Uptown Radio

Hundreds of New York City fast food workers protest for higher wages and the right to unionize. They marched from a Harlem park to a McDonald’s on Lexington and 125th.

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Fast food workers across the city staged a walk-out yesterday. Workers from some of the biggest chains – McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, KFC – are demanding higher wages and the right to unionize. This is the second time in the last six months workers have staged a one-day strike. Christie Thorne reports.

REPORTER

At 8:30 in the morning on Thursday, Cherise Rodriguez was supposed to be behind the counter of a Burger King at 116th and Lexington. But instead of clocking in there, she was standing outside of a McDonald’s in Midtown. Yesterday was Rodriguez’s first protest. She says even though she was nervous, she knew it was important to join in.

 CHERISE RODRIGUEZ

I’m an overworked person and underpaid. All of us here are overworked and underpaid. And we’re out here for the struggle and we just want everybody’s support for the day. (:10)

 Rodriguez is one of about 50,000 fast food workers in New York City. All of whom make minimum wage – seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour.

AMBI

Harlem Rally / We can’t survive on $7.25! (:07)

Workers want to double the wage to $15. Rodriguez is chanting at a park in Harlem with her Burger King colleague, Kasseen Silver. They’re about to take part in the final march of the day. Silver says that the city’s cost of living makes these jobs harder.

KASSEEN SILVER

So in order for us to continue to pay our taxes, to receive medical coverage and for us to be able to take care of our family and not nickel and dime check to check…we need these things that everybody wants in this country. We’re tax-paying citizens, we do our job, we do our job well and we just want what we deserve. (:17)

And that’s just not possible on minimum wage says Jessica Cogle, who works at a Harlem McDonald’s and has a baby on the way.

JESSICA COGLE

With $7.25, I can’t afford nothing. Once I pay for my metro card to get to work, and eat…it’s gone! (:08)

In a statement to Uptown Radio, a McDonald’s spokeswoman called the company’s wages competitive and said that employees have access to a range of benefits to meet their individual needs. She adds that McDonald’s works hard everyday to treat employees with dignity and respect.

Workers were happy with the turnout. So was Joseph Barrera. He’s an employee at a Brooklyn Kentucky Fried Chicken and an advocate with New York Communities for Change, one of the organizers of the strike. Barrera says it stalled a Burger King from opening and shut down a Domino’s Pizza altogether.

 JOSEPH BARRERA

Enough of the workers were on our side. I guess it was impossible for them to run the store because it was so understaffed. My store as well. Out of the 11 workers that work there, 6 of them are by my side. (:11)

And Barrera says there have been other gains. Just a week ago City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a bill that would give full time employees paid sick leave. And last month, New York legislature approved a budget that will bump up the city’s minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2015. Christie Thorne, Columbia Radio News.

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It’s been a rough week for shady New York politicians. Yesterday, State Assemblyman Eric Stevenson of the Bronx was arrested for accepting bribes from developers. It was the second major corruption scandal in New York politics this week. And Federal prosecutor Preet Bharara says it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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HOST INTRO

The costs of keeping a pet can really add up. And for those who are struggling to pay the bills, feeding a pet can be too much. Stephanie Kuo reports on a new, national, non-profit organization that’s helping owners provide for their animals. The method? Pet food stamps.

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HOST INTRO

For many university students, graduation is fast approaching. But for international students who want to stay in the United States, getting a visa is harder than ever. Sonia Paul reports.

There’s an alphabet soup of visa options for international students who want to work here. Some skilled workers go through employer sponsored H-1B visas. Others in academia get J-1 visas. It can be really confusing.

[BRING IN AMBI OF VALIA]

Valia Mitsou is Greek. She and her fiance met as students in Athens. Both computer scientists, they came to New York five years ago to get their PhDs.

MITSOU

It was basically a common decision to come to the U.S., and CUNY was an institution that accepted us both, so that’s why we ended up here.

(0:10)

Their field is theoretical computer science. That means they design the ideas and procedures other computer scientists use to solve problems.

Mitsou has one more year until she gets her PhD. Her fiance finished his early. But when he started looking around for a university job here, he couldn’t find one.

MITSOU

So he decided to go to Europe, to Sweden. Because the situation, finding work in Sweden, is much easier than in the U.S.

(0:11)

Competition for visas is fierce in the United States. Each year, 85,000 H1-B visas are reserved for foreign nationals. Employers must apply to sponsor these potential employees for visas. The application process just started this past Monday, April 1st.

Eleanor Pelta is an immigration attorney based in Washington, D.C. She says demand for these visas has increased sharply in the past few years.

PELTA

Three years ago, when the quota opened up for applications on April 1st, it wasn’t exhausted until January of the following year.

