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Next week, the U.S. Mint will release a new one-dollar coin to honor former president Ulysses S. Grant. You’d probably think that most New Yorkers under the age of twenty would have no interest whatsoever in the life of the Civil War general. But one city teen spends his working hours teaching about Grant. Alex Alper has more.

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On a cold afternoon in Upper Westside Manhattan, Huascar Morrell walks down a marble staircase to the final resting place of Mrs. Ullysses S. Grant, President and Civil War legend.

“Alright so downstairs our crypt level, where you can get a closer look to bother sarcophagi which grant, as you first come inside the mausoleum is on the left hand side and his wife is on the right,” says Morrell.

Morrell is a 19-year-old criminal justice student at John Jay College. For the last 11 months he has worked at the General Grant National Memorial. He leads tours and answers visitor questions, on topics ranging from Grant’s alleged alcoholism to more mundane things.

“Where’s the bathroom. That is our number one question. But I’m very happy to tell people where it’s at,” says Morrell.

Grant was America’s 18th president. He made a popular general, but a less successful commander in chief. He served two terms and left office in 1877 poor and unpopular, after corruption scandals rocked his republican administration.

“He wasn’t very good at sizing up his friends. He was very good at sizing up his enemies. Under his presidency people said that he was kinda corrupt, that people under his cabinet were corrupt. This whole military model of not leaving a man behind or getting rid of your boys, that pretty much stuck with him,” says Morrell.

Morrell likes his job keeping watch over a dead president, but his fantasy is to protect a LIVING one — he wants to be a secret service agent. For now, his biggest challenge is keeping his work and his life in balance. Sometimes when he’s hanging out with his friend, he can’t resist talking about the general.

Sometimes I really do. Grant is contagious.

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Mayor Bloomberg presented his executive budget this morning. One of the biggest headlines is his plan to cut more than 42-hundred public school teachers.

He’s been threatening teacher layoffs since late last year. IF they come to pass, they’d be the first since the fiscal crisis in the 1970’s. And, it’ll be seniority – or lack of it – that dictates who gets the pink slips.

This policy, Last in First Out, known as LIFO, has been the law in New York State for more than five decades. At his press conference today, Bloomberg reiterated his stance against it.

“Last in first out is just not the way to run the school system,” he said. “Its an irrational way there are great teachers at all levels of seniority and have to make sure we keep the great ones.”

In the midst of a heated national debate about how to measure teacher merit, many politicians and educators say it’s time for LIFO to go.

It’s Wednesday afternoon at Columbia Secondary School in Harlem. Meg Swan is teaching social studies to a group of about 30 sixth graders.

They’re talking about globalization and she asks them where their stuff comes from.

World maps cover the walls opposite the projector screen and windows. Posters taped to the chalkboard pose wide-ranging questions about the US addiction to oil and the pros and cons of globalization. The students are focused and excited. Swan says she loves teaching at Columbia Secondary School. She asks tough questions of the kids, and they’re up to the challenge.

But this may be the last year Meg Swan has that opportunity. In February, Mayor Bloomberg released a list of the schools that’d be hardest hit by his proposed layoffs. Columbia Secondary topped it. That’s because the school’s staff is young and state law dictates that the last teachers in are the first ones out. The school stands to lose 70 percent of its teachers: a crushing 14 teachers of the current 20.

“I’ve been teaching for six years,” says Swan, “but I am on the chopping block. Which is a little maddening.”

Columbia Secondary is a partnership between the New York city Department of Education and Columbia University. Unlike most public schools, it can select its students – the way charter and private schools do – but its teachers are unionized just like in public schools. Teachers in the union get tenure—and more protection from cuts—after three years of teaching. Swan’s been teaching for six years, but just two of those in city public schools. So she’s vulnerable, she says.

“When I look at both the proposed teacher layoffs coming up and the fact that I am four months pregnant I have to tell myself, “Take the long view, take the long view.”

