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	<title>NY Blog</title>
	<link>http://allnyblog.com</link>
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		<title>Last Night&#8217;s Action: Two Big Points</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Rangers 5 Atlanta 2 : New York stormed out to a 3-0 lead and never looked back. Vinny Prospal scored tow goals and added an assisted on the other goal in the first period. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 29 shots as he rebounded nicely from his debacle the other night against New Jersey. Memphis 119 Knicks 112 : It&#8217;s the same old story. Knicks fall way behind by not playing defense and then make things interesting down the stretch. But, in the end it&#8217;s just another loss and kudos to Eddy Curry, who still hasn&#8217;t made it onto the court in his &#8220;comeback&#8221; from surgery. New Jersey 3 Pittsburgh 1 : Martin Brodeur was awesome in the pipes, stopping 34 shots and Andy Greene added a goal and an assist. It&#8217;s a big win for the Devils as the pull to within two points of the Atlantic Division lead. Oklahoma City 104 Nets 102 : They almost pulled off their eight win, but they fell a bit short. Kevin Durant lit them up for 32 points while Jeff Green poured in 27. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/last-nights-action-two-big-points/</link>
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		<title>Budget Cuts Could Shrink NYPD To Its Size In 1990</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Under Mayor Bloomberg's proposed city budget , the number of NYPD officers on the streets would fall to its lowest point in 20 years. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that if the Mayor's $46.5 billion budget is approved, the force would lose 892 officers due to attrition while welcoming aboard just 112 recruits&#8212;making the NYPD as small as it's been since 1990. With just 32,817 officers, Kelly told the Daily News the cuts would be felt. Because there will be so few rookie cops, the cuts might have a big effect on " Operation Impact "&#8212;a policing strategy that puts a large number of new officers in high-crime areas. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/budget-cuts-could-shrink-nypd-to-its-size-in-1990/</link>
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		<title>More Trouble for Relative of Bronx Pols</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, grandson of Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo and nephew of City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, is facing civil charges in an alleged abuse case at a charter school he helped run. According to the Daily News , Arroyo is named in the suit (even though he no longer runs the school) because he didn't do enough to stop a teacher who's accused of assaulting a student and making sexually inappropriate comments. Arroyo was already facing criminal charges for embezzling from a Bronx nonprofit, and he's now ready to plead guilty in the embezzlement case. The Times reported that Arroyo's believed to have used the money for making political contributions to his family members, as well as spending on clothes, meals and trips. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/more-trouble-for-relative-of-bronx-pols/</link>
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		<title>Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac, Queens &quot;Recluse&quot;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ If Jack Kerouac were still alive, he'd be turning 88 today! The author and voice of the Beats made his way all over New York City during his lifetime (the Columbia Spectator just visited some of his old urban haunts)&#8212;but his life in Queens was never really well documented, even though he lived there for 12 years (leaving in 1955). His homes in the borough were at at 133-01 Cross Bay Blvd in Ozone Park and 94-21 134th Street in Richmond Hill, and the Queens Gazette reports that it was the longest amount of he and his mother stayed in one place. Professor and playwright Larry Myers tells them, &#8220;They were constantly on the move. Jack and his mom would sometimes just pack up and leave because they could not pay the rent.&#8221; But why was he so quiet about Queens? It is, after all, where he wrote On The Road . Myers says it was "because nothing major ever happened to him while he was living there. Gabrielle worked all day in a shoe factory in Brooklyn while he sat home and wrote. He was kind of a recluse.&#8221; There are a few anecdotes of his time in the borough, however. Like when he and Allen Ginsberg stopped at the Atlantic Avenue overpass of the Van Wyck Expressway, and Kerouac declared: "It looks like a bowling alley of cars." Another friend of his, musician David Amram recalls, &#8220;I knew Jack for many years , and I only heard him mention Queens once. One night in the late 50&#8217;s I was riding in a car on the Long Island Expressway with him, and as we passed by Queens, he gave this little gesture with his hand. It was a French Canadian sort of thing. And he said, &#8217;I used to live over there.&#8217;" Maybe for his birthday the Landmarks Preservation Commission will give him and the borough some love . To learn more about his lost years in Queens, expert Patrick Fenton has a nice history ; and the New York Public Library has an expansive Kerouac Archive curated by Dr. Isaac Gewirtz (who even wrote a book about the author's fascination with fantasy sports leagues). ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/happy-birthday-jack-kerouac-queens-recluse/</link>
