| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| May 27, 2009 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 13 Number 2 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| NJ Supreme Court Rejects Sex-Offender Residency Bans |
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TRENTON, NJ
The New Jersey Supreme Court on May 7 invalidated about 120 municipal ordinances that restricted where convicted sex offenders could live. In its four-page opinion, the court merely upheld a lower court ruling that nullified sex-offender residency laws in Cherry Hill and
Galloway Township, but the unanimous decision was seen as the last word in a four-year battle over whether towns have the right to ban sex offenders from living in certain areas.
State politicians on both sides of the aisle quickly responded to the court's ruling, noting that four bills with bipartisan support are pending in the Legislature to give towns the ability to create "pedophile-free zones." Senator Bill Baroni (R-Mercer) said the court's ruling "prevents towns from defending their most vulnerable citizens from predators." Courts have consistently held that the local ordinances do more harm than good because they interfere with the statewide Megan's Law, a complex scheme established to handle paroled sex offenders. Under that law, those with sex-crime records must register with local authorities. The information in the registry cannot be used to deny housing to offenders, but the courts found that is what the local ordinances did. The Cherry Hill ordinance made virtually the entire township off-limits. The courts found that local ordinances could frustrate sex offenders' attempts to find stable housing and employment, and could increase the risk of reoffending. Severely restricting where sex offenders can live has not been shown to deter them from committing similar crimes, said Frank Corrado, who represented the offender who challenged the Galloway ordinance. "The net impact is to drive them underground." Dan Keashen, an aide to Cherry Hill mayor Bernie Platt, said giving municipalities the right to make their own rules regarding sex offenders is "common-sense legislation." He said, "Local elected officials are the ones on the ground. They're the ones who hold public safety as a core mission." In 2005, Cherry Hill and Galloway passed nearly identical laws that banned convicted sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, parks, churches, or other places where children might congregate. Two sex offenders in Cherry Hill and one in Galloway -- a Richard Stockton College freshman who violated the law when he moved into his dorm -- quickly challenged. The offenders in Cherry Hill were living in the Hillside Motel on Route 38 with the approval of their parole officers. In a March interview, Richard Kanka, the father of Megan Kanka, for whom the registration law was named, said he thought some townships had gone "to the extreme" in limiting where sex offenders could live. "No one wants them, but they have to live somewhere." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Ireland Responds to Horrendous Child-Abuse Chronicle |
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DUBLIN, IRELAND The Irish government will reform its social services for children in line with the recommendations of a report cataloguing decades of abuse by priests published last week, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said yesterday. Cowen apologized to victims for the state's failure to intervene in what the report described as endemic and ritualized sexual abuse and severe beatings in workhouse-style schools for much of the 20th century. He urged religious orders to pay additional compensation.
"It is deeply shameful for all Irish people that this happened in our country and that for so long it was not confronted," he told a news conference. Cowen welcomed yesterday's announcement by the Catholic order of Christian Brothers that it would review the compensation paid to victims of sexual abuse and violence. "I believe that other individual congregations involved should now also articulate their willingness to make a further substantial voluntary contribution." Irish religious orders had previously refused to renegotiate a deal for victims, despite pressure from church leaders and politicians. "The Christian Brothers accept, with shame, the findings of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse," the order said. "The congregation is deeply sorry for the hurt we have caused." Chaired by a High Court judge, the commission said in its harrowing five-volume report, which took nine years to compile, that orphanages and industrial schools in 20th-century Ireland were places of fear, neglect, and endemic sexual abuse. It blasted generations of priests, nuns, and the Christian Brothers for beating, starving, and in some cases raping children in Ireland's now defunct network of industrial and reformatory schools. According to the 2,600-page report, officials in Ireland's Catholic Church shielded pedophile staff from arrest to protect their own reputations despite knowing they were serial attackers. "There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse." The commission also found that Irish government inspectors, too, failed to end the problems. About 35,000 children and teenagers who were orphans, petty thieves, truants, unmarried mothers, or from dysfunctional families were sent to Ireland's network of 250 Church-run industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages, and hostels from the 1930s up until the early 1990s. "Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from." Cowen said the cabinet would implement all the report's recommendations, both to alleviate the impact on victims and to prevent future abuse by strengthening inspections and ensuring the provision of child-centered welfare services. Revelations of abuse, including a string of scandals involving priests molesting young boys, have eroded the Catholic Church's moral authority in Ireland, once one of the most devout countries in the world. Source: Reuters Source: London Daily Mail |
| Panel Compares Native American, Palestinian Plights |
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GALLUP, NM "Two Peoples -- One Struggle," a public panel discussion, was organized to explore possible parallels between the dispossession and colonization of Native Americans and Palestinians. The May 2 panel attracted an audience of nearly 50 people who filled a University of New Mexico classroom to capacity and who stayed beyond the event's scheduled two-hour time allotment.
