1) Congreso de la Lengua Española con acento “americanista”

2) One of the last Kaweskars dies

3) Chile: Trade surplus at US$12 billion

Farmers in the Midwest have more than doubled their profits since 2005 by selling grains like corn and soybeans. In the country’s biofuel craze, Northeast farmers, who mainly raise livestock, ended up on the wrong side of the tipping scale.

Many farmers refuse to pass on the higher costs of animal feed and fuel to their customers. But if costs continue to rise, prices at New York City’s Greenmarkets will as well (watch video on the right). (more…)

Last year monks from the Dalai Lama monastery in India came to NYC as part of their Compassionate Mandala Tour to raise awareness of Tibetan culture. While in New York they created a mandala at St. John the Divine :

The monks also performed in a concert with Tenzin Choegyal.

We talked to a dance troop in Washington Heights, a singer who recently moved to Brooklyn from the Dominican Republic, a palos drummer from the Bronx, and a professor and club from Lehman College in the Bronx.

The article and the related video were posted both on the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus the school’s NYCity News Service.

The weekend before super Tuesday Daniel Macht and I talked to 6- to 7-year old girls about some of the main issues being debated in this election year.

Here’s the package we put together for the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus.

This is one of those stories. And as so many others, it’s an immigrants’ story.

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Ki Yong Sung, originally from South Korea, started painting over 50 years ago in his native land. Around that time the Korean and Vietnam wars ensued and he traveled both countries painting the portraits of American fighting soldiers.

“I went in the bunkers,” he says.

These days you can find him at his small portrait shop inside the Port Authority subway station. There he paints portraits of rabbis, brides, presidents, celebrities, and the regular folk. In less that a week Sung can duplicate on canvas the old and often destroyed photos that customers bring in.

Mayor Bloomberg and Rolex executives are pleased with this week’s Chinatown crackdown on counterfeits. But those who frequent Canal street vendors can still find fake handbags despite a block of shuttered shops.

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Sitting inside his corner news kiosk near Centre Street, the “newspaper man,” as he identified himself, said he doesn’t like how police closed down the entire block. He said it seems the vendors selling counterfeit goods could have been closed individually, rather than putting so many employees out of work.

“They lose their livelihood. The little guys always suffer,” he said.

The mayor’s Special Enforcement Unit, with police from Precinct 5, targeted building owners George and Carl Terranova. The city won a restraining order to barricade 32 vendor shops in their building, and began a lawsuit against the Terranova estate for building codes violations. The owners must demonstrate that any new tenants will sell legitimate goods before the stores can open again.

(more…)

12:35 | Arriving at the dog show: I positioned myself by the entrance of Ring 3 and saw the samoyeds being judged. Outside of the ring a small blond woman, with the #24 (Ch Mystic Oz’s Oslo) on her left arm, says to the guy next to me: “When they see this leopard print tell them to go crazy.” (more…)