The powerful and long-serving speaker of New York's state assembly was arrested by the FBI after turning himself in to authorities last week. Silver, who had been in the state Assembly representing Manhatta in 65th Assembly district since 1976, is also a practicing attorney and close political ally of New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio. Siver's income from the law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg had long been the subject of criticism. US Attorney Preet Bharara accused Silver of collecting more than $3 million in bribes and kickbacks that were disguised as referral fees.
In a criminal complaint, authorities said Silver abused his power and “obtained about $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position.”
The arrest sent shock waves through New York’s Capitol as a new legislative session began, and it came just a day after Silver shared the stage with Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his State of the State address.
As speaker of the Democrat-controlled Assembly, Silver is one of the most influential people in New York state government. Along with the Senate majority leader and the governor, he plays a major role in creating state budgets, laws and policies in a system long-criticized in Albany as “three men in a room.”
In July 2013, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced the formation of the Moreland Commission to examine New York's weak campaign finance laws and investigate any wrongdoing or suspicious activities among state lawmakers. A few short months after the Commission released their preliminary findings, Cuomo abruptly announced that he was shutting down the Moreland Commission. Some observers believe that any further investigating by the Moreland Commission would've brought to light incriminating information against Cuomo's donors or political allies.
Although Cuomo shut down the Moreland Commission less than halfway into its stated 18-month lifespan, the US Attorney's office was requesting documents from them back in May 2014.
Winter storm warnings and travel advisories are in effect for much of the Northeast from West Virginia to Maine and Canadian Maritime Provinces as a massive winter storm[named Juno- how long have they been naming winter storms? Seems like a recent phenomenon- NANESB!] bears down on the region.
While cities like New York and Boston could get as much as 2 feet from winter storm Juno, outlying and mountainous areas could be getting as much as three feet overnight. Airlines and commuter agencies are suspending service ahead of Juno's arrival while state, municipal and county officials are prepping sand and salt trucks to deal with the snowfall.
The governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut have issued travel bans for their respective highways that will go into effect on Monday night. In Boston, Logan airport, the MBTA and state offices will be closed on Tuesday. Newly sworn-in governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts also cautioned that some areas could expect power outages because of the wet heavy snow.
Airports from New England to Washington DC cancelled more than 5000 flights on Monday, with most of the cancellations around the New York-area airports like Newark-Liberty, La Guardia and JFK. Amtrak announced there were no cancellations as of Monday, but would be re-evaluating throughout the day and running a modified schedule starting Tuesday.
Monday night is a pretty light sports schedule with no games scheduled in the NHL the night after the All-Star game in Columbus, OH on Sunday. There are 7 games scheduled in the NBA tonight, but two of them in New York- Portland vs Brooklyn and Sacramento vs the Knicks- have been postponed.
The shirt joins a specially made coin awarded to a CIA operative after the mission and a brick from Bin Laden's compound that go on display at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum this week. The coin was struck after the successful completion of the Abbotabad raid and was reportedly issued to the participating SEALs and an agent known as Maya, who was the basis of the main character portrayed in the 2012 movie Zero Dark Thirty.
"The death of Osama bin Laden is a huge part of the history, and we have an absolute obligation to tell it," National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum President Joe Daniels said Saturday. The display, he said, "allows millions of visitors the chance to recognize the extraordinary bravery of the men and women who sacrifice so much for this country at home and abroad."
The uniform shirt, tan with camouflage sleeves and an American flag patch on the right shoulder — stars forward to invoke the historical role of a flag-bearer leading a charge into battle — belonged to a now-retired member of SEAL Team Six, which put an end to the long manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist. The garment "connects us in a powerful and immediate way to that operation," Museum Director Alice Greenwald said.
The red, white and blue coin was made to commemorate its conclusion. The coin bears the date — May 1, 2011, in U.S. time — on one side and a red "X'' on the other.
Opened to the public in May, this would mark the first time that the September 11th Museum is open on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. A memorial for the people killed in the September 11th attacks was opened in 2012.
Even before the museum opened, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) petitioned the museum to edit a video presentation on Al Qaeda, urging them to remove phrases like 'jihad' and 'radical islam' from the presentation. The museum's board reportedly declined any such edit.
Officers from the Sûreté du Québec, RCMP and US Customs and Border Patrol arrested 28 people and seized more than $450,000 in cash and 40,000 Kilograms of tobacco in a raid on a tobacco smuggling ring in southwestern Quebec- said to be the largest of its kind. Investigators say that mobsters from Montreal's Rizutto crime family teamed up with Mohawk smugglers on the Akwesasne Reservation which straddles the US/Canada border south of Montreal to manufacture contraband cigarettes.
Quebec provincial police Sgt. Joyce Kemp said Montreal's Italian Mafia teamed up with aboriginal organized crime to illegally import the bulk tobacco.
The tobacco made its way into Canada in big trucks after being purchased by the Mafia in North Carolina, she told reporters.
"It was hidden with other merchandise (and) often what was used was cedar mulch to hide the (odour) of the tobacco."
Police said the tobacco was imported into Canada through the Lacolle border crossing or through the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve.
Kemp said that after crossing the border, the truckloads were hidden for two or three days in a warehouse to ensure they hadn't been spotted. The tobacco was then transferred to factories where the contraband cigarettes were made.
The cigarettes were then allegedly sold on the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal.
The strategically located Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation has been a hotbed of smuggling since the Great Depression. Drug trafficking organizations have employed savvy native smugglers to move all manner of contraband across the border- in recent years cocaine and untaxed cigarettes into Canada and ecstasy or hydroponically grown pot into the USA.
On the USA side of the border, the Akwesasne Reservation is in the northernmost reaches of New York State where the cigarette tax is $4.35 per pack- plus an additional $1.50 per pack in local taxes in New York City. However, a New York State Department of Taxation and Finance directive allows cigarettes made on one reservation to be transported to other reservations without the state excise tax. Unsurprisingly, this has led to cigarette smuggling in New York City and other high-tax jurisdictions in the northeast and state and local officials in St Lawrence County have seized truckloads of cigarettes produced on the reservation despite the clause allowing the transport of untaxed cigarettes from reservation to reservation.
Trafficking cigarettes from low or no tax jurisdictions like southern tobacco producing states of Indian reservations to high tax locales like New York or Boston is a very simple and lucrative way for organized crime and even terrorist organizations to make money. A combined federal and provincial sales tax in Quebec and Ontario means cigarettes can cost as much as $13 per pack, making much of eastern Canada a lucrative destination for cigarette smuggling as well.
