Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Mayor Bloomberg Breaks Public Promise to Vietnam Veteran

Vietnam Vet Vendor Still Sleeping In Hot Dog Cart After Mayor Bloomberg Breaks Promise
Dan Rossi Still Ticketed After Being Told Not To Worry About Keeping Spot
August 1, 2012

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have to eat his words after a broken promise to a disabled Vietnam vet who runs a hotdog cart.

Last month, Hizzoner vowed to help Dan Rossi keep his spot selling hotdogs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the only thing that has resulted since has been a flurry of tickets.

When asked about the situation on July 19, Bloomberg told CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer that “[Rossi's] rights should be protected and he should not worry about it.”

“We’re talking to him. I’m personally not going to make the bed, but he doesn’t have to worry about it and we’re going to take care of it,” Bloomberg added at the time.

However, Mayor Bloomberg definitely has not taken care of it.

When the mayor first addressed the issue, Rossi had been sleeping in his cart every night for five weeks, trying to protect his prime location in front of the MET because the city refused to enforce his legal right to the spot as a disabled Vietnam veteran.
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Monday, February 20, 2012

Thousands of Homeless Veterans in New York City

Thousands of Homeless Veterans in New York City
VOAvideo on Feb 17, 2012
Several public and private organizations are working together to help homeless U.S. military veterans in New York. VOA's Bernard Shusman tells us about their efforts.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Ex-Marine, Iraq Veteran declared a "boy" finally from NYC

NYC agrees ex-Marine is a man, ending 5-year battle

Jonathan Allen
Reuters
8:04 p.m. CST, February 9, 2012


NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a five-year battle with bureaucracy, a former U.S. Marine finally got New York City to admit on Thursday that he is male and agree to reissue the birth certificate that incorrectly stated otherwise.

David Hassan, a bearded Iraq War veteran, was born in Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital 29 years ago. There was never a reason to doubt he was a boy.

But it was only in 2003 that it came to Hassan's attention that the hospital had deemed him to be female on his birth certificate, his lawyer said.

Hassan was not bothered by the mistake until he moved to New Jersey after serving in Iraq with the Marine Corp, and tried to get a New Jersey driving license.
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Monday, February 6, 2012

Veterans of Iraq War Also Deserve Parade in New York City

When Gulf War veterans came home and marched in parades in their honor, Vietnam veterans cried because it was something they never had. Now, they are honored and respected but no one can undo what should have been done back then. Don't let these veterans regret honor coming too late for them.

Veterans of Iraq War Also Deserve Parade in City, Some Argue
By KATE TAYLOR
Published: February 6, 2012

The New York Giants on Tuesday will be showered with confetti and greeted by throngs as they are feted with the city’s most storied honor: a parade through its Canyon of Heroes.


But all the fanfare — the parade this week is the fourth since 2000 to honor a sports team — has touched off anger and unease among some returned Iraq veterans, who are eagerly awaiting their own recognition.

“Everybody recognizes that the Giants deserve a parade,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. But, he added, “If a football team gets a parade, shouldn’t our veterans?”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has long expressed his regret that the United States did not do a better job honoring veterans of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, has cited advice from the Pentagon in deciding it was not appropriate to hold a parade while American soldiers are still fighting in Afghanistan.

But a growing coalition of veterans, elected officials and other public figures are disagreeing, saying it is time to celebrate the men and women who served in Iraq.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Marine faces 15 years behind bars for unknowingly violating gun law

Marine faces 15 years behind bars for unknowingly violating gun law
By Steven Nelson
Published: 12:28 AM 01/03/2012

Ryan Jerome was enjoying his first trip to New York City on business when the former Marine Corps gunner walked up to a security officer at the Empire State Building and asked where he should check his gun.

That was when Jerome’s nightmare began. The security officer called police and Jerome spent the next two days in jail.

The 28-year-old with no criminal history now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of three and a half years in prison. If convicted, his sentence could be as high as fifteen years.

