| Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer tells TODAY's Savannah Guthrie he believes Mayor Bloomberg should postpone the New York City marathon as congressman Michael Grimm from Staten Island says he's "angry" over plans to continue with the race By NBC News staff and wires New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to proceed with the world's largest marathon on Sunday is stirring up controversy in the storm-ravaged metropolis. "If they take one first responder from Staten Island to cover this marathon, I will scream," New York City Councilman James Oddo said on his Twitter account. "We have people with no homes and no hope right now." As emergency workers wade through flooded homes to look for survivors and millions of people remain without power in the U.S. Northeast, the death toll from Superstorm Sandy swelled to 95. At least 37 of those deaths were in New York City. "The prudent course of action here — postpone the marathon, come back a different day," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie. "Our first priority, let's help people who lost their homes, who are missing loved ones." Stringer said downtown Manhattan, the city's financial hub, "looks like a wasteland" and is nowhere close to being ready for the race, which goes through each of New York's five boroughs. Still, the city is planning to go ahead with the race, which kicks off on Staten Island, the hardest-hit borough, on Sunday. The island, home to 500,000, suffered some of the worst destruction. At least 19 people who died in New York City lived on Staten Island. On Thursday, the bodies of two children who had been missing on Staten Island since the storm were found. The boys, ages 2 and 4, were swept away from their mother's arms Monday night after the car they were driving was swamped by floodwaters. Bloomberg has vowed the marathon will not divert any resources from victims, and expects power to be restored to downtown Manhattan by race day. In defending his decision to go forward, the mayor cited the thousands of out-of-town visitors who come for the marathon. "There's an awful lot of small businesses that depend on these people. We have to have an economy," Bloomberg told a news conference on Wednesday. "It's a great event for New York, and I think for those who were lost, you know, you've got to believe they would want us to have an economy and have a city go on for those that they left behind." "If the city is able to put on the marathon safely and it doesn't divert resources away from rescue, then runners should take to the street," said Lisa Tobin, 35, a pastry cook from the Bronx who will be running in the ING New York City Marathon for the first time. Dave Jaffares, who tends bar at Mullanes Bar & Grill, said they usually make $2,000 to $3,000 more on marathon day. The bar is along the marathon route in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. "It needs to happen. The marathon is coming at a great time. It gets people back into the idea that we are New York," said Jaffares. "This is what we do, we do a marathon every year. Nothing stops us." The New York Road Runners, which organizes the marathon, said the event will bring $340 million to the city. The club also announced on Thursday that it will donate at least $1 million, or $26.20 for each of the more than 40,000 runners expected to participate, to aid New Yorkers affected by Sandy. Nineteen bodies have been found in Staten Island following Hurricane Sandy and many fear the number will rise. A growing number of Staten Islanders are outraged by what they describe as the slow response from relief organizations. NBC News' Ann Curry reports. The Rudin Family, one of the founding members of the marathon, said it would donate $1.1 million and the ING Foundation said it would give $500,000. "We're not looking to be a drain on any of the city resources," NYRR spokesman Richard Finn told Reuters. NYRR had hiked the race fee this year, in part to pay police overtime. On Thursday, there were signs of recovery in city life: some subway service was restored, and Bloomberg said city parks would re-open on Saturday. But much of the region was still a disaster zone. The southern third of Manhattan was largely without electricity, and many towns in New Jersey remained crippled from record flooding. Many trees in Central Park, where the race ends, were uprooted by near hurricane-force winds. The Marathon will shut more than 20 miles of city roads and typically requires more than 1,000 police to man the route. "Things are everything but normal for so many people," said Patricia Profita, a teacher who lives in the Great Kills neighborhood of Staten Island. "People should not be running through the boroughs, but instead running to aid those people." The NYRR club announced on its Facebook page last night that this year's marathon is dedicated to the City of New York, the victims of the hurricane and their families. But the majority of the more than 270 comments on the page were critical of the decision. Dana Donadio wrote, "As a former Staten Island resident, current Manhattan resident and runner of 2 NYC Marathons I have to say this is an extremely bad idea. The city's resources could be put to much better use at this time." Scott Cohen, 52, who is running his 18th New York City Marathon in a row, admitted it "seems frivolous in light of the death, disruption and despair in parts of the city." Still, the fitness trainer expects that by Sunday most New Yorkers will be supportive. "The race has always been a 26.2 mile block party and the city feels the love." Reuters contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