Then two years ago, it was exhausted in November. Then last year, it was exhausted in June.

And this year?

PELTA

It looking like it’s going to be exhausted in the very first week of filing.

(0:05)

That’s this coming Monday, April 7th. As the U.S. economy recovers, more companies   want to hire these high-skilled workers.

And H1-B visas aren’t the only ones in demand. For Mitsou to stay in the United States to do post-doctoral work, she needs a J-1 visa. It’s not subject to the quota system like H1-B. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get – and the whole process is hard to understand.

[HAVE AMBI OF CUNY GRADUATE CENTER COMING UP HERE]

At CUNY’s International Students Office, Mitsou runs into another student, Wen Ju from Taiwan. They soon start talking about their work plans. They even discuss the longest of longshots — getting a green card through the annual lottery.

WEN JU

I enter every year.

VALIA MITSOU: Michael applied every year too. Well I didn’t apply this year. I feel it’s worthless…It’s like the game of the chicken and the egg, I guess. If you want to get a job, you need to have the proper job status. And if you want to get the proper job status, then you need to get the job! (laughing). So it’s easier if you can get a green card.

(0:29)

U.S. companies and universities need people like Mitsou and Wen Ju to stimulate economic development. That’s according to Jeremy Robbins. He leads Mayor Bloomberg’s national coalition for immigration reform.

ROBBINS

The question is not should this job go to an American, or should it go to someone who is foreign-born. The question is, how do we get the right worker to make a company more competitive, so that it can grow and create more jobs.

(0:10)

Robbins says it’s especially important to retain students in the most sought after areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — also known as STEM.

ROBBINS

STEM jobs grew three times faster than the rest of the economy in the last ten years. But the problem is that not enough Americans are studying STEM.

(0:07)

Mitsou is a prime example of the type of person Robbins is advocating to stay. As an aspiring professor, she’d likely teach STEM classes. But she has to do her post-doctoral work before she can become a professor. And she has the additional problem of trying to find positions for herself and her fiance.

MITSOU

I think that the most important for me and Michael right now is to get a position in some place in the world, anywhere — literally (chuckles).

With this year’s expected record number of people applying for H-1B visas, the fate of the high-skilled foreign worker may boil down to old-fashioned luck. Sonia Paul, Columbia Radio News.

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HOST INTRO

President Obama signed a continuing spending bill this week. One of the provisions protects companies that produce genetically modified seeds from being sued, even if they become a public health risk in the future. Amber Binion reports.

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are plants that have been altered genetically to resist herbicides and pests. They also can be fortified to include nutrients like iron and vitamin A. It produces more sustainable food with fewer resources. More resistant plants allow farmers’ to do less work and harvest more crops. Alan McHughen, a plant biotechnologist at the University of California, Riverside. He says the law is designed to let big and small biotech companies recoup their investments. He is explains why the provision is beneficial.

ALAN MCHUGHEN

Farmers are business people. They have to make business decisions about what kind of crops they’re going to grow. And one of the factors that come into that decision making process is whether the seeds they buy will produce a harvest of seeds they can sell. There’s some anxiety in the farming community that lawsuits against certain crop varieties may interfere with their ability to harvest and sell the crop.

Supporters call it the Farmers Assurance Provision. It bars the federal court from stopping the sale of genetically modified crops and allows agriculture companies to sell what they’ve made. The most common GMOs on American farms are corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola. In other words, these are the most profitable crops. That means there’s a lot of money at stake. Opponents say it’s large companies that are more likely to benefit from the law, specifically bio-tech giant Monsanto. At a farmers market on the Upper Westside, anti-GMO advocates call it the Monsanto Protection Act.

MARGARET HOUGHMAN

Why should the largest company, food-processing company, in the world be protected by the government? The small farmers and the individuals need to be protected by the government.

Houghman is the regional coordinator for Greenmarket in northern Manhattan. She sells locally grown and GMO-free vegetables. She thinks there isn’t enough scientific research on the long-term effects of genetically modified food.

 MARGARET HOUGHMAN

Well, we just don’t know. It might not be anything real serious. It might be something that shows up in a generation maybe, 2 generations. We just don’t know. And the potential for it to get out of control is huge.

Michael Lapone, a farmer’s market vendor for Hawthorne Valley Farm is just plain uncomfortable with the idea of GMOs.

MICHAEL LAPONE

Children should not play with fire. And playing with genetic engineering is playing with fire and they don’t know the outcomes. They haven’t done the research.

But they have done the research says the plant biotechnologist, Alan McHughen

ALAN MCHUGHEN

Some people who don’t have any scientific background are suggesting that there are harms. But the US National Academy of Sciences has conducted numerous safety tests on these genetically modified crops and foods over the years and every time they say there are just as safe as conventionally produced foods and crops.