Jerome has a valid concealed carry permit in Indiana and visited New York believing that it was legal to bring his firearm. He was traveling with $15,000 worth of jewelry that he planned to sell.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Marine to be honored for volunteering in Times Square

Marine Corps Public Affairs Office New York
Courtesy Story
NEW YORK - A local Marine will be honored for his community service in a Times Square-ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 3 p.m. before he and his family departs for California just before Christmas in preparation for an Afghanistan deployment.

Staff Sgt. Daniel Valdes, a father of three children, will receive the Meritorious Volunteer Service Medal for his community outreach work as a member of 6th Communications Battalion in Brooklyn since 2008. Later this month he and his family will move to Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he will join the 1st Assault Amphibian Battalion and deploy to Afghanistan in early 2012.

The Meritorious Volunteer Service Medal recognizes service members who perform outstanding volunteer community service of a sustained, direct and consequential nature, above and beyond their duties as a Marine.

As a family man with a wife and three children, Valdes has spent his time supporting organizations that seek to help families. He has been the driving force behind the battalion's key community outreach events over the past years. Most notably, Valdes initiated a relationship between the battalion and the Ronald McDonald House, serving families of children who are hospitalized, by organizing three separate events featuring a spaghetti meal for the families, gift baskets, toy giveaways, and entertainment.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient, still wants to serve

September 26, 2011, 9:06 PM
Medal of Honor Recipient Gets Extension for Fire Dept. Application
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Richard Perry/The New York Times
Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient, at the National September 11 Memorial.

A Marine who fought his way into an ambush in Afghanistan to rescue dozens of people wants to continue to save people by becoming a New York City firefighter.

A federal judge in Brooklyn agreed on Monday to extend the New York Fire Department application period for 24 hours for the Marine, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, to make that happen.

The application period will reopen for the Marine, Dakota Meyer, a sergeant in the inactive reserve, at midnight Monday and close at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, but it will be open for him only.

His lawyer says that is a problem. “My client does not feel that he deserves any special treatment,” said the lawyer, Keith M. Sullivan. “He has said that it’s not what he wanted and he doesn’t think it’s fair.”
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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Almost 4,000 still suffering with PTSD after 9-11 in New York



9/11 -- Remembrance and Renewal: Thousands Still Coping with PTSD
(NEW YORK) -- A decade after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, thousands are still feeling the emotional impact.

After 9/11, a unified spirit helped Americans cope.

"There was a real sense of solidarity in the community which I think probably limited the [emotional] damage," says Dr. John Markowitz at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

But there are nearly 4,000 people who are still suffering with 9/11-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Navy chaplain carries tragic memories of Ground Zero to Afghanistan

Navy chaplain carries tragic memories of Ground Zero to Afghanistan

2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story by Cpl. Brian Adam Jones
U.S. Navy Capt. Rondall Brown serves as the command chaplain for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) in Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. In 2001, the chaplain shepherded families through the carnage in Ground Zero that took the lives of their loved ones, offering a first step toward closure. Brown said it was important to him to be in Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, working to eradicate violence in this once terror-stricken region.
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - Though he’s spent the past 23 years in the Navy, Rondall Brown’s thick drawl, formed in the Blue Ridge Mountains, distinctly makes its presence known when one word crosses the chaplain’s lips – horror.

Brown’s introduction to horror came 10 years ago and 10,000 miles from here, it came to a lieutenant commander serving as a chaplain for a Coast Guard unit in New England. It came as thousands of innocent Americans lost their lives with a collapse and a cloud of dust.

Brown, who calls the mountains of Haysville, N.C., home spent several weeks in New York’s Ground Zero immediately following 9/11. The chaplain shepherded families through the carnage that took the lives of their loved ones, offering a first step toward closure.

“I remember one lady collapsing and just crying out, ‘Oh my God, my baby, I will never see her again.’ Her husband stood there, big guy, clenched fists, with tears streaming down his face. He never said a word,” Brown spoke with long pauses, successfully repelling waves of persistent tears.

“I apologize,” the chaplain said, running his fingers through his short crop of gray hair. “I’m not normally like this.”

