Delegate to Congress Donna M. Christian-Christensen said she is actively recruiting Virgin Islands students to fill two designated positions for the New York-based U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Program.
The academy offers a four-year undergraduate program which leads to a bachelor of science degree, a U.S. Coast Guard license as a third mate or third assistant engineer, and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Up to 10 students can be nominated by the Delegate to Congress for each position annually.
"This is an excellent opportunity for our students to learn how to navigate the waters that we so often take for granted here in the Virgin Islands," Christensen said. "I encourage our young people to take advantage of opportunities such as this to explore the beautiful gift we have right here."
Students interested in the program should be at least age 17 and should contact Elena Shaubah in the St. Croix Congressional Office at 778-5900 for more information.

Innovative Communication Corp., the parent of a host of telecommunications companies in the territory, announced the layoffs Thursday of 18 people from four of its companies.
ICC officials attributed the layoffs to the "drastic downturn" in the Virgin Islands economy and a year-long "consolidation process." The "profitability and financial soundness" of ICC were the priority in the decision to ax the employees, as was stabilizing rates for customers of its subsidiaries, according to Tom Minnich, ICC chief operating officer.
The company owns the V.I. Telephone Corp., VitelCellular, Vitelcom, the Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas-St. John Cable TV, St. Croix Cable TV, ICC-TV and VI PowerNet. ICC employs approximately 660 people. The chairman of the $400-million ICC empire is St. Croix businessman Jeffrey Prosser.
Those laid off held management positions — 12 with Vitelco, four with VitelCellular and one each with Vitelcom and the cable operations, according to Holland Redfield, ICC vice president for corporate affairs.
The layoffs won’t affect Vitelco’s Industrial Development Commission tax breaks, which are contingent on the company maintaining a specific number of workers, Minnich said. The phone company was granted the tax benefits in a controversial move made during former Gov. Roy Schneider’s administration three years ago. They exempt Vitelco from all property, gross receipts and excise taxes, and from 90 percent of income taxes.
"We will maintain the level of employment that is required" under the IDC program, Minnich said in a press release. He said Vitelco’s contract with its unionized workers was unaffected by the layoffs.
In response to the layoffs, Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg, a staunch critic of Vitelco’s IDC benefits, accused ICC of importing people to fill management positions at the phone company at the same time it is firing locals.
The layoffs prompted Donastorg to again call for a Public Service Commission-led rate investigation of Vitelco, a move ICC and phone company officials have repeatedly fought. Donastorg said that since a rate inquiry hasn’t been conducted for several years, ICC’s claim that the layoffs were done to stabilize rates is unfounded. Basically, he said, the government doesn’t know exactly what Vitelco’s rate of return is and therefore the company "continues to operate as it wishes."
He also noted that the layoffs came two days after Prosser’s V.I. Community Bank — which is owned outright by Prosser, not by ICC — declined to accept the conditions imposed by the V.I. Banking Board in granting approval of VICB's bid to acquire the local assets of Chase Manhattan Bank.
"I would hate to think this is a spiteful gesture . . . because ICC didn’t get what it wanted from the Banking Board," Donastorg said.
Redfield said ICC offered an early retirement program to help trim expenses but the effort didn’t meet the company's financial goals. ICC has an annual payroll of more than $40 million. The laid-off workers will receive a "separation package" and assistance in employment placement outside ICC through the Labor Department.
Prosser, Minnich and ICC spokesman Edwin Crouch could not be reached for comment. A receptionist at ICC headquarters on St. Croix said all three were off island Thursday.