Swan’s long view is that she’ll continue teaching. she knows that a system that might force her out now is one that will protect her down the road.

So, she’s pro-LIFO but not just for personal reasons: she’s seen principals fire good teachers out on personal bias, and believes that teachers get better over time.

But Maria Eder, Columbia Secondary’s parent coordinator, thinks accepting LIFO is a bad choice when students like her son lose good teachers.

When Eder learned about the proposed staffing cuts, she was:

“Just basically shocked, because it would means our school would unravel.”

Eder says the young staff is great, across the board. She says any layoff policy that doesn’t take merit into account harms kids. She’s not ready to let go of great teachers like Meg Swan without a fight.

“The point is to educate our children properl, says Eder. “The point isn’t to create a tremendous safety net for people who are not doing that. ”

LIFO is sparking debates like these across the country. Most states have LIFO laws on the books and with so many states struggling to balance their budgets, LIFO policies are getting a lot of attention. Illinois and Florida are the latest in a handful of states that have voted to repeal LIFO, and Georgia is on the way.

The U.S. Education secretary Arnie Duncan has spoken out against it. And Here in New York State, Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott oppose it. A QuinnaPEEEack poll released in March shows 80 percent of New Yorkers oppose LIFO.

But the powerful teachers’ union considers it a critical protection. Democrats have quashed three legislative attempts to end it in the last year alone.

Andy Rotherman is a an education consultant, who specializes in the history of education reform.

“This is power politics 101,” says Rotherman “Veteran teachers have more voice, they are more organized. Teachers, especially in their first few years of teaching, are not especially engaged in that kind of conversation.”

For Rotherham, there has to be an alternative.

“If we want schools to be good at teaching kids, why would we lay people off with no attention to how good they are at teaching kids,” he asked.

He says, its time to start moving to a merit–based system.

“In most professions, you make these decisions based on a blend of qualitative data and quantitative data. In education we’re gonna have to get comfortable with that, and because its not going to be perfect and because in some places frankly they’ll do it badly, is not a reason to keep in place a policy that demonstrably makes no sense.

Rotherham focuses on national issues, but Evan Stone follows New York education policy. He is the founder of Educators4Excellence, a group of pro-reform teachers. He liked the Senate’s most recent attempt to replace LIFO with a merit-based system.

“It had seven different pools or categories that if teachers fell into they would be laid off.” Sone continued, “so if you fell into all seven, you’d be laid off first and then six and then five working down.”

The proposed seven pools were based on traditional performance issues – teachers who chronically miss work, don’ t have current placements, and the small but significant number who’ve been declared ineffective by their principals. They would have been cut first.

With so many people speaking out against LIFO, the stalemate is frustrating for Stone.

“Can’t we chose these groups of teachers before just our newest teachers.”

But the teacher union’s top brass say the alternatives proposed just haven’t been tested.

Rob Weil is a director at the American Federation of Teachers.

“You can score political points by making really good zings that sound easy like “lets just make a pair of wings and fly to the moon.but….it becomes a little more difficult than just putting some feathers on some sticks.”

At the end of the day, Weil says LIFO makes sense because it protects what’s proven to make the best teachers.

“You wanna keep the teachers that are the most effective. and the most effective are the ones with the experience.”

At a May Day Rally outside City Hall, it’s a sea of acronyms. Hundreds of people are wearing baseball caps and tee shirts in support of their unions. United Federation of Teachers director Anthony Harmon speaks to the crowd.

“No more can we allow these attacks on our public school systems which attempt to pit senior teachers against newer teachers,” Hamon said.

Susan Epstein sports a UFT hat. She says she’s deeply suspicious of how layoffs would happen without the protection of LIFO.

“Everything I see indicates that there is an effort to get rid of teachers who are high on the salary scale regardless of the quality of their teaching.”

And, she says she’s seen this kind of discriminatory firing before.

” A whole lot of people who were satisfactory until their tenure came up all of a sudden became unsatisfactory at my school last year.”

