Health Department Reports that Seasonal Stomach Virus is Circulating in NYC

Health E-News	November 7, 2008
Health Department Reports that Seasonal Stomach Virus is Circulating in NYC Emergency department visits up 19% in past two weeks New Yorkers can prevent spread by washing hands thoroughly, and by staying home when sick The highly contagious stomach illness that typically turns up in each fall is circulating in New York City, the Health Department reported today. According to the department’s surveillance system, visits to the city’s emergency departments for vomiting and diarrhea have increased 19% in the past two weeks, to about 400 per day. New Yorkers can take basic steps to prevent the illness, such as washing hands thoroughly and regularly. Click here for more…

NYers None Too Happy About Bloomberg Budget Cuts

Reporting
Marcia Kramer

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s budget cuts are costing you more than you think.

New Yorkers can expect to be hit with tax hikes, job losses, extra charges for the commute, and even a trip to the grocery store.

More cars will be towed, an expected $2 million worth to be exact, and new block-the-box summonses will bring in $60 million. And Bloomberg has doubled – yes, doubled – the cost of parking at nearly 5,000 spots.

“The parking meter is way out of control,” says Bronx resident Al Barker, who had to go scrambling for change Thursday when he discovered the cost of parking below 60th Street – river to river – has sudden risen from $1 an hour to $2 an hour.

“It’s quite expensive, that’s all I can say,” says Barker.

And that could be problematic for commuters like Siddiqur Rahmn from Long Island city.

“Sometimes people don’t have change in their pocket,” he says.

Bloomberg also plans to save by putting lower watt bulbs in 250,000 street lights; cutting down street cleaning and the emptying of trash cans; and increasing the cost of ambulance services.

“I understand what he’s trying to do to raise money, but there could be other ways that he could come about it. Pinch, don’t pull it out of the pockets of people,” says Brooklyn resident.

Taxed to cut the budget to deal with the fiscal crisis, Bloomberg has come up with lots of ways to raise dough.

Want to hold a red carpet event in NYC? It’s gonna cost you — $14,000 for a large event, and $24,000 to super-size it.

New technology will allow the city to identify 1,000 businesses a year that have under-reported or failed to file taxes that will bring in an extra $8 million annually.

Bloomberg is also pulling out of the bag a proposal to charge shoppers 5 cents for every plastic bag they get at the grocery store.

“There must be another way of doing it,” says Manhattan resident Marlene Rosenberg. “I would be opposed to that. Every time you use a bag, throw it out, 5 cents? It’s just not right.”

But some New Yorkers see the benefit in Bloomberg’s idea.

“To protect the environment, I have no problem with that,” says Manhattan resident William Rodriguez.

And others have their own ideas.

“Considering all the money he’s gotten, maybe he should chip in and buy them for us,” says city resident Gil Aponte. 

Immigration to Go Paperless

Immigration to Go Paperless

Immigration to Go Paperless

Agency Plans Electronic Overhaul of Case-Management System

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 7, 2008; A17

The Bush administration has launched a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration services agency, selecting an industry consortium led by IBM to reinvent how the government handles about 7 million applications each year for visas, citizenship and approval to work in the United States, officials announced yesterday.

If successful, the five-year, $500 million effort to convert U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ case-management system from paper-based to electronic could reduce backlogs and processing delays by at least 20 percent, and possibly more than 50 percent, people close to the project said. Those problems have long frustrated new Americans and other immigrants.

The new system would allow government agencies, from the Border Patrol to the FBI to the Labor Department, to access immigration records faster and more accurately. In combination with initiatives to link digital fingerprint scans to unique identification numbers, it would create a lifelong digital record for applicants. It also would eliminate the need for time- and labor-intensive filing and refiling of paper forms, which are stored at 200 locations in 70 million manila file folders.

Known internally as the transformation initiative, the long-awaited and much-delayed effort is considered a cornerstone of any broader effort to fix an immigration system considered one of the most broken bureaucracies in the federal government.

If Congress were to overhaul immigration laws, by creating a guest-worker program or allowing illegal immigrants to gain legal status, for example, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) expects it would have to make even greater changes. The agency suggested to potential contractors during last year’s immigration debate that $3.5 billion worth of work might be required, officials said.

