BAUAW NEWSLETTER - SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2009

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL

(If you would like to be added to the BAUAW list-serve and receive this newsletter via email, send your name (opitional) and email address to: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com -- it's free. Please put "Add me to the list" in the subject line.)

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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

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Bail Out Working People -- NOT the Banks!

Join us on May 9 in San Francisco for a
TEACH-IN & MASS MOBILIZATION PLANNING MEETING

Without joining together for our common interests, we don't have the strength to change our government's priorities. We must begin to build a massive movement that will have the power to impact government policy and give people genuine hope for a better future.

Help organize a mass mobilization and ongoing action campaign around the following demands:

- No layoffs. Massive job-creation program.
- Tax the rich -- don't bail out the banks.
- Pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Single-payer healthcare for all.
- Affordable housing for all. Tenants' rights. Moratorium on foreclosures & evictions.
- Funding for jobs and for social services & infrastructure, not for war.
- Stop the ICE raids and deportations. Legalization for all!

Speakers:

- Art Pulaski, Secretary-Treasurer, California Federation of Labor;
- N'tanya Lee, Executive Director, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth;
- Mark Dudzic, National Organizer, Labor for Single Payer Healthcare Campaign (Washington, D.C.);
- Rosie Martinez, SEIU Local 721 (Los Angeles);
- Steve Williams, Executive Director, POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights);
- Conny Ford, Vice President, San Francisco Labor Council;
- Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10;
- Jack Rasmus, Professor of economics St. Mary's College and Santa Clara Univ.;
- Alan Benjamin, Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council and Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign;
- Student representative, City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus.

ALSO:

Extended remarks from Bay Area labor and community leaders -- and ample time for dialogue among teach-in participants.

AND:

Spoken Word performance by YOUNG PLAYAZ

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2009 - 1 to 5 p.m.
(registration begins at 12:30 p.m.)
Plumbers Hall,
1621 Market St. @ Franklin St.
San Francisco

Initiated by the San Francisco Labor Council, South Bay Labor Council, and Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign

(list of dozens of teach-in endorsers in formation)

Donations will be requested at door to defray cost of renting the hall, printing leaflets and posters, and copying teach-in packets for all participants. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

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Call for May 9 Teach-In:
Bail Out Working People, NOT the Banks!

The severity of the economic crisis we are currently facing is predicted to rival the magnitude of the Great Depression. Some say it could be even worse. Over 6 million jobs have already been eliminated since the current recession began. Millions of working people have lost their homes to foreclosures and evictions, and many more homes are in or near default, while housing remains unaffordable to millions of people. The ranks of those without health insurance continue to grow. But even these statistics fail to reflect the growing insecurity and stress of working people across the country as we wonder when we, too, might be next.

Meanwhile, the federal government has showered billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars on financial institutions in the form of bailouts. In other words, working people, who are bearing the brunt of the crisis, are being required to shoulder an additional burden. Our tax dollars are being funneled to the very financial institutions and wealthy investors whose reckless gambling in pursuit of unbridled profit was responsible for driving the economy over the cliff. They have refused to say what they've done with trillions. Worse still, to emphasize their contempt for public opinion, these priests of high finance have spent some of the bailout money on huge bonuses, office decorations and the purchase of more CEO jets.

In response to this unprecedented crisis, many organizations have emerged that are addressing specific issues. Some are fighting foreclosures. Others are fighting for a single-payer healthcare system that would guarantee health coverage for everyone. Still others are pressing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which, if passed, will greatly facilitate the ability to form unions.

Although our problems take many forms, most of them stem from a single source. During the past three decades, the inequality in wealth has surged to historic proportions not seen since the 1920s. The hourly wage of working people has actually declined, forcing many additional family members into the workforce just to make ends meet. Aggressive campaigns by employers have created additional barriers to unionizing, resulting in a sharp decline in the percentage of unionized workers. Without unions, workers have not had the means to struggle successfully for higher wages, healthcare coverage, pensions and other benefits.

Given these conditions, can there be any wonder that we have a housing crisis and a healthcare crisis? And during this same period, the taxes on corporations and on the rich in general have dramatically declined, thereby accelerating the accumulation of unprecedented wealth, on the one hand, and the decline of tax dollars for public infrastructure and services, on the other.

