Swine Flu Vaccine Hits New York

The first round of the H1N1 vaccine arrives in New York City today, but is only safe for people between the ages of 2 and 49 who are healthy and not pregnant -- because it contains the live Swine Flu virus.
The some 68,000 doses now here are in the form of a nasal spray, which should save parents a lot of tears and drama.

A next round of vaccines which should arrive in the next few weeks will be safe for everyone, but will be only available as injections.

All New York City schools are planning a mass swine flu vaccination campaign over the next several months -- and it's free, but parents have the choice to opt out.

New Jersey and Connecticut are also getting their first doses of the vaccine this week, and while doctors say the sooner people get vaccinated, the sooner they'll be protected, they are urging patience.

"The first few weeks there will be less and it may be harder to find, but there will be an ample supply for everyone," said Dr. Jane Zucker, with the NYC Health Dept.

Lauren Conrad - New York Times Best Seller

First Laguna Beach, then she was offered and started in her own show, The Hill’s. Now, Lauren Conrad is aNew York Times Best Seller, for a second week in a row. The Hill’s season 5 finale was also Lauren’s final goodbye to the show. When best friend Lo found her packing her things in the last episode, Lo asked her what’s next? Lauren replied that for the first time in a long time, I really don’t know. Little did she know, that not even a few months after that episode would air she would be at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List.

Lauren’s young-adult novel, L.A. Candy has topped the list for a second week in a row. Categorized under Children’s Chapter Books is just the first of a 3 book series. Lauren has explained to People that the book follows a young girl by the name of Jane Roberts who has moved to Los Angeles and has come across some new found fame in a reality TV series. Although it sounds familiar, Lauren has told MTV news that it does not have to do with the experience she had with the MTV reality series.

Summer Brings a Wave of Homeless Families in New York

New York Times - As the school year sailed to a close last month, Arielle Figueras crossed the stage in her cap and gown and proudly accepted her fifth-grade diploma.

The next day, she was homeless.

Arielle, a petite 11-year-old, and her parents, brother and sister packed their belongings and arrived at the intake center for homeless families in the South Bronx. Though they had been fighting with their landlord for months and their gas and electricity had long been shut off, they refused to leave their apartment while school was in session.

“She was graduating, so we had to wait,” Arielle’s mother, Marilyn Maldonado, said. “We just didn’t want to disrupt their routines. We couldn’t do that to them.”

Many New Yorkers view summer as a time for vacations, camp and lazy days at the beach. But city officials have been preparing for quite a different summer ritual: the swelling of the population of homeless families.


They call it the summer surge, and say that this year could be the worst yet.

Because the homeless population this spring was up more than 20 percent over last spring, possibly because of higher unemployment, officials are girding for an all-time high in the number of families in shelters at once, expecting close to 10,000. Already, the number has reached 9,420.

Other cities are noticing a similar trend. In Toledo, Ohio, one overcrowded shelter has been turning away dozens of people each night. In Charlotte, N.C., a shelter that is typically open only in winter has stayed open for the summer to meet demand, which is 20 percent higher than last summer. Across town, a Salvation Army shelter is so full, it has set up mats on the floors.

The reasons are varied but simple. Landlords who are reluctant to evict during winter are less hesitant when it is warmer. Parents like the Maldonados, who have endured poor housing conditions to spare their children agitation and humiliation at school, finally pack up and leave. And relatives who have taken in families in cramped apartments lose patience when children are suddenly underfoot all day long.

“When school’s open, families tend to stay where they are,” said Deronda Metz, the director of social services for the Salvation Army in Charlotte. “And when school’s out, they’re told it’s time to go.”

In New York, the number of homeless families applying for shelter in the summer has been 28 percent higher than the rest of the year the last three years. Their first stop is the intake center, a 24-hour, sprawling 66,000-square-foot brick building in the Bronx. They must walk through metal detectors, must submit to questioning from social workers and, after hours of waiting for their names to be called, are bused to a temporary hotel room or apartment.

Workers have begun to make room for the hundreds of extra families that are expected at the center this summer. On the second floor, all of the cubicles in one room were dismantled, replaced by rows of plastic chairs to make a waiting room for up to 114 people. Rows of boxy light gray metal lockers — each large enough to hold several suitcases — were installed. Employees at the intake center are being limited to one week of vacation during July and August.

Just a few hours after the public schools let out for summer, families began trickling into the center, their faces tight with stress. One woman walked briskly inside with her young son, who wore a bright blue backpack and held an armful of books. Another woman, who would not give her name, waited outside with her daughter, who had just finished second grade. “My sister said we couldn’t stay with her anymore,” she said, fanning herself for some relief from the humidity. “I said once she’s done with school, we’d get out.”