For Epstein, if layoffs have to happen, LIFO is the only fair way to do it.

But for UFT President Mike Mulgrew, how cuts are done is beside the point.

“Any layoff hurts children,” says Mulgrew, “and if people wanna talk about how to lay people off, they wanna talk about how to hurt children, and I don’t want to have any part of it.”

Bloomberg’s new schools chancellor Dennis Walcott says he gets it.

“The only thing worse than having the lay off a teacher is having to lay off a great teacher.”

Dennis Walcott told the City Council’s Education Commission that LIFO is destructive a policy. It can’t go on, when it disproportionately impacts low income kids.

“There are three districts in the Bronx where 90 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches that would be the three districts hit hardest citywide by layoffs done in accordance with the current LIFO law.”

Walcott promised to push the state government to repeal LIFO before teachers receive their pinkslips, expected by June 1st.

It’s unlikely that state government can pass an alternative to LIFO in time. But, Education consultant Andy Rotherham says LIFO’s days are numbered.

“People already realize what the political outcome of these events is gonna be. but that doesnt mean you don’t have to have all the fighting. LIFO is going away, but it doesn’t mean its not gonna be bloodly while we get there.”

The final budget will be released on June 30th.

Alex Alper Columbia Radio News.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg says tough economic times mean the city will have to cut its police force. On the John Gambling show this morning, he said the police department and other city agencies had been asked to recommend cuts of 2 to 4 percent.  But, he says, the NYPD can make due with a smaller staff.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “Raymond Kelly he has five or 6 thousand fewer cops that when we came into office in 2002. On the rate that we’re going first quarter, we’re going to set a new record in crime.”

A few hours later, Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said that the administration does not plan to layoff uniformed officers. Bloomberg also said that the city must shrink the fire department. His current budget proposal would close 20 fire companies.

Nasdaq is teaming up with InterContinentalExchange to make a counteroffer of 11.3 billion dollars for the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company, NYSE EuroNext.

That’s over a billion dollars more than what Deutsche Boerse, the owner of the Frankfurt stock exchange, had offered to pay for it.

Shares of NYSE Euronext jumped more than 11 percent on the news today.

An eighteen-year-old high School student was struck in the head by an express train earlier this morning. Witnesses say the student stumbled across the platform at the 14^th street-Union Square Station and was struck around 8 am. The victim was knocked unconscious and taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he is in extremely critical condition. Police are investigating.

If shopping for clothes is how you plan on spending your April fools day, you may be in luck—starting today, New York State will exempt clothing and shoes that cost less than 55 dollars from its four percent sales tax. The state used to exempt clothing and shoe purchases up to 110 dollars, but that tax break ended in October, to help meet the budget shortfall. The old sales tax exemption will be restored next April.

Alex Alper Columbia Radio News

A bacon cheeseburgers like so many whose buns are wasted each year. Photo courtesy of Larry Crowe/AP

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We all feel a tinge of dismay, when we pull a rotting tomato out of the refrigerator, or pop open a foul smelling jar that might have held dinner. But for our commentator, Alex Alper, a returned peace corps volunteer, wasting food is more than a nuisance: it’s the cause of a crusade.
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I started to notice it not long after returning to the states two years ago. I’d go out to dinner with friends. Everything would be going great, but as the meal would wind down, I would start to get a little nervous.

As everyone took their last sips of coffee or wine, I would stare at the leftovers: Some wilted bits of lettuce, a piece of hamburger bun, some cold French fries saturated in ketchup.

The waiter would come to clear the plates and I would pry the plates from his hand.

“We need just a few more minutes with that,” I’d say.

“Alex, we’re done,” my friends would say, as I frantically ate the rest.

“Me too, I’m stuffed.” I’d confess. “but I can’t help it.”

And I couldn’t.

After three years in Peace Corps West Africa, I’ve had this socially awkward affliction: I cannot let food go to waste.

