New Yorkers helped re-elect President Barack Obama, but not without some technical difficulties.

The damages wrought on the city by Hurricane Sandy prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to issue an order allowing evacuated residents to vote at any poll site in the state by using affidavit ballots. Many sites failed to get word of the order, which went out only the day before the election, however, and some city polls quickly ran out of the 250 affidavits that the city printed for each election district.

Jammed ballot scanners added to the confusion of relocated polling sites and affidavits, which combined resulted in lines that stretched blocks. At some sites, voters waited three hours or more to cast their ballots.

The city’s Upper East and Upper West sides were particularly burdened with delays. Many storm-struck New York residents fled to friends’ and relatives’ homes in the city’s less-damaged neighborhoods, so these polling sites were disproportionately crowded.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized the Board of Elections for failing to be organized. The Board of Elections, in turn, argued that it did not have enough time to train poll workers following Cuomo’s order.

PIZZA-DELIVERY RAPE SUSPECT INDICTED

Cesar Lucas, the 16-year-old delivery boy accused of raping a woman in her West 61st Street apartment in September, was indicted Nov. 8.

Lucas reportedly entered the 35-year-old tenant’s unlocked home around midnight on Sept. 29 after delivering pizza to one of her neighbors in the building. He found the victim in bed with her 7-year-old daughter, and raped her with the daughter in the room.

“Women should not have to sleep with one eye open for fear of intruders,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in announcing the indictment. “The defendant is not only charged with committing a rape, but with doing so in the presence of the victim’s child. I commend the victim for her tremendous courage in coming forward.”

Specifically, Lucas was charged with rape, sexual abuse, endangering the welfare of a child and burglary, the latter for taking money from the victim’s wallet before fleeing the scene. He wrote a confession to the crime after he was arrested, citing his motive as feeling “horny,” but pleaded not guilty.

Last month, the victim sued Lucas, and also his employer Sal’s Pizza, her building’s management company, her building’s condo board and the on-duty doorman.

KRIM PARENTS LAUNCH LULU AND LEO FUND

Marina and Kevin Krim, parents of the two siblings stabbed to death by their nanny in their West 75th Street apartment on Oct. 25, have established a fund in their children’s honor. The Lulu and Leo Fund, named after the 6-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy, will fund education in two subjects the Krims say their children loved: the arts and sciences.

“Our children have loved the many art and science programs in the cities in which we have lived, such as Lulu’s beloved ‘Art Afternoons’ class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” the parents wrote on the fund’s website, www.lululeofund.org. “Unfortunately, there are many children who do not have access to these programs. We created the Lulu & Leo Fund to help more children benefit from these education experiences in art and science.”

In a statement on the site, the Krims express thanks for the outpouring of support they have received from the community over the past weeks, and ask for help ensuring their privacy, so that their third child, 3-year-old Nessie, who was out of the apartment with Marina at the time of the murder, can grow up “like any another kid.”

Yoselyn Ortega, the 50-year-old nanny, was formally charged with the murder on Nov. 3. She cut her throat following the stabbings, and remains in treatment at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is pushing for high-tech investment in New York, has touted the University of Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. (Photos from College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering)

New York City isn’t the only part of the state that has been attracting a growing number of high-tech companies.

In upstate areas struggling to rebound from the recession and recover from the longer-term decline in manufacturing, the state has been recruiting companies like Yahoo! and IBM to add or expand operations, create new jobs and assist in rebuilding the economy.

To read the full article, please visit cityandstateny.com.

Sean Lennon & Yoko Ono. Photo by Aaron Adler.

By Alissa Fleck

Artists Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Mark Ruffalo, alongside longtime experts in the field, held a press conference today in Manhattan to promote “Artists Against Fracking,” an activist project with the aim of raising awareness about the ill effects of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking).

Hydrofracking is a process of extracting gas by blasting a pressurized mixture of water and chemicals underground to crack open rock formations. Governor Cuomo is expected to make a decision this week on whether to allow hydrofracking in New York State.

