Archive - May 29, 2009

• Education Secretary outlines $100 education stimulus funds
• Street Beat: Texas considers concealed weapons on college campuses
• Undocumented recent UCLA graduate faces deportation hearing
  
• FEMA trailer residents face imminent eviction
• Sri Lankan government troops accused of side civilian killings

• Obama creates new cyber security advisor position
• Obama halts most road building in National Forests
• UC Santa Cruz students on hunger strike over funding
• UK admits to using “enhanced blast” weapons in Afghanistan
• Akwesasne First Nations protest the arming of Canadian Border guards

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talked to reporters today about the roadmap his department has created for balancing the economic meltdown’s toll on education in the United States. Duncan detailed how $100 billion of stimulus money would be distributed, and some are hopeful schools will get the change they need. Sam Greenspan reports from Capitol Hill.

Thousands of Gulf Coast residents are scrambling to find housing – that’s because tomorrow, the government will begin evicting people from FEMA trailers, where many have lived since Hurricane Katrina left them homeless. Tanya Snyder reports.

Sri Lanka’s government faces fresh allegations today that its army is mostly responsible for the slaughter of more than 20,000 Tamil civilians in the final weeks of the battles with the Tamil Tiger rebels – according to the Times UK, which obtained confidential UN documents. The government insists the figures are inflated, and is dismissing the charges. FSRN’s Ponniah Manikavasagam reports from Sri Lanka.

As summer creeps in, students around the nation are graduating from high school and college. For many it’s a time to celebrate, but for some, graduation is a reminder that they are separate and unequal students, simply because of their immigration status. Although people around the world look at the US as a place where hard work will make any dream come true, that's not true for the thousands of youth who came to this nation as children, finished college, but have few rights when it comes to building a life and career in the US. Today, FSRN talks to one of these recent grads.

A bill in Texas that would allow those with concealed carry licenses to bring their firearms into college campus buildings is generating opposition from all student and faculty governance bodies at the University of Texas at Austin. UT-Austin was the scene of one of the deadliest school shootings in US history: in 1966, architectural engineering student and former Marine Charles Whitman transformed the observation deck of the university's landmark clock tower into a sniper's nest – killing 14 people and wounding 32 others on and near campus.