In order to have any chance of altering these trends, given the magnitude of the crisis we confront and the forces we're up against, we need to come together, unite all our separate organizations and mount a collective struggle around our common concerns. Without joining together for our common interests, we don't have the strength to change our government's priorities. Only in this way can we begin to build a massive movement that will have the power to impact government policy and give people genuine hope for a better future.

We working people constitute the vast majority of the population. We need to ensure that our society operates in the interests of the majority. But we can only succeed if we stand together in solidarity with each other's demands and struggles.

The goal of the May 9 teach-in is to inspire other teach-ins. It is aimed at organizing massive Solidarity DAYS OF ACTION in support of our common demands. By bringing huge numbers of people together in common actions, people will realize through their own experience that they do not stand alone, and they will gain the confidence that by uniting we can begin to exercise real power.

- Join us and help build a movement.
- Together we can prevail.
- An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!

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Protest Bank Robbery!
Fed-up? Make Your Voice Heard-Speak Out!

Wed. May 12, 5-6:30pm
Bank of America & Sen. Feinstein's Office
Market and Montgomery Sts., S.F.

Volunteers Needed! Call 415-821-6545 to get involved. Outreach Session - Mon. May 4, 5-8pm, meet at 2489 Mission St. #24, SF. Help flyer, poster and make alert phone calls about the May 6 action.

The government has handed over hundreds of billions of dollars of our money to the biggest banks in the country-Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and others-with NO STRINGS ATTACHED!

The big banks and investors set off the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s by their wild betting spree on sub-prime mortgages, hedge funds and other risky investments. Millions of people have lost their jobs, homes, health care, pensions and more because of the crisis caused by Wall Street. But it is the super-rich who are being rescued with ten trillion dollars-$10,000,000,000,000-while working people are left to fend for ourselves.

Congress and the White House didn't even require the banks to reveal what they used the money for. When asked, bankers have simply replied, "We choose not to disclose that information." AMAZING! Anyone else who gets the smallest grant from the government is required to report what they did with the money, otherwise they have to give it back. But not the giant banks who have just been given the biggest gift in history.

Neither Congress, nor the White House have put any conditions on the giveaway that would protect the people! So, no sooner did the banks get the bailout money-our money-than they doubled and tripled interest rates on credit cards, cut credit limits and closed many accounts. It didn't matter if you were making payments or not.

Now the bailed-out banks are stepping up foreclosures and evictions that have already put millions of people out of their homes. In March 2009, the foreclosure rate on homes went up 24%, the biggest increase on record.

What's going on is a double rip-off. The banks are receiving trillions of dollars of our money on the one hand, while increasing their profits by extracting every dollar they can from people who are suffering as a result of the crisis the banks themselves have caused.

WE SAY: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
We demand government action at the federal, state and local level to:
- Stop all foreclosures and evictions. There are now 18.9 million vacant housing units in the U.S.-everyone should have the right to a home.
- Rollback and cap credit card rates at no more than 5% interest.
- Bailout the people, not the banks-fund people's needs, not war and the super-rich. The money is there!

For more info: 415-821-6144, justicefirstsf@gmail.com

Justice First is a newly formed national organization that is dedicated to fighting for the people's economic, social and political rights. Justice First believes that everyone has the right to a job or living income, food, housing, health care, education and more. As the bailout has proved, the money is there. Join us in building a movement to put the people's needs first!

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End the Siege of Gaza! Rally in San Francisco on June 6
Solidarity Day on the 42nd Anniversary of Israel's seizure of Gaza
Support the Palestinian Right of Return! Stop U.S. Aid to Israel!

Saturday, June 6
12:00 noon
UN Plaza (7th and Market Sts.)

Saturday, June 6 marks the 42nd anniversary of the Israeli seizure of Gaza. Organizations and individuals in solidarity with the people of Palestine will be taking to the streets once again to demand: End the Siege of Gaza!

The world looked on in horror this past winter as Israel mercilessly starved and bombed the people of Gaza, killing around 1,200 Palestinians (at least a third of whom were children). The Arab world now refers to the dark days from the end of December to mid-January "The Gaza Massacre." Although the mainstream media no longer focuses on Gaza, the suffering continues there nonetheless. Using the pretext of combating terrorism, Israel has refused to allow in even one truckload of cement into Gaza. In other words, the city that was reduced to rubble still lies in rubble today. All these months later, people are still living in tents and are scarcely able to secure the necessities of life.

