This act is obviously illegal in New York, especially when there are passengers on board. But that didn’t stop this veteran bus driver, who has driven a bus since 1993, from getting out his phone and fiddling with it, while driving the bus.
Maybe he was bored!
The video was provided by a passenger named Maria. She said she began recording the driver at the Lincoln tunnel and the driver/phone relationship continued through much of the way to Staten Island.
The driver has since been suspended for 20 days without pay. According to authorities, if it happens again, he will be fired. Let’s hope a second infraction would not too late.
From 2011 to 2012, the number of New Yorkers who were at or near poverty levels remained constant at 46%. According to a new report [PDF] released by the City’s Center for Economic Opportunity andobtained by the Times, “nearly half of New Yorkers were making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, a figure that describes people who are struggling to get by.”
Being gainfully employed does not necessarily keep you from “struggling to get by”: 17% of families with a full time worker remained in poverty, as did 5.2% of families with two full time workers.
Mayor de Blasio’s first deputy mayor Anthony Shorris says that the new administration “got elected almost entirely on this question,” and vowed to fight “this stubborn undercurrent” with paid sick leave, a living wage law, municipal ID cards, and universal pre-K.
The National Employment Law Project study found that there were about a million fewer jobs in middle-wage industries — including parts of the health care system, loan servicing and real estate — than there were when the recession hit.
Economists worry that even a stronger recovery might not bring back jobs in traditionally middle-class occupations eroded by mechanization and offshoring. The American work force might become yet more “polarized,” with positions easier to find at the high and low ends than in the middle.
Former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy has come out along with actor Liam Neeson to support keeping New York City’s famous horse-drawn carriages as Mayor Bill De Blasio seeks to ban the industry.
Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni took their young daughter Giulia in one of the carriages for a ride through Central Park on Wednesday.
When asked if he thinks the carriages should stay, Sarkozy offered up an enthusiastic ‘yes’, the New York Daily News reports.
Phil Jackson was “around” the Knicks’ training facility on Wednesday, according to Mike Woodson, who says the new club president basically is “letting me coach” with the team barely breathing in the playoff chase.
“Phil, I gather, he’s kind of staying out of the way and letting me do my thing in terms of trying to get this team in the playoffs,” Woodson said after the Knicks reconvened for practice following two days off after Sunday’s loss in Miami. “That’s OK. I’m sure when the time comes he and I will have a chance to sit down and talk and see where we are.
“But first things first, guys, make no mistake about it, we’re in a playoff race trying to get this eighth spot. That’s where everybody’s focus should be.”
Woodson added that Jackson, who is expected to bring in another coach after the season ends, is “doing the things he’s supposed to be doing” — such as meeting with the team’s scouts and GM Steve Mills — and “he’s letting me coach.”
The Knicks (33-45) have four games remaining beginning Friday in Toronto, and began play Wednesday 1 ½ games behind No.8 Atlanta in the East
This is New York. We don’t fear no one. But rats? OMG!
The little critter somehow got trapped inside a subway car filled with unsuspecting New Yorkers. It’s hard to tell who’s more terrorized, the rat trying to get out or the people jumping on their seats.
Such vitriol. What would prompt two New Yorkers to stand on a cold New York street early in the morning holding a sign calling for De Blasio’s dearh? The new mayor is planning to rid the city of the horse drawn carriges, a staple of Central Park in Manhattan, and people are really upset about that.
Calling the horse drawn carriages “inhumane” de Blasio promised to quickly end the practice.
“We are going to quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no longer a part of the landscape in New York City,” de Blasio said, according to NBC New York. “They are not humane. … It’s over.”
Animal rights advocacy groups lauded de Blasio’s pledge.
“We believe that the use of carriage horses in 21st century New York City is unnatural, unnecessary, and an undeniable strain on the horses’ quality of life,” Stacy Wolf, senior vice president of the ASPCA’s Anti-Cruelty Group, said in an email to NBC News.
Carriage operators beg to differ.
Stephen Malone, who’s been in the business for 26 years, told NBC News that he anticipates a long and contentious bout with de Blasio over the proposed ban.
“We look forward to having a long battle with him,” he said.
According to Malone, who’s father began in the business in 1964, there have been only three horse fatalities due to traffic in 30 years.