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11/02/2012
'I will scream': Backlash erupts as NYC preps for marathon
Cops: NYC man pulls pistol after cutting in line for gas
| NBC's Kerry Sanders reports from a helicopter high above Bloomfield, N.J., where drivers are lined up for miles waiting for a chance to fill up. By NBC News staff The fight for fuel after Superstorm Sandy is getting increasingly desperate. A motorist was arrested Thursday after he tried to cut in line at a gas station in Queens and pointed a pistol at another motorist who complained, authorities said. Sean Bailey, 35, of Queens, was arrested on charges of menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. It wasn't clear whether he had a lawyer. If convicted, Bailey could face up to 15 years in prison. Damage from the storm has forced many gas stations to close and has disrupted fuel deliveries, causing long lines at the stations that remained open. Power outages kept many pumps out of service. Gas-seekers traded tips via social media and roamed the region for hours in search of functioning pumps. Police officers helped maintain order at the few stations in operation. At a Gulf station in Newark, N.J., a line of vehicles stretched for about two miles. Dozens of people with empty red gas canisters also stood in the line that snaked around the station. Betty Bethea, 59, had been waiting almost three hours as she approached the front of the line of cars, and she brought reinforcements: Her kids were there with gas cans, and her husband was behind her in his truck. "It is crazy out here — people scrambling everywhere, cutting in front of people. I have never seen New Jersey like this," Bethea said. Numerous reports of confrontation at the stations that were still open surfaced on Twitter and YouTube. A fistfight broke out Wednesday between customers at the Getty station on Route 59 in Monsey, N.J., the only functioning station in the area, Chiam Tzik, the station's manager, told Newsday. On Thursday morning, traffic stretched for at least half a mile on both sides of the road. In New York state, Yonkers Mayor Michael Spano signed an executive order rationing gas to 10 gallons per customer effective immediately. At the heart of the fuel supply crunch is the fact that Sandy has devastated the energy industry's ability to move fuel into and around the New York City region, particularly the harbor, by any of the three means that normally supply the area: tanker imports from abroad; pipeline shipments from the U.S. Gulf Coast; or refinery production from the mid-New Jersey area. The good news is none of these issues appears to be especially long-lasting. Power is gradually being restored in New Jersey, where much of the key infrastructure is located and New York Harbor barge traffic is expected to resume later Thursday. A key pipeline should resume limited deliveries on Friday. Even flooded refineries should eventually resume production. But that's little comfort for those who need fuel now to get to work or to help heat their homes as a cold front moves in. With limited mass transit, more folks are forced to use cars, and that, combined with a gas shortage, is creating gas station lines extending for miles all over New York and New Jersey. NBC's Tom Costello reports. More content from NBCNews.com:
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Joblessness: Five things to know
(CNN) -- The monthly jobs report -- the last before the nail-biting election next week -- may be the single most motivating event to take place at this point in the campaign. On its own, it wouldn't be. But with a race so tight in so many swing states, swayable, uncommitted, undecided and even decided voters could be persuaded to cast a ballot for the presidential candidate they think can best propel the country forward. And propelling America forward fundamentally means job creation. Here are five things you need to know about the U.S. employment situation report for October set for release Friday. 1. It's a trend, not a bombshell. Both the confusing and less-relevant, though politically more popular "unemployment rate," and the more important number of jobs created have been trending in the right direction. There's nothing in today's number that fundamentally changes the fact that we're moving more slowly than was predicted and more slowly than we'd like to be moving. It is to Obama's advantage if you subscribe to trend and Romney's if you think it is too slow. But it is pointing the right way. Obama argues that he's more than made up for the number of jobs lost since he inherited the crisis. Romney underscores that it's not the quantity, but the quality of those jobs, which have been lower paying and have offered fewer benefits than those lost. 2. Neither candidate has a real plan Polling continues to show that Americans are generally partisan and split when evaluating which candidate will create more jobs. That's because neither has a plan (though both have dreams and aspirations), and most people realize that the president has limited ability to motivate the large scale creation of jobs in the private sector, which is where it needs to happen. 