Braun: Gov. Christie releases limited N.J.

schools data to spin, promote controversial

policy
Published: Monday, February 14, 2011, 7:10 AM      Updated: Monday, February 14,
2011, 9:03 AM
Enlarge John O'Boyle / The Star-Ledger Gov. Chris Christie speaks at the Robert Treat Academy
in Newark to announce the 23 new charter schools approved by the Department of Education.
(John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger) N.J. approves 23 new charter schools gallery (4 photos)

TRENTON — Spin is a wonderful thing, a lie in a suit and tie with clean fingernails. Try this:
High school students in New Jersey’s most economically depressed school districts — including
cities like Newark, Paterson and Camden — outscored comparable students in the charter
schools touted by Gov. Chris Christie as "miracle" solutions to urban education problems.

Also, statewide test scores at charter schools lagged far behind the vast majority of public
schools, nearly 20 percentage points behind the statewide average. From a statewide perspective,
they can’t be considered anything but failures.

True? Yes. Spin? Also, yes. True — because the average mean scores of the general population
of 11th graders in what the state designates the "A," or poorest, districts are higher — 215 to
214.3 in language and 204.7 to 199.7 in math — than charters. True — because the average
charter pass rate on grade school tests was 58.1 percent, compared to a state average of 76.1

Spin — because a few numbers are not a complete picture. They can’t honestly be used to draw
any sweeping conclusions that urban public high schools are better than charter schools or that
charter schools are failures.

But three weeks ago, the Christie administration released its own selective numbers to promote
an opposite spin, contending charter schools "outperformed" conventional schools.

The difference is Christie runs the state and has access to all the numbers. Government, paid for
by all taxpayers, should not spin numbers to promote a controversial policy.

This newspaper asked repeatedly for a more detailed comparison of charter and traditional
schools. The deadline under the Open Public Records Act passed last week but the state granted
itself an extension. Maybe the response will come this week. Or maybe not.

It will come eventually and, let’s hope, the response will not be spin.

What available data does show confirms studies throughout the nation: Some conventional
schools are better than some charters, and vice-versa. Differences are insignificant.
"In the long run, we are going to find charter schools will do about the same as traditional
publics, and that we have yet to find the silver bullet — if, indeed, we ever will," says Joseph
DePierro, dean of Seton Hall’s College of Education and Human Services.

"There’s a marginal difference between charters and other poor schools, and it’s hard to know
what to attribute that difference to, if it is a difference," says Bruce Baker, a Rutgers scholar. He
says some of the difference could be attributable to the "selective" nature of student admissions
at charters and attitudes of parents who bother to go through the admissions process.

Here are some numbers anyone can get from available data. The average passing rate of
comparable students on all elementary school tests — with the scores of special education and
limited English-speaking students removed — is 58.1 percent for charter schools and 54.7
percent for students in so-called "A" districts. A difference of 3.4 percentage points.

Charters, of course, exist in many different sorts of communities, including some of the
wealthiest — Princeton, Englewood, North Brunswick and Teaneck. The "A" districts include
only those communities with the lowest income and highest unemployment rates.

Chris Christie announces approval of 23 new charter schools in N.J. During a visit to the Robert
Treat Academy Charter School in Newark, Gov. Chris Christie announce the state’s approval of
23 new charter schools — an increase by nearly a third of all the charter schools in the state.
Christie praised high performing charter schools in urban and disadvantaged areas as providing a
model for fixing chronically failing school districts and urged the creation of new kinds of
charter schools. He also suggested the charter school movement had been stymied in the past by
politicians beholden to special interests, including the state’s largest teachers union, the New
Jersey Education Association, or NJEA. (Video by Nyier Abdou/The Star-Ledger) Watch video

The next step up on the state economic scale is the "B" district designation, a category that
includes towns like Jersey City, Garfield, Plainfield, and Long Branch. Not exactly Short Hills.
The average passing rate of comparable students for B districts is 61.1, three points higher than
charters. Statewide, the average is 76.1 percent.

The average mean scores show the same pattern. For charters, it was 207.1 for all elementary
school tests, compared to 203.5 for students in "A" districts. Again, a difference of little more
than three points. The charters lagged behind every other type of district and the statewide
average. For "B" districts, the average mean score was 212.5 and, for the state, 223.6.

Students in traditional school in "A" districts had higher passing rates than charter students in
third, fourth, fifth, and 11th grade math. Charters had higher passing rates in other grades.

While the analysis accounts for disabled and language-limited students, factors Christie’s
original numbers ignored, it does not account for income differences — and that’s what this
newspaper asked the state to do. It could make a big difference in the comparable scores.
"There is a tendency to ‘spin’ the data," says DePierro. "Without valid data and objective
interpretation, reform becomes based on ideology rather than science, and it fails."

^I simplified this by boiling it down to the most easily understandable key facts. The main idea of
the story is that any current data showing a truly significant difference between the two types of
schools is incomplete and insufficient, or has been deliberately “spun.”

Mob infiltration persists at New Jersey ports

Published: Sunday, February 13, 2011, 4:50 PM      Updated: Sunday, February 13,
2011, 9:51 PM
AP file photo A container ship at the Port of Newark. Billions of dollars in cargo passes through
the Port of New York and New Jersey every year, according to New Jersey Division of Criminal
Justice Director Stephen Taylor.

NEWARK — Law enforcement officials have called the stretch between Port Newark and
Newark Liberty International Airport the most dangerous two miles in America.

A series of recent court cases shows that despite increased attention on airport security since the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, another security concern — a homegrown one — persists at the ports:
organized crime.

Experts differ on what mob infiltration of the ports means in a post-9/11 security climate, or how
large and influential organized crime syndicates remain after decades of law enforcement efforts
to root them out.

Some say a badly diminished mob has waning influence on the docks, as modernized
technology, stricter identification requirements, and improved federal maritime security-related
legislation have significantly undermined the traditional strongholds of organized crime.

Others say it takes only one corrupt official paid to look the other way to jeopardize security at
one of the nation’s main gateways for goods from all over the world.
“We pursue the mob wherever they may be, but it just so happens that the port is rife with
organized crime,” said Stephen Taylor, the director of New Jersey’s Criminal Justice division.
The recent spate of federal indictments — and those unsealed this week in New Jersey in an
ongoing investigation of port corruption — concern law enforcement, even though they did not
directly implicate port security, Taylor said.