Ono, Lennon and Ruffalo launched “Artists Against Fracking,” with the help of nearly 200 other artists and experts, to warn New Yorkers about their important role in stopping Cuomo from approving hydrofracking in the State. Lennon said he believes the City’s elected officials are “smart and have good intentions,” but hydrofracking is not adequately understood by the public. Furthermore, Ruffalo pointed out: “The world is watching New York.”

The organization hopes people will recognize the negative environmental impact of hydrofracking, the overwhelming opposition in America and the “campaign of misinformation” being spread by gas companies. This campaign aims to convince people fracking is a clean alternative to coal, explained Lennon.

“Bloomberg said it can be regulated to be safe,” said Lennon, “but then why did Dick Cheney exempt fracking from the Clean Air Act? Fracking releases unpronounceable toxic chemicals and carcinogens.”

Cornell Engineering Professor Anthony Ingraffea, who has studied the industry for 25 years, said the primary concerns with hydrofracking are leaks which contaminate underground drinking water, and methane bubbling to the surface of the earth. Ingraffea said one in 20 wells invariably fails, producing leaks. “Methane emissions are a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide,” said Ingraffea. “It will exacerbate climate change. It’s a bad time and this is bad technology for it.”

“Science doesn’t have two sides, just one,” said Ono. “All we want is a place we can trust in terms of pureness for ourselves and our children.”

Ono said the hope is the public will visit their organization’s website, become more informed and send letters to Cuomo everyday, to remind him “we are not forgetting.”

“Cuomo is the gatekeeper right now,” said Lennon, explaining, while the decision currently faces New York, “Nature does not abide by state lines.”

The group promotes renewable energy as an alternative to hydrofracking. As to the issue that any alternative to hydrofracking, however seemingly innocuous, would still leave a carbon footprint, Ingraffea said: “We’re realists. Nobody controls the price of the sun or wind and we can harness those for a smaller carbon footprint.”

“You cannot lie about something forever,” said Ruffalo. “A sun spill is just a beautiful day.”

With the new law, private buses like this one would need permits. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

by Adel Manoukian

Governor Cuomo signed the Silver-Squadron bill into law this past Friday, signifying the first-ever permit system for intercity buses.

The law gives the city the power to designate bus stops, as well as require bus companies to provide information about the buses they are using, the number of passengers they expect to carry, and where they will be stored when not in use. Those who do not provide this information can face fines of up to $2,000 in addition to the loss of their permit.

This comes after State Senator Daniel Squadron and Speaker Sheldon Silver proposed the system this past June due to congestion, idling and overall safety concerns many residents in areas like Chinatown had.

Intercity buses are affordable but have been involved in a number of serious and sometimes fatal accidents. The agreement on the bill is part of an effort to bring stricter oversight to the industry and Silver, Squadron, along with Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Council Member Margaret Chin applaud Cuomo for signing the bill.

“By creating the first-ever permit system for intercity buses, we’re taking a big step toward protecting communities and passengers alike,” said Senator Squadron in a statement. “Our new system will bring oversight to the growing and important low-cost bus industry, helping to end the wild west atmosphere in Chinatown and around the city while allowing us to identify problems before they become tragedies.”

Commissioner Sadik-Khan agrees.

“Intercity buses are a lifeline for people and business. But intercity bus transportation shouldn’t turn our neighborhood streets into de facto bus depots. This law will help eliminate this legal blind spot and bring order to the free-for-all on our neighborhood streets and sidewalks.”

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

UPDATE: It turns out that the only connection between the DNA sample lifted from a subway gate at a recent Occupy Wall Street protest and DNA collected in the unsolved 2004 murder of Juilliard student Sarah Fox was an NYPD lab worker who processed both, the Daily News reported Wednesday.

The matching DNA was found to be the NYPD employee’s, which means that the samples were contaminated. According to the Daily News’s sources, the employee, whose identity has not been released, will likely face departmental charges for failing to prevent tainting.

- – -

It could be straight out of a pulpy crime drama, but this time it’s for real. A DNA sample collected at a recent Occupy Wall Street protest eerily matches DNA collected in the unsolved 2004 murder of 21-year-old Juilliard student Sarah Fox. Does this point to a connection or mere coincidence? Was the DNA lifted at the protest in fact that of a protester, and, further, what would have prompted the NYPD to lift DNA from the scene in the first place?