The shooting death of 18-year-old Jason Carroll on Tuesday afternoon has brought strong statements from community leaders.
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, Delegate Donna Christian-Christensen, St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce president John deJongh Jr. and Attorney General Iver Stridiron promptly responded with condolences to the family of Carroll, who was fatally shot on Main Street in downtown Charlotte Amalie.
Carroll's parents are first Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll and his wife, Celia.
On Wednesday, Turnbull issued a statement saying "It is heartbreaking enough to suffer the loss of a loved one, but when the circumstances are such as these, when a fine young man facing a bright future is suddenly taken away in such a violent manner, it sends shock waves through the entire community."
The governor pledged that "this deplorable and senseless act of violence will not go unpunished," and he reminded the public that those providing information to police in connection with the investigation of a crime are assured confidentiality.
Christian-Christensen, who is a member of the House Juvenile Justice/Crime Prevention Task Force in Congress, expressed grave concern over the killing and other violent acts of recent weeks. She noted that just last month, she began working with the University of the Virgin Islands and Central State University in Ohio to bring a community-based anti-violence program to the territory.
"At this point, second to our economic woes," she said, violent crime "is the most important issue facing us — and threatens every other step forward we might be able to make."
The St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce called for unified community action to fight the continuing escalation of violent crimes in the territory, describing the matter as a community issue, not a tourism issue.
"We need to support and enhance law enforcement's effort to combat this epidemic of violence," deJongh said. "There is no need for more legislation or laws. Our territorial and federal laws are more than sufficient in punishing crime. In fact, unlike the states, which rely on federal laws in many instances to deal with violent crimes, our territorial laws are generally more severe than federal laws in dealing with criminals."
Stridiron, in his message of condolences, said the victim's father, "Jim Carroll, is not only a colleague in law enforcement, but a personal friend." He said the entire V.I. Justice Department "shares the grief of our friend and his family."
"It appears that we have young persons in this community who have little regard for themselves and no regard for the lives of others," Stridiron said. "This, unfortunately, is a situation which is not unlike a war."

Dear Source,
There is no such thing as "senseless shooting" or "senseless violence." Except for domestic violence whose reasons are so personal and obscure as to seem senseless to non-participants, all violence and shootings involve money from illegal activities and witness intimidation.
Such violence has diminished across America where prostitution, drug sales and other activities that are the causes of territorial battles for control of segments of the public spaces have been forced off the street.
Instead, in the Virgin Islands, we see officials in flagrant malfeasance of local and immigration law. We all see an increasing flaunting of such activity in many well-known areas.
It may be senseless to criminalize by legislation behavior we are prepared to accept in reality. The fact of criminalization creates high profits worth the while of some to shoot and kill.
Where stands the Legislature? The administration? The police? The churches? The Chamber of Commerce?
We must either enforce the law and clean the streets of prostitution and illegal drugs, or decriminalize these public activities. It is we collectively acting senselessly and these contradictions that stain our streets in blood.
Michael Paiewonsky
St. Thomas

The St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce has joined Sen. V. Anne Golden in strongly criticizing the V.I. Banking Board for placing conditions on its approval of V.I. Community Bank's acquisition of Chase Manhattan Bank's local assets.
In a release from the chamber, John P. deJongh Jr., chamber president, said, "The government is overstepping its bounds in dictating the composition of a board of directors of a private entity, irrespective of whether the granting of tax benefits are involved."
The banking board has stipulated as a condition of its approval government authorization of 30 percent of VICB’s directors. The regulatory board also imposed a $300,000 annual banking fee, which deJongh said amounted to "double taxation."
"Government agencies and commissioners must not continue to stifle private sector expansion and investment in our weak economy," deJongh said. "Decisions such as this directly contradict Governor Turnbull's recent remarks [about his intention]to foster and expand investment in the Virgin Islands economy."
In addition to serving as chamber president, deJongh chaired the Economic Recovery Task Force appointed by the governor to come up with a plan to deal with the territory's fiscal crisis. He was one of the primary architects of the five-year plan it submitted to the governor a month ago. The plan relies largely on developing the private sector in order to bail out the sinking Virgin Islands economy.
The chamber release called on the V.I. Banking Board to rescind its conditions on the annual fee and board composition.
For details on the conditions of the VIBB approval click here.