One thing both anti-GMO and pro-GMO advocates can agree on is the proper labeling of food products. McHughen says all foods need to have labels based on their content, for nutritional reasons. Food advocate groups are now petitioning for the government to label genetically modified food for consumers. Amber Binion, Columbia Radio News.

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HOST INTRO

Life is usually fast-paced and exciting in the city that never sleeps. But commentator Emily Jones had a recent reminder, we could all use a break sometimes.

My iPod died on the subway a couple weeks ago. I didn’t have a book or a newspaper, and my phone doesn’t work down there. Sit still for half an hour with no entertainment? This never happens. I’m an obsessive multitasker. I usually listen to music and send emails just walking place to place.

But, ok. I settle in with a deep breath. (deep breath) I start noticing details around me. A hand on a pole. The pattern on a kindle case. A pair of boots. (deep breath). I don’t focus on anything specific. I couldn’t do anything about it right now anyway. So I let my brain settle in to a freeform wander, thought fragments floating past, undirected. (deep breath). Huh. I know this feeling.

I spent eight years in Quaker school, from fifth grade through high school. Mostly the school valued a weird mix of treating everyone equally and fiercely competing. But Quaker school also meant attending meeting for worship: for a full 45 minutes, we sat together in complete silence.

The idea is silent worship and reflection. Pray if you like. Stand up and speak if the spirit moves you – a rare occasion. For a roomful of ten and twelve year olds? Not so much. A friend and I learned the sign language alphabet so we could gossip about boys during meeting and point out who was fighting falling asleep. Most of meeting in middle school was trying to avoid the terrifying glare of certain teachers.

In eighth or ninth grade, it became cool to lie and say you actually really valued meeting. It was a way to sound more grown-up and intellectual, like correcting people’s grammar or talking about reading books that weren’t assigned in English class. In reality at that point most of us were studying the ceiling fan.

But the false insight gradually became real. Maybe because high school got hard. Papers grew longer, college applications loomed, and sports practice ate up all our free time. It started to feel really great to tune everything out for a while.

Toward the end of school, as we neared graduation, I started to put Quaker meeting on the list of things I’d miss, like friends and home and life as I knew it. When a former classmate died in an accident that summer I felt a desperate longing for meeting – it seemed like the only way I could process the loss. And I wasn’t alone: somebody sent out a mass text message and soon we gathered in a park to share silence and remember our friend.

So my little tech break on the subway got me thinking: I needed that restful silence to get through high school? Now I live in a city literally known for never taking a break. We walk so fast it frightens tourists, and smartphones ensure we’re always on. Try sitting still for a minute: this city won’t let you.

Still, I’m determined to try. I’ve had this reminder of how, with a little silence, you’re free to explore the little channels of thought that crowd your mind static most of the time to distract you. Breathe a little air into them and they fan themselves out so you can find them. It’s a relief to let your brain just wander. If something matters, it rises to the top. Everything else just washes on by and, for a few minutes, you’re still.

HOST 

Emily would like to end this segment with a moment of silence. (paaaaause) But who are we kidding? This is New York.

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HOST INTRO:

As the conflict in Syria enters its third year, millions are still displaced and living in refugee camps on the borders or neighboring countries. Aid organizations say attention needs to be paid on the lasting impact it on Syrian. Some local Syrian Americans are returning to inner cities where violence is rampant and relief aid is scarce.  Tenzin Shakya reports.

4:00

NARR: The Syrian conflict between President Bashar al-Assad’s military and the opposition group’s uprising has killed over 70,000 people. Nearly 6000 of those reported dead are children. A recent report released by Save the Children says the war has hit the children particularly hard.

UENUMA: It really is a children’s crisis, but it’s easy for their suffering to go un-noticed.

NARR: Save the Children’s Francine Uenuma says for those who’ve survived, four out of five have lost a family member. Many of them in the refugee camps have seen the war firsthand.

UENUMA: When they first cross over they depict very violent things. These children have experienced, shellings and bombings and violence that no child at that age should experience.

NARR: Uenuma says you can see the effect when the children draw what they’ve seen.

UENEMA: There’s one drawing that a Syrian refugee child did, where you see big tanks and helicopters and things in the air and you see men holding weapons, something over their shoulder. What’s sad is that next to it, you see a small stick figure lying on the ground.

 NARR: Much of every day life is on hold for refugees. In some cities such as the Aleppo, 6 percent of children are going to school. Uenuma says those figures are startling, because as recently as two years ago Syria had one of the highest education rates in the region.

UNEMA: A lot of the refugees that I have spoken to, they left Syria because of the danger and because of the struggle to survive. It is not primarily driven by politics it is because, they like everybody in Syria they are suffering from the conflict.