“There is always the potential, when you have a criminal element in an area, that it may at some
point become a security breach and a significant security issue,” he said.

Robert Buccino, chief of detectives at the Union County prosecutor's office, has studied — and
prosecuted — the mob for decades. He says despite the recent high-profile indictments, there's a
big difference between the activities that organized crime factions have traditionally engaged in
— such as loan sharking, extortion, worker shakedowns or hiring fixes — and permitting
terrorists access to the ports or allowing illicit, potentially dangerous cargo through.

"The mob isn't what it used to be," Buccino said, adding that the ports operate differently today
than in the past, when powerful unions had more direct control over cargo. "I don't see it as any
threat to our security, and the crimes associated with Cosa Nostra never really impacts on
terrorism."

Buccino said the Mafia has always drawn the line at anything that could jeopardize homeland
security.

"They do raise the American flag in front of their house, and they participate in American
society," Buccino said. "I hate to say it, but they are patriotic, and they believe in the American
way."

Others say it's a short leap between running numbers and turning one's back on illicit cargo
shipments of drugs or counterfeit handbags, to allowing more dangerous materials through.

"I don't believe the old idea that they're loyal Americans," said Joseph King, who teaches classes
on terrorism and organized crime at New York's John Jay College. "They're in business, they
don't care what it is, they're looking for money."

King, a retired customs official, said dockworker duties have changed over the years, with
workers having less direct access to cargo as in the past. But many still hold positions of
influence in determining which containers move off the piers.

"Everybody says: they (the mob) would never do that," King said of allowing terrorists access to
the ports; "But if you agree to get a container through for a guy and he says: 'It's hashish,' what
about the second time, when it could be nuclear material? They don't exercise customs, they
don't open it and say: 'Yes, it's all hashish, thank you very much,' — they let the cargo through."

In a January raid the FBI called one of the largest Mafia takedowns in history, 127 defendants
were named in 16 indictments stemming from separate investigations in New York, New Jersey
and Rhode Island. Among those indicted were several members of the International
Longshoremen's Association in New York and New Jersey who allegedly compelled union
workers to kick back a portion of their holiday bonuses to known crime syndicates such as the
Genovese and Gambino families. Several of them also face related state charges.

The majority of the ILA's more than 65,000 workers — about 4,000 of whom work in the Port of
New York and New Jersey — are hardworking, honest union members with no connection to
organized crime, according to Kevin Marrinan of the New York City-based Marrinan &
Mazzola, the ILA's general counsel. The union, Marrinan added, has made several organizational
changes and removed members suspected of corruption from local branches, even prior to recent
law enforcement actions.
"Obviously the ILA is concerned, and I think the fact that they're concerned is demonstrated by
some of the steps they've taken," Marrinan said, referring to the alleged presence of organized
crime in the ranks.

The ILA adopted a code of ethics in 2003, created ethics oversight positions staffed with a
retired judge and former U.S. Attorney to investigate corruption in the ranks, established an
anonymous complaint hotline for concerned workers, and strengthened its rules on suspending
workers who are arrested on corruption allegations, among other actions, Marrinan said.

"Organized crime is in society — like people say about Wall Street — it goes where the money
is," he said. "The ILA has taken aggressive steps to protect its members."

New Jersey's Criminal Justice Director Taylor said that the billions of dollars in cargo that passes
through the Port of New York and New Jersey every year makes them a tempting target.

"It is not only a target for terrorists, but certainly a target for more traditional types of criminals,
like the mob, whenever you have that amount of money and available jobs like you do at the
ports," he said.

The federal indictments detailed alleged schemes that stretch back decades. Law professor James
B. Jacobs of New York University said the ports of New York and New Jersey, "have been a
place of organized crime strength for much of the 20th century," despite efforts to clean them up.

The corruption, Jacobs said, includes union leaders, dock workers and politicians who take
campaign contributions from dockworker unions or officials who endorse patronage hiring.

"The corruption is a problem, but it's not the same problem as al Qaeda terrorism," Jacobs said.

Organized crime experts like professor King say La Cosa Nostra has proven its longevity.

"The mob has been buried more times than Dracula, yet every night they pop up and go in search
of blood," King said. "They've been buried hundreds of times, in the 20's and the 30s', but it's a
way of life and they're not going to give up any source of income."

^I had to shorten all of these long articles by picking out the most significant, relevant, and
interesting facts. I then rephrased those facts in a way that sounded more appropriate for
speaking over a radio, and arranged them into a brief report in my own words. I kept the basic
order of information so long as it made sense to me, and obtained the most details from the
beginning, which is where the most pertinent facts are supposed to be located in a news story.

Word and Lyric, Giffords Labors to Speak

Again
By MARC LACEY and JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: February 13, 2011

PHOENIX — Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an eloquent speaker before she was shot in the
head last month, is relearning the skill — progressing from mouthing words and lip-syncing
songs to talking briefly by telephone to her brother-in-law in space.

Congresswoman Giffords's Office, via Associated Press

Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s mother, Gloria, speaking to her on the plane transporting
them from Tucson to Houston.

With a group of friends and family members acting as a backup chorus, Ms. Giffords has been
mouthing the lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but
Love, Baby.” And as a surprise for her husband, who is celebrating his birthday this month, a
longtime friend who has been helping her through her rehabilitation videotaped her mouthing the
words to “Happy Birthday to You.”

“It’s not like she’s speaking the way she spoke, but she is vocalizing and making progress every
day,” Pia Carusone, Ms. Giffords’s chief of staff, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.
“She’s working very hard. She’s determined. It’s a tight schedule. A copy of it is hanging on her
door.”

Outside specialists say it remains unclear, despite the hopeful early signs, what functions in Ms.
Giffords’s mind were affected by the traumatic injuries she suffered when she was shot at point-
blank range on Jan. 8 at a constituent event in Tucson.

It is not uncommon for patients with a similar injury to have trouble communicating or undergo
personality changes, brain specialists say. Everything from ambition and concentration to short-
term memory and social inhibitions can be affected, doctors say.

