British TV Writer Opens Center for Students with Dyslexia

Nigel McCrery remembers difficult times as a student with dyslexia.

by Alexander Britton -

?I?m sure there used to be gun turrets on the gate there,? Silent Witness screenwriter Nigel McCrery says, pointing at his old school gates.

A lot may have changed since Mr McCrery started at George Spencer School (now Academy) 47 years ago, but memories of his schooldays are still relatively fresh.

?There weren?t actually any turrets there,? he adds quickly, spotting his comments being noted down.

Mr McCrery?s career has seen him work with household names like Dennis Waterman, Amanda Redman and David Jason.

It all seems faraway from the school, where he opened a new center for pupils with dyslexia and other special educational needs yesterday.

The writer, who is dyslexic, said: ?They were difficult times, difficult and different ? there were some teachers who really had passion for their subject and I enjoyed learning what they had to teach, but the majority of it wasn?t fun.?

?In fact, I?m pretty sure I only got my job in the police because I was big and ugly and they wanted me to deal with rowdy people.?

?I left school destined not to do very much ? people with dyslexia weren?t treated very well and just left to finish and get on with their lives outside the school. I?m glad things are much much different now.?

The Nigel McCrery Learning and Inclusion Center cost 1.8 million USD. It has classrooms and meeting rooms for one-to-one tuition and discussions for children who need help and advice away from the school. The money came from the Department for Education.

Despite years away from Notts, Mr McCrery still has a soft spot for the area.

?It?s home. I can remember going to places like the Bell in Beeston and playing darts. Or going to town and having to walk back from Beeston because the buses had finished.

Read more at ?TV writer McCrery: You can?t let dyslexia hold you back.

[Via This is Nottingham]

Source: http://specialedpost.com/2013/03/17/british-tv-writer-opens-center-for-students-with-dyslexia/

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Swiss tourist gang raped in India

NEW DELHI, India ? The gang rape of a 39-year-old Swiss tourist while on a camping trip with her husband has further ratcheted up the spotlight on sexual violence in India.

The woman, who had been cycling with her husband in impoverished Madhya Pradesh state in central India, was attacked by at least seven men while the couple were camping for the night, police said Saturday. The assailants also robbed the couple of $180 and a cellphone.

The attack comes at a sensitive time for India. Not only does it involve a foreign visitor at a time of economic difficulty as the nation tries to expand its tourism trade. It also follows on the heels of a high-profile rape case in New Delhi involving a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who died after being sexually assaulted in mid-December on a bus.

One of the five men charged in the December attack hanged himself in his jail cell Monday. A sixth accused in the case will be tried in juvenile court.

The brutality of that case has sparked soul-searching, fear, outrage over politicians and apathetic police, India's creaky legal system and a social system that frequently treats women as second-class citizens. A United Nations report released last week ranks India 132 among 187 nations in gender equality, behind rival and neighbor Pakistan.

"We are deeply shocked by this tragic incident suffered by a Swiss citizen and her partner in India," the Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern said in a statement.

The ministry said it hoped the attackers would be "swiftly identified and would appear before a court to answer for their actions."

The couple were on their way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal when they stopped Friday night to set up a tent in a forested area, local news reports said. The trip reportedly involved cycling from Mumbai to New Delhi on a three-month tourist visa.

The attackers, who wielded sticks, also tied up and beat the woman's husband.

The woman was admitted to a hospital for medical tests, authorities said, and has since been released. Police inspector R.K.S. Gurjar said that no arrests had been made but 25 to 30 men had been detained for interrogation.

According to statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau, a woman is raped every 22 minutes in India, although charity groups say most incidents go unreported given police insensitivity and fears of being stigmatized in the sexually conservative nation.

In 1990, India's reported conviction rate in rape cases was 41%. That declined to 30% by 2000, even as the number of rape cases increased more than eight-fold between 1971 and 2011.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Tanvis Sharma in The Times' New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/nationworld/world/~3/kGvY7GWZNl0/la-fg-india-tourist-rape-20130317,0,5460222.story

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Airports face budget cuts, but wait times stay normal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on Monday cautioned airline passengers to get to the airport extra early because U.S. spending cuts have already led to long lines at some security checkpoints, and said the coming furloughs will only make the situation worse.

Napolitano said mandatory spending cuts ordered on Friday by President Barack Obama have led to the elimination of overtime for Transportation Security Administration officers and customs agents. She said TSA would begin sending out furlough notices to employees on Monday and Customs and Border Protection will send them out later this week.

Hiring freezes for both agencies have also prevented any open positions from being filled.

"We are already seeing the effects at some of the ports of entry - at the big airports, for example. Some of them had very long lines this weekend," Napolitano said at a "Politico Playbook" breakfast event.

She pointed to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as examples of those with long lines.

Napolitano said delays were between 150 percent and 200 percent at certain airports. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on Monday that the agency had begun reducing overtime over the weekend and effects were already visible.

"Lanes that would have previously been open due to overtime staffing were closed, further exacerbating wait times at airports with typically longer international arrival processes," the statement said, noting that additional effects were expected in the coming weeks as furloughs - which will go out on March 7 - take effect.

However, the TSA website did not show any major delays at any U.S. airport on Monday morning. Karen Pride, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation, said flight operations out of Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway airports were normal on Monday.

Passengers said that lines for security on outgoing flights, and customs control for incoming flights, were not any longer than usual.

"Going through customs was normal. For me it took five to ten minutes," said Claudia Hartono, arriving in Atlanta from Indonesia.

At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's main terminals, the wait was less than ten minutes. "It's the same as always," said Steve Brodie, 60, waiting to catch a flight to Florida.

Some lawmakers have accused Napolitano and other administration officials of fear-mongering and exaggerating the impact that would be seen from the deep spending reductions known as the "sequester" which cut a total of $85 billion from government agencies between March 1 and October 1.

But Napolitano said the problems were real.

"Look, people, I don't mean to scare, I mean to inform. If you're traveling, get to the airport earlier than you otherwise would," she said. "And please don't yell at the Customs officers or the TSA officers - they are not responsible for the sequester."

Napolitano did not give details on who at TSA would be furloughed and officials at the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for further explanation.

The Secret Service, which is also part of DHS, will see a five percent cut in spending but Napolitano said it would not impact security of the president.

The cuts at the agency will be on the investigative side which handles financial and identity theft, cyber crime and counterfeiting cases.

(This story has been corrected to say that a passenger, Claudia Hartono, arrived at Atlanta and not Chicago's O'Hare in 10th paragraph)

(Reporting by Deborah Charles; Additional reporting by James B. Kelleher in Chicago, David Beasley from Atlanta, and Atossa Araxia Abrahamian from New York; Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spending-cuts-already-cause-long-lines-airports-napolitano-163135159--business.html

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