Split (1)

train · 2.6M rows

text stringlengths 9 72.5k
Three New York City journalists, with the help of civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, have filed a federal lawsuit against the New York City Police Department for denying press passes. The police have stonewalled these journalists and not given them any explanation for their denials.
We here at Gotham Gazette feel their pain.
Since the summer of 2007, we have been denied a press identification card, which would assist us in accessing certain crowded/exclusive City Hall events. The NYPD’s reason: that we are online only, sans a tangible, ink-stained print publication.
UPDATE: On its site, the education department now has a spreadsheet with results for high schools only. It’s still not exactly easy to use but might prove more user friendly than the single one for primary and secondary schools. Click here.
City high schools received their report cards today from the bosses at Tweed Courthouse and, as with elementary schools and middle schools, grades are up. According to the Department of Education press release, 57 percent of schools kept their A averages or move up by at least one least grade since the first report cards last month. One hundred twelve schools — or 39 percent — got As, including all the city’s so-called specialized schools (Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, LaGuardia, etc.). Only 2 percent, or a total of six, city high schools flunked.
The department advises parents and eighth graders now in the thick of the high school selection process to use the progress reports to help make their selections. But they expect parents to do a lot of clicking and downloading. The list of grades for all schools are available in a cumbersome Excel spreadsheet here that mixes up all grade levels and includes some information parents will find extraneous. Getting a report for an individual school requires going here, filling in the form, waiting for search results to come back and then clicking to download a PDF of the report card which, on my computer at least, was very slow.
So what was Borough President Scott Stringer’s grandest revelation at the Manhattan beep’s office? It’s likely no one would notice if he didn’t show up to work.
“I called (Bronx Borough President) Adolfo Carrion. And he said, ‘They never call. Let’s have lunch,'” Stringer recalled.
That was nearly three years ago. Now, he claims, he has changed the way the office works.
Gov. David Paterson’s budget cuts are in, and he plans on slashing $5.2 billion over two years.
The cuts will come from everywhere, according to a press release. In what could cause the most backlash, the governor wants to cut $585 million from this year’s state school aid. The governor also proposed to raise CUNY and SUNY tuition by $600 and cut $41 million in municipal aid to New York City.
He also plans on shutting down the “underutilized” juvenile facility in the Bronx, the the Pyramid Reception Center.
And there’s much, much more.
All of this is in response to the state’s crippling financial deficit, attributed to the dreary economy and fiscal crisis gripping the nation.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the city’s response to the fiscal crisis last week, which included a 7 percent property tax increase, the discontinuation of a $400 property tax rebate and layoffs.
You can get a full look at what gets slashed here.
While most Americans wait to see who President-elect Barack Obama will appoint as secretary of state or treasury, some New Yorkers have focused on the less weighty post of secretary of education (and for five points who holds this job now?). Once the rumor surfaced that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein might get the nod, New Yorkers involved in schools reacted fast — and in many cases furiously.
Term limits, well, it just brings people together.
Who would have thought former deputy mayor during the Giuliani administration, Randy Mastro, would ever partner with Norman Siegel, former director of the NYCLU and candidate for public advocate, (both pictured here) on civil rights litigation taking aim at City Hall?
Who would have imagined that Councilmember Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, would stand side by side with Comptroller William Thompson Jr. to criticize the absence of democracy in New York City?
Term limits, though, did just that.
This afternoon Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives appeared on the steps of City Hall to announce they had filed a lawsuit against the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, the Board of Elections and its president as well as the 29 council members who voted to extend term limits from two to three terms.
They say the suit violates the first and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, creates a disincentive for citizens to vote and chills the right to political speech.
About 7,000 city employees must file financial disclosure forms to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board every year. Last month, the 51 members of the City Council filed theirs.
For more on the board, check out our Issue of the Week: The Public Principles Police.
Though council members make a six-figure salary for their time in City Hall, it is technically a part-time post, and many members have another job — from attorneys to heading nonprofits. They do have to let the public know how much they make outside of their day jobs — albeit through a range not an exact figure. For more on the law, click here.