But relatives and friends who have been at Ms. Giffords’s side as she undergoes rehabilitation at
a hospital in Houston said in interviews and e-mail exchanges that though her recovery was slow
and exhausting, it was marked by significant progress.

Ms. Carusone said that on Sunday afternoon, Ms. Giffords’s husband, Capt. Mark E. Kelly, put
the congresswoman on the phone to talk to his twin brother and fellow astronaut, Scott, who is
aboard the International Space Station.

“She said, ‘Hi, I’m good,’ ” Ms. Carusone said.

With the help of therapists at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston, the congresswoman known
for her active, outdoorsy ways now labors through the halls clutching a shopping cart and does
squats and repetitive motions to build her muscles, her mother, Gloria, said in an enthusiastic e-
mail she sent about a week ago to friends that recounted her daughter’s progress. Others who
have visited Ms. Giffords recently have left similarly upbeat.
Aides conduct bedside briefings for her, telling her about the events unfolding in Egypt, for
instance, and the decision by Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, not to run for re-election
next year.

“We tell her everything that’s going on,” Ms. Carusone said. “Don’t get the idea she’s speaking
in paragraphs, but she definitely understands what we’re saying and she’s verbalizing.”

In long days that begin with breakfast at 7, Ms. Giffords, 40, has beaten one of her nurses at tic-
tac-toe and transformed herself, her mother wrote, from “kind of a limp noodle” to someone who
is “alert, sits up straight with good posture (in fact anyone in the room observing unconsciously
sucks it up and throws back their shoulders) and is working very hard.”

Ms. Giffords’s mother says doctors are regularly surprised by her latest achievement. They say,
“She did WHAT?” she wrote in her e-mail, adding that “Little Miss Overachiever is healing very
fast.”

Reached by telephone on Sunday, the congresswoman’s mother offered a one-word assessment

of her daughter’s road to recovery. “As far as Gabby’s progress, you can quote me as saying,
‘Yippee!’ ” she said.

The rehabilitation center referred requests for comment to Ms. Giffords’s staff.

Dr. David Langer, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Cushing Neuroscience Institutes
at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., who is not treating Ms. Giffords, pointed
to encouraging signs.

“She’s obviously communicating, obviously verbal,” he said. The gunshot wound, he said,
“probably didn’t irreversibly damage her speech center.”

“Until she’s really talking, giving a speech,” Dr. Langer said, “you won’t know if there’s a subtle
speech problem. But it sounds like with rehabilitation, with time, she ought to be very
functional.”

The use of singing, he said, is a standard technique to help restore speech in people with brain
injuries. (It is sometimes used to help treat stuttering, Dr. Langer said, citing the movie “The
King’s Speech” in which King George VI sang to overcome his speech impediment.) The part of
the brain that controls singing is not the same as the one that controls speech, though it is close.

Dr. Langer also said it was good news that Ms. Giffords was walking. “People’s ultimate
endpoints are often based on how rapidly they improve,” he said. “If there’s rapid progress, the
recovery potential is much higher. It sounds like she hasn’t plateaued yet and is improving really
quickly.”

The specialized clinic that is helping Ms. Giffords recover has several gymnasiums equipped for
people with spinal and brain injuries, as well as a swimming pool for therapy. The main hallway
is lined with large photographs of former patients who have made spectacular recoveries, among
them Kevin Everett, a former National Football League player who suffered a spinal injury.

There are plaques with the inspiring tales of the survivors next to the photos. One shows a man
hunting ducks in a wheelchair, his shotgun up and a dog by his side. Another is a bride on her
wedding day, who had suffered a traumatic brain injury two years before.

Therapists push patients in wheelchairs along the hallways. Some brain-injury patients who have
had parts of their skulls removed, like Ms. Giffords, wear helmets to protect their brains. (In Ms.
Giffords’s case, her mother said, doctors are planning to reinstall a section of her cranium at the
end of the month, well ahead of schedule.)

Mockups of stairs, a kitchen and a washing machine help patients relearn basic skills. A therapist
encouraged one patient to try moving his leg and was caught by an unexpected kick. She winced
as she said, “Good, Jim!”

Ms. Giffords is receiving similar encouragement, by doting therapists and a network of friends,
some of them from the political world.

Brad Holland, a Tucson lawyer and old friend, has been a regular presence at her bedside.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has spent the night in the congresswoman’s
room in what Gloria Giffords called a “sleepover.”

A visit by Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic minority leader, is planned soon, and the
first President George Bush, who lives in Houston and visited with Captain Kelly recently, may
stop by for a visit as well, those close to the congresswoman say.

Despite some obvious signs of progress for Ms. Giffords, experts offer some caution.

The human brain has what amounts to redundant circuits for some simple tasks, like walking,
and it is possible for patients to make rapid progress on those skills and still have trouble with
mental work and speaking, doctors said.

“There are backup systems in the brain for the more basic functions that have been around longer
in human beings,” said Dr. Jonathan Fellus, the director of the Brain Injury Program at the
Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. “Conversely, for things such as language,
which are uniquely human, it’s a highly specialized and delicate network that doesn’t get
reconstructed so easily.”

But those close to Ms. Giffords remain optimistic that her recovery will be dramatic.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, was at Ms. Giffords’s bedside
in Tucson on Jan. 12 when she first opened her eyes. She was visiting Ms. Giffords again, in
Houston, last Monday when she asked for toast with her oatmeal.

“It is an excellent development and a great indicator of the progress of her recovery,” she said.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz predicted that her friend would one day walk back into the House
chamber.

^As with most or all of these articles, I found valuable information worth including throughout
the entire thing. However, I needed to abbreviate it all and merge numerous ideas together into
a limited number of sentences. Therefore, some related facts that are spread out over the actual
article are grouped together in my report, and depending on my needs, I either borrowed quotes
or words from the paper or simply translated the information into other terms.

NASA’s Second Close Encounter With a

Comet
By KENNETH CHANG

Published: February 13, 2011

The last time NASA visited the Tempel 1 comet, it was with fireworks, on July 4, 2005. On that
day, the Deep Impact spacecraft slammed an 820-pound projectile into Tempel 1, excavating a
plume of ice and dust.