Malone added that he and and the other carriage owners are willing to sue de Blasio and the city if need be to protect their livelihoods.
One carriage and horse owner, who asked only to be identified as Robert, told NBC News on Monday that the carriage ride is iconic to the city.
“People expect us to be here,” he said. “It’s like taking away the Empire State Building. It’s the same as taking the (Christmas) tree from Rock Center.”
Since Central Park opened in 1857, horse-drawn carriages have traveled through the park in its sundry narrow passage ways, Sid Kolo, field manager for New York Central Park Tours, told NBC News.
A massive explosion followed by a fire at a pair of apartment buildings in upper Manhattan on Wednesday has left two people dead and at least 22 injured, officials say.
Two of the injured are hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, according to FDNY. Five others are in serious condition, but non-life threatening injuries, the fire department said. Fifteen others suffered minor injuries.
Rescuers are currently combing through bricks by hand in an effort to locate other possible victims.
“There are a number of people missing,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference. “I emphasize that those who are missing could well be safe in another location and just not contacted yet or reachable yet.”
The FDNY said it received a call shortly after 9:30 a.m. reporting a large explosion in the five-story apartment building on Park Avenue near 116th Street in East Harlem.
The blast smashed windows and damaged walls up to several blocks away from the explosion. Residents in the neighborhood told reporters they feared the earth-shaking boom was a terrorist attack. One man was so worried, he told CNN, that he rushed out of his home wearing nothing but his underwear.
“This is a tragedy of the worst kind,” de Blasio said. “There was no indication in time to save people.”
Based on preliminary information, the mayor said, “The only indication of danger came about 15 minutes earlier when a gas leak was reported to Con Edison. Con Ed dispatched a team to respond. The explosion occurred before that team could arrive.
Con Edison spokesman Bob McGee said that the company received a call from a resident of an adjacent building, reporting that “he smelled gas inside his apartment, but thought the odor could be coming from outside.” Two Con Ed crews were dispatched at 9:15 a.m. but arrived just after the explosion.
Police, including some wearing gas masks, “handed out medical masks to residents and onlookers because of the thick white smoke that shrouded the area.”
The fire department responded with 44 units and more than 250 firefighters to the five-alarm incident. According to public records, the address that firefighters initially responded to — 1646 Park Ave. — was built in 1910.
Reached by phone, an employee of the man who owns the building told Yahoo News that she didn’t know what might have sparked the blast. The five-story building is home to four floors of apartments and Absolute Piano on the street level. The employee said everyone at the piano shop was safe.
According to public records, the neighboring building — 1644 Park Ave. — is home to apartments and the street-level Spanish Christian Church.
Click image above for slideshow. (Adnan Islam/Reuters)
“I’ve never had anything this horrific that’s happened in my community since I’ve been in Washington,” Rep. Charles Rangel, who represents Harlem, told NBC’s New York affiliate. “This is a very serious thing. It’s our community’s 9/11, even though we don’t know how it started.”
Some witnesses described a chaotic scene.
“The whole building shook,” one nearby worker told the New York Post.
“I saw a lady running with no shoes on,” another told Agence France-Press. “It was crazy. It was like a war zone. … I thought it was an earthquake. I got calls from my family who felt it too and that was all the way uptown.”
The explosion occurred near elevated train tracks, and Metro North train service into and out of New York’s Grand Central Terminal was suspended.
According to the White House, President Obama was briefed on the incident in New York by Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland Security and counterterrorism.
Photos posted to Twitter showed smoke and dust coming from the neighborhood north of Central Park, and firefighters searching the rubble for victims.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Flames and smoke were sent billowing into the air after an explosion leveled two buildings in East Harlem Wednesday, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others.
It happened around 9 a.m. on Park Avenue on 116th Street, the FDNY said. One of the buildings that collapsed had a piano repair shop with apartments above. The second building housed a church
The cause of the blast is still unclear, but Con Edison said crews had responded to the area on a report of a gas odor just prior to the explosion.
New York City’s new mayor, Bill DeBlasio, has had enough of big corporations taking advantage of the city’s welfare system by paying notoriously low wages.
“If we’re subsidizing companies, we have every right to demand a living wage for the people they pay,” DeBlasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on Monday.