One possible disincentive for smugglers would be for states and provinces to cut tobacco taxes, but not only have places like New York City shown an unwillingness to do so, but they have proposed restricting and taxing sales of e-cigarettes in the same way as tobacco products.
The most shocking accusations are contained in Hooks’ case against International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 4 in Vancouver.
After investigating charges filed by the company, Hooks alleged longshore picketers shone spotlights into vehicles entering and exiting United Grain’s terminal, blocking drivers’ vision and causing permanent eye injury to a security officer. Hooks alleged locked-out workers recklessly pursued company vans, threatened to harm Columbia River pilots and pinned a security officer’s leg under a moving vehicle.
Hooks alleged that Local 4 members “threatened to rape the daughter of one of the employer’s managers,” and implied threats to harm a manager’s children by telling him they would “see his children at school” and asking, “are (his) children okay today?”
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this is not that members of the international Longshoreman and Warehouse union were capable of this, but the accusations come from a NLRB board perceived by critics as being packed with individuals far more sympathetic to labor bosses than business.
Prosecutors claim the criminal conduct by Operating Engineers Local 17 touched many of the region’s biggest construction projects, including Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Ralph Wilson Stadium, and added millions of dollars to the cost of those projects.
The verdict, which came after a six-week trial featuring 80 witnesses, ends a prosecution that began with the indictment of 12 union members in 2008.
Most of those defendants eventually pleaded guilty, but five elected to stand trial, and four of those five were found not guilty Friday.
At the heart of the case was the allegation that a “Local 17 Criminal Enterprise” operated from 1997 through 2007 with the intention of forcing construction companies into hiring its members and punishing those that refused.
The defendants were accused of vandalizing work sites by pouring a sandlike abrasive into the engines of heavy machinery and throwing sharp metal objects called “stars” under the tires of trucks.
In one instance, a Local 17 member, Michael J. Caggiano, was accused of stabbing the president of a local company in the neck with a knife.
The verdict followed a trial in which the prosecution painted Local 17 as a union knee-deep in corruption.
Dozens of contractors and former union members, many of them testifying as part of plea deals with the government, took the witness stand to tell stories of threats, fear and vandalism.
In the end, the jury found Kirsch, the union’s longtime president and business manager and a well-known figure in government and political circles, responsible for much of the wrongdoing.
They also found him to be part of a racketeering conspiracy that prosecutors claim existed at Local 17
The FBI, which also played a major role in the investigation, said the verdict is simply the last chapter in a story of how Local 17’s “pompous attitudes and violence-riddled acts had a tremendous impact on this city.”
“The union members who pleaded guilty and were found guilty in this case made honest working people go to work in fear of being stabbed or assaulted, even more so than I do as a law enforcement officer,” said Brian P. Boetig, special agent in charge of the FBI in Buffalo.
Kirsch will be sentenced at a later date- the charges carry a maximum of 20 yeears.
In an interview with Syracuse PBS affiliate on Friday, Cuomo stated that conservatives have "no place in the state of New York, because that's not who New Yorkers are".
The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.
If they’re moderate Republicans like in the Senate right now, who control the Senate — moderate Republicans have a place in their state.
Shortly after the remarks were made public, Cuomo backtracked and his supporters claimed that his remarks were merely 'taken out of context', instead. Some supporters highlighted Cuomo's qualifier of 'extreme' and pointed out the Governor's praise of 'Moderate' Republicans who have more or less rubber-stamped some or all of Cuomo's agenda. Cuomo attempted to walk back his statements by saying that New Yorkers prefer moderate politicians of either party running for office only a few weeks after avowed socialist and Sandinista supporter Bill DeBlasio was sworn in as mayor of New York City.
By 'anti-gay', Cuomo is apparently referring to anybody who held similar views on same-sex marriage as Pope Francis or President Obama prior to his 2012 re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the NY SAFE Act, a hastily written and almost confiscatory gun law rushed through a closed-door session of the New York state assembly in the immediate aftermath of the December 2012 Newtown, CT school shootings has proven extremely unpopular upstate. Opponents point out the law does nothing to deter crime and makes criminals out of law-abiding citizens who own previously legal firearms while prompting manufacturers and businesses to move out of state because of the increased restrictions.
Another issue that has residents upstate irate at the son of Democratic former governor Mario Cuomo is fracking. New York's Southern Tier sits atop the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation- in fact, the formation is named after the village of Marcellus outside of Syracuse. However, while there has been drilling activity in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, Cuomo has dragged his feet on the issue since his 2010 election. Although drilling for natural gas could give the Empire State's economy a shot in the arm- particularly the economically hard-hit Southern Tier- hardline environmentalists and celebrity activists such as Yoko Ono or actor Mark Ruffalo seem to have the ear of Gov Cuomo's office, regaling his staff with liberally embellished horror stories of artificial earthquakes and tap water bursting into flames due to fracking. As the celebrities, environmentalists and wealthy Manhattan progressives do there utmost to ensure that no drilling takes place in New York, upstate counties atop the Marcellus Shale have unemployment rates of around 8%. To his credit, Cuomo floated a compromise where drilling would be confined mostly to the Southern Tier counties of Broome, Chemung, Tioga, Steuben and Chenango but that was quickly overruled by environmentalists. While the Governor and state officials have made no official decision on fracking, observers believe Cuomo and other Democrats are waiting for a more politically opportune time after the 2014 election to make an unpopular decision.
Meanwhile, as landowners in the Southern Tier have been hit with a double whammy of an economy that's been in decline since the 1970s and some of the highest property taxes in the USA, Governor Cuomo has been fundraising in Hollywood- for his re-election bid as governor of New York.
Between the push for same-sex marriage, gun control and abortion while obstructing a surefire means of reviving the Southern Tier's long suffering economy for political expediency, Cuomo's actions as governor have made it abundantly clear that he believes conservatives (or even moderates who disagree with him) have no place in New York. his statements in Friday's PBS interview simply made it official.
NEW YORK- At least four people were killed and 70 injured on Sunday morning when a Metro-North commuter train derailed just north of the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx.
Early reports indicate that the train was travelling at speeds in excess of 80 MPH as it headed into a curve along the Harlem river where the maximum speed limit is 30 MPH. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and has recovered two event recorders from the crash site. At the time, the train was operating in 'push-pull' mode where the train appears to be running backwards with the locomotive pushing from the rear and controlled by the engineer in a specially equipped enclosure in the 'trailing' car. This is fairly common practice among a number of commuter rail agencies as well as some Amtrak routes.