It’s not impossible to manage: I can walk past an abandoned cheeseburger on an empty table. I can go to a lunch interview and not ask the interviewer if he wouldn’t mind me eating the olives he picked off his pizza. I’ve gotten so much better, I can even let a waiter take uneaten bread or rice from my own plate.

But it’s been a hard road back.

In Guinea, I watched my neighbors struggle through the rainy season. That’s when last year’s harvest of rice and manioc is almost gone. They call it “la saison du souffrance” or the season of suffering.

But suffering in Guinea is year-round: kids have bloated bellies and orange tinged hair: telltale signs of malnutrition.

And the way Guineans treat food is just what you would expect: without refrigerators, women prepare just enough for dinner and the following breakfast. Not a kernel of rice is left in the pot. If the unthinkable happens—a baby tips over a bowl of uneaten food—something will be nourished: a goat, a chicken, or a cow, itself a source of food.

But here, in the US things are really different.

The National Institute of Health says Americans waste 40 percent of their food-from from farm to table to landfill.

And I get it!

Thirty four percent of Americans are obese and the same number are overweight. In a land of supersized sodas and plates the size of trays, leaving food would almost seem healthy.

But on an individual level, I root for the middle ground: take the rest home, order a side, or giving the leftovers to your crazy returned peace corps volunteer friend.

I admit, I’m as embarrassed to be that crazy returned peace corps volunteer on a mission, as I am about the neurosis itself.

But one of the three Peace Corps goals is to share what you learned abroad with other Americans.

So I‘m grateful for that knowledge, and grateful for the opportunity to share it, even if it makes me a somewhat awkward dinner guest.
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That was Alex Alper, who is currently accepting dinner invitations.

Iranian protestors face off against police in anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 14, 2011. Photo courtesy of Associated Press

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By Alex Alper

A few weeks ago it looked like the green revolution that opposed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmaninejad’s reelection had revived. Thousands of Iranians gathered illegally in downtown Tehran—shouting “death to the dictator.”

“The wind of protests have reached Iran but the Iranian government has doing I guess a good job of stopping any protests in its tracks,” said Azzedine Layachi, a professor of political science at St. John’s University in New York.

“By stopping the protests,” Layachi means the police have managed to turn well-attended weekly protests into small gatherings, using batons and tear gas.

He says Iranians are not about to overthrow the government.  But authorities are nervous: they’ve kept opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karoubi on house arrest for almost a month.

Reformist former president Hashemi Rafsanjani resigned from the powerful Assembly of Experts. Many say he was forced out.

But Layachi says Iran’s image in the region is strong.

“Iran is a great regional power and is likely to play an increasing role if those who are friendly with the United States come to collapse,” said Layachi.

For example former Egptian president Hosni Mubarak, who supported lots of American policies in the Middle East: He opposed Iran’s nuclear program, kept peace with Israel, and refused passage through the Suez Canal to Iranian ships.

But last month, two Iranian warships pass through the Suez for the first time in over three decades.

“That was unthinkable under Mubarak’s regime and it became possible after Mubarak fell,” said Layachi.

Layachi also points to Bahrain as sign of Iran’s growing Influence. Bahrain’s Shiite majority is protesting decades of rule by its Sunni king. If that king is toppled, Shiite Iran would have an ally in Bahrain.

That would make other Middle Eastern powers with sizeable Shiite minorities nervous, says Forham University Professor John Entelis.

“There’s a genuine fear on the part of the Saudis who obviously feel threatened by the Iranians, that the Shiites in the eastern provinces might get activated, mobilized, reacting to the Shiites in Bahrain,” said Enteils.

Shiite protests in Saudi Arabia today point to this. But Entelis, who studies politics in the Middle East, says its important not to overestimate how much foreign policy plays a role in the protests.

“What the Egyptian, Tunisian and other uprisings are showing is that peoples priorities are domestic,” said Enteils.