The construction of the Enighed Pond marine cargo facility on St. John could be delayed for years if the Port Authority and the Turnbull administration don’t agree on how to pay for the $16 million project.
Port Authority executive director Gordon Finch told VIPA board members Wednesday that the authority was ready to put up its half of the funding for the project. But he said he was recently told by administration officials that the government’s half would be a loan to VIPA, not a grant.
That news, Finch said, left him "exasperated" because he said he had been told by the administration that it was planning to use proceeds from the pending sale of the Water and Power Authority to fund its share of the project. The idea of a loan was never discussed, he said.
Finch implored board members not to go ahead with the project if the administration limits its contribution to a loan.
If the board chooses not to move ahead, he said, the project, which has been under discussion for years, will be delayed indefinitely.
"I’m asking the board, please don’t do it," he said. "The project will be delayed. Yes, we will do it ourselves — but when we have the financing… "It’s going to be a significant period of time, and I’m talking years."
However, Public Works Commissioner Harold Thompson Jr., who sits on the VIPA board, said he expected to use Federal Highway Administration funding to pay for the project. He suggested that the funding from the proposed WAPA sale was a back-up plan.
Thompson said the government receives $12 million a year in federal transportation money and is planning to use $4 million of it this fiscal year and $4 million more later for the project.
"As long as I’m commissioner of Public Works, I’ll do my level best to get the project funded," Thompson said. "The federal highway program is the best chance to move forward."
Meanwhile, the uncertainty of where the government funding would come from and what the terms would be spurred Finch to recommend to the board that it draft a letter to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull stating why a loan would be untenable. VIPA also wants assurances that federal funding is available to pay for the project before work begins.

The construction of the Enighed Pond marine cargo facility on St. John could be delayed for years if the Port Authority and the Turnbull administration don’t agree on how to pay for the $16 million project.
Port Authority executive director Gordon Finch told VIPA board members Wednesday that the authority was ready to put up its half of the funding for the project. But he said he was recently told by administration officials that the government’s half would be a loan to VIPA, not a grant.
That news, Finch said, left him "exasperated" because he said he had been told by the administration that it was planning to use proceeds from the pending sale of the Water and Power Authority to fund its share of the project. The idea of a loan was never discussed, he said.
Finch implored board members not to go ahead with the project if the administration limits its contribution to a loan.
If the board chooses not to move ahead, he said, the project, which has been under discussion for years, will be delayed indefinitely.
"I’m asking the board, please don’t do it," he said. "The project will be delayed. Yes, we will do it ourselves — but when we have the financing… "It’s going to be a significant period of time, and I’m talking years."
However, Public Works Commissioner Harold Thompson Jr., who sits on the VIPA board, said he expected to use Federal Highway Administration funding to pay for the project. He suggested that the funding from the proposed WAPA sale was a back-up plan.
Thompson said the government receives $12 million a year in federal transportation money and is planning to use $4 million of it this fiscal year and $4 million more later for the project.
"As long as I’m commissioner of Public Works, I’ll do my level best to get the project funded," Thompson said. "The federal highway program is the best chance to move forward."
Meanwhile, the uncertainty of where the government funding would come from and what the terms would be spurred Finch to recommend to the board that it draft a letter to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull stating why a loan would be untenable. VIPA also wants assurances that federal funding is available to pay for the project before work begins.