Julia Good Fox and Jennifer Nez-Denetdale, two Native American women scholars, were featured on the panel, along with Abigail Okrent, a Jewish attorney who works on the Navajo Nation, and Jamal Abdeljawad, a Muslim Palestinian-American from Gallup who is in the Indian arts and crafts business. Comments from Okrent and Abdeljawad, the panelists with the most firsthand experience and knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, dominated the discussion. According to Okrent, most Americans share the presumption that all Jews support Israel's political policies. "This is increasingly not true," said Okrent. She differentiated between being Jewish and being supportive of the Israeli government and its policies toward Palestinians. Okrent said she believes some of the language the government of Israel uses to justify its policy toward Palestinians is similar to the language the US used to justify the policy of Manifest Destiny in its dealings with Native Americans. Abdeljawad agreed that Native Americans, seeing some similarities in the two historic conflicts, would recognize they've "been down this path" that Palestinians are now on. Historian and author Nez-Denetdale agreed policies like Manifest Destiny have been used around the world, including the Middle East. Good Fox, a Pawnee who has visited the Occupied Territories, voiced the idea that Israel is not a country with a military but rather a military with a country. One audience member attempted to raise the question about attacks against Israel and their effect on the country's policies. Okrent admitted that Israelis live with the knowledge they can be the victims of random violence, but, she said, violence against Palestinians is a daily part of life. While all governments have an obligation to defend their people, Okrent said, she doesn't believe Israel's policies are contributing to peace for Israelis. Instead, she sees the creation of a bi-national state as a possible peaceful solution. Because of their historic experience, Okrent said Jews have a "collective psychology of fear" and a "terrible psychology of oppression." On a personal level, she explained, her grandparents survived the Holocaust, and she was raised with the ideas of, "Never again is now," and, "Anytime you see oppression, you have to speak up." However, Okrent believes many Jews are blinded to Israel's oppression of Palestinians. Source: Gallup Independent |
| Bill Clinton Named UN Envoy to Haiti |
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WASHINGTON, DC Former President Bill Clinton has accepted a position as the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, a mission which will leverage the former Commander in Chief's popularity in an effort to boost trade and international investment to the impoverished Caribbean nation. The appointment comes after Clinton made a visit to Haiti with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The Clinton Foundation, the former president's nonprofit group, has long promoted economic development in the third world. One project, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, "focuses on alleviating poverty in the developing world through market-driven development that creates jobs and increases incomes." "It is an honor to accept the secretary general's invitation to become special envoy to Haiti," Clinton told the Miami Herald. "Last year's natural disasters took a great toll, but Haiti's government and people have the determination and ability to 'build back better,' not just to repair the damage done but to lay the foundations for the long-term sustainable development that has eluded them for so long." "I believe Haiti is better positioned to make progress for all its people than at any time since I first visited in 1978," he added. "It offers unique opportunities for public and private investment to improve health and education in ways that will be good for Haitians and all their partners in our interdependent world." Not everyone is pleased with the appointment, however. For example, Jeremy Scahill of Rebel Reports refers to a diplomat's statement about Clinton's potential to stabilize the country when he writes, "The fact is that, as US president, Clinton's policies helped systematically destabilize Haiti." He quotes Inter Press Service reporter Dan Coughlin: "Given the Clinton Administration's aggressive pursuit of policies that profitted Haiti's tiny elite, the IMF, and big corporations at the expense of Haiti's farmers and urban workers, the appointment does not bode well for the kind of fundamental change so needed in a country that has given so much to humankind." In September 1991, the US backed the violent overthrow of the government of Haiti's democratically elected leftist priest President Jean Bertrand Aristide after he was in office less than a year. When Clinton came to power, he played a vicious game with Haiti that allowed the coup regime to continue rampaging Haiti and further destabilized the country. While Clinton and his advisers publicly expressed their dismay with the coup, they simultaneously refused to support the swift reinstatement of the country's