People of conscience around the world continue to raise their voices in outrage at this crime against humanity, and in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza. We will also stand for all Palestinian people's inalienable right to return to their homes from which they were evicted. Let your voice be heard -- join us Saturday, June 6, at 12 noon at UN Plaza in San Francisco (7th and Market Sts.). There will be a joint action in Washington DC on June 6.

Sponsoring organizations include ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom, National Council of Arab Americans (NCA), Free Palestine Alliance (FPA), Al-Awda - Palestine Right of Return Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and more!

Contact us at 415-821-6545 or answer@answersf.org to endorse or volunteer!

The June 6 demonstration is a major undertaking and we can't do it without the support of the large number of people who are standing with Palestine. Please click this link right now to make a generous donation:

https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1443&JServSessionIdr010=5e0ldsoh91.app6a

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ATTEND THE JULY 10 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH!
REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE and DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE BROCHURE (8.5 X 14) at:
https://natassembly.org/Home_Page.html

In the aftermath of the March 21 and April 3-4 demonstrations, a number of critical questions must be addressed by the antiwar movement: What next for the movement? Where do we go from here? How can we broaden the movement and win new forces to our cause? How can we help ensure that our next demonstrations are larger than the ones organized in March and April and that the ones organized after those will be even larger?

We who are supporters of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations believe these questions can best be answered by convening a national antiwar conference open to all peace activists who will have the opportunity to share their ideas and proposals, be part of a broad ranging discussion and debate, and help make decisions based on one person, one vote.

Such a conference will be held at La Roche College in Pittsburgh on July 10-12, 2009.

The National Assembly was established nearly a year ago at a national conference attended by over 400 people, including top leaders of the antiwar movement as well as activists from many states. One of the main decisions that conference made was to do everything possible to unite the movement in urgently needed visible street actions.

Now we look to the July conference, which will provide a forum for dealing with crucial issues as Washington escalates its wars, occupations, bombing attacks, sanctions, threats and illegal interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere. We need your ideas, your input and your presence to help make this conference a success. Please join us in Pittsburgh on July 10-12. Bring all the troops home now!

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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS

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Alert: This could be it for Troy Davis
Global Day of Action for Troy Davis
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/troy-davis-finality-over-fairness/sign-up-for-the-day-of-action-for-troy-davis/page.do?id=1011672&ICID=A0904A4&tr=y&auid=4803928

While news channels across the country are consumed with counting up to President Obama's first 100 days in office, Troy Davis has been counting down his last 30 days before a new execution date could be set. Help make these extra days count.
On May 19th help save Troy Davis by putting together any activity, event or creative action that calls attention to his case.

The 30-day stay issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals expires on May 15th.

So now is the time for us to organize to save the life of Troy Anthony Davis. We're asking everybody to come out strong on May 19th - a day marked in human rights calendars across the world as the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis.

Whether you're holding a "Text TROY to 90999" sign on a busy street or organizing your local Amnesty chapter to hold a public demonstration or vigil, we need everybody to contribute their time on May 19th to make sure that the state of Georgia does not kill a man who may well be innocent. Register your Global Day of Action for Troy Davis activity or event now.

We know that time is short for organizing public events, but an execution date could be set as early as late May, so it is essential that action be taken soon. It's also really important that we get an accurate count of how many events and activities are taking place on May 19th, so we can share this information with officials in Georgia. Our emails and phone calls have gone a long way in buying Troy some much-needed time, but now we've got to take our action to the streets.

We appreciate the tens of thousands of you who have stood in Troy's corner while heart-stopping scenes have unfolded. On three separate occasions, Troy has been scheduled for execution. And on three separate occasions, his life was saved within a short period of time, even minutes, of his scheduled execution date.

Each time, those last minute stays came after people like you turned out by the thousands to rally in his defense. It was no coincidence. Troy's sister and long-time Amnesty activist, Martina Correia, has acknowledged Amnesty's powerful role in saving her brother's life each of those times.

Now here we are again with the clock winding down. While we can see little opportunity for legal recourse or second chances, we know that your advocacy has a strong record of making amazing things happen.

When we first introduced you to Troy Davis in early 2007, few people outside of Georgia knew about the injustice taking place. In the past two years, countless people have come to see Troy's case as a prime example of why the death penalty must be abolished - the risk of executing someone for a crime they did not commit is just too high.

