April 2011
March 2011
NY Contractors Charged With Fraud On Subway, Other... →
Two contractors were charged with defrauding a host of New York-area public agencies by claiming to perform contruction and demolition projects actually done by other companies.
According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, Environmental Energy Associates’ Balu Kamat and Carmine Desio allegedly exploited federal and state goals intended to promote minority-owned contractors by...
Obama gets openness award in private →
Headline of the day.
Millennials want their news from major nat'l... →
soupsoup:
Reports of the demise of newspapers may be greatly exaggerated.
According to a new Harvard study, the denizens of the digital age — 18-to-29-year-olds — would prefer to get most of their political news about the next presidential campaign from — believe it or not — major national newspapers.
In the survey from the Harvard University Institute of Politics, 49 percent of respondents in...
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Kuwaiti cabinet resigns in new crisis | AFP →
Kuwait’s government submitted its resignation today, a minister announced, sparking a fresh political crisis in a Gulf emirate prone to such volatility over the past five years.
In a step unrelated to revolts in the Arab world, it was the sixth cabinet led by Prime Minister Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmad Al-Sabah to resign since his naming five years ago, during which time three ...
UN Security Council Sanctions Ivory Coast’s... →
The United Nations Security Council announced late Wednesday it imposed sanctions on incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo and four others.
Gbagbo has refused to cede power after losing a November presidential election and the West African country is on the brink of a civil war. The announcement came days after France and Nigeria said they would introduce a resolution expressing “grave...
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New Flow Sought for Water Street - WSJ.com →
Lower Manhattan’s Water Street could be next on the list of city thoroughfares slated for a major overhaul.
New York City has remade miles of streets by taking space from cars and giving it to pedestrians, cyclists and buses, but the Financial District has been mostly untouched. Now the city’s Economic Development Corporation is looking for consultants to do a more in-depth...
TARP Inspector General Blasts Program →
theoval:
On his last day as inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil Barofsky cedes his position with a full-throated critique of the unpopular program’s efficacy in a New York Times op-ed.
WALL ST. JOURNAL: Arizona criminalizes certain... →
Arizona has become the first state in the nation to criminalize abortions based on the sex or race of a fetus.
(Here’s a report from the Arizona Republic and here’s a link to the new law, signed yesterday by Ariz. Governor Jan Brewer.)
The law makes it a Class 3 felony, punishable up to 7 years in jail, for doctors to perform sex- or race-selection abortions.
Republican supporters of the law...
The struggle for P.S. 84: After a battle between... →
capitalnewyork:
How P.S. 84 became a cautionary tale about gentrification and displacement, the challenges of integrating disparate cultures, and what can happen when well-meaning activism goes awry.
Foreclosure Aid Fell Short, and Is Fading -... →
All the News That's Fit to "Print"
beccasbookshelf:
Fit to Print is a new project that was just brought to my attention. Filmmaker Adam Chadwick and Nancy Wolfe, a journalist and an acquaintance of mine from The New School, are working on a new documentary about the rapid change in the newspaper industry. They are currently interviewing a variety of newspaper veterans from the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as...
Wall of Sound →
The social world of opera-going may be headed the way of polar bears and ice caps, but society hasn’t disappeared. A hierarchical social world has managed to absorb the omnipresence of music pretty effortlessly. You can see this in the violent intragenre squabbling that animates indie rock circles, and in the savage takedowns of avant-garde opera performances in art-music magazines. Meanwhile...
State Department Sanctions Belarus Company For... →
The U.S. State Department announced Tuesday it was sanctioning a Belorussian state-owned energy company for doing business with Iran.
A review by the Department found that Belarusneft entered into a $500 million contract with the NaftIran Intertrade Company in 2007 for the development of the Jofeir oilfield in Iran, violating the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 as amended by a July 2010 Iran...
EU Backtracks, Says Oil Sanctions Only Apply To... →
The European Commission clarified statements it made earlier Tuesday about oil exports from Libya, saying that sanctions only apply to people and companies specifically listed.
Earlier, a spokesman for the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, said “there is an oil embargo against the whole of Libya.”
An unnamed spokesman for Ashton said later, “The...
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“Things change on the web all the time, and we are constantly asked to modify our...”
– Capital New York’s Tom McGeveran on the New York Times’ paywall. Another must-read. (via capitalnewyork)
19 killed, including journalist, in Iraq hostage... →
producermatthew:
Nineteen people were killed and 65 people were injured after gunmen stormed a government building in Tikrit, Iraq Tuesday afternoon.
A freelance journalist working for Reuters was among those killed when one gunman detonated a bomb on his belt.
Police were unable to evacuate the building “because the gunmen are shooting from inside it,” a police officer told Agence France...
Freeloaders Unite to Fight Subway Fares →
Norwegian student Petter Slaatrem Titland strolls through the open gates of this city’s subway system most days without a care in the world or a transit ticket in his pocket.
No ordinary fare dodger, Mr. Titland has insurance against getting caught.
Mr. Titland leads a band of “Plankers,” as they are known in the local jargon, who have pooled the risk by creating a fund to...
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Rabbi pleads guilty in NJ corruption case →
The spiritual leader for one of the largest Syrian Jewish sects in the United States has entered a guilty plea in a massive federal corruption probe in New Jersey.
Rabbi Saul Kassin of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty in a Trenton federal courtroom Monday to one count of unauthorized money transmitting.
The 89-year-old is the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and New...
Libyan Rebels Won’t Face Oil Sanctions →
If the Libyan rebels are able to resume oil production at wells previously under the control of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, they won’t face U.S. sanctions, a Treasury Department official told Dow Jones Newswires.
The U.S. has placed Gadhafi’s government as well as its state-owned entities, including the sovereign wealth fund and the national oil company, under sanctions, and it has frozen $32...
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In DC for the week
Posting will be light.
“Another lawyer, Steve Zissou, who represents Mr. Coke, suggested that the office...”
– For Prosecutor in New York, a Global Beat - NYTimes.com
The Kill Team - Rolling Stone →
brooklynmutt:
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
“In an attempt to move the organization into a new era, the New York Mets...”
– Mets Release Mets - The Onion Sports Network (via sportsnetny)
notarobotbutaghost:
The Black Angels - Bad...
“Journalists should not be removed from their communities, but learn how to be a...”
– Jacqui Banaszynski at a conference of Knight-chair journalism professors focused on teaching journalism in the digital age. (via elaineclisham)
“In a groundbreaking series of reports in 2010, Washington Post reporters Bill...”
– The Secret Bunker Congress Never Used : NPR