March 7, 2008
Regional
An article in Tuesday's Daily Press analyzed the effects an increased Hispanic population will have on the peninsula's school systems. Newport News and Hampton have some of the largest Hispanic populations in the Hampton Roads area, according to the 2006 U.S. census. In January, Newport News schools added six new high school courses to their two existing English as a Second Language programs. For the first time, the number of Hispanic students at Hampton's Langley Elementary is now greater than the number of Vietnamese students at the school. "States need to focus more attention on helping all students achieve at high levels, graduate from high school and continue their learning in college and career preparation-even as the population grows more diverse and many students come from traditionally undereducated families," Southern Regional Education Board President Dave Spence said.
National
Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo has been charged with 19 counts of corruption and will be sentenced with 20 years in prison if convicted, the Associated Press reported. He pleads not guilty and sees the federal indictment as an attack against Puerto Rico. Prosecutors claim Acevedo violated campaign finance laws by illegally raising money to pay off campaign debts with a dozen associates. He is also accused of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service and giving false testimony to the FBI. Hundreds of supporters rallied in San Juan when Acevedo surrendered to federal authorities on Friday.
A judge granted conditional parole to three Spanish speaking men facing time in prison for criminal conspiracy to commit robbery in a unique ruling in Pennsylvania last week, the Associated Press reported. The men, who needed translators at their trial and have already served four months in jail, can remain on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn their GEDs and get full-time jobs. The judge said the men must return in a year with their parole officers to take an English test. If they fail, they will go to jail for 24 months.
International
A decree in Cuba will allow ordinary Cubans to have cell phones, a small box in Granma, the newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party revealed, promising more details would follow. The measure from President Raul Castro followed a resolution allowing other goods including computers and DVD players to go on sale in state-run stores, according to the Associated Press. Previously, only top government officials, foreigners and Cubans working for foreign companies could legally have a cell phone plan. Because cell phone minutes on the island are billed in convertible pesos, which amount to 24 times the amount of the regular pesos Cubans are paid in, the phones will likely cost too much for most people on the island.
A dispute over party leadership in Mexico's main opposition party has still not been resolved, The Los Angeles Times reported. Supporters of the Democratic Revolution Party's two main candidates have both accused the other camp of fraud, and bickering made it impossible to continue the vote count. The two candidates, Former Sen. Jesus Ortega and ex-Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas, would likely take the party in sharply different directions. Ortega is a party moderate and Encinas calls for a radical break from President Felipe Calderon's government. The party election occurred a year before Mexico's national mid-term elections.
March 23rd, 2008
Regional
- Representative Thelma Drake (R-VA), of Norfolk, moved to bypass legislative committees in Washington and bring an immigration bill directly to the House of Representatives, The Daily Press reported. The Bill, sponsored by Representative Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), would send an additional 8,000 guards to the Border Patrol along the Mexican border, streamline deportations of illegal immigrants and expand a database that employers can use to verify the eligibility of their workers. Drake needs to collect 218 signatures from House members for the measure to pass.
- Three Navy sailors saved a motorcyclist in an accident near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel around 4 a.m. Saturday morning, WTKR News Channel 3 reported. Elisandro Leal was driving a vehicle on I-64 when he and his two companions, Edgar Ardon and Jason Murphy, saw a crashed motorcycle near the tunnel's entrance. The three men pulled the motorcyclist out of the Chesapeake Bay and performed CPR on him. As of Saturday, the motorcyclist was in critical condition at Norfolk's Sentara General Hospital.
National
- Senator Barack Obama picked up an endorsement from formal rival Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Richardson made a bid to become the first Hispanic U.S. President before dropping out of the Democratic primary race. Richardson was former President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Energy and Ambassador to the United Nations.