Egyptians and Tunisians overthrew their leaders because they wanted more jobs, and more freedom, he says. Not because they supported Iranian foreign policy goals, like crushing Israel.

Entelis says it’s too soon to know how the balance of power will shift in the region. In the meantime some Iranian ships may appear in new harbors.

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The unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in February, according to the latest government jobs data. That’s the lowest it’s been in almost two years.  Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the white house council of Economic advisors, says its proof the administration’s stimulus is working. Still, the number of unemployed Americans stands at 13.7 million, almost double the number before the recession.

Oil prices hit a two-year high today: 103 dollars and 27 cents per barrel.

Unrest in Libya is partly to blame: Crude oil production decreased by at least 500,000 barrels a day there.  That’s less than one percent of global oil consumption, but markets are still jittery.

Prosecutors filed 49 federal charges today against Jared Loughner, the prime suspect in the Tucson shooting spree two months ago. He is accused of murdering two government officials and attempting to murder representative Gabrielle Giffords.  Federal prosecutors haven’t yet said if they’ ll seek the death penalty.

Violence continues in Libya: Forces loyal to Moammar Gadafi fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters in the Capitol of Tripoli Today. They killed at least 18 protesters in the city of Zawiya, which remains in rebel hands.

The committee to protect journalists celebrated its 30th anniversary today with a panel on the role of social media in war at Columbia university in New York. Karla Zabludosky reports

The Committee to Protect Journalists is dedicated to preventing events like the recent sexual assault of CBS Correspondent Lara Logan while covering the fallout of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Her former colleague Dan Rather said she wanted to attend but was still recovering.

TAPE: War is whatever is below hell, is war. Its not only savage and brutal as it is real mud, real blood, real screams of the wounded and moans of the dying. Nobody who has actually walked the ground of a battlefield and covered war, has considered himself or herself a hero.

Rather says war journalists do not consider themselves heroes. Karla Zabludovsky, Columbia Radio News .

The impasse in Wisconsin continues. – Republican Governor Scott Walker and 14 absent Democratic state senators in a two-week standoff over a budget bill that would strip most public union workers of collective bargaining rights.

Linda Abi Assi has the latest.

Governor Scott Walker says he’s planning to issue 1,500 layoff notices to state employees if at least one Democrat doesn’t show up to give the GOP majority the quorum it needs to vote on the budget.

Fourteen democratic senators fled to Illinois to deny majority republicans the quorum necessary to vote on the bill.  On Thursday, the State Senate ordered their arrest, but it’s unclear if the detention would be constitutional.

Critics say Walker a campaign ploy for the twenty twelve elections. Lawmakers in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana are proposing similar legislation to curb collective bargaining.

Linda Abi Assi, Columbia Radio News.

168 New York City fire fighters responded to a blaze in a two story building early this morning.  The fire tore through three buildings in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, injuring five responders.

A former New York state senator and his son faced federal fraud charges today at a pre-trial hearing. Pedro Espada jr. and his son are accused of embezzling more than 500,000 dollars from their federally-funded Bronx health clinic. They pleaded not guilty.

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Libyan Deputy ambassador to the UN Ibrahim Dabbashi calls on foreign leaders to stop bloodshed in Libya. Photo by Alex Alper/ Columbia Radio News

It looks like Libyan Colonel Muammar Gadhafi’s time may be running out.
Anti-government protesters clashed with pro-government forces in the Capitol Tripoli today. AL Jazeera reports there were several causalities. In the last 24 hours, anti-government forces have gained ground in the west of the country. They already control the east of the country, including Benghazi, Libya’s second city.

Meanwhile Gadhafi himself was defiant. He raised his fists before government supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square and declared he would fight on. “Life without dignity is worthless. Life with green banners hoisted is useless,” he said.

Earlier today, Gadhafi tried to break the protester’s momentum by offering families 400 dollars each. But as Alex Alper reports, even here in New York it seems clear Gadhafi has lost control of much of his government.