We are serious when we say that we need everyone to support Troy Davis on May 19th by organizing their own event or awareness-raising activity.

After all, if you had 30 days left to fight for your life, wouldn't you want to know that you had thousands standing in your corner?

In Solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

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Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/healthwellness/138768/jon_stewart_slams_media_swine_flu_fear_mongering_/

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Free Ehren Watada!
For more backfround on Lt. Ehren Watada, go to:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/702/1/

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C. ARTICLES IN FULL

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1) Number of Students Leaving School Early Continues to Increase, Study Says
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/education/30graduation.html?ref=education

2) Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds
Posted: 01:55 PM ET
April 30th, 2009
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/churchgoers-more-likely-to-back-torture-survey-finds/

3) Social Security Is Not Expected to Rise
By ROBERT PEAR
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/politics/03benefits.html?hp

4) The Rent Is All Paid Up, but Eviction Still Looms
By JOHN LELAND
May 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/02renters.html

5) As Bats Die, Closing Caves to Control a Fungus
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/03bats.html?ref=us

6) In a Senegalese Slum, a Building Material Both Primitive and Perilous
By ADAM NOSSITER
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/world/africa/03garbage.html?ref=world

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1) Number of Students Leaving School Early Continues to Increase, Study Says
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/education/30graduation.html?ref=education

Almost six years after a lawsuit forced the city to pledge to keep better track of students who leave public schools without graduating, the number leaving high schools has continued to climb, according to a report to be released Thursday by the public advocate's office.

The report raises questions about why more than 20 percent of students from the class of 2007 were discharged - the term for students who leave the school system without graduating - but 17.5 percent from the class of 2000 were. Much of the increase has come from students who are discharged in the ninth grade, which has gone up to 7.5 percent for the class of 2007, but was 3.8 percent in 2000.

Though students can be classified as discharged for a number of benign reasons, including a transfer to a private school or a move out of the city, the Education Department has been sued several times for pushing out students who are struggling and are unlikely to graduate, a practice that can help raise the school's test-score averages and graduation rates.

In 2003, Chancellor Joel I. Klein called the effect of the practice a "tragedy," and when the lawsuit was settled in the fall of that year, the department began requiring all schools to interview students before they can transfer to other programs.

The report was written by Jennifer L. Jennings, a doctoral student at Columbia University, and Leonie Haimson, a frequent critic of Chancellor Klein and the executive director of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group that urges more checks on mayoral control of the schools. The report is being released at a time when the State Legislature is to consider extending the 2002 mayoral control law.

Betsy Gotbaum, the public advocate, said the findings supported her call, issued in the fall of last year, for an independent research board to monitor the Education Department.

"I don't think anything has gotten any better," Ms. Gotbaum said Wednesday. "The numbers explaining where these students go is certainly at best questionable and at least a bit wrong. We really don't understand what all these numbers mean."

Ms. Gotbaum said she asked on Wednesday that the state comptroller's office audit the city's graduation and discharge numbers.

David Cantor, a spokesman for the City Education Department, said that while the increases were noteworthy, they reflected the fact that the student population often moves in and out of the city.

He said the city's graduation rate, which is affected by the number of students who drop out but not those discharged, has improved steadily over the last six years. For the class of 2008, the projected discharge rate is 19.2 percent, Mr. Cantor said.

Mr. Cantor said the city's graduation rates and discharges were audited annually by Ernst & Young.

One of the most alarming trends, according to the report, is the number of ninth-grade students who are discharged.

"This finding is of serious concern, as the goal of the public school system is to provide all students with the support needed to persist and successfully graduate from high school," the report states, adding, "Schools may be responding to accountability incentives to discharge students earlier in their high school careers."

Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, a senior adviser to the chancellor who oversees research, said department officials had noticed the increase in ninth-grade discharges and were trying to determine its cause.

According to data provided by the Education Department, roughly 74 percent of the more than 18,000 students discharged from the class of 2007 went to a school outside New York City. But according to the report, there is no evidence in census data to suggest that so many teenagers have left New York in recent years.

The department has also reported that the number of high school students transferring to parochial schools has increased over time; there were 2,084 such transfers for the class of 2007, but 821 for the class of 2004, for example. But the report also uses data from the state's Education Department showing that the enrollment in parochial schools appears largely flat.

The report also finds that far more black and Hispanic students are discharged than white and Asian students, and far more boys than girls.