Arielle’s father, Douglas Maldonado, said that their landlord had stopped making repairs and had altered the building’s electric billing to make the Maldonados pay for other apartments’ power, up to $8,000 a month. But they held onto their apartment just long enough for Arielle’s graduation and for their son, Sabino Figueras, to graduate from eighth grade the week before.

The Bloomberg administration has run into trouble before with its handling of the summer influx of homeless families. In 2002, there was a public relations debacle when officials allowed hundreds of parents and children to wait in the intake office each day, more than three times the number that city fire codes allowed. Other families were placed in an empty men’s jail in the Bronx that was later discovered to have been contaminated with lead paint.

This summer, the administration will use a combination of existing homeless shelters that are not quite full and vacant apartment buildings that have been fixed up for homeless families, said Robert V. Hess, the commissioner of homeless services.

“We have a variety of options, so that we can be as nimble as possible,” Mr. Hess said. “We keep some reserve.”

One essential part of the city’s plan is to place families in hotels temporarily, some of which are used for both homeless people and paying customers.

Mr. Maldonado’s family spent its first few nights in a hotel on 145th Street in the Bronx. One of the mattresses in the room, Mr. Maldonado said, was filthy and stained with urine.

On June 28, Tarshima Dixon, a mother of four, went to the intake center with her 14-year-old son, Jason. Two more sons, Craig Dixon, 13, and Nahjee Johnson, 8, waited outside with their grandmother and cheerfully bounced a basketball on the sidewalk as Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” played from their minivan’s stereo.

The family was evicted in April, and Ms. Dixon’s mother did not have room for all of them. So Ms. Dixon, along with Craig, Nahjee and another son, Gregory, 16, moved into a shelter in Brooklyn soon after. Jason had been living with his father in Camden, N.J., but Ms. Dixon wanted him back with his brothers. They had to come to the intake center to let the city know there would be one more homeless person needing a bed.

“He just finished school this week,” said Ms. Dixon, who added that she was determined that the whole family would move into an apartment by August. “I wasn’t going to bring him here until he was done.”

Will for Jackson Is Found, but No Details Are Given

A lawyer for the family of Michael Jackson said Tuesday that a will for him had been found, as officials in Santa Barbara County prepared for the possibility of a public viewing and memorial service for Mr. Jackson at his Neverland Ranch in the coming days.

The lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, told The Associated Press of the will’s existence, and said Mr. Jackson’s family and other advisers to the singer were looking for more documents. Mr. McMillan would not discuss the will’s contents.

In papers filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Burt Levitch, a lawyer for Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine Jackson, requested that she be given control of Mr. Jackson’s financial accounts, his real estate holdings and his stake in the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which includes works of the Beatles.

In the filing, Mr. Levitch said several wills might be found.

“It is possible that the court will have to review many wills and evaluate the competing claims of presenters of such wills,” he wrote.

The discovery of a will, which most likely names an executor, could complicate Mrs. Jackson’s petition to be named administrator of her son’s estate. A hearing on that matter was set for Aug. 3.

On Monday, Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff of Los Angeles County Superior Court granted Mrs. Jackson temporary guardianship of the singer’s three children. A hearing on permanent custody was scheduled for next Monday.

The entertainment Web site TMZ, quoting unidentified sources, reported on Tuesday that Mr. Jackson’s body would be taken in a motorcade on Thursday to his 2,500-acre ranch in the central California wine country, about 120 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

But Danny O’Donovan, who identified himself as the spokesman for Mr. Jackson’s brothers other than Jermaine, said on Tuesday afternoon that no final arrangements had been made. “Right now the family is discussing all of those details,” Mr. O’Donovan said.

Mr. Jackson’s father, Joe, said on Monday that there would be no funeral until results of a private autopsy were available.

Should the family’s plans include a public gathering at Neverland, Santa Barbara County officials were determined to be prepared.

Capt. David Sadecki of the Fire Department confirmed that his agency was meeting on Tuesday with officials from the California Highway Patrol and the county Sheriff’s Department to plan for a possible Neverland memorial, although he said no one had heard from the family.

“We’re meeting to prepare, should an event happen, but we haven’t been notified by the Jackson family,” Captain Sadecki said. “The Fire Department is willing to do whatever it can to accommodate the Jackson family should they have some requests.”

A Highway Patrol spokesman, Rick Quintero, said that his agency had not received a request for a motorcade, and that it would be notified if a motorcade planned to pass through its jurisdiction between Los Angeles and Neverland.

“They would definitely need to notify us because it’s going to impact the motoring public,” Mr. Quintero said. “At the point they decide it is going to happen we have to be involved.”

Mr. Jackson bought the ranch in the late 1980s, naming it after the mythical land of Peter Pan, where boys never grow up. There, he surrounded himself with animals, rides and children.