- A front-page article in Friday's New York Times highlighted the vulnerability of newly arrived immigrants. A 22-year old Colombian woman recorded Isaac R. Baichu, an immigration agent and an immigrant from Guyana himself, coercing her to have sex with him in exchange for a green card on a cell phone last December. Baichu was arrested last week. The article went on to say that money, not sex, is the more common form of corruption in immigration cases.
International
- Cuban bass player Israel "Cachao" Lopez died in a Miami Hospital on March 22, The Miami Herald reported. He was 89. Lopez and his brother Orestes are credited with creating the mambo.
- Colombian singer Juanes organized a concert for peace on the border between Colombia and Venezuela, recruiting some of the biggest names in Latin American music for the show on March 16. "We are all citizens who believe that the future of a country is not only a matter for a president, a government, but also for us," he said from the main stage on the Simon Bolivar Bridge. Spain's Alejandro Sanz, Venezuela's Ricardo Montaner, Mexican pop-rock band Mana and Dominican merengue star Juan Luis Guerra also performed, according to the e-zine Media With a Conscience.
March 17th, 2008
Regional
"Illegal Immigration Issues Attract Little Interest Outside Northern Virginia," The Washington Post proclaimed in the headline of an article analyzing the Virginia General Assembly's annual session. Only a handful of the 130 immigration bills introduced throughout the year in Richmond have passed. The Assembly did vote to outlaw bail for illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes, to require jail employees to inquire about inmates' citizenship status, and to suspend business licenses for one year if businesses are found hiring illegal immigrants.
Governor Timothy M. Kaine signed each of these bills. Kaine has often said that the federal government should set immigration policy. "Bills dealing with behaviors that threaten public safety ought to be taken very seriously," Kaine told The Post. "Beyond that, you've got to be very careful."
Bills that did not pass included a measure to bar illegal immigrants from attending state colleges and universities, a bill requiring local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration laws, and a clause protecting employers from discrimination lawsuits for firing people who do not speak English on the job.
The Associated Press reported that the Prince William County Public School's English for Speakers of Other Languages program has lost 630 students since the County approved an illegal immigration crackdown in October. At that time, 13,400 students were participating in the program.
National
Five Cuban soccer players defected after an Olympic qualifying tournament match in Florida on Tuesday, bolting from a Tampa hotel room, The Miami Herald reported. Two others followed on Wednesday, leaving the Cuban team with only 10 players and a 0-2 loss to Honduras on Thursday.
''Of course, my heart will be in Cuba with my family, but I want to have the freedom to better my life, to play professional soccer, to be the best I can be, and for that we had to make this sacrifice,'' Jose Manuel Miranda told The Herald . "The key now is to get the legal paperwork out of the way as quickly as possible so we can get on with our plans.''
"In the Heights," the musical, debuted on Broadway this week. The New York Time's Charles Isherwood described the show as "a panoramic portrait of a New York neighborhood filled with Spanish-speaking dreamers of American dreams, nervously eyeing their futures from a city block on the cusp of change." Isherwood also refers to the show as "a salsa-flavored soap opera." Some have criticized "In the Heights" for avoiding harsher realities in the neighborhood's history. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the musical and stars in the show, disagrees. "I think it's accurate," he told The Time. "But you know, it's a musical."
International
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarked on a two-day visit to South America last week. Rice met with Brazilan and Chilean leaders. A piece in The New York Times noted that Rice left Argentina off her itinerary. Argentina continues to blame its 2001 financial collapse on the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund. Christina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's first female leader, has continued to strengthen the country's ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a disappointment to the Bush Administration.
Guatemala is the second largest source for U.S. families seeking to adopt babies born abroad, but a revelation of fraud at a prominent agency has frozen pending adoptions, according to the Associated Press. Prosecutors determined that illegal payments, stolen identities and a mentally ill birth mother are all problems facing the Casa Quivira Adoption agency. The Associated Press reported that the 2,900 pending U.S. adoptions will probably go forward because of intense lobbying by U.S. parents and Guatemala's lack of resources to fully investigate agency fraud.