NARR: Most aid organizations have to work along the restricted government-held areas, and along the borders. Individuals can cross the border more easily than large organizations. That’s where Syrian Americans like Mohammad Khairullah steps in. He’s the mayor of Prospects Park in New Jersey, just north of Paterson where many Syrians live. In this YouTube video he thanks local donors for helping him get baby formula inside Syria.

ACT YOUTUBE: Thank you for your generosity and your contribution. You’re helping feed children for two months.

NARR: He says he’s raised over $20,000 and is heading back to his hometown, Aleppo, later this year. Khairullah left Syria with his parents when he was five years old. The conflict then, in the late 80’s and early 90’s was different but similar in many ways. Particularly seen through the eyes of a child.

KHAIRULLAH : To this day, I remember the tanks in the streets. I remember hearing airplanes flying over. You’d hear the gunshots I remember asking where my father was, it is very difficult looking for your father at night and not finding him, so imagine these kids who will never see their parents.

NARR: Khairullah relives those memories every time he sees pictures of children killed in the conflict. He says it’s a constant reminder for him and reinforces his drive to go back and help his country.

KHAIRULLAH: A lot of the relief organizations are doing their work along the borders where it’s safer for them. A city like Aleppo that has over four million people, not much aid is getting there. We have to help them out.

NARR: Mohammed says its not just about bare necessities. For him, it’s about protecting the future of his country and fighting the oppressive regime.

KHAIRULLAH : This is the majority of the Syrian people seeking their freedom. People have to defend themselves. Human Rights are universal. They don’t apply in one country and not the other.

While aid groups continue to work around the borders, Khairullah says he’ll keep going back to Syria for as long as it takes. Tenzin Shakya for Columbia Radio News.

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The Obama administration plans to change the way the United States sends food aid internationally. Instead of buying food from U.S. farmers and shipping it overseas, the administration says it will be more efficient to buy and distribute food grown locally in the countries that need it. Those lobbying against the change say this will hurt U.S. farmers. Gawain Kripke is the director of policy and research for Oxfam. He says the the bill brings a necessary change.

U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati poses with coaches, players, and former players in the lobby of the Empire State building to celebrate the 100th anniversary of U.Ss Soccer, Apr. 5, 2013. (Jeff Tyson/Uptown Radio)

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One hundred years ago today, soccer became an official U.S. sport. The U.S. soccer Federation is marking the centennial with a week of activities in lower Manhattan. As Jeff Tyson reports.

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HOST INTRO

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is going digital. A new, touch screen, interactive subway map has started appearing in some of the busiest subway stations. Katherine Jacobsen reports.

REPORTER

The first of these two maps appeared at Grand Central Terminal and the Bedford Park stop in Brooklyn.  At Grand Central, the well-lit, 47-inch computer screen sits on a corner across from a clothing chain and a cluster of MTA ticket kiosks.  It looks like a giant smartphone screen with the weather and time displayed on the header of a larger screen.

Dwight Olson stops to check the Metro North schedule to New Haven.

DWIGHT OLSON

I hope that this terminal here is going to be helpful and it looks like it is, now that I’ve pressed the Metro North button.

Olson touches the Metro North from a menu at the bottom of the computer screen.  He scrolls through the menu options at the bottom of the screen, looking for his schedule.  Destination options appear and then with a few clicks, Olson has a timetable for his mid-morning trip.

DWIGHT OLSON

Looks like I can tell what I want to get on and when it’s gonna go, I just hope that we can get tickets by then.

A few minutes after Olson leaves, and Joel Thomas walks past the giant computer screen and does a double take.  It’s the first time that Thomas has seen one of these new, 15,000 dollar touch screen maps.

JOEL THOMAS

I was actually looking for the bathroom to be honest with you.  But uh, it’s pretty convenient… I can see the train I need to catch right here.

And did you also find a map of the station as well?

Ah, honestly, I didn’t do the map yet. I just saw the time departing and I think it works pretty good.

But some of the regular commuters don’t need the new screen.

PAUL KIPELI

Everytime I come to it, it’s showing me a useless map or something I don’t need.  I simply want it to display what it used to display.

Paul Kipelli points to the kiosk, now lit up with a giant subway map where there used to be a train schedule.

PAUL KIPELI

Look what is has, do you need that map?  I don’t.

Kipeli then goes running off, briefcase in hand.  He’s late for his train.

The new map may have the biggest impact on MTA employees like Audrey Gordon.  Her job is to give directions at the terminal.

AUDREY GORDON

Yes, you need something?

We just wanted to check something…

What would you like to check?