democratically elected leader and would, in fact, not allow Aristide's return until Washington received guarantees that (1) Aristide would not lay claim to the years of his presidency lost in forced exile; and (2) US neoliberal economic plans were solidified as the law of the land in Haiti. Scahill goes on to quote Bill Fletcher Jr, the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com: "Clinton advanced a neo-liberal agenda for Haiti, thereby undermining the efforts of an otherwise progressive populist administration (Aristide's). There is no reason to believe that [as a UN envoy] ex-President Clinton will introduce or support efforts to radically break Haiti from under the thumb of the USA and the dire poverty which has been a significant consequence of said domination." Source: All Headline News Source: Rebel Reports |
| Anti-Gang Students Graduate, Volunteer on Mother's Day |
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VINELAND, NJ About 50 children and young adults gave their moms a unique gift on Mother's Day: peace of mind. The group of Vineland and Millville residents, ranging in age from 6 to 19, graduated on May 10 from the local anti-gang program FED-UP 4U and volunteered at a cookout held at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home.
James Cooper, founder of FED-UP 4U, said the event was intended to show the children and teens the importance of honoring local veterans, as well as to provide a special Mother's Day gift. "I thought it would be a good gift to their mothers if they knew their children were doing something good on Mother's Day." FED-UP 4U, whose name means Faith Education Demanding Universal Peace For You, graduated 150 youths from Vineland, Millville, Bridgeton, and Seabrook, Cooper said. Participants meet from 5 to 9pm for eight consecutive Saturdays. They receive a meal, lessons on why they should avoid gangs, and character building and discipline. Then they enjoy some recreation time. This was the program's second graduating class. It graduated 77 children in its first class earlier this year, Cooper said. Cumberland County Sheriff Robert Austino, who helped run the program, said it's important for local law enforcement. "These kids will grow up and hopefully stay out of trouble." Tesia Pitts, 16, said just being involved in the program kept her out of trouble: "Instead of going out, I'm at the program listening to what they have to say," the Vineland teen said. "It teaches you a lot, especially how important it is to get along with each other." Vineland resident Marcus Stratton, 18, said the program had an immediate impact on him. "The things I used to do, I don't do it anymore. It improved me a lot. It's helped me stay away from the bad things out there." Source: Vineland Daily Journal |
| Prospects Grim for UK First-Jobbers |
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ENGLAND Young people finishing school and university face a grim summer as a report warns they will struggle to find jobs. The Chartered Institute for Personnel Development says almost half of firms are not recruiting school leavers or graduates in the months ahead as the recession continues to bite.
A survey of 500 companies showed that only one in five planned to take on 16-year-olds leaving school in the next few months. The picture was slightly better for university graduates, although a third of employers said they had cut the number of university leavers they had taken on so far this year. Gerwyn Davies, public policy adviser at the CIPD said, "Employers have for a long time had doubts about the employability skills of those leaving education, and this year's crop face employers in a more choosy mood than ever before. Against this backdrop, graduates and school leavers need to sharpen their case for being picked ahead of their classmates -- and fast." "Government work with employers on apprenticeships and graduate internships is welcome," he added, "but the onus is definitely on the job seekers themselves to get work experience, demonstrate a broad range of non-study related skills, and generally market themselves hard. This is a tough jobs market, but our research shows that employers are still on the lookout for the brightest and best." Ruth Elwood, head of recruitment at KPMG, which helped with the study, added, "The recession is forcing young people to develop the age-old business skill of multi-tasking ahead of time -- launching a systematic job search while still studying for their exams. "The harsh reality is that it is no longer enough to start thinking about jobs once exams are over. The signs are that this has been getting through. Graduate schemes have been filling up earlier than probably ever before. Those who do not already have a place for September are unlikely to find one now, or not in their first choice profession." Source: ITN |
| Jewelry Sale Benefits Cherry Hill Hungry |
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CHERRY HILL, NJ Sue Camlin spent part of her Memorial Day weekend sipping mimosas, listening to jazz, and shopping for sterling silver jewelry. It was all for a good cause, and she wanted others to join her.