The case-management system “is going to transform the way USCIS and its predecessors have done business for the last 50 years, and the success or failure of this venture will determine the effectiveness” of any future immigration overhaul, said Prakash Khatri, a homeland security consultant at KPK Global Solutions. Khatri served as the immigration agency’s ombudsman for the Department of Homeland Security from 2003 through February of this year.

Acting USCIS Director Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen announced that International Business Machines Corp. was selected over rivals CSC and Accenture to serve as a “solutions architect” for the $2.6 billion-a-year agency, which employs 10,700 government workers and 8,000 contractors at 200 locations nationwide.

The contract, awarded this week and the largest federal homeland security bid on the market, includes a $14.5 million, 90-day assessment period with options over five years worth $491.1 million.

The agency in a statement called the initial task order “just one of the building blocks of USCIS’ overall transformation plan.” That plan is being funded with the help of a summer 2007 fee increase on immigrant applicants, which freed up roughly $650 million over five years, said Scharfen’s acting deputy, Mike Aytes.

Government investigators have reported that the agency’s pre-computer-age paper filing system incurs $100 million a year in archiving, storage, retrieval and shipping costs; has led to the loss or misplacement of more than 100,000 files; and has contributed to backlogs and delays for millions of cases.

Modernization efforts, proposed in 1999, have been delayed by funding problems, inertia, post-Sept. 11 security demands and reorganization triggered by the creation of the Homeland Security Department. The department’s inspector general in 2007 faulted the agency for being “entrenched in a cycle of continual planning, with little progress.”

Analysts said USCIS moved carefully in the past two years to structure the project to avoid flaws that derailed other major Homeland Security contracts, including SBInet, a Customs and Border Protection effort with Boeing to build a “virtual” border fence using surveillance technology, and Deepwater, the Coast Guard’s massive fleet-replacement effort with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

“We’re proud of 2008 and the milestones we’ve met,” Scharfen said in a statement. “But, much work remains.”

WASHINGTONPOST

NYC TRANSIT WEEKEND ADVISORIES

2

Downtown 2 trains run local from 96 to Chambers Sts

Uptown 2 trains run local from Chambers to 72 Sts

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

 

Uptown 2 trains skip 79 and 86 Sts

Take the 1 instead

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM to 5 AM Sat to Mon

 

No 2 trains between 96 St and 241 St

   1. Free shuttle buses replace the 2 between 96 St and 149 St-Grand Concourse

   2. 5 trains replace the 2 between 149 St-Grand Concourse and 241 St

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

This service change affects one or more ADA accessible stations. Please call 718-596-8585
or (TTY) 718-596-8273, 6 AM to 10 PM for help with planning your trip.

For more information click on the mta.info link in this e-mail, pick up a brochure, and read station signs.

4

Manhattan-bound 4 trains skip Bedford Pk Blvd

Nov 8, 9 AM to 4 PM Saturday

D

Uptown D trains run on the A from West 4 to 145 Sts

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

C

Queens-bound C trains skip Ralph and Rockaway Avs

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

 

Downtown C trains skip 163, 155, and 135 Sts

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

 

Uptown C trains run express from Canal to 145 Sts

Nov 8 – 10, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

On Concerns Over Gun Control, Gun Sales Are Up

By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER — Sales of handguns, rifles and ammunition have surged in the last week, according to gun store owners around the nation who describe a wave of buyers concerned that an Obama administration will curtail their right to bear arms.

“He’s a gun-snatcher,” said Jim Pruett, owner of Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo in northwest Houston, which was packed with shoppers on Thursday.

“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,” added Mr. Pruett, a former radio personality, of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Pruett said that sales last Saturday, just before Election Day, ran about seven times higher than a typical good Saturday.

A spot check by reporters in four other states easily found Mr. Pruett’s comments echoed from both sides of the counter.

David Nelson, a co-owner of Montana Ordnance & Supply in Missoula, Mont., said his buyers were “awake and aware and see a dangerous trend.”