Gordon doesn’t feel threatened by the new touch screen maps.  She still has one up on them, she says.  Even though the maps might be getting bigger, it doesn’t mean that they’re smarter than her.

AUDREY GORDON

The map is only as good as the information that is programmed in it.  I go way beyond that.

Police Officer Chris Jones is on duty right across from the new kiosk.  He hasn’t seen a lot of people using it, he says.

OFFICER JONES

They’re futuristic, they look like they could be helpful, but I see ppl more likely asking other ppl for help, officers, stuff like that.

Do you get asked a lot for help when ppl need to find the bathroom or something?  Every two minutes.

The MTA will add another 77 interactive maps in an additional 16 stations.

Katherine Jacobsen, Columbia Radio News.

CEO Ed Lu of B612 Foundation holds a model of the Sentinel telescope, now under construction, June 28, 2012. B612 aspires to launch the first privately-funded deep space mission with this telescope. It would map 90 percent of so called “city killer” near Earth asteroids. (Paul Sakuma/AP)

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HOST INTRO:

In February, a 60-foot wide asteroid exploded over the Russian town of Chelyabinsk. Scientists and astronomers are calling for a space telescope that would look out for other dangerous asteroids before they crash to Earth. But it won’t be cheap. Alexandra Hall reports.

ALEXANDRA HALL: Nobody saw it coming until it was too late.

CUE AMBI (sound of asteroid explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February)

HALL: The meteor’s blast shattered windows and caused 1,000 injuries. The explosion released energy equivalent to 300,000 tons of TNT. That’s 20 times the force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Even though no one died from the explosion in February, the Earth’s history is a warning that the next time could be worse.

An icy meteoroid that hit Siberia in 1908 flattened an expanse of forest the size of the San Francisco bay area.  Its explosion was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Even larger asteroids could wipe out all life on the planet.

For two years now, NASA’s near Earth object program has tracked nearly all asteroids at least one kilometer in diameter that could end civilization. These big, bright asteroids are easy to detect with Earth bound telescopes. In 2005, congress ordered NASA to track 90% of objects smaller than one kilometer, but larger than 140 meters in diameter. On the low end that’s a rock the width of about one and a half football fields. Still- they’re difficult to see from telescopes on Earth.

As of now, out of the tens of thousands of objects that could wipe out a large city, NASA has only detected 10%. Ed Lu is a veteran NASA astronaut and CEO of the privately funded non-profit B612 Foundation. Last month He told a senate subcommittee that the odds aren’t in planet Earth’s favor.

ED LU: “There’s a thirty percent chance that there’s a five megaton or so impact that’s going to happen in a random location on this planet, this century. So this is not hypothetical.”

HALL: B612 Foundation is a privately funded non-profit that wants to launch an infrared telescope into space that would look out for these so-called “city killers”. Founders named B612 after the house-sized asteroid in the children’s book, The Little Prince. The foundation’s Sentinel telescope would look outwards across the Solar System with its back to the sun, and scan for objects that could slam into the Earth. Tim Spahr is Director of the Minor Planet Center- the organization that professional and amateur astronomers alert with observational data on near Earth asteroids. He says that only space-based infrared telescopes will be able to spot dangerous objects.

TIM SPAHR: “For the smallest objects, quite often there will be no warning for them unless we have an extremely expensive, sophisticated telescope system.”

HALL: NASA has been working on this, too, but funds are low.  A team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has proposed the NEOCam mission- another infrared telescope that like B612’s Sentinel, would map 90% of the so-called “city killer” asteroids. These missions are essentially the same, except that NEOCam would revolve in an orbit closer to the Earth and would rely on government funding. But that funding hasn’t materialized.

RUSTY SCHWEICKART: “NASA has many, many other priorities that they have to satisfy. And that’s part of the problem.”

HALL: Rusty Schweickart (shwike-art) is Chairman emeritus of B612 and is a former astronaut on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission. Although NASA’s near Earth object budget has increased five-fold since 2009- from 4 million, to 20 million dollars, he says that an infrared telescope will cost billions. So B612 decided to act on its own.

SCHWEICKART: “Rather than it being an iffy situation, we have just decided to go ahead and do it. 20 million dollars is less than one tenth of one percent of NASA’s budget. It is not a major program in NASA by any means.”

HALL: NASA has already made an agreement to provide communications, personnel, and data processing to B612. But not everyone in Washington is ready to leave the project to the foundation science. Texas Republican Lamar Smith is Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. At a hearing last month, he urged his colleagues to make it work for NASA, despite the budget sequester

LAMAR SMITH: “I do not believe that NASA is somehow going to defy budget gravity and get an increase when everyone else is getting cuts. But we need to find a way to prioritize NASA’s projects and squeeze as much productivity as we can out of the funds we have.”