NASA
The Tempel 1 comet was photographed by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft in 2005.

On Monday night — Valentine’s Day — NASA will return to Tempel 1 but will not bombard it.
This time, a different spacecraft, Stardust, will zip past at more than 24,000 miles per hour,
taking 72 high-resolution pictures of the comet’s surface.

Stardust will make its closest approach, within 125 miles, at 11:37 p.m. Eastern time.

Tim Larson, the mission’s project manager, said NASA was not deliberately scheduling its
missions to coincide with holidays. “That’s just how the orbital mechanics worked out on these,”
he said, “although it makes for great P.R.”

Tempel 1 will be the first comet to be seen at close range twice, and scientists will make a then-
and-now comparison — one that they expect will reveal a change in topography and tell them
more about the inner workings of comets.

“Here’s a chance where we can see what has changed, how much has changed,” said Joseph
Veverka, a professor of astronomy at Cornell and the mission’s principal investigator, “so we’ll
start unraveling the history of a comet’s surface."

For example, photographs taken by Deep Impact in 2005 showed areas that looked old and
others that seemed much younger. But the snapshots did not tell the ages of any of them. “We
have no idea whether we’re talking about things that have been there for a hundred years, a
thousand years, a million years,” Dr. Veverka said.

In the five and a half years since Deep Impact’s visit, Tempel 1 — whose orbit brings it as close
to the Sun as Mars and as far away as Jupiter — has completed a full orbit.

Stardust was launched in 1999 and arrived five years later at its primary destination, a comet
named Wild 2, where it collected particles of dust. Stardust then looped back to Earth and
released a canister containing the comet dust, which parachuted back to the ground.

The spacecraft, still operating well, continued onward, and NASA decided to use it for a return
visit to Tempel 1. (Deep Impact, meanwhile, also extended its scientific journey, visiting another
comet last November.)

One more puzzle that scientists may be able to solve with the second look at Tempel 1 involves
depressions that look like the type of craters caused by impacts. The depressions, though, could
have been caused by explosions that were a result of underground ice that converted to gas.

The scientists will now be able to compare the depressions with something they know is
definitely a crater — the scar left by Deep Impact. “Simple question,” Dr. Veverka said, “direct
answer.”

^ I kept what I felt was most crucial and fascinating to know about the comet, spacecraft, and
mission, organizing and wording it in my own way but basically staying true to the article, which
was a bit shorter and reasonably concise.

In Spokane, a Mystery With No Good

Solution
J. Bart Rayniak/The Spokesman-Review, via Associated Press

A rally in Spokane, Wash., on Jan. 17 before a march to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. Most people were unaware of a bomb found along the route until later in the day.

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

Published: February 13, 2011

SPOKANE, Wash. — The bomb was sophisticated and potentially deadly, but it did not
detonate. No one was hurt, and no one has been arrested. So Spokane became a mystery.

Rajah Bose for The New York Times

The bench on the left is where sanitation workers found the bomb. It “would have caused
devastation,” the police chief said. The march was rerouted.
“To me, it’s that God’s gracious hand moved,” said Chief Anne Kirkpatrick of the Spokane
Police Department. “This was a bomb of significance that would have caused devastation.”

Nearly a month after a cleanup crew found the live bomb along the planned route of a large
downtown march honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the F.B.I. is investigating the
incident as an act of domestic terrorism. And Spokane has cycled from shock to relief to
reassessment: have the white supremacists who once struck such fear here in the inland
Northwest returned at a new level of dangerousness and sophistication?

“We don’t have that kind of intelligence level to make that kind of explosive,” said Shaun
Winkler, a Pennsylvania native who recently returned to the region to start a landscaping
company and a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Mr. Winkler lives not far from Hayden Lake, Idaho, where he once was among the followers of
Richard Butler, a white supremacist and Aryan Nations leader who spent more than two decades
proclaiming the inland Northwest to be the capital of a new white homeland. Mr. Butler died in
2004 after losing the 20-acre Aryan Nations compound in a lawsuit and losing many of his
followers, as well.

More than 200 white supremacists were once based at Hayden Lake, but Mr. Winkler, echoing
assessments by human rights advocates, said that “only a very small handful are still around.” He
said his new group had about a dozen members. Several of them recently picketed taco stands in
nearby Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and distributed racist, vulgar fliers at North Idaho College. The
college now owns the Hayden Lake property and calls it a “peace park.”

“We believe in protecting ourselves, but we certainly aren’t going to advocate bombing people,”
said Mr. Winkler, 32, adding that he had been interviewed by the F.B.I. about the bomb in
Spokane, about 40 miles to the southwest. “That’s a pretty extreme measure even from our end.
It’s going to be more of an under-the-radar person, a lone-wolf type.”

The bomb, partly concealed by two T-shirts and stored in a Swiss Army brand backpack, was
found on a bench on the King holiday, Jan. 17, by contract sanitation workers less than an hour
before the planned start of the march. The march went on but was rerouted. The region’s bomb
squad responded and some people were evacuated, but most people were unaware of the bomb
until later in the day.

The device is being analyzed by F.B.I. experts in Virginia. Various news reports, most citing
anonymous sources, have said that it contained metal pellets covered in a chemical, possibly rat
poison, and that it could have been detonated remotely. Frank Harrill, an F.B.I. spokesman in
Spokane, described the bomb as “capable of killing or injuring multiple people” but would
provide no further details.

Chief Kirkpatrick said the bomb was far more dangerous than a pipe bomb found near a federal
courthouse in Spokane last March. No arrests have been made in that case either.
In 1996, a pipe bomb exploded outside Spokane City Hall. No one was injured; two white
supremacists were later convicted in the case.

This time, Chief Kirkpatrick said, “It’s scary the level of the calculation that was involved.”

In the weeks since the bomb was found, investigators have asked people to check cellphone
photos and video that might have been taken in the area at the time. They have also returned to
the scene at the same time on a subsequent Monday, hoping to gather information from people
who routinely travel the area.

