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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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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.