HALL: Detecting an incoming asteroid is only the first step. In the event that Sentinel or NEOCam did detect a near Earth object on a path to crash into the Earth, scientists say they would need a good 10-year lead to be able to deflect it. And that project would cost billions more. Alexandra Hall, Columbia Radio News.

(TIME 4:40)

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HOST INTRO

Commentator Christie Thorne has spent every summer of her life at her family’s cabin on Long Lake in rural Wisconsin. That’s where she learned that sometimes bullies are the biggest cry babies of all.

REPORTER

When I was a kid there was this boy named Kevin that was just a few years older than me. His family has a place further down the lake. And I hated him. Every summer I’d worry about what kind of evil prank he was going to pull on me…because it did happen every summer. I had attempted revenge in the past, but my execution was never quite as good as I had conjured up in my head. Mostly failures, to be frank.

One July, my three best friends from back in Chicago were visiting me for the week. I could usually expect one – maybe two – good pranks from Kevin every summer. But this week it was different – every night it was something new. I’m talking stink bombs, dead fish and stolen underwear. And one night after a great night of card games my friends and I were making our way up a path to the main cabin to go to sleep. Kevin jumped out of the woods wearing a Michael Myers mask and fired up a chainsaw. He scared the crap out of us…even though I’m fairly certain that there’s not a chainsaw in the movie Halloween.

This time Kevin went too far. And I wanted him to know. So later that night, my little brother and I led the small pack of our friends through the dark woods with clunky flashlights to Kevin’s house, where his parents were sleeping. The absence of Kevin’s red four-wheeler let us know that he wasn’t home. And since our posse of fourteen-year-olds was probably the most dangerous thing on the lake that night, the door to the house was unlocked.

 Kevin’s house had a big porch that wrapped all the way around it. So, we decided to start moving everything from the porch onto their front yard. EVERYTHING. Including the fishing poles hanging on the wall and the rug on the floor. And then, as if it were meant to be, I saw the Michael Myers mask hanging on a hook among some coats and helmets. I didn’t put Michael out on the lawn. Oh no. I took him as my hostage.

We all ran back through the woods to our cabin, so high on adrenaline that we didn’t even need our flash lights. We turned out the lights at the house and hid giggling on the dark porch waiting for a reaction. We’d be able to hear Kevin’s four-wheeler approach. And it did. And man, was he pissed. He did a little ranting and then went on his way. We FINALLY got him back!

When I woke up the next morning, it came to me. We needed to take the prank one step farther. So we affixed Michael to the top of an old broomstick – or maybe it was a rake – and my Dad helped us attach it to the back of our boat. And so, for the whole next day, as we were out and about on the lake, we would pass Kevin and wave. Judging by his face, he got the memo.

Later that evening, as we were enjoying the last 45 minutes of sunlight in the water, I saw my Dad heading down to the dock with Kevin’s mom. Yikes. She wasn’t mad, but she did say:

“I told Kevin, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it, ya know. So he won’t be botherin’ ya anymore. But he’d really like his mask back.”

My Dad winked at me and smiled. I ran to grab the mask and returned it to Kevin’s mom.

And man, I couldn’t believe after all that he sent his mother over here instead of trying to get the mask back himself. But I did realize that the one who doesn’t tattle always comes out on top. I can’t wait to tell my kids that, some day.

BACK-ANNOUNCE 

Christie Thorne hasn’t been a target of Kevin’s pranks since then. But should he strike again, he should be afraid. Very afraid.

Click here to listen to our full broadcast from Thursday, April 5, 2012:

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Rachel Rogers brings us the news at 4:00 p.m.

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Clint Eastwood had a clear message during February’s Superbowl commercials: “It’s halftime in America.”

And U.S. car sales support his declaration. They rose again last month, even amid high gas prices. This week, car manufacturers are showing off what those profits have earned them at the New York International Auto Show.

Host Andrew Parsons talked to Sonari Glinton, NPR’s business reporter in Detroit. He says this year’s auto shows have a different feel than they did three years ago.

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HOST: Another feature of the auto show was Nissan’s custom-designed New York yellow taxi cab, which will roll out next year.

Nissan is calling the boxy, snub-nosed vehicle the Taxi of the Future. The automaker landed a contract worth up to one billion dollars to replace all thirteen thousand of the city’s cabs.

But Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is backing a campaign targeting Nissan. That’s because it’s on a list of automakers doing business with or in Iran. Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports.

LLOPIS-JEPSEN: The campaign is called Iran Watch List and it’s a joint effort by de Blasio and two advocacy groups: United Against Nuclear Iran and Iran180.

In a statement, de Blasio said Nissan and 11 other carmakers indirectly support Iran’s military.