All proceeds from a Silpada Designs jewelry party Camlin's church was hosting would go to the Cherry Hill Food Pantry -- the only emergency food pantry in the township -- which provides bags full of groceries twice a week for more than 700 tri-county families in need. The event happened at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Kings Highway. Camlin represents the Unitarian church on the Cherry Hill Food Bank and Outreach Council board, made up of representatives from each of the nine churches in the township charged with stocking and running the pantry. Other congregations represented on the council are Kingsway Assembly of God, St Andrew's United Methodist Church, Trinity Presbyterian, St Michael's Lutheran, St Mary's, St Peter Celestine, St Pius X Catholic, and Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic. When the pantry, next to St Michael's on Chapel Ave, first opened its doors three years ago, it served only 30 families, Camlin said. Now it serves 725 families, said Linda Lincoln, chairwoman of the fundraiser. "The reason we did this was because people were coming to the ministry asking for food," Camlin said. "We never expected to get this much." "Even in an area of relative affluence, our economic hardship has created another hardship -- that of hunger," said Greg Winkler, president of the Unitarian church's board of trustees. "Food is an expensive commodity, and it is gratifying for us to be part of a group that is working to ensure that our community is meeting this need." Families within a 5-mile radius of the pantry are eligible for food. "People who come to us from outside that area, we still give them food, but we also give them a list of food pantries in their area," Camlin said. "We have never turned anybody away. We would never do that." Food distribution is from 6:30pm to 8pm on Tuesdays and from 11am to 1pm on Thursdays. Volunteers sometimes deliver food to elderly and disabled clients who can't make it to the pantry. The churches keep the shelves stocked with food donations from congregation members and through the Food Bank of South Jersey. Source: Courier-Post |
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| Free-Book Program Builds Kids' Personal Libraries |
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PHILADELPHIA, PA The faculty at Dobson Elementary School in Manayunk looks for almost any reason to give a student a shiny new book.
Fall registration? A book. Report-card day? A book. Back to School Night? A book. By the end of the school year, some students in kindergarten through third grade have personal at-home libraries packed with stories about spilt milk, magic treehouses, and whether your mama is a llama. Third grader Tonice Arnold sums up the thrill: Books are great "because you get smarter, and then you get higher grades, and then you can be smarter than all the people in your class, and then it's perfect." The books given to Tonice and thousands of other students in Philadelphia and the suburbs are theirs to keep. They are courtesy of a chapter of First Book, a national program that distributes millions of free books annually to schools, community groups, social-service agencies, and other organizations. The groups then give the books to the youngsters they serve, who are mostly from low-income families. Similar national programs such as Reading Is Fundamental and Reach Out and Read focus on giving new books to children of preschool age or in elementary school. First Book gears its program for youngsters from infancy to age 18. "The books become their personal property. They can take it home, share it with parents and siblings," said Ted Robb of Rosemont, chairman of the advisory board for the Philadelphia region branch. "There's a real pride in ownership, and it influences them to have a joy of reading." Founded in 1992, the Washington-based organization has distributed more than 60 million books. Community groups apply for grants from local advisory boards. Once awarded, the money is used to buy books from the First Book Marketplace, an online store that sells drastically discounted titles. The average cost is $2. First Book has more than 280 volunteer advisory boards working in communities. The Philadelphia-Camden area is covered by three of them. The tough economy has severely affected the Camden branch's ability to raise money, said Dorothy Minkoff, the cochair there. "Fund-raisers didn't work for us, so we rely on corporations," she said. Camden also has supplemented its efforts by conducting book drives for the donation of new and used books. The Philadelphia branch's fund-raising has not been affected, Robb said. The branch consistently ranks among the top five nationally in fund-raising, said James Francavilla, senior vice president of programs for First Book. "The families we see have so many problems because of finances that money, food, clothing, and shelter come before acquiring books," said Grace Sharples Cooke of grantee Family Support Services in Philadelphia. "Many of the families we work with have no books in their homes." The books become a bright spot. Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Maker of Cheap Car 'Nano' Offers Cheap Flats |
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MUMBAI, INDIA After the low-cost car Tata Nano, the Tata group is coming up with Nano homes under the name Shubh Griha, priced between Rs 390,000 [$8,221] and Rs 670,000 [$14,123]. The first township comprised of one bedroom-kitchen flats, to be built by the group's property development arm Tata Housing Development Company, will come up in Mumbai suburb Boisar, in Thane district. This model will be later expanded across several metros, tier II and III cities in the country.