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		<title>CPSC Issue Sling Warning For Babies Under 4 Months</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ From the CSPC site The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about infant slings today. The agency noted that babies under the age of four months do not have have much neck control, so they may suffocate from while in the sling. The sling-style carriers are popular, because they allow the babies to be close to the parents' chest and are not as bulky as other structured carriers&#8212; some parents even brag about not putting their babies in "conventional" strollers. Here's the warning: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is advising parents and caregivers to be cautious when using infant slings for babies younger than four months of age. In researching incident reports from the past 20 years, CPSC identified and is investigating at least 14 deaths associated with sling-style infant carriers, including three in 2009. Twelve of the deaths involved babies younger than four months of age. Slings can pose two different types of suffocation hazards to babies. In the first few months of life, babies cannot control their heads because of weak neck muscles. The sling&#8217;s fabric can press against an infant&#8217;s nose and mouth, blocking the baby&#8217;s breathing and rapidly suffocating a baby within a minute or two. Additionally, where a sling keeps the infant in a curled position bending the chin toward the chest, the airways can be restricted, limiting the oxygen supply. The baby will not be able to cry for help and can slowly suffocate. Many of the babies who died in slings were either a low birth weight twin, were born prematurely, or had breathing issues such as a cold. Therefore, CPSC urges parents of preemies, twins, babies in fragile health and those with low weight to use extra care and consult their pediatricians about using slings. Consumer Reports, which had concerns about slings amid injuries , offered its take on its blog , "The CPSC gives some very sound advice for addressing suffocation risks. We think they should develop additional advice to help reduce the risk of babies falling out of slings&#8212;another hazard scenario not addressed in the CPSC warning notice." Last year, MacLaren issued a recall for its finger-amputating strollers . ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/cpsc-issue-sling-warning-for-babies-under-4-months/</link>
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		<title>Would You Pay $225 for 12 Hours of Theater?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Hey, who's up for a 12 hour theatrical adaptation of a bleak Dostoevsky novel, in Italian with English supertitles? A lot of people, apparently, if the Times's hype-tastic article about a forthcoming production of The Demons is to be believed. It will be staged on Governors Island just twice in July as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, and the Times predicts that those who pay upwards of $175 for the experience will win the "I-was-there bragging rights that a certain brand of New Yorker finds irresistible." If that's you, well too bad because tickets are already sold out . Oh well. In 2005 we saw Gatz , a brilliant 8 hour adaptation of The Great Gatsby , so we're not sweating it either. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/would-you-pay-225-for-12-hours-of-theater/</link>
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		<title>Week in Rock: High Violet</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; &#160; The National Return As we hinted last week , the National played the first of two "secret" shows last night at the Bell House in Gowanus as a warm-up for their upcoming tour behind new album High Violet . The band played an 18-song set for the cramped, sold-out crowd (which included a beardless Michael Stipe!), augmented by 5 other musicians, including a small horns section and a violin player. Although there were nearly as many people on-stage as you'd find at a Broken Social Scene concert, the arrangements never felt indulgent or flashy. The older songs, including a raucous "Abel" and the superb Boxer -trilogy "Slow Show," "Apartment Story," and "Start a War," were all more muscular than their recorded versions. It was a very fun night; what else can you call an evening when lead singer Matt Berninger continually flashes devil's horns (albeit, it was a sign to their sound person to turn up the reverb, but still). The band looked delighted throughout the entire set, Berninger in particular; he was equally traipsing and lunging around the stage, sometimes with goblet of wine in hand, sometimes throwing his newly-bought mic stand around. During the encore, he walked into the audience, straining his vocals and elating fans during a jet-fueled "Mr November." The bulk of the set was a showcase for 11 new tunes (most likely all from the upcoming LP); on the whole, the new songs sound like a summation of (and progression from) their last two major albums, taking the tension-filled skeletons of the Boxer -era songs and injecting Alligator's guitar-catharsis, with slightly expanded arrangements. Highlights included set opener "Blood Buzz, Ohio," slow burner "Vanderlylle Cry Baby" (you can see video here ), rocking "Conversation 16," and the already-classic ballad "Runaway." Here's the full setlist , and below, you can see a video of last night's set-closer "Fake Empire." Also this week: The reunited Faith No More will kick off the Williamsburg waterfront summer concert series this year in early July. Lil Wayne was sentenced, after a few delays, to a year in prison at Rikers. Conan will tour the U.S. with "a half-assed comedy &#38; musical tour." ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/week-in-rock-high-violet/</link>