Deshaune Harrigan, the 24-year-old man police have accused of fatally shooting Jason Carroll on Main Street Tuesday afternoon, remained jailed Thursday in lieu of $350,000 bail.
New details emerged from an advice-of-rights hearing in Territorial Court Thursday morning.
Detective Delbert Phipps of the Police Department Major Crime Task Force testified that several witnesses have told investigators they saw Harrigan and Carroll involved in a struggle before three shots rang out Tuesday afternoon near the Main Street end of Drake's Passage.
Phipps said Carroll died at the scene from two gunshot wounds, one to the chest and another to the right arm. The medical examiner, Dr. Francisco Landron, who performed the autopsy Wednesday, said Carroll died from massive internal bleeding resulting from the bullet wound to the chest.
"He had a lot of internal hemorrhaging," Landron said. The gunshot wound to the left side of the chest was perhaps the fatal injury, he added.
Phipps presented a chronology of the events surrounding the death of Carroll, the 18-year-old son of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll.
"At the scene, witnesses told police Harrigan ran through Drake's Passage to the waterfront after the shooting," Phipps testified, and he "discarded the murder weapon, a .40 caliber handgun, in the bushes as he fled toward Vendors Plaza."
At the plaza, Phipps said, a police officer encountered Harrigan with blood on his hand, clothes and face. Phipps said that statements by both witnesses and Harrigan led police to believe that Carroll and a friend of Harrigan were involved in a struggle which escalated and led to Harrigan getting involved.
The fight between Harrigan and Carroll intensified and led to the shooting, Phipps said. "Witnesses that came forward identified the defendant, Harrigan, in a photo array," Phipps, a 13-year veteran investigator, told the court and the audience, which included Harrigan's grandparents and another family member.
Phipps said police obtained the murder weapon from a witness who saw Harrigan drop a brown paper bag in the bushes, retrieved it and handed it over to an officer. The blood-soaked bag contained the black framed handgun, the officer said.
Harrigan was detained on Tuesday, questioned and released.
On Wednesday Harrigan was again apprehended and questioned by Homicide Task Force members, along with the friend who had been with him in Drake's Passage on Tuesday. It was then that Harrigan is alleged to have admitted to police that he was involved in both the struggle and the shooting of Jason Carroll. "He told us that he and the victim had a fight, shots rang out and suddenly a gun appeared in his hands," Phipps told the court.
Under questioning by prosecutor Guy H. Mitchell, Phipps said what Harrigan said on Tuesday differed from what he said on Wednesday. Phipps said Harrigan admitted the shooting on "the second day of questioning." Harrigan was arrested on second-degree murder charges Wednesday around 9 p.m. after a lengthy interrogation by police. He was also charged with illegal weapons possession.
Mitchell suggested that an additional charge of possessing an unlicenced firearm with an obliterated serial number may be added.
Phipps, who has been assigned to the Homicide Task Force for the last six years, also testified that Harrigan's friend who reportedly was involved in the initial scuffle with Carroll fled west on Main Street after the shooting, making his getaway through an alley near Coconuts Bar. Phipps said police have no other suspects in the murder at the present time.
Territorial Court Judge Ishmael Meyers rejected a suggestion by attorney Clive Rivers, representing Harrigan, that the government had not proven probable cause to arrest Harrigan. "A lot of persons were running away from the scene when the shots were fired," Rivers said. "I do not believe the government has brought forward enough evidence to detain this young man."
Rivers sat in at the advice-of-rights hearing for public defender Jesse Bethel, who cited a conflict in representing Harrigan at his initial court appearance.
Mitchell asked that bail be set at $1 million, terming Harrigan a threat to the community and a flight risk. "Anyone who would openly fire a gun into a crowd on Main Street is a danger to this community," he said.
In addition, Mitchell cited testimony by Phipps that when officers went to Hospital Ground on Wednesday to bring both Harrigan and his friend in for questioning, the suspect attempted to run from his home through a back door. "This I would say is a flight risk," Mitchell told Meyers.
Meyers set bail after telling the defendant that the court found probable cause to charge him with murder and weapons possession.
Harrigan, a native of St. Thomas who attended high school in New York, reportedly returned from Long Island after being offered a job with Virgin Islands Fire Services. Attorney John Zebedee will represent him on June 8 at his arraignment, the proceeding in which Harrigan will enter his plea to the charges against him.