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2) Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds
Posted: 01:55 PM ET
April 30th, 2009
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/churchgoers-more-likely-to-back-torture-survey-finds/

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The more often Americans go to church, the more
likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists,
according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week - 54
percent - said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is
"often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom
or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released
Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to
say torture is often or sometimes justified - more than 6 in 10
supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were
least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American
adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups
other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white
mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated, because the
sample size was too small.

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3) Social Security Is Not Expected to Rise
By ROBERT PEAR
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/politics/03benefits.html?hp

WASHINGTON - For the first time in more than three decades, Social Security recipients will not get any increase in their benefits next year, federal forecasts show.

The absence of a cost-of-living adjustment, calculated under a formula set by law, will be a shock to older Americans already hit by plummeting home values, investment losses and rising health costs. More than 50 million people receive Social Security.

"Most seniors have never been through a year in which there was no Social Security COLA," said David M. Certner, legislative counsel at AARP, the lobby for older Americans. Beneficiaries have received automatic cost-of-living adjustments every year since 1975. The increase this year was 5.8 percent.

In theory, low inflation is good for people on fixed incomes. But it is creating political and policy problems for Congress, which is just learning of the implications for Social Security and Medicare.

The forecasts, by the Obama administration and the Congressional Budget Office, indicate that Social Security beneficiaries will not receive any cost-of-living increase in 2010 or in 2011. The COLA is intended to preserve the purchasing power of Social Security, by increasing benefits to keep pace with consumer prices. In the last year, overall inflation has been low, largely because of the economic downturn and a decline in energy prices.

A freeze in Social Security benefits would have major implications for Medicare because the COLA, in effect, puts a cap on premiums for Part B of Medicare, which covers doctors' services.

If there is no cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, about three-fourths of beneficiaries will not see any change in their basic Part B premiums, federal officials said. But some beneficiaries do not have this protection and could face substantial increases in their Part B premiums.

In addition, millions of beneficiaries could see higher premiums for drug coverage, provided under Part D of Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare trustees will describe the outlook for benefits and premiums in their annual reports this month.

Officials have already said the condition of Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund is deteriorating because of the recession, which has reduced payroll tax revenues, the main source of money for the fund. Spending on Social Security and Medicare totaled more than $1 trillion last year, accounting for more than one-third of the federal budget.

Most people on Medicare have Part B premiums deducted from their monthly Social Security checks. These premiums have historically increased much faster than Social Security benefits.

Under federal law, most Medicare beneficiaries have some protection. Their basic Part B premiums cannot rise more than the dollar amount of the cost-of-living increase in their Social Security checks. So if there is no COLA, their basic Part B premiums will not increase.

But one-fourth of Medicare beneficiaries are not protected by the law, and their premiums could increase.

Most Medicare beneficiaries pay a monthly Part B premium of $96.40. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the basic premium will rise to $119 next year and $123 in 2011 for those who are not protected under federal law.

Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, predicted that inflation would remain low for several years, so Social Security might not pay a cost-of-living increase until January 2013. President Obama's budget assumes no increase in 2010 or 2011, then a 1.4 percent COLA in 2012.

Mr. Certner, from AARP, described the outlook for consumers: "If, as expected, there is no COLA in Social Security next year but premiums for drug coverage increase, as expected, millions of beneficiaries will see their Social Security checks reduced for the first time."

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4) The Rent Is All Paid Up, but Eviction Still Looms
By JOHN LELAND
May 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/02renters.html

Chauntay Barnes and Edgar Letriz, who live near each other in Connecticut, have many things in common. Both rent homes whose owners defaulted on their mortgages. Both say they never missed a rent payment. And both received eviction notices after the lenders foreclosed. But there is a major difference.

The mortgage on Ms. Barnes's house in Hamden is controlled by Fannie Mae, which in January stopped evicting renters from foreclosed properties. The mortgage on Mr. Letriz's three-family house in New Haven is controlled by HSBC, a London-based bank.

Ms. Barnes is now awaiting a month-to-month lease, valid until Fannie Mae sells her home; Mr. Letriz, on the other hand, is facing eviction.

Renters like Mr. Letriz and Ms. Barnes have long been unsuspecting casualties in the foreclosure crisis, facing eviction through no fault of their own, often with little warning. When the government-controlled mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, started offering leases to renters of foreclosed properties, lawmakers and housing advocates hoped that other lenders would follow suit.