He left the ranch — and the United States — after his acquittal on charges that he molested a teenage cancer survivor in 2003 at the estate after getting him drunk.

Mr. Jackson moved luxury cars, artwork, jewelry, costumes and other property off the ranch last year for an auction, but it never took place.

New York, apply for citizenship at the age of adolescence and said, killing

NEW YORK - A law enforcement source said a teenager arrested for stabbing down a veteran New York City radio reporter told the police the victim gave him $ 60 for rough sex.

Police officials say sixteen-year-old John Katehis (KAY'tis) known to kill George Weber shortly after they detained late Tuesday in Middletown, NY

Katehis describes himself as a sadomasochist on his MySpace page, where photos of a knife collection.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition anonymity because the costs are still being drafted, said Wednesday the suspect claimed the victim offered cash for violent sex.

Indictment against the Queens teen was pending. The name of his lawyer was not immediately available.

Weber's body was found Sunday. His ankles were bound and he was stabbed about 50 times.

Weber worked at WABC in New York for 12 years as the on-air reporter. He has also worked at stations in California, Denver and Pennsylvania.

Federal Courts in Va., N.Y. May Take Some Guantanamo Cases

Federal authorities have finished compiling detailed electronic dossiers on 241 detainees who remain in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and interagency review teams have begun studying the individual files. The process could see some suspects transferred to federal courts, possibly in Northern Virginia and New York City, the jurisdictions where the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks occurred, according to Justice Department officials.

The specter of Guantanamo Bay inmates such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, moving to federal detention centers in Alexandria, Manhattan or elsewhere to await trial is likely to stir political controversy. Legislators nationwide have lined up to say they do not want detainees in their city or state.

"We can say that [a] person can be charged either in the Eastern District of Virginia or the Southern District of New York," said a senior Justice Department official involved in the process. "But ultimately . . . that decision then has to be approved, because every indictment has to be approved by the [assistant attorney general] for national security."

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) told Washington Post reporters and editors recently that no one in the federal government had raised the issue of Guantanamo Bay detainees with him and that Defense Department facilities may be the most appropriate location for such prisoners.

New York City changes with the ‘Times’

Anyone who has visited Times Square in Manhattan has experienced the thrill of the noisy crowds and flashing billboards called “spectaculars” that make Times Square so dazzling.

What most of Times Square’s tourists don’t know is it was named after the New York Times as an icon of the importance of news.

Dale Cressman, a BYU communications professor, recently had an article published in the Winter 2009 edition of Journalism History discussing the rich journalistic history of Times Square and the difference in its focus over the years.

“Times Tower used to be identified with newspapers — a location for New Yorkers to read the latest on the elections,” Cressman said. “Today it is mostly a vacant building paid for by large advertisers.”

Originally called Longacre Square, the people of New York renamed it Times Square in honor of the New York Times.

In the first half of the 20th century, people gathered around the tower on election night to learn of the results. Lights flashing in a particular direction indicated the outcome. Times Square was centered on news.

Today, however, Times Square is a different place.

Hwanhi Chung, a BYU English language major from Queens, N.Y., said she enjoys hanging out on Times Square with her friends.

“Times Square is known for it’s huge lights and its excitement,” Chung said. “You just don’t know what to expect. Sometimes there will be a random guy on the sidewalk, playing the guitar in his underwear.”

Jenny Sweeny, a senior from Bloomington, Ind. studying international corporate finance, recently went on a vacation to New York City. She said she enjoyed Times Square because there were so many exciting things going on everywhere.

“It’s such an awesome place,” Sweeny said. “You expect some famous person to walk past at any moment. The streets are lined with neon lights and fun restaurants and stores.”

Like Sweeny, most people view Times Square in this light.

“Times Square today represents the importance of advertising and entertainment,” Cressman said. “These are symbols of what is important in today’s culture.”

Cressman’s studies of Times Square began in the spring of 2006. He taught a class at Columbia University as part of the BYU New York internship. One of the students who took his class was Alicia Barney, a BYU journalism graduate from Seattle.

Barney and other students helped research old buildings, including the Times Tower.

Because of this research, Cressman decided to make more trips to New York in 2007, to study the history of Times Square in more detail.

Eager to get his hands on more material, Cressman called the vice president of public relations for the New York Times. Because there was no room for an archive in the New York Times’ new building, he found he only had access to the archives for six months before the New York Times donated everything to the New York public library.

“Once I was able to get in, I felt like I had to keep going back,” Cressman said. “I knew the window was closing.”

Cressman viewed letters, contracts and papers that told him the story about the history of the New York Times.