As she prepares for a new chapter in her life, St. John businesswoman Aase Pedersen sheds a tear for the life she is leaving behind.
"I haven't dealt with leaving St. John yet — I've been so busy packing," she says.
After 22 years of life in the place she describes as her tropical dreamland, Pedersen is about to return to her native Norway. "This was my plan," she says. "I'm turning 60 this year. I have a wonderful family and I come from a town that's a lot like St. John — about 5,000 people, seaside town, resort area. And everyone came from there, my mother, my father, grandparents."
On Monday, May 22, she officially resigned her position as co-president of the St. John Action Committee, one of two civic organizations she helped to establish on the island.
Three weeks earlier, she had closed on the sale of Wicker, Wood and Shells, her shop and art gallery in the Mongoose Junction shopping center.
Pedersen has always been ready to light up a cigarette and share some neighborly chat. In the midst of her preparations to depart, it's still so. She recalls that she first came to St. John in 1978 as a lark, visiting with friends on St. Thomas who had told her about the island.
As they were driving near the Red Hook dock one day, they spotted a ferry boat — and hopped aboard. St. John made quite a first impression on her: "I saw it and fell in love and wanted to live here, and that was it," she says. "I went home to New York and gave up my rent- controlled apartment."
She remembers finding her new home filled with open-hearted local St. Johnians and a small community of free-wheeling continentals. Her first challenge was to carve out a way to make a living. She found it in a souvenir shop whose original owners, National Park Service workers who were being transferred, had put it up for sale.
In addition to showcasing the creativity of others, "I really felt the shop gave me the ability to be creative as well," she says. While she didn't make any of the items sold in the store, she did make the decisions on what to sell so that it had more variety.
She soon joined the Lioness Club — in the days when Lions were all of the male variety — and there she made some lasting friendships among the St. Johnians. A self-professed love for the local people and a spirit of volunteerism led her to help found the St. John Community Foundation and later the St. John Action Committee with the help of architect Glen Speer and businessman Elvis Yearwood.
"I'm very proud of what we did," she says. "We stepped in just after [Hurricane] Marilyn, when things were in disarray and a lot of people felt hopeless."
Now, she reflects, the island is more prosperous than ever, and the action committee is taking a hiatus from its activities — while remaining an organization with a solid reputation among the island's residents and businesses.
Having come from a small town where generations of families had endured, Pedersen says she immediately felt a special affinity for Virgin Islanders. And she's saddened by the impact of the population boom that's taken place since 1989. As the outside world discovered St. John, new arrivals started to treat the island as a business opportunity instead of their new home, she says.
"It's not easy to be a St. Johnian today," she reflects. "I think the influx of people from other places since [Hurricane] Hugo has been overwhelmingly massive. It would have been hard for any community to assimilate it." As a result, she says, native St. Johnians have lost some of their warmth toward strangers.
In spite of the changes, Pedersen says, she is still in love with her adopted island. She cherishes the New Year's mornings when at 8 a.m. she shared a toast with members of the Wesselhoft family at their home on the hill overlooking Cruz Bay.
On Wednesday, a group of Pedersen's childhood schoolmates arrived on island for a visit. When they return to Norway on June 2, she will go with them. Since they're all turning 60 this year, she says, it's part of one big birthday celebration. That's the plan.
She feels good about having turned her shop over to new owners who know the business and the island, but the sight of Gladys Gifford, her long-time assistant, still makes her cry as thoughts of her imminent departure overwhelm her. But she quickly brightens, saying she's looking forward to sharing life with her 10 nieces and nephews and returning to the 280-year-old, recently restored home where she grew up.

Major Crime Task Force detectives charged Deshawn Harrigan, 24, of Hospital Ground, late Wednesday night with second-degree murder and illegal possession of a weapon in connection with the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Jason Carroll in downtown Charlotte Amalie Tuesday afternoon.
Harrigan's arrest came after hours of intense interrogation Wednesday afternoon and evening, a police source said.
During the hours of questioning, Harrigan reportedly told police that a friend of his and Carroll became involved in a dispute near the Main Street end of Drake's Passage. Harrigan allegedly got involved after Carroll wrestled Harrigan's friend to the ground. A fight that ensued between Harrigan and Carroll intensified to the point where a weapon was brandished and shots were fired, police sources said.
Shot in the chest and left arm, Carroll staggered across Main Street in full view of dozens of tourists and residents on the street, collapsed in front of Princess Jewelers and died a few minutes later. Witnesses said two individuals ran from Drake's Passage and fled the scene.
The murder weapon was recovered, a police source said Wednesday.
Police investigators reportedly also questioned the friend who had been with Harrigan, but since he was not involved in the final struggle in which the shots were fired, he was not charged.
Harrigan was escorted from the Investigation Bureau in Nisky Center around 10 p.m. Wednesday to be booked at Zone A Command in the Criminal Justice Complex. Details on bail were not available. It was expected that an advice-of-rights hearing would be held on Thursday morning.
WVWI/Radio One quoted unnamed sources as saying the fatal shooting was a difficult case to bring to closure with an arrest. "We spent hours up and down the block around Drake's Passage canvassing persons who may have seen the altercation — and came up empty. Persons are just not coming forward," one officer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Police worked through Tuesday night and all day Wednesday evaluating evidence and information acquired in efforts to identify the assailant. Carroll, who had just completed his first year of study at the University of the Virgin Islands, was the son of Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carroll.