New York's Governor Embraces Gay Rights

From NYT:

Few governors have made advancing gay rights as central to their policy making as Mr. Paterson. Even liberal Democrats who have long advocated equal rights for gay men and lesbians, like Mr. Paterson’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, have not embraced the gay community so publicly.

The most significant move Mr. Paterson has made toward broadening gay rights in New York was an order he issued in May that directed state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of New York.

Contracts and the Mafia

The Mafia have their hands in everything even in school bus contracts:

The former president of a union representing 15,000 New York City school bus drivers was sentenced on Thursday to four years and nine months in federal prison after pleading guilty to extortion and receiving bribes in a Mafia-controlled racketeering conspiracy.

The former president, Salvatore Battaglia, admitted his role in the conspiracy in January, four days before his trial was to begin. Mr. Battaglia, 61, of Staten Island, acknowledged taking payoffs from mobsters under the employ of Matthew Ianniello, the former acting boss of the Genovese crime family, in exchange for agreeing not to unionize certain bus companies with contracts with the city.

Mr. Battaglia was the president of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union from 2002 to 2006, when he lost the job because of his indictment in the case. In that indictment, he was accused of being a member of the Genovese family.

Testing For H.I.V.

Routine testing for H.I.V. could help save lives. The Bronx will soon be able to say that they are willing to control this epidemic:

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough.

The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.

Columbia Professor Fired Over Plagiarism Charge

She cried racism but ultimately it was her dishonesty that led to her downfall:

Madonna G. Constantine, the Columbia University professor who gained widespread attention last fall after a noose was found hanging on her office door, was fired on Monday after months of wrangling over charges that she plagiarized the work of two former students and a former colleague.

Standing Strong To One's Conviction

Winning a criminal case at the expense of the truth has long been most prosecutor's motto, but not for prosecutor Daniel L. Bibb:

The 1990 shooting of a bouncer outside the Palladium nightclub — had been called into question by a stream of new evidence. So the office decided on a re-examination, led by a 21-year veteran assistant, Daniel L. Bibb.

Mr. Bibb spent nearly two years reinvestigating the killing and reported back: He believed that the two imprisoned men were not guilty, and that their convictions should be dropped. Yet top officials told him, he said, to go into a court hearing and defend the case anyway. He did, and in 2005 he lost.

But in a recent interview, Mr. Bibb made a startling admission: He threw the case. Unwilling to do what his bosses ordered, he said, he deliberately helped the other side win.

He tracked down hard-to-find or reluctant witnesses who pointed to other suspects and prepared them to testify for the defense. He talked strategy with defense lawyers. And when they veered from his coaching, he cornered them in the hallway and corrected them.

Bravo Mr. Bibb for doing the right thing.

And The Walls May Come Tumbling Down

Your safety may be at risk:

Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether the leading concrete testing company in the New York area, which has been hired to measure and analyze the strength of the concrete poured at some of the biggest construction projects in the city, failed to do some tests and falsified others.

The investigation has uncovered problems with tests the company conducted on concrete poured over the last 18 months at the new Yankee Stadium site in the Bronx and the foundation of the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, along with as many as a dozen other large projects.

Man Made Fatal Wall Collapse

Putting money before safety was on the mind of this loser:

Abraham Hertzberg, a licensed engineer has been charged with filing fraudulent plans with the Department of Buildings in connection with a Brooklyn construction site where a day laborer died in March when earth and debris collapsed on him.

The charges come one week after the owner of the site was indicted on manslaughter charges, and at a time when the authorities are placing intense scrutiny on construction safety following a string of deadly accidents at building sites.