Newscast for Thursday, April 9, 2009

Anti-Castro hardliners not giving up
Days after members of the Congressional Black Caucus returned from Cuba, where they met with Fidel Castro, two conservative lawmakers are crying fowl. Although easing US policy toward Cuba appears imminent, and opposition is shrinking, some anti-Castro hardliners remain vocal. Washington Editor Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.

Obama unveils electronic health records plan for service members
President Obama announced the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs will be creating lifetime electronic health records for service members. The records will contain medical and administrative information from the day someone enlists, to when they pass away. FSRN’s Karen Miller reports from Washington on what the President calls the simple goal of creating one medical record for the men and women that serve in the Armed Forces.

Under funded suicide prevention hotline ringing off the hook
The current economic crisis may have contributed to some high profile suicides: the chairman and CEO of a major real estate auction house in the United States, a German billionaire who Forbes Magazine ranked as the 94th richest person in the world in 2008, and a French businessman who lost nearly a billion and a half dollars investing with Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. But plenty of people of ordinary means are also looking at death as the only way out of their financial misery. As more people are losing their jobs and their homes, some are reaching for their phones. FSRN’s Kellia Ramares examines the role of hotlines designed to help people save their own lives.

Remembering the event that proceeded the Freedom Rides
Today marks the anniversary of a remarkable, but relatively unknown, step in challenging Jim Crow laws. It’s a part of Civil Rights history that is often untold and occurred fourteen years before the well-known Freedom Rides of 1961. 62 years ago today, a group of 16 white and black men engaged in nonviolent protest, publicly challenging segregation in the South – and they paid the price. FSRN’s Lynda-Marie Taurasi is in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Traditional practice questioned as un-Islamic
Stone pelting is a common form of protest in Indian-administered Kashmir, where pictures of youth aiming small rocks at gun totting Indian police and armed troops is considered a symbol of resistance to Indian rule. But as FSRN’s Shahnawaz Khan reports from Srinagar, a debate is brewing – and some separatists and Muslim clerics are calling stone pelting un-Islamic.