Cross Country
For a Clean, Crime-Free Skid Row
For years, it has been a problem seemingly without solution, the subject of bitter battles and enduring animosity. But finally a consensus might be emerging on how to clean up Los Angeles's infamous Skid Row without simply displacing the homeless.
Some 8,000 to 10,000 homeless people live in the approximately 50-block area of downtown. Previous plans to clean up the area, focused on police sweeps, were the subject of laborious court battles involving the city, the American Civil Liberties Union, and business owners. Now those parties seem to be coalescing around a plan offered by criminologist George Kelling. The plan would flood Skid Row with police to target drug dealers, prostitutes, and other criminals. But the homeless--and their tents and cardboard boxes--would be allowed to stay. The theory behind the plan is that crime must be reduced before the underlying causes of homelessness can be successfully addressed. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa backs the plan and has pledged to push for more money for housing. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton is considering it, along with an alternative, get-tough approach--and is expected to make a decision soon.
First, They Work Out All the Bugs
The forecast for the 2006 December holiday season got cloudier for techies when Microsoft announced last week that it was pushing back the retail release of its Vista operating system from this fall to January 2007. The Vista software is the Redmond, Wash., company's successor to its dominant Windows XP computing platform.
Often targeted by hackers and criticized by consumers for shipping flawed software, Microsoft says it needs the time to improve Vista's quality. "Three months at the end of the day is a drop in the bucket when you think that this program is going to be in consumers' hands for 10 years," says Ted Schadler, a tech analyst at Forrester Research.
The Vista software still will be available this November to some businesses with high-volume licenses. While the delay is not expected to greatly affect Microsoft's bottom line, analysts say it could strongly affect hardware manufacturers that depend on holiday season sales to boost their revenues.
States That Tie Green to Grades
The Texas state Legislature will have to give it the old college try--again. Texas Gov. Rick Perry directed lawmakers to meet for a fourth special session in April to modify the state's school funding formula and comply with a court ruling that found the system unconstitutional. Perry wants lawmakers--who must come up with a new funding rubric by June, under the court order--to focus narrowly on school finance and cutting property taxes. Other state leaders are calling for raising teacher salaries and injecting more accountability into the public school system.
Florida, meanwhile, joins several states including Texas and Minnesota in tying teacher pay to student performance. Under the proposed law, more than 180,000 top teachers will receive salary increases based on how well their students score on a standardized test. Critics worry that such a system will compromise the student-teacher relationship and fails to reward teachers in arts and music.
More Cops on the Big Apple's Streets
Pointing to a web of evidence, New York authorities charged bouncer Darryl Littlejohn last week with the gruesome slaying of a graduate student that had intrigued the city for weeks. But as sensational as the murder of Imette St. Guillen was, the homicide rate in New York remains historically low, with fewer than 600 cases in each of the past four years. And crime overall in Gotham has fallen nearly 25 percent since 2001, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. So it came as something of a surprise when Bloomberg announced that the nation's largest police department will add 800 officers to its force of about 37,000. The increase is driven by demographics: Officials estimate the city's population has grown by 125,000 since 2001 and is expected to increase by 200,000 more in the next five years.
Air Traffic Static With an Island Beat
For the past month, pilots leaving Miami International Aiport have gotten an earful of hip-hop, reggae, and Caribbean vibes. Every so often, music from a pirate radio station known as Da Streetz overtakes the frequency used by air traffic control, forcing controllers and pilots to a different frequency. Authorities tracked the transmission to a warehouse, but by the time they arrived, the transmitter was gone. Late last week, Florida officials had a suspect but had made no arrests. In the past decade, authorities have investigated 30 radio stations operating without a license. And the state Legislature recently passed a law making it a felony to run a pirate station.
With Silla Brush, wire reports, Alex Kingsbury and Kenneth Terrell
This story appears in the April 3, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.