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On Tuesday Libya’s deputy ambassador to the UN made headlines when he announced he was breaking with Gadhafi. Today in the lobby at the Libya’s mission to the UN he announced that the entire mission had joined him.

Dabbashi stop in front of a blank spot on the wall where Gadhafi’s portrait had hung for years. He asked foreign leaders to help bring down the dictator, who he called a madman: “There are already 100s of people who have been killed. We expect thousands to be killed today in Tripoli so I call on all the international community to intervene now. And to send a clear message to colonel Gadhafi that he should stop the killing right now.”

France’s top human rights official estimates that Gadhafi’s defenders have killed 2000 Libyans. Mercenaries from sub Saharan Africa are reportedly responsible for much of the bloodshed.

But Gadhafi’s behavior is nothing new, according to Mona Eltahawy, a columnist and public speaker on Middle East affairs. “In the 1970’s Gadhafi hanged people live on television just to show Libyans what could happen if they dared to rise up against him,” Eltahawy says.

The entire political system that Gadhafi built when he seized power in 1969 seems designed to prevent any opposition. That’s according to John Entelis, a political science professor who heads the Middle East Institute at Fordham University. “There were no political parties; there was no legislature, no judiciary. “

Gadhafi called the political system jemharia, which roughly translated, means the People’s Republic, but in practice, Entelis says, it is an autocracy. “What has resulted is a totally disaggregated society whose tribalism has remained dominant.”

Entelis says that tribalism could tear the country apart. He is not the only one who is concerned. In a speech three days ago, one of Gadhafi’s sons, Saif Al Islam, warned it could plunge the country into civil war. Azzedine Layachi, a professor of politics at St. John’s University, agrees. The tribal groups tend to break down along regional lines and those boundaries go back to the Middle Ages. Layachi says that if there’s a power vacuum in Tripoli, the country could fragment. “When the chips are down and there is no central authority after Gadhafi leaves, no one to maintain a sense of common identity, its very possible the different regions will try to fend for themselves and therefore get hold of the oil wealth. And that is going to be a bitter fight.”

The international community is still trying to figure what it should do about the situation in Libya. The UN’s human rights body met today to discuss possible “Crimes against humanity.” The Security Council is expected to meet to discuss options: those could include travel bans, asset freezes, and a no-fly zone. President Obama has said that all options are on the table. Columnist Eltahawy wishes the administration in Washington would condemn the violence in stronger terms. “A couple of days ago John Kerry said Gadhafi is irredeemable. That is the language we should be hearing, precisely because Gadhafi is not a best friend to the United States.”

But Entelis of Fordham University says President Obama was too hasty when he supported protesters in Tunisia. In this case, he says the president’s caution is warranted. “As long as these are all popular revolutions that are being directed against the dictator then it is in our advantage to not appear to take one side or the other.”

At the press conference to day Dabbashi said he is sure Gadhafi either will be killed or commit suicide before the battle is over. The ambassador said he is certain the dictator will not surrender.

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Egyptians gather in Tahrir Square before Friday prayer to celebrate Mubarak's ouster one week ago today. Photo by Hussein Malla/AP Photo

Thousands of Egyptians  are in Cairo’s Tahrir Square today to celebrate former President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last Friday.

Meanwhile, Eight Egyptian judges and lawyers are in their third day of meetings to amend the country’s constitution. They were appointed by the Supreme Council of the military, which heads the government.

Egypt watchers say this panel is a strong sign the military will keep its promise and push the country towards democracy. But some fear this marks a new era of military rule.

All day, Military bands have been playing patriotic songs and handing out flags.

For many Egyptians, the army has a special status: it ousted the monarchy almost 60 years ago and has just put an end to 30 years of autocratic rule.

New York University Middle East studies professor Zach Lockman says that’s why some Egyptians are willing to overlook the bad stuff.

