, and true for him.

Finally, Miami disposed of the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 5, ending the opening-round series and clearing the way for the most anticipated, most intriguing conference semifinal in NBA history. In this information age, there’s no match for the star power and storylines of this blood-war series.

And for everyone considering this the last stand of the Celtics, rest assured: In a different way, this is a last stand for LeBron James, too.

James needs to beat Boston. He lost to the Celtics in 2008 and 2010, and he has won only one playoff game in the Boston Garden. He didn’t pick Miami to wait his turn, grind away and eventually break through in the East. Make no mistake: The Heat aren’t allowed to lower expectations for themselves. The plan was never for that process to take hold in Miami, because these Celtics are living proof that a freshly minted Big Three could be a champion immediately.

James is still the best player on the floor in this series, and this time he comes for the Celtics with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. He’s changed so much of his life, and some seems to be for the better. Off the floor, he’s

made adjustments to the management structure and public window into his life. Less is more with LeBron, and he’s starting to understand it.

Through it all, James is still judged for winning and losing. This is a culture that finds its virtue in winning.

He can make “The Decision” go away, make the boorish behavior behind close doors in Cleveland a distant, faded memory. One year ago now, everything started to go awry in an awful way for him. He was absent of mind and spirit in that Game 5 loss to the Celtics, refusing to shoot the ball for a half, refusing to engage himself in huddles and interaction with coaches and teammates.

“He was in another world that night,” one Cleveland Cavaliers staff member privately said.

The Cavaliers had the talent to beat Boston, too. They won 61 regular-season games, had a good complementary cast and had James playing the best ball of his life. Boston had developed the disposition to funnel LeBron into help defense and contested jump shots. It largely worked for the Celtics.

These playoffs have been about great players making adjustments, rising over circumstances and tran-

scending themselves. Kobe Bryant did it to the New Orleans Hornets, Kevin Durant to the Denver Nuggets and Derrick Rose to the Indiana Pacers.

James needs to be transcendent now.

He’s 26, surrounded with two staggering co-stars and solid role players.

The Heat don’t get to call themselves underdogs. They forfeited the right this summer. Too much is expected of them, and rightly so. They still need to figure things out, including who’ll take the big shot in the big moment. When the Heat closed out Philadelphia in Game 5, it turned out to be Mario Chalmers dropping the ball off to Joel Anthony. This won’t cut it against Boston - nor Chicago, nor Los Angeles nor Oklahoma City.

When it was suggested to Philadelphia’s Spencer Hawes that the Heat stars still take turns more than they flourish in the flow of an offense, he agreed.

“It sure seems like that - even down the stretch of games,” Hawes told Yahoo! Sports. “Fortunately for them, their talent is as good as anybody in the league. But basketball is a team sport, and you can see why Boston has been successful. They all get the ball. What you get with [the Heat] are just what I call ‘talent plays,’ where

their talent trumps the guy who is guarding them. But in Boston, they get everybody involved ...”

This was true with the Cavaliers, and it’s true now. LeBron has to overcome everything. He will eventually have a Game 7 in American Airlines Arena, and that ought to mean a great deal to him. He picked Miami, and he must have believed that these fans were a spectacular advantage for the Heat. Yes, James picked everything here: His teammates, his GM, his coach.

He had to leave Cleveland to finally get the big things he wanted out of basketball, out of life. Beating Boston isn’t the end of the rainbow. The Chicago Bulls could still be waiting.

So could the Lakers or Thunder. All waiting on Miami, all determined to destroy James’ championship aspirations.

To be the best player in the sport, James can’t go down now. He needs to rise up, and make himself the difference in this series. For James, the Celtics have been a different standard in the MVP era of his career. They’ve been the standard, the measure of success and failure. Here they come again, and this time LeBron has everything a man needs to beat them.