But so far, action has been minimal.

"This has been a silent issue that is now gaining steam and attention," said Marietta Rodriguez, director of national homeownership programs at NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit network of community housing groups. "A lot of states and municipalities are trying to see what they can do" to require banks to extend leases.

So far this year, 30 percent of homes that received foreclosure notices were occupied by someone other than their owner, according to RealtyTrac, which collects foreclosure data. The federal government's recently announced $75 billion housing rescue plan leaves renters unprotected because it applies only to a homeowner's primary residence, not rental properties.

After renters are evicted, properties often remain vacant and become neglected or vandalized, hurting neighborhood property values and creating eyesores - a loss for lenders as well as residents, housing advocates say.

"Is it explicable?" Ms. Rodriguez said. "Not really. It affects the displaced tenant, the value of the building, the neighborhood. Nobody wins."

Banks say that they are not in the business of being landlords and that properties with no occupants are often easier to sell.

Renters caught up in foreclosure face a tangle of often unreachable banks and fears of losing their security deposits along with their homes.

For Ms. Barnes and Mr. Letriz, foreclosure was terrifying, beginning with the eviction notice.

"I thought, 'Oh, my God, I'm going to be out on the street with my kids,' " said Ms. Barnes, 30, a mother of two who is studying to be a nurse.

Then in December, Fannie Mae notified her that it would temporarily halt evictions, and planned to extend leases to renters until it sold the foreclosed buildings. Freddie Mac adopted a similar policy in March.

Though Ms. Barnes still does not have a lease, the company's promises have eased the stress on her family. She has not paid the rent since receiving the eviction notice in September, but said she was ready to resume payments as soon as she got a lease. She laughed mildly over some of the house's maintenance problems, including a rotting front step.

"I told my kids it's a go," she said. "No more being sick from worry. Plans can be made now - no more what ifs."

Mr. Letriz, 39, has had no such reprieve. With a degenerative disc disorder that requires him to use a walker, Mr. Letriz is on disability leave from his job as an assistant dean at Yale College. He shares a neat second-floor apartment with his sister Mariam and her two children. Ms. Letriz is expecting her third child this month.

"I've had sleepless nights and psychiatric counseling because of the pain, and now this causes more stress," Mr. Letriz said. "I'm not capable of moving. I can't pick up even a gallon of milk."

On Feb. 23, a marshal delivered a notice instructing him to respond or move out by March 16.

The first notice was just the start of the process, said Amy Marx, a lawyer at New Haven Legal Assistance who is representing the Letrizes. "But most people, when they get the notice to quit, pack up their bags and go."

New Haven Legal Assistance has urged banks to adopt policies similar to Fannie Mae's, extending month-to-month leases until a foreclosed property is sold. But so far, Ms. Marx said, "none of the banks have been willing to let tenants stay."

"They either offer cash for keys," Ms. Marx said, referring to the practice of offering renters money to move before eviction, "or a little extra time, usually two or three months."

Though banks are required to return renters' security deposits, that does not happen often, Ms. Marx said.

Properties like the Letrizes' house, where the mortgage has been bundled into a securitized trust, often fall between two banks with different interests: a trustee for a pool of securitized mortgages and a servicer hired to manage the individual loans.

The trustee in the Letrizes' case, HSBC, is named on the suit to evict them. The bank stands to lose money on the property if it is vandalized.

But HSBC said in a statement that the servicer, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, handled all questions on whether to evict tenants. Wells Fargo said in a statement that it did not have a summary eviction policy, but it could not name any instances in which it had extended a lease when not required to by state law, even though some trustees, including Deutsche Bank and U.S. Bank, have recently advised servicers to consider allowing renters to stay if it benefits the trust.

Wells Fargo also said that it had offered Mr. Letriz money to move, which he rejected (the normal cash-for-keys offer is $1,000 to $3,000).

Ms. Letriz, who is in her second year of training to be a nurse, said the whole process seemed arbitrary. "Your life is not being considered," she said. "You make a plan to go to nursing school, to help your brother, to send your children to school in New Haven. Now you have to get up and go. It breaks apart a family."

A spokeswoman for Fannie Mae, Amy Bonitatibus, said it expected to break even on rentals, hiring real estate agents to manage the properties. But so far, the program's impact has been limited. The company controls about 1,800 foreclosed properties.