He says the city’s safety “depends on bringing every bit of pressure we can muster against Iran’s regime.”

Iran 180 director Chris Devito says it’s key to engage ordinary Americans on the issue of Iran — and carmakers are a way to do that.

DEVITO: Our effort isn’t to get the city to change its decision. It’s to get Nissan to change its relationship with Iran.

LLOPIS-JEPSEN: Nissan was not immediately available for comment.

But Devito says Nissan has ties to Pars Khodro, an Iranian carmaker he says is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The corps oversees domestic weapons production in Iran. It also arrests dissidents, including hundreds of pro-democracy activists.

Devito thinks New Yorkers will want to know all this.

DEVITO: They understand that money is fungible and that money that is going to Nissan for this in some sense contributes to the relationship they hold with the regime in Tehran.

LLOPIS-JEPSEN: The US and the United Nations currently have economic sanctions against Iran but many automakers do not fall under those restrictions.

That’s because the sanctions normally cover the finance and energy sectors, but not automobiles.

Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova is an Iran specialist at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She is not sure that sanctions against carmakers would do any good.

MUKHATZHANOVA: Some people have this incentive maybe that hurting the government more and more would make people in Iran raise up and launch a revolution. Which I think is dangerous, wishful thinking.

LLOPIS-JEPSEN: It’s not clear how much or if Iranian carmaker Pars Khodro will benefit from Nissan’s New York City business.

But de Blasio says the point of Iran Watch List is to make sure that companies doing business in Iran feel pressure from customers to stop.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Columbia Radio News.

Carl Carpenter prepares for his 5th grade class to arrive at P.S. 325.

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Host Intro:  Recently released data shows an astounding 73,000 suspensions in New York City last year. Suspension rates are on the rise across the nation and African-American students are three times as likely to be suspended as their white peers. Some teachers say that suspensions are overused, and studies show they have long-term effects. Jackie Mader reports that the new data is pushing schools to think differently about their discipline policies.

Jackie Mader: On a Monday afternoon at the Bronx Academy of Letters, Andrew Hara was trying to teach an African civilization lesson to a class of 9th graders, when a student’s cell phone started to vibrate in her backpack. This student had just returned from a suspension, and when Hara asked for her phone, she refused.

HARA: So an administrator comes in, tries to get her to step outside, “I ain’t f-ing going anywhere,” goes through it again. Hugely distracting as we’re trying to go through a history lesson.

Jackie Mader: It took the entire period, an administrator, a principal, and a public safety officer to remove the student from the class. Hara says the student’s response showed a discouraging mindset.

HARA: Her big issue was, ‘no, I’ve just been suspended for cutting class.’ Here I am in class trying to do my work and y’all want to suspend me again.

Jackie Mader: In the end, the student was allowed to stay in school. The school is trying to cut down on the number of kids who are suspended.

HARA: Now its more of like, coming up with creative ways with those individual students. We’ve tried different intervention plans, contracts, behavior plans…So we’re trying it all.

Jackie Mader: Bronx Academy’s flexible approach is the exception. In New York City, suspensions are up 130 percent since 2003. There are actually only a small number of offenses that actually require a suspension, like bringing a weapon to school or starting a fire. For less serious cases, Hara says that suspensions don’t always solve much.

HARA: Are they necessary sometimes? Personally, I think so. Are they necessary in the numbers we’re seeing? Probably not.

Jackie Mader: Julia Kaye is the director of an advocacy group which trains law students to represent suspended students at hearings. Kaye says school officials often ask for harsher punishments than offenses deserve.

KAYE: We had a case recently where a six year old student, six years old, was charged with biting a teacher’s toe,

Jackie Mader: Kaye says the school asked for a 30 day suspension.

KAYE: To respond like that to a young child is just horrifying.

Jackie Mader: Carl Carpenter’s fifth grade class at P.S. 325 in Morningside Heights, had a rough day yesterday.

AMB of CARPENTER: “Ok so how did yesterday go? Compared to how it should have been?

Jackie Mader: Bad, one of the kids responded. It had been a long day of testing, and the kids were tired.

AMB: (of kids) Carpenter:  But today is going to be better.

Jackie Mader: Carpenter has found that discussing behavior with students is more beneficial than resorting to suspensions. But one of his student was suspended earlier this year. He threatened a teacher.

CARPENTER: He responded to the suspension by throwing things around the class…He then cried uncontrollably and tried to reason with the teacher, but by that time it was obviously too late and he was sent home.

Jackie Mader: This student’s behavior hasn’t changed much since returning from the suspension. But Carpenter has tried to build a relationship with the student to understand where he is coming from.