DeBlasio is referring to the fact that millions of low wage workers depend on public assistance, like food stamps, to get by. A report in October found that American taxpayers shell out $3.8 billion per year to subsidize worker pay at the country’s top 10 largest fast food chains.
In October, de Blasio stood with fast-food workers in New York City who were protesting for higher wages. “The bottom line is, this is an unsupportable situation where every day hard-working people can’t make ends meet, and the companies involved certainly can do more,” he said.
The mayor is expected to soon introduce legislation expanding living wage protections in New York. Under a proposal introduced during his campaign this past summer, de Blasio would raise the wage for employees at companies receiving city subsidies — including some retail and fast-food restaurants — to $11.75 an hour with benefits.
Bomb squads and hazardous material teams fanned out across New Jersey on Friday after packages containing a suspicious white powder were delivered to as many as seven hotels near the site of the Super Bowl on Friday, according to multiple reports.
Authorities also were testing white powder contained in a letter sent to the Manhattan office of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, law enforcement officials told CNN. The letter opened in the mail room contained white powder, according to law enforcement officials.
No injuries were reported in either case, and NBC 4 reported that none of the New Jersey hotels were hosting the athletes who will be playing at MetLife.
WABC 7 reported the packages went to an Econo Lodge on Washington Avenue in Carlstadt, the Renaissance Meadowlands Hotel on Rutherford Avenue in Rutherford, the Homewood Suites by Hilton on Route 17 in East Rutherford and the Hilton Hasbrouck Heights Meadowlands on Terrace Avenue in Hasbrouck Heights.
No evacuations were ordered, WABC 7 reported.
America is set for the coldest month of the century as weather forecasters predict yet another freezing blast of Arctic air – putting Super Bowl Sunday in jeopardy.
Teams have been warned to stay on high alert for changes to the scheduling of the first Super Bowl to be played in an open-air stadium.
Temperatures have already hit record lows, at times making parts of the U.S. colder than the North Pole, and are expected to plunge in the coming days.
The timing could not be worse for one of the biggest global sporting events, which will be exposed to the full force of the elements at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on February 2.
Eric Grubman, NFL vice president of business operations, told the Denver Post: ‘We are advising teams to prepare in case a contingency plan goes into effect.’
The game could be moved to the preceding Friday or Saturday or the following Monday if authorities decide the weather will constitute a danger to public health.
Broncos coach John Fox and Seattle coach Pete Carroll will be the first to know if the event is rescheduled.
Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC, said: ‘The crazy thing is that the current cold snap this week look to be a bit more modest in the face of next week’s outbreak.
‘The cold coming for the end of January is sufficient to make this the coldest month of the century so far and the coldest the Lower 48 has felt in the last 20 years.’
Dennis Rodman has made one too many trips to North Korea. He has gotten a little too cozy with the North Korea regime and their ruthless dictator, and the New York service industry is instituting a lifetime on the former NBA player.
The Old HomeStead SteakHouse is advocating the lifetime ban to all its business, and the organization is asking all other service industries to follow suit.
No food — or hotel rooms — for you. Self-proclaimed ambassador to North Korea Dennis Rodman made a living on the basketball court swatting away shots of opponents. Now an iconic restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking District, one of Rodman’s favorite neighborhoods when he’s here, wants the entire NYC hospitality industry to reject Rodman whenever he blows into the Big Apple.
Old Homestead Steakhouse, the iconic meatery on Ninth Ave., wants all restaurants, hotels and nightclubs to sign a statement pledging they will ban Rodman for life. The pledge will be on Old Homestead’s website this week. Anyone in America can sign to show support for the Rodman ban.
“Let him see what it’s like to starve and to sleep out in the cold – exactly what his dictator pal is doing to millions of people. It’s too late for apologies,” said Old Homestead co-owner Greg Sherry.
This is not the first time the Meat Mecca rejected an NBA player. When Kevin Garnett, at the time a Boston Celtic, disrespected Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony — saying that his wife, LaLa tasted like Honey Nut Cheerios, Old Homestead banned Garnett, who now plays for the Brooklyn Nets, from the restaurant and even put a special entree on the menu for Melo. (Rodman was tossed from Serafina in The Time Hotel after his first trip from North Korea after mouthing off about how great Kim Jong Un is. Rodman is known to frequent high-profile strip clubs when he stays in New York.)
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