Now far away from the wreckage that changed the world, Brown, a Navy captain, serves in Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, as the command chaplain for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.
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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Fire at 9-11 Chapel caused by "craven and contemptible" monsters

Mayor Bloomberg used the words "craven and contemptible" but the word monsters was mine. Can you imagine anyone doing something like this after the pain so many people were in and have been carrying since 9-11?

NYC probes fire at chapel for 9/11 victims

By VERENA DOBNIK,

Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 31, 5:54 pm ET
NEW YORK – A small fire at the temporary home for the remains of thousands of World Trade Center victims was likely arson committed after a break-in on Saturday, authorities said.

The smoldering flames in a section of the facility's chapel on Manhattan's East Side were quickly extinguished.

Firefighters got a call at about 9 a.m. to respond to Memorial Park, a weatherproof tent on Manhattan's East Side where the city is storing the remains of 9/11 victims who have yet to be identified.

The fire damaged a wooden bench, while mementos — pictures, notes, flowers — honoring the dead disappeared.

"Anyone who would set fire to the inviolable Memorial Park chapel is craven and contemptible," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.
read more here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091031/ap_on_re_us/us9_11_remains_fire
linked from RawStory

Monday, August 17, 2009

Asthma, Stress Found Years After 9/11 Attacks

Science Digest

Exposure to dust at the World Trade Center increased the chance of asthma. (By Alex Fuchs -- Associated Press)


Asthma, Stress Found Years After 9/11 Attacks


Office workers, rescuers and others directly exposed to the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks reported new cases of asthma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress five to six years later, according to a study in the Aug. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Exposure to dust clouds, especially among rescuers who worked atop the pile of rubble, increased the likelihood of developing asthma.

The data come from the World Trade Center Health Registry, which tracks 71,437 of the approximately 409,000 adults who personally witnessed the attacks. A total of 46,322 people in four categories -- rescue workers, lower Manhattan residents, office workers and passers-by -- responded to surveys in 2006 and 2007 about their health.

Slightly more than 10 percent of respondents had developed asthma; 39 percent of those reported intense dust cloud exposure.

The prevalence of post-traumatic stress symptoms, which indicate probable post-traumatic stress disorder, has increased from 14.3 percent, when the researchers first interviewed the subjects in 2003 and 2004, to 19 percent in this new wave of surveys. Factors that increased the likelihood of post-traumatic stress included witnessing people jumping from the towers, being injured and knowing someone who died in the attack. Researchers asked the subjects about symptoms such as flashbacks and emotional numbness.
for more go here
Asthma, Stress Found Years After 9 11 Attacks

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Asthma, PTSD still linger for NYC 9/11 survivors

Asthma, PTSD still linger for NYC 9/11 survivors
By DEEPTI HAJELA (AP) – 2 hours ago

NEW YORK — People who were heavily exposed to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center still had elevated risks of developing post-traumatic stress disorder even five years later, according to a study released Tuesday by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The study contained better news about asthma. While those who developed respiratory symptoms soon after the attacks were still being diagnosed with asthma some years later, rates among people who first showed symptoms after 2003 were consistent with normal asthma rates.

"What this study shows fairly thoroughly, there was a very strong association between the intense exposure" on Sept. 11 and the days immediately following, in terms of developing asthma, said Lorna Thorpe, deputy commissioner for epidemiology and a co-author of the study.

"There were lingering effects, but those lingering effects have ameliorated."

The study, based on data from a public health registry that tracks the health effects of Sept. 11, found elevated levels of post-traumatic stress disorder among the more than 46,000 people who were surveyed in 2006-2007.

Rescue and recovery workers had the highest rates of new asthma diagnoses, and their risk was even higher if they were at the World Trade Center site on 9/11 itself or worked there for longer than 90 days. People who had to deal with heavy layers of dust in their homes or offices also had a higher risk of developing asthma.


read more here
Asthma, PTSD still linger for NYC 9/11 survivors

Thursday, April 30, 2009

U.S. Sues New York City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf

April 30, 2009, 6:16 pm
U.S. Sues City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf
By Jennifer 8. Lee
The federal government sued New York City on Thursday on behalf of an Iraq war veteran who says he was denied a promotion in the city’s Department of Correction because he was on active duty when promotions were being considered.