The cellphone records and blood samples of the engineer- who survived the wreck and was released from the hospital- have been taken, but no word on the results from the NTSB yet.
New Mexico State Police released the names of the three on board the Southwestern Railroad freight train which was operating between the massive Freeport McMoran open put copper mine in Santa Rita, NM and the Southwestern yards at Hurley, NM. The eight carloads of iron ore the train was hauling remained upright while the locomotive- a former Conrail GP40- landed on its side after falling roughly 50 feet into an arroyo.
Law enforcement previously reported that all three victims were men, however, one of the victims was a woman, Ann Thompson, 50, originally from Paulden, Ariz. The other two victims were Donald White, 38, of Silver City, and Steven Crose, 60, also of Paulden, Ariz.
Crose and White both worked for the railroad. Thompson was Crose's girlfriend, said Wanda Shepard, Crose's cousin. It is also unknown why Thompson was inside the locomotive at the time of the crash as she did not work for Southwestern Railroad, Shepard said. Both Thompson and Crose had recently moved to the Hurley area just three weeks ago for Crose's job.
"They loved being on the train," Shepard said of White and her cousin. "They loved it. It was their calling, and they were really proud of their jobs and what they did."
Although the train was carrying no hazardous materiel, the fire department from nearby Silver City, NM was called in to contain a diesel spill from the derailed locomotive.
A subsidiary of Western Railroad Builders, Inc, the Southwestern operates two disconnected lines in southern New Mexico. In 1990, the railroad purchased a cluster of former Santa Fe lines radiating out of Whitewater, NM to copper mines in Tyrone and Santa Rita in Grant County, NM. By 1994, the line from Whitewater to the then-Southern Pacific interchange in Demming, NM was purchased from the Santa Fe and by 2002, Western Railroad Builders agreed to a lease with BNSF for the line between Demming and Hatch, NM. To the east, the Southwest began operations on more than 200 miles of former BNSF trackage between Clovis and Carlsbad, NM when they entered into a lease agreement with the BNSF in 2004.
Western Railroad builders also operates the 250+ mile Cimarron Valley Railroad in Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado as well as the 40-mile Arizona Central out of Clarkdale, AZ.
ALBERTA- The Canadian National Railway suffered two derailments in the province of Alberta in the span of a few weeks, one of them prompting the evacuation of a nearby town.
On October 19th, a Canadian National train hauling oil and LPG derailed near the village of Gainsford, AB west of Edmonton at approximately 1 AM local time. Witnesses reported hearing a loud series of crashes before seeing a fireball shoot up into the sky. After evacuating nearby residents and shutting down the Yellowhead Highway which runs parallel to the CN line, emergency crews decided the safest option would be to allow the fire to burn itself out.
In the early morning hours of Nov 3rd, a second Canadian Nation freight train derailed outside the hamlet of Peers, AB- also west of Edmonton. That train was determined to be carrying lumber and sulphur Dioxide, a hazardous material but not as volatile as oil or LPG.
According to the Randolph County Sheriff's Office, the driver of the log truck was the sole fatality of the collision and when they arrived on the scene, the gates and flashing lights on the crossing were functioning.
Randolph County Sheriff Mark Brady said two of the train’s passenger cars flipped on their sides after impact at a rail crossing with a mountain highway, the log truck was rendered a “total loss” and the truck driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
The truck driver was not immediately identified and news photographs from the scene at West Virginia’s Cheat Mountain showed large, heavy logs jumbled beside the two toppled train cars amid a chaotic scene of first responders aiding shaken passengers leaving the train.
Brady said the accident occurred at a train crossing on U.S. Route 250 at a bridge on the mountain. The overturned passenger cars lay beside the tracks, roped off with yellow crime scene tape as police, firefighters and others looked on.
Headquartered in Elkins, WV the West Virginia Central railroad operates more than 130 miles of former Western Maryland trackage in the eastern part of the state. Although it does intermittently haul freight, excursion trains such as the New Tygart Flyer, Durbin Rocket and Cheat Mountain Salamander have proven big draws for the line. Future plans for the line include re-opening a connection with the Cass Scenic Railway, a former logging railroad now a state park and tourist hauler as well as establishing a permanent home for the West Virginia Railroad Museum in Randolph County along the WVCR right-of-way.
Today's Train of Thought takes us to the village of Deposit along New York's Southern Tier.
Located along the former Erie Southern Tier Line between Suffern, NJ and Buffalo, NY, the area around village of Deposit was settled in the 1880s [fairly recent for New York state- NANESB!]. The village itself straddles the Broome and Delaware County lines and reportedly got is name from nearby loggers and their practice of depositing logs along the river before floating them down the west branch of the Delaware River.
Both the highway and the railway that run through the village have undergone some noticeable changes in recent years. Completed in the 1850s, the Southern Tier line started out life as the Erie Railroad's primary link between New York City's western suburbs and the Buffalo area.
By 1960, the Erie had merged with Pennsylvania coal feeder line Delaware, Lackawana & Western to form the Erie Lackawana. However, like many northeastern rail carriers in the 1970s, the E-L would face hard times thanks to Hurricane Agnes, rising fuel costs and a labor dispute. By 1976 was actively seeking to be included in the formation of Conrail along with the Reading, Lehigh Valley, Penn Central and Central New Jersey. Part of the Conrail takeover included allowing trackage rights on the Southern Tier line to other railroads- the Delaware & Hudson's rights agreement with Erie-Lackawana between Buffalo and Binghamton were grandfathered in while the New York, Susquehanna and Western used trackage rights between Sparta Jct, NJ and Binghamton to reach their newly acquired line between Binghamton and Syracuse as well as the branch to Utica.
For Susquehanna, those rights remained intact throughout the Conrail era and during Conrail's 1999 breakup, the Norfolk Southern was awarded much of the former Erie lines. However, after Conrail's breakup, the Southern Tier line east of Binghamton saw decreasing traffic as the Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with Canadian Pacific and the Reading & Northern to route traffic east of Binghamton via Scranton and Allentown, PA.
Prior to the breakup of Conrail, the NYS&W regularly ran intermodal traffic over the Southern Tier line, exercising trackage rights between Buffalo and Sparta Jct, NJ- the line allowed the Chessie System and Norfolk & Western (eventually the CSX and Norfolk Southern) to access New York metropolitan area markets without interchanging with then-rival Conrail. However, that particular selling point of the Susquehanna was rendered moot when both CSX and Norfolk Southern were awarded lines in and out of northern New Jersey in the Conrail breakup.
