IMAM WITH A MISSION
(As seen in the Dec. 11, 2006 New York Daily News)
BY DANIEL MASSEY

The young girls leaped into the imam’s lap as if he were, well, Santa Claus.
“Look how long your beard is,” said Mariama Sillah, 6, one of the girls playfully tugging at the black hair dangling from Imam Baba Jangana’s chin, her speech nearly drowned out by giggles. “You should cut it. When it gets on the floor, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to tell them to get off my beard,” Jangana said, beaming, without missing a beat.

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Imam Baba Jangana juggles multiple roles as the spiritual leader to West African immigrants at his Bronx mosque.

Photo by: Daniel Massey

LAUNDROMAT WORKER RAPED
(As seen in the Dec. 21, 2006 New York Times)
BY JENNIFER 8. LEE (NYT) and TANZINA VEGA (CUNY Graduate School of Journalism)

A 46-year-old employee of a Queens Laundromat who had just opened it for the morning was raped yesterday at knifepoint by two men who also robbed the business, the police said.

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L.A. AND THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
(As seen in the November, 2006 edition of www.republicanspectacular.com)
BY DORIAN DAVIS

Dorian Davis discusses the ins and outs of LGBT history with Lillian Faderman, author of Gay L.A.

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TENANTS FED UP WITH BROKEN ELEVATORS
(As seen in the Oct. 27, 2006 Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Courier)
BY EMILY KELLER

In the process of modernizing Walt Whitman and Ingersoll Houses, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is sending the complexes back to the Stone Age, tenants charged during a rally at the agency’s management office.

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WHOLE FOODS COMING TO BROOKLYN
(As seen in the Nov. 17, 2006 Park Slope Courier)
BY DAVID CHIU

Brooklyn’s gourmet shoppers won’t have to travel far to get their organic and natural foods fix now that the borough will soon have its first Whole Foods supermarket located between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, on the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue.

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DARK HORSE STILL RUNNING
(As seen on cityhallnews.com)
BY MATT SOLLARS

Stephen Harrison, the Bay Ridge Democrat who lost his bid to unseat Rep. Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) in November, is already mulling his political future, and a potential 2008 rematch is very much on his mind.

“If I was looking at something, this is the one [race] I would look at,” he said, adding that he would make a final decision whether to run again in the coming months.

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CALL FOR 'SMART' METERS
(As seen in the Nov. 30, 2006 Queen Chronicle)
BY HEATHER APPEL

New Yorkers may soon be able to see exactly how much it’s costing them to run their space heaters, air conditioners or dishwashers and modify their energy use to cut costs.

The City Council passed a resolution earlier this month calling for the installation of “smart meters” in individual apartments, a measure that legislators say might have prevented the blackout last July that left 1,600 Queens residents without power for a full week.

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COURT ORDERS MORE AID
(As seen in the Nov. 23, 2006 Queens Chronicle)
BY DMITRY KIPER

After more than a decade of litigation, New York’s highest court ruled on Monday that the state must spend an additional $1.93 billion annually on city public schools.

The amount is at least $3 billion short of what lower courts and advocacy groups said was necessary to provide city school children with a sound basic education.

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TRAFFIC JAM WOES
(As seen in the Nov. 16-29, 2006 edition of Tiempo)
BY MARLENE PERALTA

Activists representing the five boroughs gathered on the steps of City Hall on November 14 to demand traffic reduction and the improvement of traffic alternatives

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REMEMBERING 'CHE CHE'
(As seen in the Nov. 16-29, 2006 edition of Tiempo)
BY TANZINA VEGA

Right off the corner of 117 Street and First Avenue is a makeshift memorial for Lesenia Figueroa, or Che Che, as her friends used to call her.

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The slaying of Lesenia (Che Che) Figueroa, pictured with her son, has spurred fear in her East Harlem neighborhood.

PROTECTING OUR SENIORS
(As seen in the December, 2006 edition of The Bronx Journal)
BY ANNIKA HARRIS

For most of her marriage, Mrs. X did exactly what her husband wanted. She stayed home during the day, rarely visited friends, and suffered through all his emotional and economic abuse because she was afraid of him. "I always gave into him," she said.

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KRISTALLNACHT: A LEGACY OF PARCHMENT
(As seen in the Nov. 10, 2006 edition of The Jewish Star)
BY AMY GOLDSTEIN

It was September 1945, and Nathan Muchnick was the Baal Tefillah during the Yomim Noraim in the Great Synagogue of Frankfurt, Germany. The shul had been desecrated and turned into a horse stable by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

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