“They are not thinking about the part where the soldiers stood by and allowed the thugs to attack the demonstrators,” he said.  ”And the military itself has picked up lots of people. We don’t know where they are.”

Lockman says its possible this revolution could go south—the way the 1952 military coup did. Then, promises for democracy gave way to rule by one autocratic general after another.

Mubarak team is still in place. His defense minister, Mohammed Tantawi now heads the Supreme Council which appointed the constitutional panel.

In one of the diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks, “civilian analysts and academics” are quoted as calling Tantawi “Mubarak’s poodle.”

Barnard College political science professor Sheri Berman points out that history doesn’t show many successful transitions from autocracy to democracy.

“The military will come in  a period of disorder as the only well functioning national institution and often times promise to turn over power, but then not do so,” she said.

But this time could be different. Three Mubarak-era ministers were arrested thursday including one responsible for the brutal crackdown on protesters.

And the constitutional panel includes an outspoken member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a Coptic Christian.

They are considering presidential term limits, judicial supervision of elections and  easing the way for opposition parties.

All this makes Lockman think military rule is only temporary.

“I suspect that they are serious in not wanting to be running things indefinitely,” he said. “They want to protect their position, they want to make sure things don’t get out of hand, but they don’t want to run things day-to-day.”

The Egyptian military already has a lot to run: it provides janitorial services and child care, and produces everything from exercise machines to fertilizer.

It’s estimated that as much as one-third of Egypt’s economy is under military control, but the army’s actual revenue is a state secret.

The U.S. provides just over one and a third billion dollars in military aid to the country each year.

Berman says the military could turn things around, as long as the protesters stay involved.

“What we have to hope here is that the head of steam built up by the protests will keep the military committed to that timeline that they have given, and that elections will actually be held and that a transition will actually occur,” she said.

The crowds in Tahrir square suggest that Egyptians won’t let up on the military anytime soon.

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Egyptian anti-government protesters march in Assiut, Egypt today. President Hasni Mubarak finally stepped down earlier today. Photo by Mamdouh Thabet/ AP

What a difference a day makes.  President Mubarak’s departure today ends a tense 18 days and a particularly baffling 24 hours. Yesterday, Rumors were flying that Mubarak was stepping down. Then, at nearly 11 pm last night, Mubarak addressed the nation.

“I address you all with a speech from the heart,” he said. “Speech from a  father to his children, to his sons and daughters”

But the aging President angered a jubilant crowd already celebrating his resignation. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“I announced that I will adhere to this position and I also announced that I will similarly remain adamant to continue to shoulder my responsibility protecting the constitution, safeguard the interests of the people until the authority and power is handed over to this leader to be elected by the people in September coming,” he said.

Fast forward to today. Vice President Omar Suleiman announced Hosni Mubarak’s resignation just after nightfall in Cairo.

“President Mubarak has decided to wave the office of president of the  republic,” Suleiman said.

The supreme council of the armed forces has officially taken charge.

Washington has been closely monitoring political developments in Egypt. Last night, before Mubarak spoke, President Obama made his own statement.

“We are witnessing history unfold,” he said. “It’s a moment of transformation that is taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change.”

Now that Mubarak is gone, Steve Sestanovich, a professor of foreign policy at Columbia University, says he may take a cue from one of his predecessors.

“When the Berlin wall fell the first president Bush said he was not goning be dancing in triumph on the wall,” Sestanovich said. “And that caution, that modesty will probably be Obama’s approach as well.”

The U.S. has a lot at stake. Egypt is a key military and political ally in an unstable region. Egypt grants expedited passage through the Suez Canal to U.S. Navy ships. It is one of Israel’s only allies in the region. The U.S. provides roughly 2 billion dollars each year in U.S. assistance.

While protesters are celebrating in the streets, there are still many unanswered questions.

“This may well shake a lot of clients of the United States in the region and force  some reconfigurations,” Lockman said.

Mubarak is expected to speak later tonight. Officials say elections, which had been slated for September won’t take place for another year.