Still, the Susquehanna had two disconnected lines that relied upon trackage rights over the Southern Tier line to connect them. By 2005, the New York, Susquehanna and Western had entered into an agreement with the Norfolk Southern to lease the 123 miles of line through rural New York and Pennsylvania between Binghamton and Port Jervis, NY to the Central New York- a paper railroad and wholly owned subsidiary of the NYS&W.
Two regularly scheduled freight trains still use the Binghamton-Port Jervis stretch of the line- Little Ferry, NJ to Binghamton freight SU-99 and its eastbound counterpart SU-100, although CSX will sometimes re-route trains via the NYSW if there is a derailment on the Water Level Route or Hudson River line.
Here, rrpicturearchives.net contributor David Abeles caught NYS&W SD40T-2 #3016 charging westbound through Deposit, NY on October 22nd, 2011 with a pair of leased SD40-2s trailing on freight SU-99 [and another yellow and black tunnel motor trailing, apparently dead in transit a few cars back- NANESB!]. The sun is out and the leaves have already turned on this fall day- according to the photographer, this was a pretty fortunate catch on his part since the SU-99 run is usually nocturnal- especially with the shorter days starting this time of year. The freight train is beginning its assault on the grade leading up to Gulf Summit to the east.
The highway around and through Deposit has also been undergoing some changes. Four lane New York Route 17 featured some at-grade intersections along the Southern Tier, but those are being eliminated and replaced for the highway's re-designation as Interstate 86, which eventually will run from Erie, PA to the New York State Thruway at Harriman, NY on the west shore of the Hudson River between Newburgh and the Tappan Zee Bridge.
What began as a temporary visual arts program a few months after the deadly terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan has evolved into an annual tradition that makes its mark on the Gotham skyline each year in early September.
Beginning in March 2002, the New York Municipal Art Society uses a total of 88 powerful searchlights pointed skyward placed adjacent to the World Trade Center site- even in the bright lights of New York City, the Tribute in Light manages to stand out. The lights are visible from Staten Island and across the Hudson River in New Jersey.
Interestingly, the Tribute in Light was supposed to be a temporary project with each year supposedly being it's last. However, the Municipal Art Society has been invited back to erect the searchlights each year- although with work on the new World Trade Center buildings progressing, it's entirely likely that the Tribute in Light will be crowded out by the newer structures and September 11th Memorial over the next few years.
If you're a writer for one of the late-night TV talk shows, there's just not other way to put this: Anthony Weiner is simply the gift that keeps on giving.
It was two years ago that then-Congressman Anthony Weiner had resigned in disgrace after admitting to sending lewd photographs of himself to women on social networking sites like twitter and then lying about it to a media that seemed ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. The announcement took place shortly after conservative blogger and publisher Andrew Breitbart co-opted Weiner's press conference.
Since then, Weiner and his allies in the Democrat party who thought his political prospects could be salvaged began rehabilitating his image, with an emphasis on his wife- former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. His former District- NY-9- went Republican in a special election before it was redistricted out of existence. Less than two years later, Weiner's name kept coming up as a potential candidate for Mayor of New York- as though the original Weiner-gate had never taken place to begin with.
After a couple of fairly puffball interviews where Weiner contritely claimed he had learned his lesson and was going to a better husband and father from here on out, the Weiner for Mayor talk moved beyond punchlines and double entendre and into reality. However, the rollout of the Weiner for Mayor Campaign website was not without problems after Pittsburgh's skyline was used on the page instead of New York City's.
The woman claims on the blog that she first started talking online with Weiner in July 2012 and it became intense by August 2012, when he offered to find a Chicago condo where they could meet up.
She also alleges that they had phone sex and that they exchanged nude photos of each other. She claims she received photos from Weiner of his penis sent from a Yahoo email account under the “Carlos Danger” name. The purported image was later posted on TheDirty.com.
Weiner released a written statement on Tuesday afternoon, which he read again at the press conference,admitting to additional raunchy conversations.
All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy. All work and no baseball make Fenway a dull boy.....
...wait a sec- that implies that I was interesting to begin with.
MLB ALL STAR GAME- The 2013 All Star game from Citi Field in Queens, NY is in the books and for the first time in All Star history, there have been back to back shutouts.
Mets phenom Matt Harvey started for the NL and the first inning got off to a rough start after allowing a leadoff double to Mike Trout and hitting Yankees 2B Robinson Cano with a 96 mph fastball. Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia came in to pinch run for Cano. From there, Harvey was able to get out of a jam by striking out Detroit's Miguel Cabrera, getting Baltimore's Chris Davis to fly out to center field and Toronto's Jose Bautista to strike out swinging.
Instead of the All Star game being a showcase of offensive prowess and home runs sailing out of the ballpark and into the night sky, the ball remained decidedly in the park on Tuesday night. The first run of the game came on a sac fly from Bautista that was deep enough to plate Cabrera in the top of the 4th inning. Arizona's Patrick Corbin would escape the inning without any further damage, but ultimately it would be all the AL needed and he was hung with the loss.
In fact, the NL didn't get a hit until the bottom of the 4th when the Cardinals' Carlos Beltran hit a 1-out single, but the threat was turned aside when Cincinnati's Joe Votto grounded into a fielder's choice and the Mets' David Wright grounded out to third.
The AL doubled their lead in the top of the 5th when Baltimore's JJ Hardy hit into a fielder's choice off of Philly's Cliff Lee with nobody out and O's teammate Adam Jones on third, making it 2-0 AL.
The 8th inning was probably the highlight- in the top half of the frame, Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez led off with a single off of Atlanta's Craig Kimbrell. Detroit's Jhonny Peralta then singled to put Perez on second. Although Tigers' teammate Torii Hunter hit into a double play, Perez was then able to move over to third and came home on a 2-out ground rule double from Indians 2B Jason Kipnis before Baltimore's Manny Machado struck out to end the inning with the AL on top 3-0.
In the bottom half of the frame, AL manager Jim Leyland made the decision to send out Yankees closer Mariano Rivera in what would be his final All-Star appearance. The likely first-ballot Hall of Fame reliever started off the inning by getting Brewers infielder Jean Segura to ground out to second, St Louis pinch-hitter Allen Craig to line out to left and Rockies outfielder Carlos Gomez to ground out to end the inning.
While Pittsburgh closer Jason Grilli allowed a leadoff triple to Detroit's Prince Fielder, he struck out the side to leave the big Tigers outfielder stranded at third.