Topping the list is Michael McMahon — the congressman-elect from Staten Island, who has served on the council since 2002. McMahon moonlights as an attorney at the law firm of O’Leary, McMahon & Spero on the island. He earned between $250,000 and $499,999 there last year.
Neurologist Bart van Nuenen performed a unique study involving people who are clinically still healthy and free from disease manifestations, but who have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease later in life due to their genetic predisposition. Van Nuenen will defend his PhD thesis based on this study on 22 November.
Parkinson’s disease results from the death of brain cells that produce dopamine. Remarkably, the physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (tremor, rigidity and slowness of movement) do not appear until 50% to 70% of the dopamine-producing cells have died. It has long been a mystery why the physical symptoms take so long to develop.
In recent years, multiple genetic mutations have been discovered that cause Parkinson’s symptoms. In collaboration with various international research groups, the research group of Prof. Bas Bloem at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre conducted a study of families in Germany, Italy and Israel that have such a mutation in a Parkinson’s gene. Parkinson’s disease is very common in these families, but some family members do not yet show symptoms of the disease despite having the mutation. This allowed for an effective study of the preclinical phase of the disease, i.e. the period that precedes the manifestation of physical motor symptoms. The study was conducted with the aid of advanced MRI scanners for functional brain research (fMRI scanners).
One of the investigators in the study, Bart van Nuenen – who currently works as a neurologist at the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven – asked the test subjects to perform various tasks. At the same time, he conducted fMRI scans of their brain. He did the same with a control group of individuals who do not have Parkinson’s disease in their family. Both groups were entirely healthy in clinical terms, and both groups performed the tasks equally well. However, the analysis of the MRI scans showed that the brain activity of the genetically predisposed group differed from that of the control group. In particular, the genetically predisposed group showed enhanced activity in a specific area of the brain -the extrastriate body area – that also remains unaffected in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease. Apparently, in the genetically predisposed group this healthy brain area compensates for the declining function of brain areas that are already being affected by the disease. Due to this compensation, the test subjects could still move normally and suppress the Parkinson’s symptoms.
To conclusively demonstrate that this overactive brain area actually contributes to compensation, Van Nuenen conducted an additional experiment using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This technique can temporarily deactivate a specific area of the brain. When Van Nuenen deactivated the extrastriate body area by using TMS, Parkinson’s patients were temporarily unable to perform certain hand motions correctly. In the healthy control group, the deactivation of the extrastriate body area did not have this effect. This makes it very likely that compensation in the brain occurs during the preclinical phase, and that this compensation delays the clinical manifestation of Parkinson’s disease.
Bart F.L. van Nuenen. Cerebral reorganization in premotor parkinsonism. PhD thesis. Date of PhD defence: 22 November 2012. PhD supervisors: Prof. B.R. Bloem, Prof. I. Toni, Prof. H.R. Siebner (University of Copenhagen).
Unemployability was bound to pose a crisis for the country, given our neglect of the quality of higher education for long. So the latest TeamLease survey that estimates 57% of Indian youth are unemployable only quantifies—very disturbingly so—the problem.
Of course, it is good to see industry’s increasing involvement, as well as the awakening of the government, through its mission mode for skills development, et al. But the problem is chronic and huge in scale, especially as a big chunk of the public continues to demand university degrees, even though a majority of these are just the stamps on a shoddy package.
We clearly need to encourage more private (and foreign) institutions, and not have overregulation hindering these. Let existing state and Central universities compete. These will then be forced to work closely with industry and to ensure better teaching talent—not just by paying them more, but also with stringent auditing of the quality of their work.
This year, I have asked the candidates to tell us their vision for the country. Republicans know the punchlines already. They know the jokes. We have heard the red meat about President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. What we have not heard is what these candidates want the country to look like after their first four years in office. With their re-election, should they get elected in 2016, being in 2020, I asked them for their 20/20 vision of the country. How will it be different?
Beyond the presidential candidates joining me this weekend, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is going to join me too. She will not be giving a speech. Instead, she and I are going to talk on stage. I want to ask her about the Charleston shootings, her response and the effect on her family. Many people do not realize that Haley spends a good bit of time as both governor and a single mother. Her husband is in the military and has more than once been sent overseas during her tenure in office.
