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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Wall Street Protest Spreads to NY State Campuses and Beyond

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Thursday, October 6, 2011   

NEW YORK - Taking a cue from the Occupy Wall Street protest, students on Wednesday at the State University of New York at Albany descended on the school's administration building and confronted its president as campus demonstrations spread across the state and beyond.

It started, says James Searle, an organizer with New York Students Rising, as a one-day walkout over tuition hikes and related issues, which had been planned for about 20 state and city university campuses in New York. Then, walkouts and teach-ins started spreading to New England and beyond. They spread so quickly that organizers relied on social media to keep up.

"So, Connecticut, Boston, California, Texas, Maryland - it's growing. We're not sure yet. We're trying to follow all the hash tags on Twitter, but it just keeps growing."

The $31 million cut to the state's Tuition Assistance Program is a major issue responsible for sparking the protests in New York, Searle says. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has defended the phased tuition increase, saying it will hurt less than taking the increase all at once. However, Searle says, tuition is going up at the same time Cuomo allowed taxes on millionaires to go down - and students are angry the burden is shifting to them in what he says amounts to a "secret tax."

"The state receives these tuition dollars, and they don't stay within the SUNY system, so Cuomo's having his cake and eating it too. He's not having to raise taxes, while also secretly raising taxes on the state's youngest people with the least advantages."

A common thread links the campus walkouts and the Wall Street protest, Searle says: Anger over politicians protecting tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of vital programs such as a quality higher education.

"Many of the CUNY and SUNY students participated in Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street then picked it up, made a call, then organized labor got involved and a broad coalition - Occupy Colleges - popped up. Now it's gone viral."

Searle predicts that protests will extend into 2012.

You can track the protests on Twitter via these hash tags: #nywalkout, #NYSR, and #occupycolleges. A video of the protest from Searle is online at youtube.com/user/jsearle84.


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