A three year investigation has resulted in the indictment of 16 NYPD officers accused of resolving traffic tickets for friends, relatives and fellow cops. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson discussed the case in a press conference with reporters Friday afternoon. Read More
The new Resorts World casino—as operated by robots in compliance with New York State law, after a very long ordeal to bring more gambling revenue to Aqueduct—had its grand opening this afternoon. Look who it brought in: Democratic assemblyman David Weprin is testing his hand at the games of fortune! Read More
Democrats are slamming local Republican congressmen Bob Turner and Michael Grimm for voting to allow an Iran-affiliated mining company to purchase a stake in the largest U.S. mining company.
The bill swaps public lands in Arizona with lands owned by Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining companies. Rio Tinto partners with Iran on a mining operation in Nambia, even though under current sanctions American companies are forbidden from doing business with Iran. Read More
Herman Cain isn’t just the Republican Presidential frontrunner and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, he’s also a motivational speaker and poet. Archived versions of Mr. Cain’s official website reveal his life lessons and multiple poems bylined to “The Hermanator.” Read More
City Comptroller John Liu has initiated a independent review of his campaign’s fundraising and has hired former New York attorney general Robert Abrams to conduct it.
The announcement comes after the New York Times published a devastating report alleging that Mr. Liu’s campaign raised a substantial amount of their campaign money by finding dummy donors to act as if the checks had come from them, when in fact the money was being donated by longtime supporters of Mr. Liu’s.
“I look forward to a thorough and prompt review,” Mr. Liu said.
The review is expect to last sixty days. Read More
The riotous conflagration that happened in Oakland earlier this week couldn’t happen in New York City for one simple reason: no tear gas.
John Gambling, on his weekly chat with Mayor Mike Bloomberg on WOR this morning, tried to get Mr. Bloomberg to talk about the Oakland riots, but the mayor demurred.
“I can’t talk about other cities. Our responsibilities are to talk about your rights and your safety and I think we’re trying to do that,” the mayor said. “Other cities have different geographies, different numbers of police offices and firefighters, different training, different management. I don’t know. All I know, is it’s this administration’s responsibility to make sure that the New York City public has the world’s best police department, fire department, and I think we do.” Read More
Following up on an article in Gotham Schools that details how Assemblyman–and likely Congressional candidates Hakeem Jeffries–is lapping up support of charter school proponents, an anti-charter advocate is sending around an email this morning accusing him of selling out for some those charter school fundraising dollars.
“Jeffries MUST NOT be elected,” writes Mona David of the NYC Parents Union ” Our children’s education and futures, our schools and YOUR jobs are at stake! Jeffries is NOT going to Congress!” Read More
There a few things that set Resorts World Casino, which opens its doors at 1 p.m. today, apart from its Las Vegas brethren. First of all: it's in Queens, which means its New York City's first casino. Secondly, it might technically be a "racino" since its connected to the Aqueduct racetrack in South Ozone Park. But what really distinguishes the joint--which features 5,000 gambling terminals, 6,500 parking spaces, Chinese dim sum, and the Asian dice game sic bo--is the robots. Read More
Members of a bipartisan “supercommittee” formed to address the national debt can’t seem to agree on a plan and it doesn’t look like they will any time soon. Read More
Columbia narrowly snuck details about its tech campus proposal out yesterday before today's deadline for RFPs. After which all contenders must remain silent. To make up for the procrastination, however, the university threw a quote from The Atlantic into the last slide of its executive summary. Something about human progress, social innovation yadda yadda economic growth?
Stanford and Cornell, who is partnering with Israel's Technion, have both shown the world their specs, which take the city up on its offer to build an engineering mecca on Roosevelt Island. But like NYU, Columbia is opting for a different location, one that it's already developing: Manhattanville.
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