News & Public Affairs
Democrats mostly indifferent to re-vote by mail listen
03/11/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Top Florida Democrats are looking into hiring a private accounting firm and a direct mail house to send ballots to four million Democratic voters so they can choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as their presidential nominee, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
The campaign is being pushed by Florida’s senior Democrat, Sen. Bill Nelson, a superdelegate who supports Hillary Clinton.
But another Clinton superdelegate from Florida, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schul...
Be the first to commentUpdate on higher education budget cuts
03/10/08 Ryan IacovacciWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Education
Good Evening and welcome to the University Update, a new weekly segment providing a diverse perspective on the rather convoluted world of higher education here in the state of Florida and the Tampa Bay area.
Florida is currently dealing with a major budget deficit, and lawmakers plan to make drastic cuts soon. The 11 public universities have been requested to take a $350-million cut, calling into question the priority and quality of higher education.
Administrators at USF are taking...
Be the first to commentActivist discusses possible anti-gay amendment
03/10/08 Arielle StevensonWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Gay Marriage, Barry Lynn, Amendment
Rev. Barry Lynn, a reverend in the United Church of Christ and longtime advocate of the separation of church and state spoke Saturday in Tampa about the possible amendment banning gay marriage in the state of Florida. Lynn is also the executive director of Americans United, a non-sectarian, non-partisan group devoted to the separation of church and state. He says this is really a campaign to make some Floridians invisible.
Lynn is a television and radio regular, having many of his own pro...
Be the first to commentCastor says no to a Florida re-vote
03/10/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Yesterday, Hillsborough area Congresswoman Kathy Castor, a Barack Obama superdelegate, said she was against any type of re-vote in the state. Castor said the leader in pledged delegates in the race (currently Obama), will resolve the dispute over the delegates before the convention, avoiding a convention battle over the nomination. WMNF spoke with Rep. Castor from her office in Washington a short time ago.
Be the first to commentSustainable Living: Grow more vegetables
03/10/08 Robert Lorei and Jon ButtsRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Friday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Environment
Today's interview is with Steve Moore of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at North Carolina State University. He discussed "bio-intensive" farming practices.
For more information, email cefs@ncsu.edu.
Be the first to commentIncidents prompt review of Orient Road Jail listen
03/10/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Independent Review Commission on Jails, David Gee, Orient Road Jail, Al Higginbotham, ACLU
During the last month, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has faced allegations of abuse of jail inmates by detention deputies. In response, Sheriff David Gee has formed an 11-member panel to investigate the Sheriff’s Office and conditions within the county’s jails. Today was the first meeting of the Independent Review Commission on Jails.
The most famous case of abuse is the first that came to light, in a video published on the internet in early February. Silent surveillance video f...
Be the first to commentWomen's studies program turns 35
03/07/08 Doris NorritoWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: USF, women's studies, budget cuts
The University of Florida celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Department of Women’s Studies on Thursday evening at the USF Embassy Suites in Tampa.
Hosted by the University of South Florida Women’s Studies Advisory Board, the prospect of severe budget cuts was addressed in talks by faculty and students. In addition, the Women’s Studies program faces the potential of losing its status as an autonomous department.
Philosophy teacher and founding faculty member Dr. Marilyn Myerson sp...
Be the first to commentSex offenders allowed back into mobile park home
03/07/08WMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: sex predators, Palm River
Last night WMNF aired a report on how residents in Palm River had complained to Hillsborough County Commissioners about sex predators living in their community.
Commissioners said they would do what they could to shut down the mobile home park run by Florida Justice Transitions, a Pinellas county based nonprofit that provides counseling and housing for sex offenders. Commissioners reacted after hearing comments from the public.
Hours after residents spoke out, the county gave the men 2...
Be the first to commentFarmworkers rally in Lake Opopka
03/07/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: human rights, farm workers
Former Farmworkers in Lake Apopka today discussed a new United Nations report that examines the U.S. government’s record on human rights and race in regards to health problems with the farm worker community.
Jeannie Economos is the pesticide projects coordinator at the Farmworkers Association in Florida. She said she had not yet seen the report scheduled to be released today by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Be the first to commentAl-Arian on hunger strike without water listen
03/07/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Sami Al-Arian
Former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian has been on a hunger strike for five days. He began it after learning on Monday that the government is requiring him to testify before a grand jury in Virginia, a month before he was supposed to be released and deported. Al-Arian family and lawyers say this is just a way for the government to keep him in jail.
In 2005, a Tampa jury found Sami Al-Arian not guilty of eight of the terrorism charges against him. The jury was deadlocked...
Be the first to commentE.J. Dionne on religion in politics
03/07/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Washington Post syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne has just written a new book, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right. In it, he details why the era of the Religious Right – and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage – is now over. But he writes that the end of the Christian right doesn’t signal the decline of evangelical Christianity, but is rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold out to a narrow agenda such as oppositio...
Be the first to commentGloria Steinem speaks at Eckerd College listen
03/06/08 Dawn Morgan & Emily ReddyWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Women's rights
Last night at Eckerd College, three generations of feminists came together for a panel discussion on the women’s movement.
Gloria Steinem led a conversation with Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Jennifer Baumgardner, Amy Richards and an audience of 1,200 students and community members.
Steinem caused a stir over the weekend with a comment that being a prisoner of war didn’t qualify John McCain to be president.
In a press conference before the event, Steinem said many reporters misinterpreted...
Be the first to commentCameras in Hillsborough will see red listen
03/06/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Transportation
Hillsborough County Commissioners today approved an ordinance to mount cameras at 10 major intersections in the county to catch red light violators.
Commissioner Mark Sharpe said he would prefer the county not do anything that would attempt to enhance the revenue potential with the cameras, such as adjusting the length of yellow light.
The length of yellow lights is crucial in the discussion because of the concern among many people, including Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, that cameras at int...
Be the first to commentState Democrats plans for a "mail only" primary listen
03/06/08 Mitch E.PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Election
One possibility for getting around the fact that a new primary in Florida could cost as much as $25-million is to hold a vote-by-mail primary.
The Florida Democratic Party has said it has a "very detailed proposal" on how to do that, although when asked today party spokesman Alejandro Miyar admitted he wasn’t that familiar with the details.
Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reported today that if Florida were to hold another vote between May 1 and June 10, national party rules award 30 perc...
Be the first to commentMosaic Phosphate responds to mine protesters
03/06/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Thursday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Environment
Today we welcome David Townsend and Dee Allen of Mosaic Phosphate; they are here to respond to several neighbors who are opposed to expansion of Mosaic’s mining operation near the four corners area where Hillsborough, Polk, Hardee and Manatee counties meet. We heard from those neighbors last Thursday on this program.
The Hillsborough County Commission will discuss the expansion next Tuesday.
For more information, visit www.fipr.org.
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