Several states, including Connecticut, have introduced legislation to require banks to continue renters' leases after foreclosure. A similar bill has been introduced in Congress, where previous versions have failed.

In the meantime, banks in Connecticut have been unwilling to extend leases, said Cynthia Teixeira, manager of dispute resolution for the state's housing courts.

That leaves Mr. Letriz, who is awaiting surgery on his back, in limbo.

"So many things are up in the air." he said. "It's a lot of uncertainty."

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5) As Bats Die, Closing Caves to Control a Fungus
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/03bats.html?ref=us

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - The federal Forest Service is preparing to close thousands of caves and former mines in national forests in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus that has already killed an estimated 500,000 bats.

A Forest Service biologist, Becky Ewing, said an emergency order was issued last week for caves in 20 states from Minnesota to Maine. A second order covering the Forest Service's 13-state Southern region should be issued this month.

The sites will be closed for up to a year, Ms. Ewing said.

The orders follow the request in March by the Fish and Wildlife Service for people to voluntarily stay out of caves in 17 states.

Bats have been dying at alarming rates from what scientists call "white-nose syndrome," so named because it appears as a white powder on the face and wings of hibernating bats. The problem was first spotted in New York and in two years has spread to caves in Virginia and West Virginia.

Researchers believe the fungus is spread from bat to bat, but they have not ruled out a human connection, said Dennis Krusac, a biologist with the service's Southern region.

"We don't have the answers at this point," Mr. Krusac said.

Biologists are concerned that the fungus could wipe out endangered species like the gray, Indiana and Virginia and Ozark big-eared bats. The fungus affects bats' hibernation habits and causes them to starve.

Bats play a important role in keeping insects like mosquitoes under control. Bats eat from April to October, usually consuming their body weight in bugs each night. Ms. Ewing said the loss of 500,000 bats meant 2.4 million pounds of bugs not eaten in a year.

Peter Haberland, a caver from New York, said organized caving groups should not object to the closings. "For a period of a year, most people can deal with that," said Mr. Haberland, who serves on the Northeastern Cave Conservancy's board.

Peter Youngbaer, white-nose syndrome liaison for the National Speleological Society, a caving group, said it made sense for the Forest Service to issue umbrella orders to communicate a clear message. "There is a huge concern," Mr. Youngbaer said. "The recreation aspect is probably the least of our concerns."

Yet many people who explore caves are not part of organized groups, he said, so education will be important.

The Forest Service order says people found in a cave or mine face up to six months in jail and fines of up to $10,000. Ms. Ewing said Forest Service officials would enforce the bans.

Mr. Youngbaer said he was not convinced that humans helped to transmit the fungus.

A study based on soil samples taken from 200 sites in 30 states should help resolve that question. Results should be available in September.

Mr. Youngbaer said better financing from the federal government was needed to research the problem. Right now, he said, thousands of research dollars come from donations by caving and other groups.

Judy Rodd with the Friends of Blackwater, a group dedicated to protecting the West Virginia highlands, the Blackwater River watershed and the Blackwater Canyon, said that a "biological meltdown" was occurring and that caves in West Virginia needed special protection because they housed the largest populations of Virginia big-eared bats.

Many of the caves are in the Monongahela National Forest, which has announced it will extend a ban it imposed last year on access to caves in the 919,000-acre forest.

The ban last year affected only caves considered to be at high risk for the fungus.

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6) In a Senegalese Slum, a Building Material Both Primitive and Perilous
By ADAM NOSSITER
May 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/world/africa/03garbage.html?ref=world

GUÉDIAWAYE, Senegal - Aba Dione, 7 years old, met his end six weeks ago in the trash-filled corner of an abandoned dwelling here, as good a place to play as any, it seemed, when the other options were garbage and more garbage.

Except that in this case the thick carpet of crushed plastic bottles and bags, clothing shreds, old flip-flops and muck was deceptively floating on several feet of water; unknowing, Aba fell in and drowned.

Garbage might have seemed safe to the boy because it is everywhere in this forlorn, dun-colored slum abutting Dakar, the capital. Delivered on order for a few pennies a load by rickety horse-drawn carts speeding through the dirt streets of the Médina Gounass neighborhood of Guédiawaye, it is as pervasive as the hot midday sun in which it bakes. The people use it to shore up their flood-prone houses and streets in this low-lying area near the Atlantic coast; they have no choice.