3. They're both making promises they have no way of guaranteeing they'll keep Romney made a ridiculous pledge to create 12 million jobs in four years; a cynical ploy to play on Americans' most base economic fear. Obama matched the pledge, though, unlike Romney, doesn't bring it up nearly as often. Advisers to both campaigns have conceded to me under extensive questioning that this is more of an aspiration or a goal than an achievable promise. That's not how the candidates presented it. They have been dishonest. 4. Both plans are based on an average of 4% economic growth over the next term We're at 2% now. 3% next year if we're lucky (see below). 4% is something virtually no economists say is likely. Romney pegs it all on tax cuts, and points to Ronald Reagan. But tax cuts under Reagan were, as a percentage, much greater than anything we can afford to do today. Romney's math doesn't come close to adding up -- it's all about the GDP growth number. But if it's all about GDP growth, then the president doesn't matter. I could be president with 4% GDP growth and create 12 million jobs in four years. Which is 3 million/year, or 250,000 a month. It's 50% higher than the best current projections. Obama, for his part, does have a better plan, based largely on the hidden "infrastructure bank" in his Jobs Act, which never got passed. But I talk about that more than he ever did. He's afraid of the best part of his plan for some reason. 5. Europe's the problem, not China Europe's getting worse, not better. It's like a head cold; even once you start treating it, it still has to run its course and will get worse before it gets better. That hurts the U.S. -- and its need to achieve an average of 4% economic growth over the next four years. And we were all betting on a growing middle class in China, which would buy anything American-made that wasn't nailed down. But what Europe isn't buying, China isn't making. And while China's making less and less, its population is prospering more slowly. While the United States can have some limited impact on China's economic behavior, it has virtually no influence over the European mess, which is why you don't hear about it on the campaign trail. In the short term, Europe is America's real problem, not China.  |
Cops: Ex-employee shoots former boss in head
| View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com. By Samantha Tata and Beverly White, NBCLosAngeles.com An ex-employee of a real estate company shot his former boss in the head Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, according to police. The victim, who has not been named, was in a critical condition in a hospital Thursday. The shooting happened at Venture Commercial Realty on the fourth floor of a high-rise building in Koreatown. Fire officials received a report of shots fired at about 3:45 p.m. local time (6:45 p.m. ET). More stories from NBCLosAngeles.com LAPD Sgt. Dino Caldera said that officers had gone room-to-room in the building, searching for the gunman. "Officers responded … to what they believed at that time was an active shooter-site type of situation," he said. "So they used those kind of tactics to go into the building and clear the rooms as they entered." The suspect put his hands up when confronted by police and was arrested. He was expected to be booked on a charge of attempted murder. |
17 years for model-plane plot to bomb US Capitol
 USAMA via AFP - Getty Images A remote-control model of a 1950s U.S. Navy Sabre jet fighter that prosecutors said belonged to Rezwan Ferdaus is seen in this undated photo released by the United States Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts. By NBC News wire services BOSTON - A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday for a plot to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol building in Washington with explosives loaded into remote-control model airplanes. Rezwan Ferdaus, who was arrested in September 2011 and pleaded guilty in July to terrorism-related charges in a deal with prosecutors, told the court he had devoted a lot of time to self-reflection while in jail awaiting sentencing and that he accepted his fate. The 26-year-old was arrested after an FBI sting operation in which he requested and took delivery of plastic explosives, three grenades and six assault rifles from undercover FBI agents who he believed were members of the al-Qaida network. Ferdaus, a Muslim who has a physics degree from Northeastern University, delivered a long, soft-spoken statement in which he offered no apology for his actions but thanked his family and friends for supporting him. He spoke of "a world filled with injustices," but also said "no dehumanization can serve as justification for inhumanity in other places."  