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08 Feb 2012 19:57

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U.S.: Mother sues New York City for an amount larger than the city’s budget

  • $900 trillion lawsuit against the city of New York source
  • » The city’s 2012 budget? $65 billion: Despite the big number, there is a strong tinge of sadness to the case. Fausat Ogunbayo, a Staten Island mother of two, had her two children (ages 16 and 13) taken away back in 2008 amid concerns for her mental stability. However, an appellate court ruling last month provided her with some legal ammo, saying that despite Ogunbayo’s history of mental illness, that didn’t immediately equate neglect, as the city claimed. Now she’s suing the city, saying that it violated her civil rights, along with her children’s, and claiming that the separation caused “over three years of terror, horror, grievous harm, time lost, substantial economic hardship and injuries.” She may have a case; she may want to knock down that dollar total, though.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2012 19:52

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Tech: Michael Bloomberg: Possibly a coder? Depends on how his resolution goes.

  • cool Codecademy wants to encourage people to learn how to program, and they did so by creating a game-based platform that encourages reward-based learning.
  • cooler In a spark of genius and a great kick in the pants, the company created a New Year’s resolution idea called #Codeyear, which allows users to resolve to code in 2012.
  • coolest El Bloombito himself — NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg — revealed he plans to take part. Sounds like someone’s going to learn a new language: Ruby. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Dec 2011 09:04

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Culture: Alec Baldwin’s not “horny” enough to be New York City’s mayor

  • They’re like a guy on a date that you can tell he just can’t wait to get his hand up your blouse before even the lights go out in the theater. They’re all just so horny for it.
  • Alec Baldwin • Describing the people running for New York City mayor in 2013. The unabashedly liberal Baldwin was thinking about leaving his role at “30 Rock” to do the same. But recently, for whatever reason, he decided to stay on as ultra-conservative Jack Donaghy. “I’ve got a good job,” the actor rambled. “Am I doing ‘To Kill a Mockingbird?’ No. I’m doing a sitcom. But we have fun, and it’s a family.” source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Dec 2011 10:30

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U.S.: NYPD: Deadly elevator fire ambush incident was over unpaid debt

  • The woman killed owed the suspect $2,000, according to the suspect. The man who allegedly ambushed a woman getting out of an elevator was upset about not receiving payment over work he had done for her, according to the NYPD. The victim, 74-year-old Deloris Gillespie, reportedly took the suspect, Jerome Isaac, in for about six months as he worked for her, but their relationship had deteriorated, and he had been removed from Gillespie’s home earlier this year. One interesting facet about the story: One of the people who lived on the same floor as Gillespie, Jaime Holguin, is an AP employee who knew both the suspect and the victim, and is cited heavily throughout the source article. For now, Holguin and other residents have been evacuated from the building, as remnants of the brutal attack, including a melted elevator door, remain. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Dec 2011 10:27

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U.S.: Horrific elevator attack: Woman set on fire by man she allegedly knew

  • In these screenshots shown above, the suspect in this deadly attack is shown dousing a woman with gasoline and lighting a Molotov cocktail, which he then threw at the victim. According to authorities (who haven’t released the identity of the man or the motive in the attack), the man knew 74-year-old new york city, nyc, nyc elevators, nyc elevator attack, Molotov cocktail, firebombing attack, Deloris Gillespie, and was waiting for her when her elevator came down. He then ambushed her. The man walked into a police station Saturday night, reeking of gasoline, and implicated himself in the horrific death. Awful situation all around. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Dec 2011 04:01

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U.S.: Madison Ave. tragedy: Freak elevator accident kills woman in NYC

  • 10 a.m. the time at which Suzanne Hart, an NYC advertising executive, died in a freak elevator accident Wednesday
  • 7 p.m. the time at which officials were able to fully to fully extricate her body from the elevator source
  • » How often does this happen? It’s fairly rare for an elevator to cause such an issue in NYC — despite the fact that roughly 60,000 elevators operate in the skyscraper-heavy city, there were just 53 accidents in 2010, only three of which were fatal. (Accidents of this nature, however, aren’t unprecedented; Jerry Fuchs, a prominent indie rock drummer who played with !!! and LCD Soundsystem, amongst others, died in 2009 after falling into an elevator shaft.) But the level of shock amongst her co-workers at Y&R — which had its employees work from home in the wake of the news — was strong; Hart was a well-respected figure in the advertising world. And to make things worse, the company was in the midst of moving to a newer building with a better elevator. This story is just awful.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Nov 2011 20:34

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U.S.: NYC woman critically hurt after being hit by falling shopping cart

  • cause A couple of twelve-year-old kids at an East Harlem shopping center were horsing around in a parking garage on Sunday afternoon when they decided to push a Target shopping cart off of a walkway. Four stories below, Marion Salmon Hedges was directly in the path of the cart, which fell to the sidewalk. And she got hurt. Badly.
  • effect Hedges is currently in a medically-induced coma, in critical condition. “She’s going to be, in the best of all cases, in rehabilitation for months,” said her husband, Michael. “She’s under sedation. She’s intubated. She has a thousand machines hooked up to her. It’s very disturbing.” The two boys have been charged in the incident. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Oct 2011 14:47

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U.S.: Brutal incident at NYC McDonald’s: Self-defense or unchecked violence?

  • There is video of this on YouTube. We’re linking it instead of posting it, because it’s that violent and difficult to watch. Here’s what happened: Two customers got unruly after a McDonald’s employee wouldn’t give them their food until he could check the $50 bill they handed over. The customers started slapping him, and then jumped over the counter to confront him. What these unruly customers didn’t know is that the employee, Rayon McIntosh, recently got out of jail for manslaughter, and the incident set him off. He got a hold of a metal pole and started beating them savagely. One of the customers suffered a broken arm and fractured skull. The result? Both the customers and McIntosh got charged, in McIntosh’s case with felony assault. The chain and franchise owner have both come out against McIntosh’s actions, but the video itself seems to support a reasonable cause for self-defense, even if McIntosh’s own reaction was too heavy-handed (to put it lightly). Watch the video and see what you think. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Aug 2011 10:21

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U.S.: Commuters in NYC slowly getting back to normal after Irene

  • positive All of New York City’s subway routes are moving along without much trouble. While service was supposed to be lighter than usual, many riders said they didn’t notice any significant delays.
  • negative However, if you’re commuting from outside the city — especially Connecticut or New Jersey, you’re out of luck. All lines of the Metro-North Railroad are down, as are New Jersey Transit trains. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Aug 2011 20:25

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U.S.: Hurricane Irene’s costs — both in human and monetary form

  • 19 deaths reported so far from Hurricane Irene source
  • » And damages in “the tens of billions”: With the storm largely past U.S. shores, now begins the tallying of damages. You’ve seen some examples of this already. But while it’s too soon to predict exactly what the final tally will be, in New Jersey, Chris Christie is already throwing a price tag on things. “I’ve got to imagine that the damage estimates are going to be in the billions of dollars, if not in the tens of billions of dollars,” he told “Meet the Press” this morning. These costs will largely be eaten by the federal government. The loss of human life, however, won’t be. Click the source link above. It’s a blow by blow of saddening proportions.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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