Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
After being introduced by two little girls, Grammyand Oscar-winning star Jennifer Hudson performed Wednesday for thousands of cheering charter-school supporters in Brooklyn. Cadman Plaza was awash in red T-shirts bearing the slogan “I Fight to End Inequality,” and some participants waved red flags. The crowd listened to nearly two hours of speeches and hip-hop performances before Hudson’s brief set. Organizers, who led a march of parents and children across the Brooklyn Bridge to New York City Hall, say hundreds of thousands of city schoolchildren are trapped in low-performing schools, and they’re urging Mayor Bill de Blasio to support the growth of charter schools as an alternative. Speakers also accused de Blasio of blocking the expansion of the charter sector. “If Mayor de Blasio thinks he can destroy charter schools, he doesn’t know the law,” said Assemblyman Carmen Arroyo. The de Blasio administration, which has attempted to curb charters’ growth but has not tried to close schools, denied the allegations and touted its own education achievements, including the expansion of universal pre-K and the installation of reading support specialists for all second-graders.
Now that The Weather Channel has canceled his morning show, Al Roker is returning on a much smaller screen. He’s the headliner for The Lift, a digital offering that could have intriguing implications for television programs. It will begin Oct. 15, available on the network’s free mobile app on weekdays between 6 and 11 a.m. Each day’s program will include six minutes of weather news, science and nature stories, fun videos and eventually local forecasts tailored to the mobile device owner (development of the local forecast technology won’t be ready for the launch). The Lift comes a few weeks after The Weather Channel axed the twohour morning show, Wake Up with Al, that Roker had hosted. “Was I sad to see Wake Up with Al go?” Roker asked. “Absolutely. But it was a better opportunity to utilize my time. Two hours is two hours, and this is a considerably shorter show.” The Weather Channel cited research from eMarketer that 65 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. check their devices within 15 minutes of waking up.