A year or so ago, the first gentleman of South Carolina was serving as a soldier in Afghanistan and the governor of South Carolina was serving as mom, getting her kids out the door to school. She locked herself out of the Governor’s Mansion in the mad scramble to be on time for school. I have been fortunate to get to know Gov. Haley and call her a friend. These past few months in South Carolina have defined her in a way no one could have expected a few years ago. Sitting and asking her about these events and her career will probably be the big event of the weekend outside the candidates.
The other event will be Donald Trump. We rented out the College Football Hall of Fame and invited Trump to close out the RedState Gathering this year. He will fly Trump Force One into Atlanta and his motorcade will whisk him to the event with spectacle that he will no doubt enjoy.
Trump has shined as the man throwing punches and loving it. He also has an advantage people do not realize. The other candidates are treating him as a side show and not a contender. As long as they do that, Trump can keep going up in the polls. Saturday night, Trump will get on stage at the RedState Gathering still the front runner. But the election, for perspective, is still 15 months away.
Between 2001 and 2010, some 419 former SEC employees filed almost 2,000 disclosure statements indicating their intent to contact the commission on behalf of a new employer or client, the group found.
SEC spokesman John Nester countered that the commission follows federal laws and regulations that deter conflicts of interest and ensure impartiality on policy and enforcement decisions.
“We decide issues on their merits according to the rules and regulations governing the securities industry regardless of whether the requestors have an SEC background or not, and I’m not aware of any factual information to the contrary," Nester said.
He added that the Government Accountability Office recently studied the issue and concluded that the SECs controls were consistent with those of other agencies.
The 89-page POGO report is available here.
In it, the nonprofit watchdog chronicles a case last year in which several former SEC staffers were part of a lobbying effort that blocked the tightening of regulations on money market funds.
The group also documents an instance in which the deputy director of an SEC branch that reviewed shareholder proposals later helped JPMorgan, Alaska Air UnitedHealth Group and Yahoo! block such proposals.
In another case, the enforcement branch chief at the SEC’s San Francisco office left for a position as in-house counsel for Wells Fargo & Company. Less than two weeks later, she filed disclosures signaling that she would represent the company in connection with pending enforcement matters conducted by her former office.
The report sparked concern from Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOn The Money: Inside the Mueller report \| Cain undeterred in push for Fed seat \| Analysis finds modest boost to economy from new NAFTA \| White House says deal will give auto sector B boost The 7 most interesting nuggets from the Mueller report Government report says new NAFTA would have minimal impact on economy MORE (R-Iowa), who said the revelations serve as evidence that more SEC oversight is necessary.
“The SEC has to fix this problem once and for all,” Grassley said in a written statement. “That involves more disclosure, more meaningful restrictions, and top-to-bottom application of the rules without waivers that make any restrictions meaningless."
The report comes with the SEC between chiefs. Former chairwoman Mary Schapiro departed the commission in December. President Obama has nominated Mary Jo White to replace her.
As the study notes, White served as a partner at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, where she has represented Wall Street firms before the SEC.
America’s Got Talent 2012 Finale Recap: Who Won AGT 2012!
The America’s Got Talent 2012 finale is here and tonight we will finally learn who won AGT 2012! After months of auditions, live performances and America’s votes, the act that has won the $1 million prize will be announced live and their lives will change forever!
On part one of the America’s Got Talent 2012 finale on Wednesday night, the AGT 2012 Top 6 will give their final performances. Who wins America’s Got Talent 2012 will all come down to how well the acts do tonight. The AGT 2012 winner will be announced on Thursday night.
America’s Got Talent 2012 Live Recap: Semifinals Results Round 2!
The America’s Got Talent 2012 results are in from round two of the semifinals! Who are the America’s Got Talent 2012 winners of this round who will be moving on to the finals? Join us for our America’s Got Talent 2012 live recap and see if your favorites made the Top 6!
Tonight on America’s Got Talent 2012, the Wild Card acts will learn which of them will move on to the America’s Got Talent season 7 semifinals, and who will be going home for good.
