NOTE: Clients who used photos that moved with the stories slugged BC-CNS-Private Skies, which moved May 7 under under a WASHINGTON dateline, and BC-CNS-Drone School, which moved May 8 under a WASHINGTON dateline, are asked to use the following correction. Corrected versions of the stories are posted here and here on our site.
WASHINGTON – Some photos that moved with a May 7 story on the outlook for civil use of unmanned aerial vehicles in Arizona and a May 8 story on colleges that have started offering UAV classes included incorrect photo credits. The photos by Charles Weisel should have been credited to Charles Weisel/Tagline Media Group.
NOTE: Clients who used the story slugged BC-CNS-Field Dreams, which moved May 7 under a WASHINGTON dateline, are asked to use the following correction. An updated version of the story is posted on our site.
WASHINGTON – A May 7 story on proposed changes to the farm-worker visa program in the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill misspelled the names of two people quoted. Adrienne DerVartanian is the director of immigration and labor rights for Farmworker Justice and Kristi Boswell is a director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau.
By CASSONDRA STRANDE
Cronkite Borderlands Initiative
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE – It’s nearly spring in Ontario, Canada. Outside you can feel it. It’s still chilly, but there’s a sense that the worst of winter is over. There’s a thin layer of melting snow, pooling in shallow ground and mixing with the dirt to create a thick layer of mud – making it hard to walk through the grass.
For an outsider, you can tell spring is coming from the noise. Sounds from dozens of different birds, back from their southern vacations, fill the air. But for Jane Andres, a lifelong resident of southern Ontario, the real sign of spring comes from the town’s other returning residents – seasonal farm workers, all the way from the Caribbean.
Andres describes the history of Niagara-on-the-Lake, nicknamed “the loveliest town in Canada,” over the crackle of a fireplace that is warming up the open living room inside her two suite bed and breakfast.
Read More »
Here is the Cronkite News Service lineup for Friday, May 10. Please contact Steve Crane in the Washington, D.C., bureau at 202-684-2400 or steve.crane@asu.edu or Steve Elliott in the Phoenix bureau at 602-496-0686 or steve.elliott@asu.edu if you have questions.
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By MARY SHINN
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – Drones numbering in the tens of thousands will be in the skies by 2030, the Federal Aviation Administration predicts. But where some may fear precision weapons or flying spy cameras, Steve Markofski sees flying tractors.
Markofski, a new business planner for Yamaha, hopes to repeat the success here that the company has had in Japan with RMAX, an unmanned aerial vehicle that sprays fertilizer and herbicides over farms there.
“In Japan, the RMAX has more in common with a tractor than it does with a helicopter,” said Markofski, of the remote-controlled helicopter that has been used in that country for two decades.
Agriculture is expected to be one of the biggest potential markets for drones in the U.S., as the FAA develops regulations to open the skies by 2015 and commercial uses grow for unmanned aerial vehicles – UAVs, or drones. Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Drone School,990
- Sidebar: UAV university looks to move drone school online.
- File photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
- Editor’s note: Second in a three-part series, with BC-CNS-Private Skies and BC-CNS-Flying Tractors.
Eds: A previous version of this story included incorrect credit for one of the accompanying pictures. The photo by Charles Weisel should have been credited to Charles Weisel/Tagline Media Group. The story below has been updated to reflect the correction.
By MARY SHINN
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – Stephen Rayleigh and Matt Lyon thought they were done with careers in drones after they left the Army in 2010 and enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott.
Until they met Professor Ray Bedard.
Rayleigh wanted to start a club that would build and fly drones; Bedard had wanted for years to launch drone classes. The club became a class in 2011, with the help of Lyon and Rayleigh’s expertise, and the class grew into a full-fledged drone minor that attracted 28 students when it launched at the school in August.
The minor aims to prepare students to build and fly unmanned aerial vehicles – UAVs, or drones – for a commercial market that doesn’t yet exist.