The company joins other developers like Puravankara, Omaxe and Housing Development & Infrastructure that have moved to the affordable housing segment, as there are no or few takers for expensive homes. Others including Mphasis founder Jaithirth Rao, NGO Janaagraha founder Ramesh Ramanathan, and Bangalore-based CSC Constructions are also said to be interested in entering this segment and to be in the midst of drawing up their housing projects. India faces a shortage of 24.7 million dwelling units, with three-fourths of this deficit being in the middle and low-income groups. "The opportunity lies at the bottom of the pyramid as there is a huge shortage at this end of the market," Tata Housing MD Brotin Banerjee said. He added that the scheme was launched because a large percentage of low-income migrants lived either in rented or company-provided accommodations. "Our study shows that around 48% of them are currently staying in rented accommodation." Shubh Griha is in line with the Tata group's philosophy of contributing and having a positive involvement with the society at large, Banerjee added. Similar to the distribution strategy for the Tata Nano, the allotments of the 1,000 flats in Boisar, to be delivered in about two years, will be selected through a lottery. The apartment size will range between 283 sq ft to 465 sq ft each. The company, which is expecting a turnover of Rs 1 billion [$21.1 million] from the project, has linked up with SBI and HDFC to help potential buyers with finance options. The application form will be sold at Rs 200 [$4], and the initial booking amount has been fixed at Rs 10,000 [$211]. Source: India Times |
| Little Tribal College is Huge in Changing Lives |
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BARROW, AK School districts in the Alaskan Bush are usually singled out for their high dropout rates. But a tiny community college in Barrow called Ilisagvik College tells a different story. Not only is it fully accredited as an independent educational institution, but it's also the only federally recognized tribal college in Alaska. Both achievements are outstanding if only for the amount of effort, time, and determination that went into reaching those goals.
When the North Slope borough was first formed in the early 1970s, education was already a huge presence on the agenda of local people and politicians. The borough's first mayor, Eben Hopson Sr, was famously left on the beach by the BIA boat that came to Barrow once a year to pick up students and take them to the Lower 48 to continue their education. He was left because he was considered "uppity" for suggesting that Native people should not be used as free labor for the BIA and local churches. He had the audacity to suggest that they should be compensated for their labor. Consequently, he was left to stand on that beach a very long time, unable to comprehend that the boat really wasn't coming back for him. Eben was not shy about the need to deal with education at all costs. Organizing the borough school district was one of his first actions. But the elders in Barrow wanted their children to go beyond high school in a local setting and saw no reason why they couldn't create a university right then and there. That didn't happen for many years. But the dream never died, and today Ilisagvik College holds annual commencement exercises that see local students receiving AA degrees, as well as a wide variety of certificates and GEDs. Many of the students are older people who could never go forward with their education because of family responsibilities that kept them at home. Now they go to school down the road from their job or telecommute using programs that let them stay in their village while still reaching their educational goals. It may not seem like much to city folk, but actually putting an accredited postsecondary institution into a small hub village and having it work is huge. Alaska's Native peoples have a lot of problems to overcome. And sometimes it seems as though all we hear is the negative -- the drinking, the abuse, the poverty. But there are bright lights out there. Source: Anchorage Daily News |
| Migrants Leave UK, More Take Their Place |
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ENGLAND Thousands of Eastern European workers are leaving Britain as the recession bites. But thousands more are flocking to take their places, immigration figures now show.