In our America’s Got Talent 2012 live recap for Wednesday night, we’ll find out which of the YouTube quarterfinalists will be selected by the voters to move on to the semifinals. Next week we’ll have the America’s Got Talent 2012 wild card showdown, and then we’ll finally move on to the big semifinals.
The America’s Got Talent 2012 competition resumes Tuesday night after a three week hiatus for the 2012 London Olympics on NBC. This week, 12 YouTube finalists will have their first America’s Got Talent 2012 live performances for your viewing pleasure. Join us for our America’s Got Talent 2012 live recap of the show and watch the performances!
After three weeks off during the Olympics, America’s Got Talent 2012 returns Monday night with live performances from the 12 YouTube quarterfinalists chosen from the horder of online auditions submitted to NBC.
America’s Got Talent 2012 judge Sharon Osbourne has announced she is quitting the hit talent show after NBC allegedly fired her son Jack Osbourne as the host of an upcoming reality show. America’s Got Talent 2012 judge Sharon Osbourne claims NBC fired Jack Osbourne as the host of the upcoming Stars Earn Stripes military-themed show after learning he has multiple sclerosis.
America’s Got Talent 2012 Live Recap: Final Top 12 Results!
On America’s Got Talent 2012 Wednesday night, the final twelve acts from the quarterfinals will learn if they have made it through to the next round. Tonight, the Top 48 will be whittled down to the Top 12. Will your favorite acts make it through? Join us for our America’s Got Talent 2012 live recap as we find out!
The last quarterfinals round of America’s Got Talent 2012 takes place tonight, and by tomorrow night we’ll know which America’s Got Talent 2012 acts will be part of the Top 12. The performances tonight include some heavy fan favorites, and some performers that even judge Howard Stern doesn’t understand how they’ve come so far.
ITV1 is no more. The broadcaster launched its biggest on-screen rebrand in 12 years on Monday with a new lower-case company logo and scrapping the "1" from its flagship channel.
The rebrand went live at 6am, coming into effect across all of ITV's channels, production and distribution businesses, as well as ITV News and its corporate logos.
New ITV brand will have 'colour picking' facility that will allow the logo to be branded with hues that 'flex with the mood' of programmes.
ITV's "colour-picking" logo will "adapt and blend to the tone and colour scheme of the programme", said the broadcaster. ITV2 is red, ITV3 blue and ITV4 "slate grey", with CITV an animated custard yellow.
Rufus Radcliffe, ITV's group director of marketing and research, said: "Viewers now have access to hundreds of channels and are forming relationships with digital brands that did not exist a few years ago.
"The rebranding of ITV will allow us to further cement the relationship in viewers' minds between our shows and the ITV brand that produces and broadcasts them.
"We now have a consistent identity across everything that we do, all rooted in our positioning as a media brand that is at the heart of popular culture."
WITF, a multimedia company and a destination, is one of the country's top-performing and most entrepreneurial public broadcasting organizations, serves the 41st largest media market.
The company comprises public broadcasting stations WITF TV, WITF FM, news networks RadioPA Networks and Pennsylvania Public Radio, regional magazine Central PA, WITF.org, WITF Educational Services and Media Solutions.
Serving the beautiful and historic Susquehanna Valley in South Central Pennsylvania (with easy access from Routes 283, 83, 81 and the PA Turnpike)-offering a reasonable cost of living. WITF is located just one and one half hours from Baltimore, two hours from Washington and Philadelphia, and three hours from New York City.
If you are involved in a community group that would like to be notified of current job opportunities, please call (717) 704-3000 or email hrmail@witf.org.
WITF is seeking a creative and ambitious individual to become our new Communications Specialist.
This individual will be responsible crafting internal and external messaging on a variety of mediums to boost community engagement in WITF's various events. The Communications Specialist will also collaborate with other staff members to create social media posts, press releases, speeches, and other forms of external communication.
Candidates should have a bachelor's degree and at least 2 years of experience in a communications or public relations position or an equivalent amount of education or experience. This role will work as part of a cross-departmental promotions team, so experience being a leader and a team player are crucial.
If you are interested in joining Central PA's public media provider, apply today. WITF offers generous medical, dental, vision, and retirement benefits from day one.
To review the full position specification, please follow this link.