The veteran, Emilio Pennes, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, and has worked for the Correction Department since 1987. According to the complaint, he applied for a promotion to deputy warden shortly before he was activated for duty in 2007. He was unable to attend a promotion interview in person, and so was passed over for the promotion even though he had been ranked first in an internal selection memo, the complaint said.

On a previous tour of duty in 2004 and 2005, he served in Iraq, near Tikrit.
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U.S. Sues City on Iraq Veteran’s Behalf

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

9-11 New York:Seven Years and Still Struggling to Breathe Easier

Seven Years and Still Struggling to Breathe Easier
Nurse.com - Falls Church,VA,USA
By Vikki Newton
Monday November 17, 2008

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the greatest burden borne by 9/11 rescue and recovery workers and the residents of lower Manhattan who lived through the attacks on the World Trade Center, according to the recently released 2008 Annual Report on 9/11 Health from the World Trade Center Medical Working Group of New York City.

Among directly exposed populations, 12% of rescue and recovery workers and 13% of lower Manhattan residents reported symptoms of PTSD, which is three times higher than would be expected if the WTC attacks had never occurred, says Jeffrey Hon, New York City Department of Health 9/11 health coordinator. People from these groups also often present with a constellation of symptoms, he says, including respiratory problems, asthma, and gastroesophageal reflux disease.

"Healthcare providers who treat people in these groups need to be aware of and sensitive to the fact that these health issues persist," Hon says. "Many of the people with respiratory illnesses report that they worked at the WTC site shortly after the attacks or were caught in the dust cloud that rolled through lower Manhattan after the buildings collapsed."

Health Registry Tracks 71,000+

The WTC Health Registry, launched in 2003, periodically collects information about the physical and mental health effects of the collapse from more than 71,000 adults and children who were exposed. Funded by the federal government, the registry is the largest effort in U.S. history to study the health effects of a disaster. Half of the registrants reported being in the dust cloud that rose from the collapsing towers; 70% witnessed a traumatic event that day, such as a plane hitting the tower; and 13% were injured.


The 411 on 9/11 HealthThe 9/11 Health website advises healthcare professionals to do the following –• Ask your patients about their exposure to the WTC disaster during routine exams, even if they live outside the city. People from other areas rushed to the scene to assist with rescue and recovery.

• Refer patients with symptoms described in the Clinical Guidelines to one of the three Centers of Excellence. Treatment is free. Contact information is on the website.

• Share your clinical knowledge and experience evaluating and treating patients with WTC-related illnesses with the NYC DOH and Mental Hygiene. Call or e-mail Jim Cone at 212-442-2402 or jcone@health.nyc.gov/.

• Report the death of any patient with WTC exposure to the NY State Department of Health at 518-402-7900. For more information, visit the 9/11 Health website at http://www.nyc.gov/9-11HealthInfo/.
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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Video of attack on radio show host released

Video of attack on radio show host released
Police hope it will help locate assailants

By Jonathan Saltzman and Christine Hauser
New York Times / September 20, 2008

A Boston-area radio talk show host was viciously beaten with a baseball bat during a robbery in front of a Bronx apartment building, according to New York City police, who released a harrowing surveillance video yesterday of the attack.

Pelagio de la Cruz, 52, of Lynn, who hosts a Spanish-language call-in show on WESX-AM in Chelsea, was attacked in front of a building in the University Heights neighborhood shortly after 3:30 a.m. Sunday when he returned after an evening out. He was in New York visiting his children, who live in the building with their mother, his estranged wife, police said.

Police said two men had apparently seen de la Cruz on the street and followed him to the doorway of the building, where de la Cruz had been pushing the button to try to get in. One man came up behind him and swung at his head with the bat, hitting him seven more times after he fell to the ground. The other man rifled through de la Cruz's pockets. They stole his wallet and a cellphone, then fled in a dark-colored car, police said.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Missing Teacher Is Found, Alive, Floating in New York Bay

Missing Teacher Is Found, Alive, Floating in New York Bay
By AL BAKER
Published: September 16, 2008
Almost three weeks after she was reported missing, a young teacher was spotted floating in New York’s Upper Bay on Tuesday and was rescued by deckhands from a Staten Island ferry.