Department Of Justice / AFP - Getty Images Rezwan Ferdaus, in a booking photograph taken on Oct. 28, 2011, said he had accepted his fate. The 17-year sentence, which also includes 10 years of supervised release, was the result of a July plea agreement worked out between his attorneys and prosecutors. Read more Security stories from NBC News Ferdaus pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to destroy and damage a federal building and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Prosecutors dropped four other counts that could have raised the total possible sentence to 35 years. Before approving the sentence, Stearns told Ferdaus that he was impressed by his self-reflection. "You don't need any lecture from me. Your statement convinces me that you have the character and the capacity to search your own soul," Stearns said. "I'm going to leave it to you to finish that journey." Parents: Depression led to mental illness They said they tried to get him to see a doctor but he would not. "We took a very cautious approach. After all, he was over 18 and we could not force him to see a doctor. That is the American way. We felt helpless," they wrote in their letter. Islamist leader jailed for inciting deadly attack on US Embassy in Tunisia Ferdaus' attorney, Miriam Conrad, told reporters after the hearing that her client had shown no interest in terrorism before FBI investigators approached him. "There was no evidence ever produced that Mr. Ferdaus sought out contact with any outside groups before the government became involved or even after the government became involved," Conrad said. 'Wanted to become a terrorist' "He was a person who decided that he wanted to become a terrorist," Pirozzolo said, adding that before the FBI investigation began, Ferdaus had tried to obtain weapons illegally from an area gun shop and performed surveillance on a train station in his hometown of Ashland, Massachusetts. "Those events predated the undercover operation that unfolded here," Pirozzolo said. NYT: The case of the biker, the jihadist and the 'terrorist bride' Ferdaus planned to carry out the attacks on the Pentagon, located in Arlington, Virginia, and the Capitol using a scale model of a U.S. Navy F-86 Saber fighter jet about the size of a picnic table, which he kept in a storage locker in suburban Boston, authorities said. Authorities said the public was never in danger from the explosives, which they said were always under the control of federal officials. The government had alleged that Ferdaus told undercover agents of his plans to commit acts of violence against the United States by "decapitating" its "military center" and killing "kafirs," an Arabic term meaning non-believers. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
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Air Force Academy ritual turns into 'brawl'
| By NBC News staff and wire services DENVER -- Nearly 30 Air Force Academy cadets required medical care, with six of them hospitalized, after an annual tradition to mark the first snowfall of the season turned into an out-of-control melee, officials said Wednesday. An unauthorized ritual last week called "First Shirt/First Snow," in which freshman cadets try to throw their cadet sergeant into a snowbank, grew violent and resulted in injuries, the academy said in a statement. "A relatively small number of cadets chose to take part in this unsafe activity," Brig. Gen. Gregory Lengyel said in the statement. "This incident was unacceptable." The six cadets who required hospitalization after last Thursday's incident have all been released, and the 21 others were treated for "bruises and/or lacerations" at the academy's cadet clinic, the school said. Lengyel, who serves as the commandant of cadets, said school officials are investigating the incident. "Our Air Force expects better. I expect better, and I'm confident the cadets will learn and grow from this." An internal email about the incident obtained by the Air Force Times newspaper, reportedly written by Brig. Gen. Dana Born to school administrators, said the annual ritual "has turned into a brawl" between freshmen and upperclassmen. "This ritual has devolved to become increasingly violent, with significant numbers of cadets requiring medical care over the past two years," The Times cited the email as saying, adding that the latest injuries included concussions, an arm bite and cuts that required stitches. More news from Colorado on NBC affiliate 9News.com in Denver "Obviously, this has gotten out of hand and cannot be repeated," Born wrote. "There is no way we can condone or defend this." The Times said the internal memo indicated Lengyel might allow the tradition to continue if cadets can show it can be conducted with "good order and discipline and proper risk management." Located in Colorado Springs, 60 miles south of Denver, the academy has an enrollment of about 4,100 cadets, and graduates are commissioned second lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force. The reported incident is a fresh blow to the reputation of the Air Force, which has dealt with a number of scandals in recent years. More coverage of the US military on NBCNews.com In 2003, the academy was accused of failing to investigate numerous incidents of sexual assaults on the campus. In 2005, an Air Force panel concluded that officers and faculty members periodically used their positions to promote their Christian faith and failed to accommodate the religious needs of non-Christian cadets. The academy has also been hit with several cheating and drug-use incidents in recent years, according to the Colorado Springs Independent. Reuters contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com: |