Leyland then sent Rangers closer Joe Nathan out to close out the game- while he got Cards infielder Matt Carpenter and Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen to strike out, Nathan gave up a booming double that was barely contained by Citi Field. However, Pirates 3B Pedro Alvarez popped out to shallow right center to end the ballgame.
The White Sox's Chris Sale gets the win and Arizona's Patrick Corbin is hung with the loss. After coming out onto the field with much fanfare, Mariano Rivera got credit for the hold with his hitless 8th inning and Joe Nathan gets the save. After getting shut out 9-0 last year in Kansas City, the American League All Stars win by a final of 3-0 in Flushing.
Mariano Rivera- who announced in Spring Training that this would be his final season- was named the MVP of the 2013 All Star game.
The win means that the winner of the ALCS will have home field advantage for the World Series. The Red Sox present at the All Star game didn't factor into the final score much, with both Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz going 0-2. Interestingly, Big Papi (as well as Toronto's Edwin Encarnacion) was at DH instead of getting slotted into and infield position, despite Citi Field being a National League ballpark.
Next year's All Star game is set to take place at Minneapolis' Target Field on July 15th, the first All Star in the Twin Cities since 1985 and the first ever in the Twin's new ballpark.
RED SOX- The second half of the season gets underway on Friday night [for everybody- not just the Red Sox- NANESB!] with the Red Sox hosting the Yankees at Fenway. Felix Doubront [6-3; 3.91 ERA] will get the start against Andy Petite [7-6; 4.39 ERA]- it might be worth noting that even when Doubront sported a much higher ERA back in May, he has a considerably lower average when facing the Bronx Bombers- 2.52 ERA through 35⅔ innings.
Friday night's game will be televised on both NESN and the MLB network with a first pitch of 7:10 ET.
One might be surprised to learn that despite New York City's status as the largest city in the United States, the five boroughs are served by exactly one class one freight carrier. Norfolk Southern stops at the western shore of the Hudson River in New Jersey, regional Providence & Worcester reaches New York City from Connecticut via trackage rights over the Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, Anacostia Pacific's New York & Atlantic handles freight over the Long Island Railroad and New York New Jersey Rail operates a carfloat between Jersey City, NJ and Brooklyn.
That leaves just the CSX and in turn, the CSX has to deal with something called the Selkirk Hurdle. Since freight trains aren't allowed through the Northeast Corridor tunnel linking Manhattan and northern New Jersey, the nearest crossing of the Hudson River that freight trains can use is nearly 150 miles to the north at Selkirk, NY. That's been the case since 1974, when the former New Haven Railroad bridge over the Hudson River was taken out of service on May 8th, 1974 after a fire damaged the bridge's decking and girders on the eastern approach [the bridge was turned into a state park in 2009].
One example of this problem can be demonstrated when the City of New York reached a 30-year agreement with Waste Management[NYSE- WM] in 2009. The trash is hauled out of Brooklyn by train with a final destination in Virginia- some 300 miles away- has to move north over the Metro North commuter line between New York City and Poughkeepsie, continuing north through Hudson and linking up with the Selkirk-Boston, MA former Boston & Albany mainline before heading south along the west side of the Hudson into northern New Jersey before continuing south- a distance of more than 250 miles to cover 15 miles as the crow flies before continuing to Virgina. Moreover, because of the busy commuter operations on Metro North, most of the freight operations are limited to nighttime.
With that in mind, CSX operations in the Big Apple remain a fairly elusive and seldom photographed affair. But Railfan & Railroad contributor Michael Foley knows his subjects well and has been able to document CSX operations in their Big Apple hub- the Bronx's Oak Point yard.
On Opening Day, Today's Train of Thought offers us a glimpse of the ballpark where the Red Sox and Yankees will renew their rivalry and kick off their respective 2013 seasons. Here, Foley has photographed a mixed bag of second generation EMDs in charge of CSX freight B949-07, heading south past Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on February 7th, 2009. The train was sidelined with mechanical difficulties in the overnight hours, resulting in a fairly rare daylight run to Oak Point. Part of the original Yankee Stadium, which had seen its final ballgame some five months earlier, can be seen off to the righthand side.
UPDATE: 3/8- Almost as soon as I finish the first draft, Pan Am suffers not one, but TWO derailments.
Thirteen tank cars loaded with crude oil derailed near Mattawamkeag, ME on Thursday. Despite the fact that the cars have a 31,000 gallon capacity, officials said that just 3 gallons were spilled in the derailment. Officials cite the tank car's sturdy design along with the slow track speed through the area for the relative lack of damage.
The Pan Am Railways tanker cars, which were among 15 that derailed on the 96-car train, went off the tracks near Route 2 and the Winn town line about 5 a.m. Thursday. No injuries were reported. Thirteen of the 15 cars tipped over but none ruptured, said Pan Am Railways Executive Vice President Cynthia Scarano.
Scarano described the oil spill as that which typically accumulates around the two hatches atop the tank when tanks are filled or emptied. About a gallon of oil came from three overturned tankers, Mattawamkeag Fire Chief Robert Powers said.
“Three gallons — that’s amazing [when you] have the cars laying on their sides, a couple of them in trees,” Powers said. “They’ve built the rail cars to sustain derailment. We are very thankful that that’s where we are at right now.”
Maine Department of Environmental Protection crews and a private contractor will be working with Pan Am to transfer oil from the 13 tankers to 20 smaller tankers. The work likely will continue for two or three days, said department spokeswoman Samantha Warren, who said the spill could have been “disastrous.”
Workers emptied the first car at about 9:15 p.m. The offloading went well, but the work “will be delicate,” she said.
“There are still hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil in derailed cars within sight of the Penobscot River,” Warren added, joining a chorus of voices from the state Legislature and environmentalist community that called the accident’s lack of environmental damage a miracle.
Scarano said a severe leak into the river was never very likely. The train was on a stretch of track from Waterville to Canada that is rated Class 1, which means suitable for traffic moving no faster than 10 mph.
The Federal Railroad Administration investigation of the accident is continuing, but it appears that the train was moving no faster than the speed limit. Firefighters said train workers told them it was traveling 8 mph when the derailment occurred.
A slow speed would be logical, Scarano said, given that the train was approaching a switch in town. Its cargo was to be transferred to New Brunswick Southern Railway for eventual arrival at a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. She said the train had three engines pulling it.