That has not stopped colleges from jumping in to the field to produce workers for an industry that many believe is poised to boom. Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Borders-Niagara Falls,2850
- Sidebar: About this project.
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By MASTER TESFASTION
Cronkite Borderlands Initiative
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. – Mayor Paul Dyster still remembers the headline.
The 59-year-old Niagara Falls native was a sophomore in high school when a classmate in his gym class read from a front-page article in the cross-border Niagara Falls, Ontario, newspaper: “Niagara Falls, Ontario sets forth to make tourism number one industry.”
“They made some strategic decision,” said Dyster. “We thought that was funny.”
Niagara Falls, Ontario, has the last laugh for now.
Separated by Niagara River and sharing the natural wonder of the falls, the two cities have had their fair share of highs and lows.
Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Borders-Drugs,3250
- Sidebar: About this project.
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By DAVID ROBLES
Cronkite Borderlands Initiative
NOGALES, Ariz. – Corporal Sergio Lopez sometimes gets the feeling that the mission entrusted to him is an impossible one.
He pauses before he says it and the corners of his mouth curl into a frown under his dark moustache. The 14-year veteran of the Santa Cruz County, Ariz. Sheriff’s Department knows the drugs will just keep coming, no matter how hard he works.
In 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 1.1 million pounds of narcotics in the state of Arizona. According to a CBP Fact Sheet, Arizona seizures account for half of all drugs seized in the United States. The same goes for apprehensions of people attempting to illegally immigrate.
Gravel crunches under his car’s tires as Lopez pulls off the main road and onto a winding dirt path. Lopez is making his regular rounds near the Arizona border city of Nogales, a major port of entry for everything from produce to tourists to kilos of marijuana. On a typical shift Lopez is one of three to six sheriff’s deputies patrolling the 53-mile border Santa Cruz County shares with Mexican state of Sonora. But the deputies are not alone; they rub elbows with dozens of law enforcement colleagues from various agencies: Nogales city police officers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the nearly 1,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents that serve in Santa Cruz County.
It is not enough to stanch the flow of drugs and immigrants.
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By AJ VICENS
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – In the run-up to last year’s general election, several political action groups worked to get residents of low-income and high-minority neighborhoods on Maricopa County’s permanent early voting list.
As Nov. 6 approached, those groups had thousands of volunteers knocking on doors to encourage people to mail back those ballots and, if voters couldn’t for any reason, offering to deliver ballots to the county.
“We’re in this to really be able to give a community a voice,” said Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona, a Latino rights group that mobilized one of the larger ballot-collection efforts. “Voting is the very first step to doing that.”
Read More »
By AJ VICENS
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – Maricopa County officials say that about 20,000 registered voters would be removed from the permanent early voting list under proposed legislation aimed at reducing the number of provisional ballots.
No particular demographic group would be hit harder than another, according to an analysis by the Maricopa County Elections Department.
Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale, developed SB 1261 with input from county election officials. As approved by the Senate, it would remove people from permanent early voting lists if they fail to vote in four consecutive federal elections and fail to respond to notice from the county elections office.
“No other other state that I found who has a permanent early voting list has no ability to clean up their list,” Reagan said.
Read More »
- Slug:BC-CNS-Private Skies,1040
- Sidebar: FAA regulation framework
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
- Editor’s note: First of three in a series, with BC-CNS-Drone School and BC-CNS-Flying Tractors.
Eds: A previous version of this story included incorrect credit for the accompanying pictures. The photos by Charles Weisel should have been credited to Charles Weisel/Tagline Media Group. The story below has been updated to reflect the correction.
By MARY SHINN
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – After the high-profile shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010, Scott Rollefstad felt he had to do something to help keep other agents safe.
So the Tucson resident headed to his garage and, after several months of tinkering, emerged with a backpack-sized surveillance drone. While Border Patrol already has military-scale drones on the border, Rollefstad said his 6-by-18-inch prototype can launch in minutes and be used for close-in surveillance, giving agents another set of eyes in the sky.