Cressman will present a lecture on March 26 at 11 a.m., addressing his research and showing pictures of Times Square through the years on the first floor of the library.

New York Times: When Consumers Cut Back - An Object Lesson from Japan

It could never happen here, right? We're not Japan. [Oct 27, 2008: Japan's Lost Quarter Century] We told the world as we looked down our nose at them, if a crisis ever happened to us, we would let the free markets reign and take our pain as necessary - the same advice we rigidly pushed onto others. We said we'll never be Japan. We could not have a nationwide real estate bust here... or a lost decade in our stock market [Oct 7, 2008: 2000s Stock Market Worse than 1930s].... or zombie banks working with regulators to hide the true scope of the issues. If push comes to shove the "creative destruction" that downturns bring would be allowed to envelop our free ranging capitalist society - new butterflies would emerge from the rubble - unlike those Japanese folks. Nope, we're not like them at all. [Dec 29, 2008: What Happens if America Returns to a Historical Savings Rate?] [Sep 20, 2008: US News & World Report - The End of the Shopaholic Nation?]



Via New York Times

•As recession-wary Americans adapt to a new frugality, Japan offers a peek at how thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect. The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.



•Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990.



•Japan eventually pulled itself out of the Lost Decade of the 1990s, thanks in part to a boom in exports to the United States and China. But even as the economy expanded, shell-shocked consumers refused to spend. Between 2001 and 2007, per-capita consumer spending rose only 0.2 percent. Now, as exports dry up amid a worldwide collapse in demand, Japan’s economy is in free-fall because it cannot rely on domestic consumption to pick up the slack.



•“On the surface, Japan looked like it had recovered from its Lost Decade of the 1990s. But Japan in fact entered a second Lost Decade — that of lost consumption.”



•.... the average worker’s paycheck has shrunk in recent years, even after companies rebounded and bolstered their profits.



•That discrepancy is the result of aggressive cost-cutting on the part of Japanese exporters like Toyota and Sony. They, like American companies now, have sought to fend off cutthroat competition from companies in emerging economies like South Korea and Taiwan, where labor costs are low. (this is your global wage arbitrage I speak about since blog inception taking root - it will weaken labor's power in developed countries, under the threat of competition from lower wage countries) To better compete, companies slashed jobs and wages, replacing much of their work force with temporary workers who had no job security and fewer benefits. Nontraditional workers now make up more than a third of Japan’s labor force. (sound familiar?) [Oct 28, 2008: Pooring of Japan Too?]



•Younger people are feeling the brunt of that shift. Some 48 percent of workers age 24 or younger are temps. These workers, who came of age during a tough job market, tend to shun conspicuous consumption. Young Japanese women even seem to be losing their once- insatiable thirst for foreign fashion. Louis Vuitton, for example, reported a 10 percent drop in its sales in Japan in 2008.



•Japan’s aging population is not helping consumption. Businesses had hoped that baby boomers — the generation that reaped the benefits of Japan’s postwar breakneck economic growth — would splurge their lifetime savings upon retirement, which began en masse in 2007. But that has not happened at the scale that companies had hoped.



•Economists blame this slow spending on widespread distrust of Japan’s pension system, which is buckling under the weight of one of the world’s most rapidly aging societies. (sound familiar?) That could serve as a warning for the United States, where workers’ 401(k)’s have been ravaged by declining stocks, pensions are disappearing, and the long-term solvency of the Social Security system is in question. [Sep 1, 2008: Laboring Longer is Growing Trend for Americans]



I'll keep repeating this - this is not cyclical, this is structural. This is a sea change. People are still in denial of the scope of it all. Thankfully we're are not following Japan's example, or else I'd be concerned. Second half 2009 economic recovery....right on target.

MTA rescue on fast track up in Albany

With an increased sense of urgency, Assembly and Senate Democrats will hold separate conferences Wednesday on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's fiscal crisis.

Gov. Paterson and other top Democrats, who control both houses in Albany, said they wanted to hash out an MTA rescue plan within days.

"We must get a final agreement in place within the next week," Paterson said in a statement last night.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith struck a similar tone.

"At this point, we're weighing all the facts, but we are going to do something on the MTA - I would tell you that in no uncertain terms," Smith said. "Between now and next week, we are going to make a final decision on the MTA," he vowed.

Officials are trying to settle the matter before it gets bogged down as the Legislature focuses on the state budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1.

Paterson supports a plan crafted by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch generating billions of dollars for the MTA's operating and capital construction projects. The package includes a payroll tax and tolls on the now-free East and Harlem River bridges.

Without a sizable bailout, MTA officials have said they will have to enact double-digit fare hikes and severe service cuts in June.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called the cuts and fare hikes "unacceptable," but had no specifics on how the revenue to prevent them would be provided.