A Pan Am train was heading north on Thursday when eight cars filled with coal derailed before the Nashua River and the Bridge Street Crossing. None of the cars rolled over. The cars are leaning, and there was no spillage, the Nashua Fire Department said.
Fire officials said about 100 feet of track were damaged, as well as parts of the steel bridge’s wooden decking. Pan Am crews towed away the remaining cars to reopen the Bridge Street Crossing.
No injuries were reported at either derailment.
Looking more like a scene from the Pacific Northwest, a trio of big GE's idle in the siding with empty grain train AYRJ [AYer, MA to Rotterdam Jct, NY] as eastbound freight MOED [MOhawk Yard, Schenectady, NY to East Deerfield, MA] blasts through North Adams, MA with a pair of leased former BNSF SD40-2s on the point on February 22, 2013. Gary Schermerhorn photo
PAN AM- Thanks to an increase in traffic, Pan Am Railways is finding itself short on motive power and has been leasing SD40-2s from Helm Leasing and maximizing their use of run-through power from BNSF and CSX. The 10 Helm Leasing SD40s join some 21 SD40s that Pan Am acquired back in 2010.
The loaners are still painted in BNSF and Burlington Northern colors, some of them blending in seamlessly with the newer BNSF power that has been appearing on the unit oil trains between the CSX interchange in Rotterdam Jct, NY and the New Brunswick Southern at Mattawamkeag, ME as well as unit grain trains to the Cargill mill in Ayer, MA.
OTHER PAN AM NEWS- An Icelandic shipping company has signed a contract with the Maine Port Authority to begin operating out of Maine's largest seaport, Maine governor Paul LePage announced in February. The firm, Eimskip, also announced that they would partner with Pan Am Rail to provide cost effective access to markets across North America and that the Portland location would shave off travel time between North America and Europe.
Eimskip will open a warehouse in Portland and begin providing biweekly cargo service at the end of March, replacing the company's container operation in Norfolk, Va., according to Eimskip's website.
The company is moving to Maine's largest commercial port in order to shorten travel time between North America and Europe.
Eimskip also will partner with Pan Am Railways to offer cost-competitive access to other North American markets, according to the governor's news release.
LePage met with representatives of Eimskip and Pan Am Railways in January to discuss the new service.
“Maine’s economy will be strengthened by this new service and accessibility to markets,” LePage said in the release. “Maine produces some of the best products in the world and this investment by Eimskip is a testament to that quality."
Eimskip President and CEO Gylfi Sigfusson said, "PanAm has been very helpful working with us to make this possible and we believe that our work together is critical for success moving forward."
Details about the contract, the number of jobs to be created and the location of the warehouse will be announced Wednesday at a 10 a.m. news conference at the terminal on Commercial Street.
Portland has been without contracted cargo service for nearly a year, after the New York-based American Feeder Lines suspended operations and closed in April 2012, citing a lack of volume and loss of private investment.
At the time, the terminal was in the midst of a $5 milion, federally funded renovation and expansion that was completed last summer. The Maine Port Authority lost $200,000 it had loaned to the company. Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia, had made similar investments.
In 2011, Eimskip added a new route to its shipping system, connecting North America to northern Norway, according to the company's website. The new shipping route has opened new markets for Eimskip customers in the North Atlantic.
"The port is well equipped to handle the operation and has been renovated during recent years," according to Eimskip's website. "Eimskip will operate a warehouse and an office in Portland and the terminal is equipped with 150 (refrigeration) plugs, a 100 ton mobile crane and other equipment required to serve Eimskip and its customers."
Eimskip will continue to receive smaller shipments in Norfolk and New York.
Maine's agricultural, forest and seafood industries will benefit from the expanded service, providing new opportunities for growth in Canada and Europe, Maine officials said.
The service will call on Portland every 14 days and give Maine businesses direct import-export access to eastern Canadian and European markets.
Access to these markets may result in both larger freight volumes and access to previously cost-prohibitive markets for importers, exporters and manufacturers.
Although traffic in oil, grain and clay slurry has picked up in recent years, intermodal service hasn't been Pan Am's strong suit. In early 2011, Pan Am innagurated triweekly intermodal service between eatern Massachusetts and Halifax, NS with New Brunswick Southern called the Bluenose.
NEW YORK CITY- Manhattan's Grand Central Station is turning 100 this year. The cavernous station originally was a meeting point from trains from the New York and Hudson River Railroad, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railway and the New York and Harlem Railroad.
The actual 100th anniversary took place on February 1st with ceremonies and tours with ongoing exhibits throughout the year. Some of the restaurants in Grand Central got into the spirit of things by offering 1913 prices on some of their meals.
The landmark terminal fell into disrepair in the late 1960s with the bankruptcy of the New York Central. In 1968, NYC successor Penn Central announced plans to demolish Grand Central to make way for a skyscraper. The proposals drew opposition from a number of New Yorkers, including former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. Prior to the Penn Central's unveiling, New York City's Landmarks Comission designated Grand Central a landmark, meaning that Penn Central was unable to secure permission to demolish Grand Central [the matter went before the supreme court in 1978 with the justices ruling in favor of the city- NANESB!]. By 1994, the Penn Central's Corporate successor, American Financial Group, reached an agreement with New York's Metropolitan Transit Agency to lease Grand Central for more than 200 years- the MTA's Metro North is turning 30 this year.
Despite the fact that Grand Central hasn't seen regularly scheduled long-distance passenger service since 1991, recent timetables show more than 280 trains departing from the New York landmark on any given weekday. New York's MTA operates commuter trains north to the Hudson River Valley and western Connecticut out of Grand Central while Long Island Railroad, NJ Transit and Amtrak operate out of Penn Station.
A full schedule of this year's events and exhibitions is available at the Grand Central's Centennial website.
BNSF- I'm about a year behind schedule with this, but I thought it would still be worth pointing out. The Burlington Northern-Santa Fe handled a rather unique cargo in April of 2012 that was destined for the Arizona capital of Phoenix. That cargo was actually the barrel from the USS Arizona, one of four battleships sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, HI on Dec 7th, 1941. More than 1100 sailors were killed when the ship's magazine exploded and to this day, the site of the sunken Pennsylvania-class battleship remains a memorial site.
One of the guns from the USS Arizona was being refurbished on the mainland at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack and during wartime, was refitted on the USS Nevada during WWII. The 67-foot long gun was transported on a special-purpose flatcar from Virginia and joins one of the guns from the USS Missouri- the battleship on which the Japanese formally surrendered to the USA in Tokyo Harbor in 1945- heralding the end of World War II. The Navy reportedly refused the Arizona Capitol Museum's initial request for the barrel from the Arizona but offered them one from the Missouri instead before relenting.