“There’s just no need for this type of blind, bumbling around in the bush, in our desert,” he said of agents on the ground.
Rollefstad hopes to some day sell his drone to police agencies and others to help save lives. But he also knows that not everyone sees drones the way he does.
“The minute someone hears ‘drones,’ they think of the Afghan killing machines,” he said.
That perception of drones as flying spy cameras and killing machines has raised concerns of privacy advocates, led to a flood of state and federal legislation and started the process of regulation by the Federal Aviation Administration. Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Field Dreams,820
- Sidebar: Details of H-2A, new visa programs
- File photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
Eds: A previous version of this story misspelled the names of two people quoted. Adrienne DerVartanian is a director of immigration and labor rights for Farmworker Justice and Kristi Boswell is a director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau. The story below has been updated to reflect the correction.
By MICHELLE PEIRANO
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – Francisco Duarte stood in the Arizona sun with little shade or water for hours, waiting to go pick lemons. But he never complained.
That’s because the guest worker from San Luis, Mexico, was afraid that if he did he would be replaced by an undocumented worker willing to work longer hours for lower pay, said Adrienne DerVartanian.
DerVartanian, the director of immigration and labor rights for Farmworker Justice, said Duarte is among the hundreds of thousands of farm workers silenced by a “fundamentally flawed” H-2A visa program that pits U.S. citizens, guest workers and undocumented laborers against one another.
“They will work the limits of human endurance in order to please their employer and keep their jobs,” she said.
It is one reason that advocates are pinning their hopes on the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, which would do away with H-2A in favor of more flexible farmworker visas and a path to citizenship for farmworkers who have been here illegally. Read More »
By SEAN PEICK
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – Mary Shannon suffered her first concussion during North High School soccer tryouts in 2011, colliding with the goalie and hitting her head on the ground.
Under a state law signed earlier that year, she had to receive written medical clearance to return to the field. That took a month.
After a collision with an opposing player left her with a second concussion earlier this year, Shannon decided that was enough. Having learned about the dangers of concussions and with encouragement from her parents, she quit, deciding to limit her involvement to refereeing and helping the team in other ways.
“Yes it’s a big part of my life, and yes, I love it, but I can still participate in it without having to put myself in the danger of getting another concussion or some other injury,” she said.
In Arizona, about 7,000 high school athletes suffer concussions each year, according to research by A.T. Still University in Mesa. While football justifiably gets most of the attention, concussions are a threat in any high school sport.
Read More »
By SEAN PEICK
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – Whether it’s an athlete from Campo Verde High School or one of its opponents, all students suspected of sustaining a concussion playing sports at the Gilbert high school are referred to David Mesman, Campo Verde’s athletic trainer.
“We’re here to take care of patients, we’re not here for win-losses,” he said.
Mesman said that schools without an athletic trainer face disadvantages when athletes may have suffered concussions, including not being able to effectively use the ImPACT test to return athletes to play.
“Without a health care provider knowing and understanding those tools, they wouldn’t be able to implement them to the best of their abilities,” he said.
Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Borders-Farmers,3500
- Sidebar: About this project.
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By MOLLY J SMITH
Cronkite Borderlands Initiative
There is no fruit on the trees in New York in March but Jim Bittner is busy making phone calls and talking to buyers for the upcoming growing season. When he walks outside, the cool air from Lake Ontario bites at his cheeks. If the sky is clear, he might be able to see Toronto, Canada, from one of his apple orchards.
More than 2,200 miles away, rancher Dennis Moroney steps onto his porch and into the dry heat of southern Arizona. The 160 cattle he tends are in the mountains for the winter, waiting until the first green mesquite beans appear in the flat land. As he points out the boundaries of his property, “from the peak of that mountain, over the ridge, to that slope,” he can also point to a long black line dividing the landscape in the distance. It’s a small section the border fence between the United States and Mexico.