Mr. Nelson said sales at his store had risen about 30 percent since Mr. Obama declared his candidacy. “People are concerned about overreaching legislation from Washington,” he said. “They are educating themselves on the Internet.”

In Colorado, would-be gun buyers set a one-day record last Saturday with the highest number of background check requests in a 24-hour period, according to figures from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

“We’re not really sure who is promoting the concept that a change in federal administrations might affect firearms possession rights,” said an agency spokesman, Lance Clem, “but we do know that it’s increased business considerably.”

Federal law-enforcement officials cautioned that gun sales were extremely volatile. Nationally, rifle and handgun sales surged 17 percent, for example, in May, compared with May 2007, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation figures. That was before Mr. Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination. Sales then fell and were essentially flat by September compared with the year before, even as the campaign heated up, before rising 14 percent in October. November figures were not yet available.

What is clear is that every gun seller — not to mention every advocacy group for gun ownership that depends on dues-paying members — has an incentive to stoke the concern that can prompt a gun sale. Political uncertainty, gun dealers say, is great for business.

“Clinton was the best gun salesman the gun manufacturers ever had,” said Rick Gray, owner of the Accuracy Gun Shop in Las Vegas. “Obama’s going to be right up there with him.”

Sales at his shop doubled on Wednesday, Mr. Gray said, to more than 20 guns from three to 10 on a typical day.

Asked if that made him root for Democratic candidates, Mr. Gray said no. “It’s not all about profits; it’s about what’s he going to do for the country,” he said, noting that he had supported Senator John McCain, who was the Republican nominee.

A National Rifle Association spokesman, Wayne LaPierre, dismissed the notion that the group had any incentive to increase gun sales or membership. “Ridiculous,” Mr. LaPierre said. “I hope President-elect Obama keeps his promises and protects gun rights. If he does that, we’ll be cheering.”

The political battle over guns raged fiercely throughout the campaign in many states where gun ownership is common. On Monday, the day before the election, home-delivered copies of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette arrived in plastic bags that said, “Vote Freedom First” and “Defend Freedom — Defeat Obama.” The bags were paid for by the N.R.A., whose initials were printed on each one.

Democrats fired back all over the country, with mail campaigns in many states with fliers stating flatly that as president, Mr. Obama would respect an individual’s right to own guns.

“Obama will protect our gun rights,” said one flier sent to homes in Minnesota.

In Montana, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, was photographed shooting his guns outdoors.

But some gun buyers and sellers never forgot, or forgave, Mr. Obama’s widely reported comment in April to a group in San Francisco that some Americans “cling to guns or religion” in times of adversity.

“It was an annoying comment, and it showed there’s a lot more to him,” said Mike Warner, 38, of Las Vegas, who was shopping for a gun there on Thursday.

Mr. Warner said he was an N.R.A. member and an owner of two guns but wanted at least one more.

Other people, even some shopping for guns, said they thought that some gun enthusiasts’ fears about Mr. Obama were unjustified. James Sykes, a gun collector who was shopping at the Gun Room in Lakewood, Colo., called the rush to buy guns “a lot of hysteria about very little.”

Mr. Sykes, who said he had voted mostly Republican in the past but supported Mr. Obama this year, said that issues like war and the global economic crisis were more pressing for him right now and that he imagined the same was true for Mr. Obama.

“My Second Amendment rights are unquestionably important to me, but so is feeding my family,” he said. “In reality, you won’t be able to afford to buy a gun if your job goes overseas.”

But markets, whether for guns or stocks and bonds, tend to move with their own internal dynamics even in — perhaps especially in — gloomy economic times.

Chris Casella, general manager of Federal Firearms Company in Oakdale, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, said he had been fielding about 30 calls a day from people interested in buying assault-type rifles, especially semiautomatic weapons, often with magazines that could hold lots of ammunition.

“A lot of people are buying them as an investment,” Mr. Casella said. “Better than gold.”

Reporting was contributed by Thayer Evans from Houston; Steve Friess from Las Vegas; Dan Frosch from Lakewood, Colo.; Sean D. Hamill from Pittsburgh; and Pamela J. Podger from Missoula, Mont.