Garbage, packed down tight and then covered with a thin layer of sand, is used to raise the floors of houses that flood regularly in the brief but intense summer rainy season, and it is packed into the dusty streets that otherwise become canals. The water lingers for months in the low-lying terrain of this bone-dry country.

Garbage is a surrogate building material, a critical filler to deal with the stagnant water - cheap, instantly accessible and never diminishing. The plastic-laden spillover from these foul-smelling deliveries pokes up through the sandy lots, covers the ground between the crumbling cinder-block houses, becomes grazing ground for goats, playground for barefoot, runny-nosed children and breeding ground for swarms of flies. Disease flourishes here, aid groups say: cholera, malaria, yellow fever and tuberculosis.

Ten miles away in the capital, piles of refuse are merely an intermittent feature of the dusty cityscape. Garbage in Dakar is dumped under tattered signs warning "Dump no garbage," and trash fires burn all night in neighborhoods by the beaches. Torn black plastic bags festoon Dakar's shrubbery, trees and fences in a metropolis of often do-it-yourself services.

But here in Médina Gounass, the unrestrained garbage tide finds its apotheosis.

"It's not the best way," said Pape Yabandao, a mason who was working on the walls of a house here. "But what can we do?"

Garbage had been an indispensable building tool for him, too.

Why?

"I don't have the means," he said. "If you don't have other solutions, and if everybody here uses garbage, you have to, too. There's water in the house and in the rooms." As he spoke, a garbage cart charged up a street in the distance to deliver its load.

"It's a problem of money," said Zale Fall, standing nearby. "The people who live here don't have the means for sand or rubble, so they are obliged to call the cart-drivers for filler. It's for our children's sake. Better to have illnesses than death."

Ami Camara, Aba's mother, was not the first to lose a child to the hidden bogs of Médina Gounass. Hanging her head in the courtyard of a four-room shanty where she and 15 family members live, she quietly recalled bathing her young son after lunch and sending him out to play. Then his friends found his shoes, and his body.

"Everything that happens is the will of God," said the boy's grandmother, Yaline Ndaye. "We can't do anything about it." She turned away.

Mrs. Camara's four remaining children were playing in a corner. Almost cater-corner was another darkened, abandoned house filled with water and garbage, nearly to the roof.

Local officials accept this near-worst-of-several-worlds with almost the same fatalism. "We wanted to stop this, because it is risky," said Amadou Gaye, deputy mayor for Médina Gounass, which has a population of around 85,000. "But the people are too poor. If these areas are filled in, there's less risk."

One risk quickly replaces another, however. Living in garbage - eating, washing and playing in it - "has harmful consequences," said Abdou Karim Fall, of the antipoverty development agency Enda - Tiers Monde, which is based in Dakar.

"All the diseases come with it," he said, "and they are so far advanced in these neighborhoods. Children are the most exposed. People live all year long right up against stagnant water and garbage."

In an upside-down world where garbage is sought for and dumped among homes, not removed, "people have no alternatives; they are left to themselves; they can only count on themselves," said Joseph Gaï Ramaka, a leading Senegalese filmmaker, who made a documentary about an incomplete government effort, the Plan Jaxaay, to build modern housing for people in vulnerable neighborhoods.

"These are people who are proud of being clean," said Mr. Ramaka, who now lives in New Orleans. "When they have to buy garbage, it's because they don't have any choice. The garbage, at least, allows them to sleep with their feet out of the water, and in their own house."

The practice has persisted for years. Médina Gounass was first settled in the early 1960s by rural people flocking to the city's outskirts, people who were not "educated in the culture of trash disposal," said Fatou Sarr, a socioanthropologist at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, who has written about the area. Blessed by a marabout, or Muslim holy man, the territory attracted more settlers in the 1970s during a period of great national drought, when the problems of flooding seemed nonexistent.

Over the years, layer after layer of garbage was added, sometimes as much as 13 feet, to keep floors above the floodwaters, said Mansour Ndoye, an official at the Ministry of Urban Affairs, Lodging and Construction who helps run the Plan Jaxaay.

"These are people of extremely low income," he said. "They put down garbage, and they built on top of it. And they are still putting down garbage, in order to live."

Back in Médina Gounass, Mr. Gaye, the deputy mayor, poked one of the deceptive bogs with his foot. "You see, it's not filled in here," he said. "If someone fell in, it would be all over for them."

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