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		<title>Port Authority Threatening Fare Hikes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ The head of the Port Authority implied yesterday there would be new price hikes on commuters soon, in order to fix crumbling city infrastructures. PA executive director Christopher Ward spoke to New York Building Congress yesterday, outlining the need for more money: "We need to find new creative pricing schemes that pull wealth out of that economy and reinvest in the infrastructure that we know we need today...The public does embrace the idea of paying for something. They just need to tangibly see it get built." There were no specifics about what might increase for commuters, though one possible proposal is for drivers to pay a premium to use fast lanes on bridges and in tunnels. Infrastructure upgrades deemed necessary include rebuilding the cramped Port Authority terminal, rebuilding city bridges, and fixing LaGuardia and JFK airports. "LaGuardia is not an airport that New York can be proud of. LaGuardia must be fundamentally rebuilt," Ward said harshly, but not without support . Ward also said that he was "mildly optimistic" that a deal would be made with Larry Silverstein to complete the three stalled office towers at the WTC site . If the two sides can't come to an agreement by today, an arbitration panel will be brought in. As it stands so far today, things are looking grim ( as ever ), the WSJ reports . The PA also announced that in the next year they will be phasing out all trucks made before 1994 with more energy-efficient ones (that emit fewer greenhouse gases), in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency. By 2017, no truck will be allowed unless their engines meet or exceed 2007 federal emissions standards. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/port-authority-threatening-fare-hikes/</link>
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		<title>Did Wyclef Use Haiti Charity To Pay His Mistress?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ After the devastating earthquake in Haiti , Grammy Award-winning singer Wyclef Jean's charity Yele Haiti received millions of dollars of donations before coming under fire for years of shaky accounting and reports that the nonprofit had given $410,000 to businesses tied to Jean . Now, according to Yele sources and tax documents, it appears that the former Fugee paid his personal assistant and mistress $105,000 in 2008&#8212;more than three times the salary of the program's director, according to Gawker . Zakiya Khatou-Chevassus is now Yele's vice president, but in 2008 she was reportedly a girlfriend and personal assistant to the married musician, who apparently maintains an open relationship with his wife. And insiders said Khatou-Chevassus was compensated with nonprofit money even when she was working on Jean's for-profit ventures. "She worked for Wyclef on all Wyclef matters," one tipster told the website. "She did whatever Wyclef needed that day, whether it was related to Yele or not. She would do things like book flights, and she wasn't very good at it. It's a shame that she made that much money." In that year, Khatou-Chevassus received roughly one-third of all money Yele spent on management and general expenses for her work on "program development." After Yele was accused of shady financial dealings including paying $31,200 annually to rent a table inside the kitchen of a recording studio that Jean and his cousin own, Jean defended himself and the nonprofit , stating he would never "take money for my personal pocket when it comes to Yele." Here's a list of NGOs providing relief work in Haiti, via the Daily Beast . ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/did-wyclef-use-haiti-charity-to-pay-his-mistress/</link>
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		<title>Google Maps Bike, Now in Beta, Is NOT Perfect, Post Declares</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Google Maps suggested bike route from Sunny's in Red Hook. A couple of days ago Google unveiled their Beta version of a new Maps interface, which provides bike route recommendations across America. It's a vast undertaking, with a lot of nuances to factor in, but that didn't stop the Post from saddling up to nitpick Google to the max. (If we didn't know better, we'd think the Post has some sort of ax to grind with Google .) One day after it was launched, a reporter for the tabloid pedaled around and took Google to task for several shortcomings around NYC, such as: In Brooklyn, Google steers cyclists into the path of anti-bike Hasidic Jews by designating Bedford Avenue between Division and Flushing avenues in Williamsburg as a legitimate bike route. The city sandblasted away that street's bike lane last year after protests. Daaaamn, Google just got pwnd! Oh wait, that's actually a pretty weak complaint, because the bike lane only partially disappears for about a dozen blocks, and then picks up again. (It's actually still basically there, because the DOT left one of the white lines from the old bike lane.) Also, are Hasidic Jews standing by with pitchforks to spear bike riders in South Williamsburg? If so, we don't see them on Google Street View. The article also calls Google out for misidentifying some footpaths as bike paths in Central Park, and sending cyclists to Jersey via the GW on the north side, although the "official" bike path is actually on the south side. Then there's this, which, while valid, sounds sounds so persnickety it would fit right in as a Gothamist comment: "Google Maps sends cyclists on a hazardous 30-block stretch of Frederick Douglass Boulevard... A safer pick would have been up St. Nicholas Avenue." Ugh, can't Google do anything right? It's not as if New York is a massive city with hundreds of miles of bike lanes constantly in flux. Like the Post, we'll wait for Bing to come out with a bike mapping feature, thank you very much. ]]></description>
		<link>http://allnyblog.com/google-maps-bike-now-in-beta-is-not-perfect-post-declares/</link>
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