Tired of only scratching the surface of stories? Looking for a position that challenges you to expand your skills as a multi-platform journalist?
Join a new effort to bring policy to Pennsylvanians: PA Post. Based at WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, PA Post is a statewide news organization that aims to drive the conversation on state government issues through its own work as well as the contributions from and collaborations with media partners across the commonwealth.
You will be charged with connecting policy to readers and listeners. Tell stories of Pennsylvania's communities and the people who live in them, from Scranton to Schuylkill, from Altoona to Allentown, from Mansfield to McConnellsburg, and in urban neighborhoods in Philly, Pittsburgh and beyond. Report on how Pennsylvanians make their living, their struggles and successes, and connect those lives to public policy - from local representation up to the governor's office. Connect Pennsylvanians to Pennsylvanians by reporting on shared challenges, and solutions. Raise the voices of people and communities who aren't always heard, or heard enough, on the airwaves or online, and make sure public officials are listening.
Your multimedia, deep-dive stories will be heard through a network of seven public media organizations in Pennsylvania and one in southern New York, distributed to partner media organizations and read on PA Post's robust website. You will work with the Executive Editor to produce both spot news as well as deep dives and long-form stories. You'll use your audio, video and photography skills daily. You'll produce thorough accountability reporting and engaging storytelling on-air and across digital platforms.
The successful candidate must have a bachelor's degree and at least three years as a reporter in a fast-paced environment. The individual should possess the ability to work independently, while producing excellent journalism and handling affiliate relations. Minimum three years reporting experience required. Competitive benefits and compensation.
As media organizations face great challenges and shrinking staffs, PA Post offers an exciting opportunity: the chance not only to lead, but to nurture the evolution of Pennsylvania's first news organization with a truly statewide focus. PA Post launched in September 2018 with key products: the weekday e-newsletter The Context; weekly podcast The State of the State; and an important continuing series on mental health (Through the Cracks).
The fifth largest state in the country, Pennsylvania is regionally, politically and culturally fragmented. PA Post aims to change that by connecting Pennsylvanians to Pennsylvania, by finding and explaining issues that tie the state together in a way that hasn't been done before.
The ideal candidate to guide the non-profit, digital-first, multimedia team at PA Post has a passion for listening to citizens, telling powerful stories with diverse voices and helping journalists explain complex topics with compelling audio, video, text and other digital tools for a statewide audience. You'll be a confident user of social media to reach engaged audiences across Pennsylvania.
You will be key to PA Post's relationships with media partners, donors and our readers, listeners and viewers statewide.
You will work with PA Post media affiliates and partners on content-sharing agreements and collaborative projects, bringing the best journalism in the state to whatever platform the audience is using. Among PA Post's media partners are the new Spotlight PA (led by the Philadelphia Inquirer), WHYY in Philadelphia and the Harrisburg-based Patriot News/PennLive.
You will be able to inspire donors and sponsors to support non-partisan reporting while conveying PA Post's editorial independence. The Executive Editor will oversee a small team, but a growing one as PA Post becomes more established. You will be responsible for working with the team to set a statewide editorial strategy, devise effective business models and establish editorial principles to build trust.
PA Post will avoid the 24-hour news churn to produce deep dive and explanatory journalism on legislative, policy and political issues. The Executive Editor will be able to lead journalists through short- and long-term projects that may take weeks, months or years to develop.
If you are a newsroom leader eager to put a fledgling digital start-up on the map, you want to be here.
From Twitter: "This is good journalism. ... Looking forward to more like this from @papostnews."
In email: "Love what I'm seeing so far at PA Post."
From Facebook: PA people: "Sign up for this. Great resource."
WITF Public Media, which serves as fiscal agent for PA Post, has built a national reputation for its work - earning a duPont-Columbia Silver Baton for its StateImpact Pennsylvania initiative and 15 RTDNA National Edward R. Murrow Awards since 2007.
PA Post is seeking a Part-Time Events Coordinator (approximately 20 hours/week) to provide broad support for community and donor events in support of our mission to connect Pennsylvanians to their state and each other. PA Post key events include but are not limited to: receptions, program screenings and community forums.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.