In the year to last September, 56,000 Poles and others went home to the eight countries which joined the EU in 2004, more than twice as many as the previous year. Such is the draw of the British economy to workers in the poorer EU countries, however, that there were 100,000 new arrivals over the same period, a net increase of 44,000. Including the returning Eastern Europeans, some 382,000 people left the UK to live elsewhere, a rise of around 60,000 in a year. But the number of people arriving here was 529,000, roughly the same as for the past four years. That left the key 'net migration' figure -- the increase in the population -- at 147,000. The figures from the government's Office for National Statistics, taken from state surveys, were published as part of a new effort to provide early and "coherent" figures on immigration, emigration, and the level of the population. Critics of government policies said the return of the Eastern Europeans was too small to slow the predicted rapid rate of population growth. Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch think tank said, "We are still on track for a population of 70 million in 2028, which is far too many." Labour MP Frank Field and Tory MP Nicholas Soames of the cross-party Balanced Migration Group said, "Even at the current rate, immigration will account for about seven million of the projected population growth of ten million over the next 20 years or so. The case for urgent action is unchanged." Immigration Minister Phil Woolas claimed that immigration levels were "balancing" and said increasing prosperity in the new EU members "can only be beneficial for the UK". New Home Office figures indicated even sharper recent declines in Eastern European arrivals. In the first three months of this year, 23,000 workers from the eight EU countries applied to join the Workers Registration Scheme -- less than half the total last year. The number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK is the highest in five years, it was revealed. A 27% leap in the first three months of the year pushed the total to 8,380, or 10,285 with family members. But the number of failed asylum seekers deported dropped by 7%, to 2,805. There was also an increase of more than 50% in the numbers granted citizenship -- 54,615 in the first three months of the year. Source: London Daily Mail |
| Blight in the Rust Belt: A Pennsylvania Snapshot |
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MONESSEN, PA In 1952, when the Nuzzaci family matriarch opened a pizzeria in the basement of her Monessen home, there was competition. The family perfected the secret recipe -- still written in Italian on a piece of cardboard -- to attract hungry students on their lunch break in this Western Pennsylvania former steel town.
Otherwise, they would get bologna sandwiches at Greco's deli across the street. Today, Greco's is an empty lot. Up and down Knox Street, many homes have broken or boarded-up windows, cracked siding, drooping porches, and overgrown weeds. This is the remains of a town that once supported a booming steel industry, several elementary schools, and shops on nearly every corner. This area of Monessen, 28 miles south of Pittsburgh, had more vacant properties than any other neighborhood in Pennsylvania as of March 31, according to data compiled by the Associated Press from the Postal Service and the Housing and Urban Development Authority. Areas of Duquesne and Braddock, two other towns near Pittsburgh, were close behind. Monessen's population has been declining since the late 1970s, when the steel mill that supported the town began downsizing. The mill shut down in the mid-1980s, bringing down dozens of other businesses and forcing hundreds to leave in search of jobs. Decades later, Monessen and other Rust Belt towns still battle high unemployment and poverty, problems compounded by the blight of abandoned properties and an aging population. The data collected by the AP shows an area of Monessen has 323 vacant residences, more than a quarter of the neighborhood's houses. The city is limited in the money it can spend to demolish or repair abandoned properties. This year, Mayor Anthony Petaccia said, Monessen has about $75,000 in federal money for demolition. In 1960, nearly 18,500 people were living in Monessen, according to the Census Bureau. But by 1980, after the mills had downsized, there were fewer than 12,000. By 2007, the town had just over 8,000 people. The most recent census -- in 2000 -- showed 9.2%, or 282 families, lived in poverty. But peeking out from behind Donner Avenue, on Schoonmaker, is a sign of the future. It says "Douglas Education Center" in blue lettering with a silhouette of a sun alongside. Twenty years ago the building was a dying business school when Jeffrey Imbreschia and his wife bought it. They have transformed it into a high-tech center that teaches everything from cosmetology and film to Hollywood special effects -- under the banner of special effects expert Tom Savini, who worked on Friday the 13th and directed the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. The school's $40,000, two-year special-effects program is making waves nationally. Imbrescia says that students from 49 states are flocking to Monessen. Source: Associated Press |
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