(by Alissa Fleck)

The sample collected in connection with OWS was found on a chain used to “prop open the gates at an East Flatbush subway station…designed to let straphangers ride for free,” reports am NY. Realistically, the sample could have come from anywhere.

The DNA is a match to that taken from Fox’s CD player, which she brought with her on a jog in May of 2004, immediately prior to her disappearance and murder.

The shared DNA did not hit on any known criminal in the database, reports am NY. Officials are quick not to jump to conclusions, saying it’s possible evidence was simply handled by a common officer in both cases. The sample on Fox’s CD player was never shown to match her case’s primary suspect or any friends or family.

So is it simply coincidence, or is there a more sinister element at play—could this discovery provide renewed hope for the 8-year-old unsolved murder?

Dr. Lawrence Koblinsky, a forensics expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NBC New York, “the likelihood is high the person who left that DNA on the CD player is the killer of Sarah Fox.”

The link is odd and serendipitous enough as is, but additionally strange seems the decision to collect DNA evidence in the case of an OWS protest. The collection of DNA in an isolated incident like this one begs the question of when it is protocol for the NYPD to collect a DNA sample. What sort of cost does it incur and how useful is it, in most cases?

The NYPD’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for such information, but the New York State Legislature reached an agreement on a bill in March of this year which would allow for the collection of DNA from those convicted even of misdemeanors. WNYC reported this would make NYS the first “all crimes DNA” state in the country, according to Governor Cuomo.

“DNA collection is one of the most reliable and cost-effective tools that we have in law enforcement,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.

While this may not directly apply to this particular case, it shows New York’s heightened emphasis on the importance of DNA collection, even in cases where it might seem largely unnecessary. Still, many questions remain unanswered in this stranger-than-fiction discovery.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

MTA police officer John Barnett was stabbed at 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning in Queens, before shooting and killing his assailant, reports Fox NY. 

The incident took place at the Long Island Railroad station on Sutphin Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica. Barnett was stabbed in the left eye, out of nowhere, by 46-year-old “emotionally disturbed” Edgar Owens. Barnett then opened fire on Owens, who reportedly has a history of aggressiveness toward police.

Barnett was rushed to Jamaica Hospital following the incident and is expected to recover from the “devastating wound,” reports Fox. Governor Cuomo applauded Barnett’s bravery in a statement following the attack.

Doctors say it will be days before Barnett will know if he will regain sight in his left eye. Service to the LIRR was not disrupted by the incident.

—Alissa Fleck

Cyberbullies Beware - photo courtesy of Flickr Commons

New York lawmakers have bullied back at the state’s cyberbullies, and have made another step forward in protecting young students from the perils of the internet.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed a bill requiring schools to be vigilant when addressing cyberbullying complaints. The bill is expected to be passed before the current legislation gathering disbands on Thursday, says the Daily News.

According to Cuomo’s memo in support of the bill, 6% of students between the age of 12 and 18, 1.5 million, were cyberbullied either on or off their school’s campus.

“Cyberbullying is a new and insidious form of bullying,” Cuomo said in his statement. “Cyberbullying and other forms of bullying pose a serious risk to school safety and educational success for all children. Every student needs to feel safe in order to maximize his or her academic and social potential.”

The bill will require schools to develop a standard process to respond to potential cyberbullying, to work willingly with police on the matter, and to select an official to directly address a complaint or danger.

They’ll also be required, with the help of the Commissioner, to create curriculum for each age group, teaching the dangers of the internet.

Finally, all teachers or staff applying for employment after June 30, 2013 must be certified in identifying the “social patterns of harassment and bullying”.

One thing that has citizens upset, though, and rightfully so, is that it does not designate cyberbullying as a specific crime, and doesn’t mention any punitive action against offenders.

The bill would probably take effect on July 1, 2013, but there’s a chance it will take effect on July 1, 2012.

–Nick Gallinelli

Follow Governor Cuomo on Twitter – @NYGovCuomo