“Oh, I wish, I wish I had seen something,” said Kandy Conrad, who works at Auntie’s
Bookstore, directly across Washington Avenue from the bench where the bomb was found and
who parked nearby that morning. “All I was thinking about was did I have to put money in the
meter, because it was a holiday.”

“I’m much more aware of my surroundings now,” Ms. Conrad said.

Since the bomb was found, officials in Spokane have organized meetings with various
community leaders to look for ways to publicly respond, whether through some kind of one-time
event or a continuing campaign. Tony Stewart, a longtime civil rights campaigner in northern
Idaho whose work helped shut down the Aryan Nations there, is among those involved in the
discussions.

(Page 2 of 2)

“Tony told us it’s always best to stand up to bullies, and that’s kind of our point,” said Marlene
Feist, a spokeswoman for the City of Spokane. “This isn’t representative of our community as a
whole. We are an accepting place, and we are a good place to raise families and live and work
and retire.”

“We have had issues in Spokane, but primarily they have been in northern Idaho,” Ms. Feist
said. “We kind of get painted with the same brush.”

The two areas largely function as a connected region, and they are demographically similar.
Spokane County is about 91 percent white and less than 2 percent black. Kootenai County, just
across the state line in Idaho, is 95 percent white and less than 1 percent black.

A week before the bomb was found, the Spokane City Council approved a contract to build a
new road that will be the city’s first street named for Dr. King. Previous efforts to rename
existing streets were rejected. The application for the street name was submitted by Ivan Bush,
the former director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center in Spokane and one of
the organizers of the Jan. 17 march.

Mr. Bush said he helped organize the city’s first march honoring Dr. King, in 1984.
“There were 49 of us back then, and we marched from the jailhouse to the federal courthouse,”
said Mr. Bush, 60. “Now we have thousands.”

Asked whether the increase in numbers meant that Spokane had made progress, he said, “Yeah,
but we need deeper progress.”

While not everyone is convinced that racism was a factor in the bomb incident — the march
included many prominent elected officials who are white, including the mayor and county
commissioners — Mr. Bush is among many people who find it impossible to believe that it was
not.

The city should be more assertive in confronting the questions of racism stirred by the bomb, Mr.
Bush said. For him, the days in the 1980s and 1990s when it was common to see white
supremacists openly promoting their views feel like they were “just yesterday.”

“We’ve moved beyond those days as far as active, visible things,” Mr. Bush said. “But we need
to pull the covers back and take a look at what’s underneath. I think if we did that, we would find
that those sentiments are very much prevalent.”

Mr. Winkler, the Klansman, said he still believed that the region was a good place to nurture a
racist movement. And as for the bomb in Spokane, he added, “Even though we wouldn’t have
participated in that, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt my feelings if it did go off.”

^This was one of the more detailed articles, but it was fairly easy to highlight the parts I knew I
wanted to cover and then read through again, mentioning each one in my newscast.

Army Clears Last Protesters from Tahrir

Square
Published: February 14, 2011

CAIRO — The Egyptian military moved to clear the last protesters from Tahrir Square on
Monday as the armed forces consolidated their control over what it has called a democratic
transition from nearly three decades of President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.

But even as the police moved to vacate the square, leaving only a handful of bystanders and
people cleaning the streets after the weeks of protest, the governing military council issued a
communiqué urging labor leaders to end the strikes that have broken out in the aftermath of the
revolution.

The statement, read on state TV, seemed aimed not just at strikes against private industry but
also at a fresh wave of smaller demonstrations by state employees, including ambulance drivers,
police officers and transport workers, demanding better pay and working conditions. Several
hundred police officers demonstrated in the square — not, as at the beginning of the revolt, to
suppress protest, but to seek better working conditions and public sympathy.

A day after the military dissolved Parliament, suspended the Constitution and called for elections
in six months in sweeping steps that echoed protesters’ demands, red-bereted military policeman
urged the final few protesters in the square to leave. The huge plaza in central Cairo was the
epicenter of 18 days of protest that ended Mr. Mubarak’s rule last Friday, with hundreds of
thousands of people massing to call for his departure.

The military leaders now governing Egypt have told a coalition of young revolutionaries that
they plan to convene a panel of distinguished jurists to submit a package of constitutional
amendments within 10 days for approval in a national referendum within two months, setting a
breakneck schedule for the transition to civilian rule.

Just as dramatic a sign of how radically Egypt is changing was the way the army and the
protesters disclosed their plans. Two top generals sat down Sunday night to talk about their
country’s future with seven of the revolution’s young organizers — including the Google
marketing executive Wael Ghonim — and the young organizers posted their notes on the
meeting directly to the Internet for the Egyptian public to see.

How completely the military will deliver on its promises of a transition to a constitutional
democracy will not be clear until the election, currently set for six months from now. But the
young revolutionaries — most in their early 30s — were clearly impressed by the deference they
received from the two military officials, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Hijazi and Maj. Gen. Abdel Fattah.

“We all sensed a sincere desire to preserve the gains of the revolution and unprecedented respect
for the right of young people to express their views,” two of the young organizers, Mr. Ghonim
and Amr Salama, wrote in their Facebook posting, with the disclaimer that they were speaking
only for themselves. They noted that the generals spoke without any of the usual “parental tone
(you do not know what is good for you, son)” and called the encounter “the first time an
Egyptian official sat down to listen more than speak.”

Mr. Mubarak’s ouster spread shock waves around the region, as many autocratic regimes braced
for the possibility of protests modeled on the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

In Bahrain, skirmishes broke out early Monday between heavily armed police and scattered
groups of young people in villages outside the capital. Shops stayed closed and shuttered, the
streets were clear of cars and there were calls for universities to close in anticipation of what
organizers here have called Bahrain’s own “Day of Rage.” Young protesters took to the streets
for a fourth successive day in Yemen.

In Iran, the authorities deployed hundreds of riot police to thwart plans by the opposition to hold
its first major rally on Monday since the government quashed a wave of protests after the
disputed presidential elections in 2009. A reformist Web site said Iranian authorities cut the
phone lines of an opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and cordoned off his house on
Monday.
Opposition groups in Algeria met Sunday and vowed to hold weekly protests against the
government in the capital, Algiers, said the head of the Algerian League for the Defense of
Human Rights, Mustapha Bouchachi. About 300 people were arrested Saturday at a
demonstration in the heart of the city that was stifled by a heavy police presence, the human
rights league and other opposition groups said.