Bittner and Moroney each owns land that comes within a few miles of a U.S. border. Bittner’s 400 acres of fruit orchards outside of Appleton, N.Y., include several lots that touch Lake Ontario, which serves as a small portion of the nearly 4,000-mile border that the United States shares with Canada. The border with Mexico is only 20 miles away from Moroney’s ranch just outside of Bisbee, Ariz. Although his 34,000 acre ranch does not touch the border, it is visible from his property and he has had frequent contact with Border Patrol agents as well as unauthorized immigrants who cross over from Mexico.
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- Slug: BC-CNS-ELL Duel,1110
- File photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By CONNOR RADNOVICH
Cronkite News Service
WASHINGTON – Vince Yanez understands what the Arizona Board of Education could be getting in to this year when it begins a “systematic review” of the state’s English Language Learner program.
“Since the models had been created, there have been very strong opinions on both sides,” said Yanez, the board’s executive director.
“The models” he is referring to are Structured English Immersion, a state-mandated program that puts non-English-speaking students into English class for four hours a day.
“The opinions” include supporters who say the program quickly moves students into mainstream classes and critics who say it does not. The critics say that segregating children into language-only classes denies those students hours of class time in other subjects every day.
Both sides appear to agree on one thing: The other side already made up its mind on a program that affects about 70,000 schoolchildren, and is ignoring evidence it finds inconvenient. Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Airport Eateries,740
- Sidebars: Local restaurants, coming soon.
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
- Audio slideshow in Vimeo
By LAUREN SARIA
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – Travelers accustomed to chain eateries now have a chance to experience local offerings such as Cowboy Ciao, La Grande Orange and Barrio Cafe at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
The new options at Terminal Four, each a second location of a well-known Valley restaurant, are part of an initiative to bring more local flavor to one of the nation’s busiest airports.
“Airports have been moving in this direction, but we really took it a step further, ” said Paula Kucharz, the airport’s business development manager.
Read More »
- Slug: BC-CNS-Games-Rehabilitation,750
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By JESSICA BOEHM
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – Stephen Yates lost movement in his left side after suffering a stroke about a month ago. Now improving his strength at the Banner Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Center, he’s climbing stairs, using exercise equipment – and playing video games.
The latter may evoke images of sitting around and staring at a TV, but that’s anything but the case here. A few times a week Yates, 63, bowls through Xbox Kinect, a gaming system that doesn’t require a controller and allows him to use his whole body.
The goal is helping Yates improve manual dexterity on the left side. Although he bowls with his right arm, he said the game improves his balance.
Read More »
NOTE: Clients who used the story slugged BC-CNS-Inspector Turnover, which moved April 29 under a WASHINGTON dateline, are asked to use the following correction. An updated version of the story is posted on this site.
WASHINGTON – An April 29 story on state safety inspectors incorrectly limited the situations that would merit a workplace inspection. The Arizona Department of Occupational Safety and Health will conduct inspections for: imminent danger, a fatality/catastrophe, a complaint, referrals, program-planned inspections, follow-up, and for industries at high risk.
- Slug: BC-CNS-Health Exchange,600
- Sidebar: Affordable Care Act changes.
- Photos available (thumbnails, captions below)
By KIRSTEN ADAMS
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX – With the health insurance marketplace created by the federal Affordable Care Act set to open in October, advocates are out to make sure that the message reaches Arizonans who are older or Spanish-speaking.
“That’s the population that’s the most vulnerable,” said U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson. “It’s an opportunity to get health care not on a hit-and-miss basis, but on a consistent basis.”
Grijalva, who has held several town halls on health care reform, said this kind of outreach is important for groups that are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured and to have difficulty navigating the process.
“It’s not enough to put a radio advertisement in, and doing it over the Web is not going to reach this population,” he said.
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