CARPENTER: I think knowing that he has older siblings who have been in prison, dealing drugs, you know, you can understand where some of his behavior comes from

Jackie Mader: Studies show that long-term consequences of suspensions are devastating to kids. Legal services attorney Andy Artz says that suspension is part of a school to prison pipeline.

ARTZ: Students who are suspended are much more likely to drop out of school, much more likely to be arrested, much more likely to end up in the criminal justice system as adults.

Jackie Mader: Artz says that the majority of suspensions are at low-income schools and most of those suspended are African American or Latino. He says racism or stereotyping might be a factor in the disproportionate suspension rate for minorities. These schools are some of the toughest, and officials are attempting to tackle behavior.

ARTZ: In some ways the department of education has chosen to stress things like policing in schools over prioritizing guidance counseling.

Jackie Mader: For now, the hard line approach is still the policy of the Department of Education and suspension numbers may continue to increase. Jackie Mader, Columbia Radio News.

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HOST INTRO: This week, State Senator Adriano Espaillat announced he’s running for a U.S. Congressional seat in northern Manhattan and the Bronx.

If elected, Espaillat—a Democrat–would become the first Dominican-American in the House of Representatives.

His biggest obstacle is incumbent Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, who’s had the seat for more than four decades.

Now Rangels’ district been redrawn to include heavily Latino neighborhoods—setting up a new contest between two of the city’s largest constituencies: Latinos and African Americans.

Nat Herz has this report.

–

SOUND: Fade in track meet ambi.

NAR: This past Sunday afternoon, State Senator Adriano Espaillat was getting a warm welcome at a track meet he helped organize in Washington Heights.

The stocky, energetic 57-year-old dished out handshakes, gave a quick speech, and posed for a photo-op with a giant tiger mascot. And for one last day, he dodged questions about his political future.

ESPAILLAT 1:
IC: “No, no no…
OC: “…Tomorrow, I’ll answer you that.”

NAR: Espaillat’s run for Congress was one of the worst-kept secrets in New York City. He announced it the very next morning.

Voters have sent Espaillat to Albany for the last 15 years—first as an assemblyman, and then as a state senator. He’s championed a bill on rent regulation, chaired a committee on small business, and pulled in money to his district for legal assistance.

All that has earned him the loyalty of voters like Louis Ramos, a Dominican-American from Washington Heights who was at the track watching his daughter. Ramos says he knows Espaillat personally.

RAMOS 1:
IC: “He helped me out pretty good…”
OC: “…so he got my vote.”

NAR: Espaillat appears to be the strongest of four new challengers for the Congressional seat in New York’s 13th district. Other contenders include Clyde Williams, the former Democratic National Committee political director, and longtime activist and politician Joyce Johnson.

But there’s one gigantic obstacle for all of them. That’s Rangel, who’s been in office since 1971—three years before Espaillat graduated from Bishop Dubois High School…in Harlem.

Rangel is known as ‘the Lion of Harlem.’ And despite a series of ethics problems over the last few years, he’s still popular.

DIALLO 1:
IC: “He was even chairman…”
OC: “…of the Ways and Means Committee!”

NAR: That’s Mamadou Diallo, a taxi driver who says he has voted for Rangel before, and will again. He thinks Rangel deserves credit for consistently delivering to the area in the 23 years Diallo has lived there—and he has specific examples.

DIALLO 2:
IC: “There were no banks in Harlem…”
OC: “…Particularly during the Clinton years, a lot happened around here.”

SOUND: Fade out track meet ambi.

NAR: For Espaillat to get elected, he’ll have to win over longtime Rangel constituents like Diallo.

In an e-mailed statement, a Rangel spokesman said that the Congressman “firmly believes, as he did 21 times before, that he is the best candidate to make a difference in the community.”

The re-drawn district is now more than half Latino—up some 10 percent from the last election.

Technically, that should make things easier for Espaillat. But he’s still on Rangel’s turf.

During his 40 years in office, the incumbent has developed strong ties with a number of Latino leaders. And it doesn’t hurt Rangel that his father is Puerto Rican.

FALCON 1:
IC: “Who knows?! You call him Charlie Rangel…”
OC: “…he may call himself Carlos Rang-GELL.”

Angelo Falcon is president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, which is based in New York.

He says that Latinos won’t just vote as one big group.

The new district has a significant Puerto Rican population, and a number of local leaders have already thrown Rangel their endorsements.

In theory, Espaillat should get strong support from Dominicans. But Falcon says that group lacks clout when it heads to the polls.

FALCON 2:
IC: “There are age, citizenship issues…
OC: “…So it’s not a slam dunk, by any means.”

NAR: Espaillat and the other challengers will square off in the Democratic primary on June 26.

Nat Herz, Columbia Radio News.

State Senator Adriano Espaillat and City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez pose with a masked constituent at a track meet on Sunday.