Since Sunday, Egypt has been effectively under direct military authority, thrusting the country
into territory uncharted since republican Egypt was founded in 1952. Though enjoying popular
support, the military must cope with the formidable task of negotiating a post-revolutionary
landscape still basking in the glow of Mr. Mubarak’s fall, but beset by demands to ease
Egyptians’ many hardships.

Since seizing power on Friday, the military has struck a reassuring note, responding in words and
actions to the platform articulated by hundreds of thousands in Tahrir Square. But beyond more
protests, there is almost no check on the sweep of military rule. While opposition leaders in
Egypt welcomed the military’s moves, some have quietly raised worries about the future role of
an institution that has been a pillar of the status quo, playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role in
preserving its vast business interests and political capital.

(Page 2 of 2)

“Over the next six months, I am afraid the army will brainwash the people to think that the
military is the best option,” said Dina Aboul Seoud, a 35-year-old protester, still in the square on
Sunday. “Now, I am afraid of what is going to happen next.”

The day in Egypt brought scenes that juxtaposed a more familiar capital with a country forever
changed by Mr. Mubarak’s fall. Hundreds of policemen, belonging to one of the most loathed
institutions in Egypt, rallied in Cairo on Sunday and Monday to demand better pay and
treatment. Traffic returned to Tahrir Square on Sunday and even more so on Monday, after the
military police expulsion of lingering protesters.

On Sunday, youthful volunteers swept streets, painted fences and curbs, washed away graffiti
that read, “Down with Mubarak,” and planted bushes in a square many want to turn into a
memorial for one of the most stunning uprisings in Arab history. Soldiers drove a truck mounted
with speakers that blared, “Egypt is my beloved.”

“Egypt is my blood,” said Oummia Ali, a flight attendant who skipped work to paint the square’s
railing green. “I want to build our country again.”

As she spoke, a boisterous crowd marched down the street away from Tahrir Square,
“Liberation” in Arabic and named for the fall of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952. “Let’s go
home,” they chanted, “we got our rights.” The military’s statement was the clearest elaboration
yet of its plans for Egypt, as the country’s opposition forces, from the Muslim Brotherhood to
labor unions, seek to build on the momentum of the protests and create a democratic system with
few parallels in the Arab world.
The moves to suspend the Constitution and to dissolve Parliament, chosen in an election deemed
a sham even by Mr. Mubarak’s standards, were expected. The statement declared that the
supreme command would issue laws in the transitional period before elections and that Egypt’s
defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, would represent the country, in a
sign that the 75-year-old loyalist of Mr. Mubarak’s had emerged to the forefront. Protesters —
and some classified American diplomatic cables — have dismissed him as a “poodle” of Mr.
Mubarak’s. But some senior American officers say he is a shrewd operator who played a
significant role in managing Mr. Mubarak’s nonviolent ouster.

The military’s communiqué was welcomed by opposition leaders as offering a specific timetable
for transition to civil rule. Ayman Nour, a longtime opponent of Mr. Mubarak’s, called it a
victory for the revolution. “The statement is fine,” said Ahmed Maher, a leading organizer. “We
still need more details, but it was more comforting than what we heard before.” But still
unanswered are other demands of the protesters, among them the release of thousands of political
prisoners. The military’s position on the emergency law, which gave Mr. Mubarak’s government
wide powers to arrest and detain people, has remained ambiguous. The military said earlier that
it would abolish it once conditions improved, but has yet to address it since. Essam al-Arian, a
prominent Brotherhood leader, echoed those demands, saying their fulfillment “would bring
calm to the society.”

“To be able to trust the army completely and do what it says completely is impossible because
the country has had corrupted institutions for 30 years working in every sector,” said Tamer el-
Sady, one of the young organizers at Sunday’s meeting. The military has said the government of
Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, appointed Jan. 29, will remain in place as a caretaker cabinet in
the transition, though it reserved the right to dismiss some of the ministers. The cabinet met
Sunday for the first time since Mr. Mubarak’s fall, notably with his once-ubiquitous portrait
nowhere to be seen.

Other than Mr. Tantawi and Sami Anan, the army chief of staff, the military’s council remains
opaque, with many in Egypt unable to identity anyone else on it. Omar Suleiman, the former vice
president, has not appeared since Friday, and Mr. Shafiq said that the military would determine
his role.

With the police yet to return to the streets in force, the military has been deployed across the city,
seeking to manage protests that sprung up across Cairo on Sunday. At banks, insurance
companies and even the Academy of Scientific Research, scores gathered to demand better pay,
in a sign of the difficulties that the military will face in meeting the expectations that have
exponentially risen with the success of the uprising.

The most remarkable protest was by the police themselves, who gathered in black uniforms,
leather jackets and plain clothes, on Sunday and Monday, blaming the hated former interior
minister, Habib el-Adly, for their reputation and seeking forgiveness for orders they said they
were forced to obey.
^ Most of the key points were made near the beginning of this lengthy article, but again, I tied in
a few later ones that strengthened the understanding of the complex situations in Egypt and the
Middle East right now.

Protesters Clash With Government

Supporters in Yemen
By LAURA KASINOF and J. DAVID GOODMAN

Published: February 14, 2011

SANA, Yemen — More than a hundred pro-government demonstrators clashed with hundreds of
student protesters on Monday at a sit-in at Sana University that called for an end to the
authoritarian rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

As antigovernment protests continued for a fourth straight day state-run media reported that Mr.
Saleh would cancel a planned trip to the United States at the end of February “due to
circumstances in the region” after the revolution in Egypt.

In the capital, Sana, the police stepped in to separate the rival groups as pro-government
demonstrators — some carrying posters of the president — beat the young protesters with sticks
near the university’s main gate. The clashes erupted after the two groups faced off shouting
slogans at each other.

“The people want to expel Ali Saleh!” students shouted, adapting a chant commonly heard
during demonstrations in Egypt.

The pro-government group chanted in response, borrowing the same rhythm: “The people want
to start dialogue!”

