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Four days until we leave for New York City.

Stater reporters Beth Rankin, Pat Jarrett and I will travel to the Big Apple later this week to cover the Republican National Convention. Rather than report it from the inside, as literally hundreds of other news outlets will, we will be out on the streets with Kent Student Anti-Racist Action. This campus group will join hundreds of thousands of other protesters. Some estimate as many as a million demonstrators will march through New York City in the coming week.

I read a report in Rolling Stone about the planned protests. A group called RNC Not Welcome "hopes to make the Republicans’ lives hell for as long as they’re in New York." Members from that group will hound delegates wherever they go.

Some fun stats:

- 35,000 city police officers on the streets with help from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security
- 2,509 delegates and 2,344 alternate delegates
- 15,000 members of the media
(Sources: Rolling Stone, Republican National Convention site)

I'll post some more background information later. Checkout the Rolling Stone story and the convention's Web site .