Both guns will be on display at the Wesley Bolin plaza as part of the Arizona Capitol Museum in Phoenix and are on permanant loan from the US Navy.
Twin Cities Western GP39-2 #2300 is seen leading a short freight across the Minnesota/South Dakota state line and over BNSF trackage rights at Big Stone City, SD in January 2013. The train is enroute to the TC&W's newly acquired Sisseton-Milbank Railroad in Milbank, SD. Jeremiah Rindal photo
TWIN CITIES & WESTERN- South Dakota's 37-mile Sisseton-Milbank railroad joined the Twin Cities & Western fold as of last summer. The line between the two South Dakota towns its named after went through a number of operators since the Milwaukee Road's 1982 bankruptcy, including the Milwaukee Road, Dakota Rail and Sisseton Southern. However, the Sisseton-Milbank has been in operation since 1989, interchanging with the BNSF at Milbank, SD.
Between the Twin Cities & Western and affiliated railroads Red River Valley & Western and Minnesota Prairie Line, the TC&W system has more than 800 route miles of track throughout North Dakota and Minnesota. The Sisseton-Millbank is connected to the rest of the TC&W system thanks to trackage rights over BNSF between Milbak, SD and Appleton, MN and represents the TC&W's first foray into South Dakota. Power for the Sisseton-Milbank is a pair of EMD endcab switchers while the TC&W fleet uses a number of Caterpillar re-engined EMDs as well as some EMD end-cab switchers and Geeps.
Chicago, Ft Wayne & Eastern SD40T-2 #3316 is seen leading former BNSF GP50# 4023 with symbol freight FWWA [Fort Wayne- WArsaw, IN] at Arcola, IN on March 7th. The CFW&E is one of many former Rail America properties that Genesee & Wyoming has wasted no time in applying their corporate image on. Matt Weldon photo
RAIL AMERICA- It seems as though the Genesee & Wyoming wasted little time in putting their mark on former Rail America properties. In addition to locomotives on the Chicago, Ft Wayne and Eastern, Connecticut Southern and Indiana & Ohio visitors to Rail America's website are redirected to the Genesee & Wyoming homepage.
The first Rail America locomotive to appear in GWI colors was Central Railroad of Indiana RP20B Genset #2001, which was actually in orange and black before the merger was finalized at the end of December. The former Rail America genset was repainted at Norfolk Southern's Juniata shops in Altoona, PA at the beginning of December 2012. Some other locomotives from Rail America lines to appear in the GWI ornage and black include Chicago, Ft Wayne & Eastern SD40T-2 #3316, repainted at Ohio Central's Morgan Run shops at the end of January [the previously independent Ohio Central was purchased by GWI in 2008- NANESB!] and Connecticut Southern GP38 #2201 which was repainted in New England Central's St Albans, VT shops in the first week of March.
Forecasters are warning that New Englanders and New Yorkers could expect to see a record amount of snowfall accompanied by high winds sweeping into the area heading into the weekend.
Apparently naming winter storms is a thing now, and the one bearing down on the northeastern corner of the country is called Nemo. Nemo is expected to dump anywhere from 2 to 3 feet across the region overnight and may also have wind gusts as high as 70 MPH.
Dave Roback- Springfield Republican
In Massachusetts, Nemo's approach is being taken seriously by the Commonwealth, where Gov. Patrick has declared a State of Emergency ahead of the storm's arrival and imposed a statewide travel ban on the Bay State's roads by 4 PM on Friday. The order left many streets and highways throughout the Commonwealth looking like ghost towns during what should've been a busy Friday afternoon commute.
Airlines throughout the region have cancelled more than 2000 flights as Nemo moved in as Boston's Logan Airport, Newark, NJ's Liberty Airport and New York's JFK and LaGuardia airports shut down on Friday. The delay also had a ripple effect as these airports as many flights were unable to continue on to their final destination, stranding thousands of passengers.
Born to Polish immigrants in the Bronx in 1924, Koch grew up in Newark and was drafted into the Army in 1943, serving as a combat infantryman and earning two Battle Stars with the 104th Infantry Division in France.
After the war, Koch enrolled in NYU's School of Law, recieving his degree in 1948 and going into practice the following year. By the early 1960s, Koch was interested in seeking political office, unsuccuessfully running against an incumbent Democrat for State Assembly in 1962. However, he would serve two years on the New York City Council before successfully running for congress in 1968.
During his time in Congress in the early 1970s, the New York Democrat described himself as transitioning from a liberal to what he called a "liberal with common sense" after hearing a number of complaints from his constituents over proposals from then-mayor John Lindsay- including a ham-fisted attempt to place a 3000-person public housing project in a middle class Queens neighborhood. In 1973, Koch resigned from Congress to run for mayor of New York, but didn't even last through the Democrat primaries.
However, by 1975 New York City had to lay off a number of NYPD officers among other city employees- causing an uptick in street crime accompanying a decline in services. In July 1977, there was a citywide blackout- criminals took advantage of the power outage and an NYPD short on manpower and embarked on a looting and arson spree. In response, Koch positioned himself as a 'Law and Order' candidate and was elected mayor of New York City in 1978.
The city's fortunes gradually began to turn around under Koch and in 1981, he was re-elected in a landslide, running on both the Democrat and Republican Party lines. The following year he briefly entered the race for governor but lost to primary challenger Mario Cuomo.
In 1985, Koch ran for a 3rd term and won by a margin of 78%. However, his third term was also wracked by scandals within City Hall and health problems after suffering a stroke in his office in 1987. During the 1988 Presidential primary, Mayor Koch publicly fueded with Democrat candidate Jesse Jackson. Some speculated this feud with Jackson angered black voters and led to his downfall in the 1989 mayoral election, where he lost to challenger David Dinkins.
After his three terms as mayor, Koch remained in the public eye appearing as a judge on The People's Court and hosting his own radio talk show in the 1990s. More recently, he appeared in a weekly online video segment called Mayor At The Movies as well as appearing as himself in cameos on a number of TV series and films such as The Muppets Take Manhattan and Saturday Night Live.
He also remained involved in politics and would often cross party lines to endorse Republican candidates like George Pataki, Rudy Gulliani, George W Bush and Bob Turner. The former mayor was also something of a foreign-police hawk and staunchly pro-Israel.