Similar clashes occurred in the southern city of Taiz, where more than a thousand anti-
government protesters staged an overnight rally beginning Sunday. The police, unable to control
the crowd, fired shots in the air as skirmishes broke out with pro-government groups on Monday.
At least five people were injured.

As protests spread to new areas, the fragile status of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the
Middle East, was a source of concern for the United States, which has received support from Mr.
Saleh to fight the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda.

Monday’s protests sought to keep up the momentum after the largest demonstrations yet by
young Yemenis on Sunday, with more than 1,000 marching. Those protests appeared to mark a
rift with opposition groups who organized previous demonstrations that wrested significant
concessions from Mr. Saleh, including the promise that he would yield power in 2013.
Those established opposition groups did not join the crowd on Sunday, which was calling for the
immediate ouster of the president. After the initial demonstration a smaller group of young
protesters peeled off and marched toward the presidential palace only to be violently repulsed by
armed security forces both uniformed and in plain clothes, some with stun guns, witnesses said.
There were reports of several injuries but no deaths.

“The J.M.P. in our opinion — the opinion of the students — is that they move in stages,” said a
30-year-old protester, Mohamed Mohsin, referring to the Joint Meeting Parties, a coalition of
opposition parties. “But we go to the demonstrations to send the message to the leadership now.”

In contrast to the earlier protests in Yemen, which were highly organized and marked by color-
coordinated clothing and signs, the spontaneity of the younger demonstrators on Sunday
appeared to have more in common with popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, where
opposition groups watched from the sidelines as leaderless revolts grew into revolutions.

The opposition coalition said at a news conference in Sana, the capital, on Sunday that it
welcomed the new street protests, but cautioned that the situation could quickly escalate if mass
uprisings took hold in Yemen, a country with a well-armed populace. “If the people on the
streets take the lead, we will say thank you for that,” said Yassin Saeed Noman, a socialist party
leader, adding that the opposition “should deal wisely with this big movement.”

The opposition group said that 120 people were arrested in protests on Saturday and Sunday in
Taiz, a poverty-stricken town about a four-hour drive south of the capital, as waves of youthful
unrest spread to new places.

Sheik Hamid al-Ahmar, an opposition leader, said in an interview on Sunday that political
leaders had tried to prevent the younger demonstrators from taking to the streets to demand
immediate changes to the autocratic rule of Mr. Saleh. But, he said, “It’s not that they aren’t
cooperating with the new protests,” only that opposition leaders would like to move more slowly.

Mr. Saleh, an important ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism, has in recent
weeks sought to counter a rising tide of opposition and preserve his three-decade rule by raising
army salaries, halving income taxes and ordering price controls, among other concessions.

Since Hosni Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt on Friday, police officers, some armed,
have filled Sana’s central square — which, like its Cairo counterpart, is called Tahrir Square —
blocking access with concertina wire to prevent protesters from gathering. Witnesses reported
seeing men in plain clothes with AK-47s on the street.

“This is a revolution across the whole Arab world,” said Jalal Bakry, an unemployed protester
standing in front of the main entrance to Sana University. “If those in Tahrir Square want to kill
me, that’s O.K. We will still be peaceful.”

A text message sent around called on Yemenis to “participate in the student and youth revolution
in a demonstration to demand the removal of the leader and to celebrate the Egyptian revolution,
tomorrow at 9 a.m. in the front of the main gate of Sana University.” Protesters also posted
messages on Facebook to rally supporters on Sunday, but social networking sites remain less of
an organizing tool in Yemen than in Tunisia and Egypt because of low Internet penetration.

While the aims of Yemen’s southern secessionist movement are different from the political
opposition’s in Sana, they too have claimed inspiration from the Tunisian and Egyptian
revolutions. Demonstrations throughout the southern port city Aden have increased in number
over the past two weeks despite high security citywide, and last Friday, thousands protested
throughout Yemen’s south.

“In Egypt they chanted ‘The people want to expel the system,’ but we chant ‘The people want to
cut the ties,’ ” said Wagdy al-Shaaby, a secessionist protester who marched on Friday in the
southern city of Zinjibar.

It remained unclear to what degree a widening popular uprising could set off renewed armed
clashes in the south. Protests across the south have been notably more violent than those in the
country’s north.

Southern separatists have called for the creation of an independent state and are therefore less
committed to reforming or even toppling Mr. Saleh’s government. Its leaders are divided over
how much they should work with the opposition coalition in Sana.

Laura Kasinof reported from Sana, and J. David Goodman from New York.

^ Again I slightly reworded and condensed as much as possible, wanting to give a decent but
easily understood overview of the long and complicated story. I wanted to relate the events in
Yemen to the ones in Egypt by retaining the illustrations of the parallels between them.

Board suspends Fedor Emelianenko

Updated: February 13, 2011, 6:52 PM ET By Franklin McNeil
ESPN.com
Archive

After suffering his second consecutive defeat Saturday night in East Rutherford, N.J.,
heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko raised the possibility of retirement.

"Maybe it's time for me to leave," Emelianenko said. "Maybe it's high time. Thank God for
everything.

"I've had a long sport life. Maybe it's God's will."

[+] Enlarge
Ed Mulholland for ESPN.comFedor Emelianenko can't fight in New Jersey for at least 90 days as
a result of Saturday's injuries.

It's not yet certain if Emelianenko will make his postfight comments official. One thing is clear,
he will have three months to ponder his MMA future.

Emelianenko was among several fighters hit with suspensions by the New Jersey State Athletic
Control Board after Saturday night's Strikeforce card at Izod Center.

He was suspended 90 days due to an eye injury suffered during his bout with Antonio Silva. A
cageside physician called off the fight after Round 2.

Emelianenko is also suspended indefinitely pending a CT scan of head and facial bones. Should
Emelianenko have the CT scan performed during his mandatory suspension, the earliest he can
return is 91 days.

Heavyweight Andrei Arlovski was hit with a 30-day suspension after his knockout loss to Sergei
Kharitonov. The KO came at 2:49 of the first round.

It was the third KO loss in four fights for Arlovski.

Despite registering a first-round TKO victory, heavyweight Chad Griggs must sit 30 days due to
hematoma on his left ear.

