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Tornado touches down in Queens and Brooklyn
A terrifying tornado touched down briefly in Queens and Brooklyn Saturday morning, destroying property, disrupting plans and terrifying residents all over the city.
A black tunnel cloud accompanied by howling winds screamed into south Brooklyn and Queens at around 11 a.m., with reports of the potent storm hitting the ground on the Rockaway Peninsula and Carnarsie.
“I saw a big gray cloud coming and ran to my basement with my son,” said Diane Tye, 36, an office manager from Breezy Point who scooped up her son Dylan, 2, and ran to her house when she saw the tunnel cloud approach.
“It was very Read more…
New York Moves to Deploy Body Scanners on Street in Search for Guns

The NYPD and Department of Defense are working together testing Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new way to get concealed illegal weapons off the streets. (Photo courtesy: NYPD)
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS in New York his department is looking to deploy Terahertz Imaging Detection scanners on the street in the war on “illegal guns.”
Kelly said the scanners would be used in “reasonably suspicious circumstances” and intended to cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street. So called stop-and-frisks are considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
New York City is largely a Second Amendment free zone. The city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has said that citizens “acting outside of any governmental military effort” should not be allowed to protect themselves with firearms.
“The NYPD and Department of Defense are working together testing Terahertz Imaging Detection, a new way to get concealed illegal weapons off the streets,” CBS reports. Terahertz Imaging Detection measures energy radiating from Read more…
US east coast on hurricane alert- New York City in direct path
The United States is on a high alert as Hurricane Irene builds momentum along its path from the Caribbean towards the US east coast.
“We’re going to have a very large tropical cyclone move up the eastern seaboard over the next five to seven days,” Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said on Wednesday.
But Read said it was too early to be certain where Irene would hit the coastline.
Latest data showed the hurricane strengthening back into a category two storm as it moved closer to Read more…
New York breaks city’s rainfall record with nearly eight inches soaking city

Staten Island was hit hard by the record rainfall on Sunday.
New York broke an all-time record for a one-day rainfall Sunday as up to 8 inches of water soaked the city, snarling trains and flooding roadways.
By 9 p.m., 7.7 inches of rain had fallen at Kennedy Airport.
It was the most recorded there in a single day since the National Weather Service began keeping records 116 years ago.
The heavy tropical rain is expected to continue Monday, and a flash flood warning is in effect until 9 p.m.
The normal rainfall for all of August in New York is 4 inches – which means the city was socked with two months worth of rain in a single day.
“This is what you would expect in a major hurricane,” said Steve Wistar, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.
Kennedy Airport’s old one-day rainfall record, 6.3 inches, set on June 30, 1984, fell by noon.
Central Park, where the city’s official rainfall total is recorded, saw Read more…
Long Island Officials Warn Of Rapidly Spreading Whooping Cough Virus

A bottle of the pertussis vaccine against whooping cough and a syringe are show in a pharmacy in Pasadena, Calif. on Sept. 17, 2010. (Photo credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
SMITHTOWN, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — A cluster of whooping cough is growing on Long Island, with dozens of people infected by the virus.
As CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez reports, a warning was sent out as children begin to head to summer camp – a certain breeding ground for the illness.
Parents in Smithtown are on high alert, as the highly contagious whooping cough is spreading through their community.
“It’s one of those diseases you don’t think you’ll ever hear about again,” parent Rick Vollkommer said.
Donna Wilson said she’s not taking any chances with her daughter, Kayla.
“She has been coughing a little bit here and there, so I’m Read more…
Charges dismissed against woman arrested while videotaping traffic stop from her front yard

The case against a 28-year-old woman charged with obstructing governmental administration after refusing a police officer’s order to leave her front yard while she was videotaping a traffic stop has been dismissed.
WHEC reported a judge dismissed the case against Emily Good of Rochester, New York on Monday because there was insufficient evidence of a crime.
Good was arrested while she filmed police officers conducting a traffic stop in front of her home. Good’s recording shows the officers saying that they feel threatened by her standing behind them because she seemed “very anti-police.”
The arrest added to the already heated debate over videotaping police officers.
In a joint statement, Mayor Tom Richards, City Council President Lovely Warren and Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard said they agreed that the case should be dismissed.
“We believe that the incident that led to Ms. Good’s arrest and the subsequent ticketing for parking violations of vehicles belonging to members of an organization associated with Ms. Good raise issues with Read more…
NY State Says These Kids’ Games Pose ‘Significant Risk Of Injury’
School will be soon be out but if it’s up to the New York State Health Department, a lot of city kids might be spending their time indoors.
The New York State Health Department created a list of what they deemed “risky recreational activities” and is forcing many summer programs to ban these games unless they shell out extra funds to be recognized as an official summer camp. They say the activities listed pose a “significant risk of injury” and have been named as hazards which need to be regulated at day camps.
While proper supervision and safety concerns rank high on every parent’s list of priorities, the games that have been deemed unsafe and risky might shock a lot of city parents who grew up playing these ‘dangerous’ games.
For starters, kids can kiss wiffle ball, dodge ball, and kick ball goodbye. Horseback riding and scuba make the list and more understandably, archery. But so does freeze tag, Frisbee, steal the bacon and tug of war!
According to the NY Daily News, under the new rules, any program that offers two or more organized recreational activities – with at least one of Read more…
New York State Begins Planning for Sea Level Rise Major changes to development planning an
Major changes to development planning and conservation along coastlines from the tip of Long Island all way up the Hudson River Valley are recommended
RISING TIDE: Rising sea levels will not just affect New York City but communities from Long Island all the way up the Hudson River in New York State. Image: Photo by aturkus, courtesy Flickr
NEW YORK — New York state is beginning to take the threat of sea level rise attributed to climate change seriously as a new government prepares to settle in next year.
Starting Monday, state officials in Albany will gather with members of the public to discuss a recently released 93-page report that recommends major changes to development planning and conservation along coastlines from the tip of Long Island all way up the Hudson River Valley.
Any reforms to come from the process, starting next week, would affect about 62 percent of New York state’s population, the proportion estimated to reside now in areas that could be hard hit as rising land and ocean temperatures raise average sea levels around the globe.
“We’ve had an enormous variety of partners involved in this project,” said Kristen Marcell, special projects coordinator at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “We do have to take leadership from the new government, but I think there’s a lot of support in the state agencies for these recommendations and making sure that we’re heading in the right direction.”
Among other changes, report authors say some Read more…
Three Cases of Cholera Confirmed by New York City Officials
The first known cases of cholera in New York since the outbreak of the disease in Haiti last year were confirmed on Saturday by city officials.
A commercial laboratory notified health officials on Friday that three New Yorkers had developed diarrhea and dehydration, classic symptoms of the disease, after returning from a wedding on Jan. 22 and 23 in the Dominican Republic, where the government has been trying to prevent the disease from spreading from neighboring Haiti.
The three who contracted cholera were adults who returned to the city within days of the wedding.
None were hospitalized. Dr. Sharon Balter, a medical epidemiologist for the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said on Saturday that the victims had all recovered.
Officials declined to release the names of the patients or where they lived.
City health officials are now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to determine what the New York victims ate and to see if the strain of the disease they contracted is linked to the cholera epidemic that has ravaged Haiti, killing thousands since October and infecting many more.
“We’re providing support to the state, with lab testing, in determining which strain” is at issue, said Candice Burns Hoffmann, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C. “And I know there is an Read more…
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