In a 2010 forum, Koch said he felt the highlight of his time as mayor was during a 1980 transit strike when he felt the need to do something brash and public.
He strode down to the Brooklyn Bridge to encourage commuters who were forced to walk to work instead of jumping aboard subway trains and buses.
"I began to yell, 'Walk over the bridge! Walk over the bridge! We're not going to let these bastards bring us to our knees!' And people began to applaud," the famously combative, acid-tongued politician recalled at a 2012 forum.
His success in rallying New Yorkers in the face of the strike was, he said, his biggest personal achievement as mayor. And it was a display that was quintessentially Koch, who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during a three-term City Hall run in which he embodied New York chutzpah for the rest of the world.
A lifelong bachelor with no known romantic partners, Koch's sexual orientation was the subject of rumor and speculation. During the 1980s, Koch signed off on gay rights ordinances approved by the city council. When pressed on the issue, Koch famously stated “My answer to questions on this subject is simply, ‘Fuck off.’ There have to be some private matters left.”
Koch was survived by his sister, Pat Thaler, and many grandnieces and grandnephews. He will be buried in a plot in the Trinity Church cemetary- his headstone will reportedly have an inscription that were the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl- a US Journalist who was murdered on videotape by Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in 2002:
“My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.”
The editorial board of the Journal News defended the decision to run the article and post the accompanying map on the website, saying the information was made available to the public by state law and multiple Freedom of Information act requests. The Dec22nd piece ran shortly after the Sandy Hook schoolhouse massacre just across the state line in Newtown, CT [solidifying many predictions from gun owners on how the atrocity would be leveraged against law-abiding gun owners by pro-gun control politicians and media figures- NANESB!]. It's also worth pointing out that all the names on the list had purchased their respective firearms in full compliance with New York state law, yet by the author's own admission the entire premise of the article was to 'warn' people about the very same law-abiding gun owners- maybe these 'journalists' can 'warn' the public about which homes have large collections of jewelry or coins next.
In March 2007, a columnist for Virginia's Roanoke Timespublished a list of names and addresses for concealed handgun carry permits in the New River valley, comparing permit holders to sex offenders. The Roanoke Times website took down the list within a matter of hours after receiving complaints. In 2011, an Associated Press reporter sought to obtain names and hometowns of Firearm Owner's Identification Card (FOID) by filing suit against the Illinois State Police. The state police pointed out that they sometimes receive Freedom of Information Act requests from inmates about the FOID status of corrections officers, their victims or retired policemen. In December 2011, a Peoria County Circuit Court judge ruled that the FOID information would be exempt from any Freedom of Information Act requests.
Forces loyal to the regime of Syrian president Bashr Al-Assad have begun preparing chemical weapons for possible use against rebel-held positions throughout the country, according to reports from NBC and FOX news late Wednesday.
Sarin attacks the respitory system and causes convulsions, nausea and resiptory failure- the chemical agent was used on the Tokyo subway system in a terrorist attack carried out by the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo in 1995. Thirteen people were killed in that attack.
Syria has never overtly acknowledged having a chemical warfare program of their own, but military and intelligence officials believe the Assad regime has the Middle East's most prolific stockpile of chemical munitions. Some maintain that Syria developed their own chemical weapons independently while others believe Saddam Hussein was able to safely transfer large portions of his WMD inventory to Syria prior to the outbreak of the 2003 Iraq war [the two are not mutually exclusive- the Assad regime could've used a fairly small quantity of Iraqi WMD's as the foundation of their own chemical warfare program- NANESB!].
Western Diplomats warned that the Syrian military using chemical weapons would provoke a more direct involvement from the USA and NATO. The warnings on Syria's chemical weapons comes as fighting rages in the suburbs of Damascus- Syrian rebels had reportedly advanced close to Damascus' International Airport only to be hammered by airstrikes, heavy artillery and rockets. The fighting, which has raged since March of 2011, has at times spilled over into neighboring nations like Turkey and Lebanon.
OTHER SYRIAN NEWS- President Bashr Al-Assad's former press liason, 22 year old Sheherazad “Sherry” Jaafari, is reportedly studying at the New School for Social Research New York despite being accepted to the more prestigous Columbia University earlier this year.
Students at Columbia, along with exiled Syrians, had urged that Columbia rescind Jaafari's admission due to her previous work as a spokeswoman for the Al-Assad regime. Jaafari declined to enroll at Columbia, claiming she didn't want to be harrassed due to her work with Al-Assad.
The raven-tressed Muslima is the daughter of Al-Assad's UN Envoy and also attempted to use her high profile position in the regime and contacts with western reporters to land a job at a western news agency. Earlier this year, ABC News' Barbara Walters admitted to contacting colleagues at CNN to reccomend they hire Jaafari. Walters also contacted a former ABC chief who was a lecturer at Columbia to give Jaafari 'special' consideration for enrollment into the journalism school.
The requests by Jaafari came after Al Assad was interviewed by Walters in December 2011. However, a series of e-mail correspondence between Jaafari and Al-Assad that was released by hackers at Anonymous showed that she had coached Al-Assad on how best to manipulate American public opinion while minimizing the ongoing fighting that had killed an estimated 4000 Syrians by that point [including comparing the regime's crackdown to American law enforcement agencies attempting to break up the Occupy Wall Street encampments- NANESB!].
Walters would not be the only US Media figure duped by somebody from the Assad regime. Obama fundraiser and Vogue editor Anna Wintour published a piece favorably covering Syrian First Lady Asma Al-Assad and Syria under the Assad regime and ruling Ba'ath Party in February 2011.
After increasing public criticism, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced the cancellation of the 2012 New York City Marathon. This is the first cancellation in the history of the marathon and reverses an earlier decision from the mayor's office to hold the event despite diverting valuable city resources from assisting in the cleanup in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."
We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event — even one as meaningful as this — to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track," Bloomberg said.
No one can say they are truly shocked at the cancellation, but what can be shocking is the announcement so close to the race. Participants might have been able to delay flights, change bookings and released hotel space to people without shelter after power outages. Bloomberg has a little egg on his face after relentlessly insisting the race will go on all last week, only to reverse his decision a day and a half before the race, when most participants are already in the city. The suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist, what to do with no race?
Many New Yorkers had pointed out that if the marathon went on as scheduled would've diverted much-needed police, fire and public works resources from parts of the city. The on-again-off-again decision-making for the Marathon isn't the only post-Sandy decision that Bloomberg has been criticized for.
Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.
“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”
Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.
“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”
Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.
“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”
Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.
“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”