Griggs' opponent, Gian Villante, was also suspended 30 days due to the knockout.

Welterweight Don Carlos-Clauss was handed a 30-day suspension in order to heal from
lacerations suffered during his first-round loss to Sam Oropeza.

Featherweight Anthony Leone is sidelined 90 days in order to heal after a cageside physician
stopped his fight with Josh Laberge. The bout was halted after the first round.

Leone has also been suspended indefinitely pending medical clearance.

Franklin McNeil covers MMA and boxing for ESPN.com. He also appears regularly on "MMA
Live" on ESPN2. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Franklin_McNeil.

^ I took out the key facts and arranged and worded them in a way that sounded more
conversational for radio.

Grammy Awards: Lady Antebellum, Arcade

Fire take top honors
Adding to a night of shockers, jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza
Spalding tops Justin Bieber for best new artist.

The Canadian indie band Arcade Fire's exuberant "The Suburbs" CD was named album of the
year in the evening's biggest upset. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
 Share

Pop provocateurs Lady Gaga and Eminem may have brought more compelling career stories to
the 53rd annual Grammy Awards, but on a shocking night the big trophies went home Sunday
with Southern trio Lady Antebellum and Montreal indie-rock band Arcade Fire.

Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now," a harmony hit of closing-time yearning, was named record
and song of the year (the former is for best overall track; the latter is specifically for song
writing), while the best album honors went to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs," the third studio
album from the seven-member band led by the married couple Win Butler and Régine
Chassagne.

A dizzying string of envelope surprises at Staples Center began with perhaps the biggest shock
of all: Esperanza Spalding, the 26-year-old jazz bassist and vocalist from Portland, Ore., was
named best new artist, beating out far more famous nominees, among them kid-pop sensation
Justin Bieber and rapper-singer Drake.

Spalding is the first jazz artist to win the coveted best new artist award, but her win recalled the
2008 show when Herbie Hancock took home the album of the year honors.

"I take this honor to heart so sincerely, and I'll do my damnedest to make great music for all of
you. It's such an honor, and God bless," said a shocked Spalding, who released her third album,
"The Chamber Music Society," last year.
Taken collectively, the honors for Spalding, Arcade Fire and Lady Antebellum were vivid
reminders that the 13,000 voters of the Recording Academy aren't marching to the same beat as
music consumers or even music critics.

The Antebellum victories — they won in five of the six categories in which they were nominated
— show the consolidated power of the industry's country-rooted constituency that has powered
major category upsets in recent years for the Dixie Chicks, Taylor Swift and the twang-informed
duo of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

Formed in Nashville in 2006, the trio of Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley saw a
bookend quality to their Staples Center success on Sunday. As they pointed out during their
acceptance speech, their performance of "Need You Now" on last year's Grammy Awards was a
key turning point in the single's success.

"We just cried our eyes out backstage," Kelley said.

The audience at Staples Center seemed incredulous as the winners were announced — these days
most award shows are the stuff of predictable ritual, not roller-coaster surprise — and there will
be considerable debate whether the academy's choices were boldly out of the box or blatantly out
of touch with the hip-hop generation.

The night continued a grim Grammy tradition for Eminem, who has won 13 of the trophies in his
career but none in the top four categories despite seven nominations. The rapper may now be
regretting a spiky lyric from his first single, "My Name Is," in 1999: "You think I give a damn
about a Grammy?"

There were plenty of other unexpected moments during the show. The CBS broadcast was
marked by silences enforced by network censors when performers such as Cee Lo Green and
Eminem dropped F-bombs during their songs and also when Gaga let loose with an especially
ripe exclamation of surprise when accepting one of her three awards from her album "The Fame
Monster."

Presenter Seth Rogen, famed for his bong-hit films, veered off his scripted teleprompter patter to
make a joke about smoking pot with Miley Cyrus backstage and, far more upsetting, a dancer fell
hard from a riser during Bieber's number with Usher and Jaden Smith. By all appearances, the
performer appeared only temporarily dazed by the tumble; he continued performing after his fall.

In a couple of other historic benchmarks, a Grammy for the first time went to a composition
written for a video game: Christopher Tin's "Baba Yetu," which was named best instrumental
recording; and the version of Train's song "Hey, Soul Sister" that won best pop performance by a
duo or group was from the iTunes Session EP, the first time iTunes original content has won a
Grammy.

The Grammy show is billed as "music's biggest night," but the next-day discussion will be just as
much about the visuals — Cee Lo decked out like a funky peacock and surrounded by puppets,
Bieber dancing with stackable ninjas and Gaga's show-stealing stage arrival inside something
resembling an intergalactic egg and then performing her song "Born This Way" while wearing a
yoke-yellow outfit.

As far as performances, the show was a mix of major stars of the past, present and, perhaps, the
future. All five nominees in the best new artist category performed, and three icons whose
recording careers date to the early 1960s took turns at the microphone: Bob Dylan sang
"Maggie's Farm," Barbra Streisand performed "Evergreen" and Mick Jagger tore through a
version of "Everybody Needs Somebody" as a tribute to the late Solomon Burke.

The show opened with a squadron of siren voices — Christina Aguilera, Yolanda Adams,
Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride and Florence Welch — performing a medley of hits
associated with Aretha Franklin, the soul queen who has been ailing in recent months. A video
message from Franklin followed the number, and the 68-year-old said she hoped to make it to
the show in person "next year."

The final surprise was an unprecedented encore at the end of the show. After their acceptance
speech, Arcade Fire members returned to their instruments and launched into "Ready to Start,"
their second number of the night. Some in the audience thought that it was a punk-spirited coup
of the microphone, but Grammy executive producer Ken Erhlich said in recent days that he
would let the band do an extra song if the show was running ahead of schedule.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jessica Gelt contributed to this report.

^Her e I also mainly cut out the majority of the article which would be far too long for a radio
program, paring it down to the basics about who won and who performed, plus a few enticing
bits about the unusual or unpredicted events that took place. I liked the order in which the
awards highlights were presented, but I had to again rephrase the facts and abbreviate
everything because it was a long article. I chose the most important and interesting points to
include in the newscast.