The teacher, Hannah Upp, 23, was plucked from the swells, taken ashore and transported to Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island, where officials said she was in stable condition.

The disappearance of Ms. Upp, a New York City teaching fellow set to begin her second year as a Spanish instructor at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Harlem, baffled her relatives and friends and touched off a citywide search. The teachers’ union offered a $10,000 reward for information.

After she vanished — on Aug. 29, just before the start of the school year — investigators found her keys, credit cards, wallet, cellphone and passport among her other belongings in her apartment in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. She is believed to have last withdrawn money from her bank account on Aug. 28.
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Thursday, September 11, 2008

9/11 survivors troubled by asthma, PTSD


9/11 survivors troubled by asthma, PTSD
Story Highlights
Working group looked at more than 100 studies done since 2001

Survivors reported higher levels of PTSD and respiratory problems such as asthma

More federal funds needed for medical services for at-risk groups, panel says

By Andrea Kane
CNN

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- On September 11, 2001, Kathryn Freed watched from two blocks away as a plane hit the World Trade Center's north tower.

"Honestly, it was so surreal," Freed said. "We heard the plane coming -- it was very low and very loud -- and we watched it go right over our heads; we just watched it hit dead center the north tower. I stood there and watched the skin of the building come off. It looked like tinsel from a Christmas tree falling down."

A short while later, Freed saw the second plane plow through the south tower in a giant fireball. And as she headed back toward her apartment, four blocks from what was soon to be known as ground zero, the south tower collapsed, sending a plume of debris into the air and straight down her street.

Freed believes that the lingering cloud of dust -- caused by the towers' collapse and the digging out of ground zero -- caused some of her long- and short-term medical problems, such as her "WTC cough" and other respiratory issues.

She's among the many residents of lower Manhattan, emergency responders, recovery workers, commuters and passers-by to have developed serious, sometimes chronic medical problems since the terrorist attack seven years ago.

A commission charged with examining the scope and depth of the attack's health effects reviewed more than 100 scientific articles published since 2001 and found that new asthma levels among residents and rescue workers were two to three times higher than the national estimates.

The report by the World Trade Center Medical Working Group, issued in advance of the September 11 anniversary, also found that two to three years after the attack, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder remained elevated among rescue and recovery workers and residents of lower Manhattan.

But the most reassuring finding was that in all the studies they looked at, there was consistency.

"The primary finding of the report, as you synthesize the main findings from more than 100 peer review articles on the health ramifications of 9/11, is that the findings are very similar across the studies," Lorna Thorpe said. Thorpe, the deputy commissioner in the Division of Epidemiology at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is a member of the Medical Working Group.
go here for more
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/09/11/wtc.health.report/index.html


It would have been a wonderful memorial to take care of all the rescue workers who rushed in to help and came from all other the country, but they didn't. Too many have been dying for the simple fact they acted to help. They lost jobs because they became ill on that day. They lost family members because too many felt it was their duty to go there and help. Police officers, firefighters, construction workers, all rushed in to help and they have been paying the price ever since but no one has paid attention to any of them. Healthcare has been denied and the debt we owed to all of them has yet to be paid. kc

Friday, August 8, 2008

NY Mayor's plans to reduce homeless off pace

Mayor’s Effort to Reduce Homelessness Is Off Pace, Study Says
By FERNANDA SANTOS
Published: August 7, 2008
In 2004, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg began an offensive against homelessness that surprised many advocates because of the ambition of its timetable and goals. The city would slash the number of homeless people by two-thirds in five years by building more homes for the poor, pouring more money into prevention services and trying to ensure that the shelter system would be used only by people who really needed it.

With four years past, the mayor still has a long way to go to meet his goals.

According to a report by the city’s Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan fiscal monitor, almost as many families were living in city shelters in March — about 8,500 — as when the mayor unveiled his proposal, though investment in prevention services had increased by at least 20 percent.
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