I Love New York

How does one express their feelings for New York? Why, with a symbol of course:

Last week, the state tourism board, Empire State Development, announced a retooled marketing campaign centered on the famed slogan and design, this time with an emphasis on gas-sipping day trips and short vacations for residents of the region.

But inherent in the campaign is a drive to reclaim the symbol itself, which, like the Playboy logo, has become devalued, as marketers term it, through overuse. This year, state officials plan to introduce new tools — like a difficult-to-reproduce hologram — that will assure consumers that a product is officially licensed by New York State.

For those who sell unofficial “I ♥ NY” products, officials plan to warn and then penalize offenders.

Scammers will face consequences. Don't buy junk merchandise.

Thefts Occurred After Crane Collapsed

If I did not know any better, I would think that Stan "Pampy" Barre, III was somehow involved in these heist:

The recent crane collapse that claimed seven lives, demolished a town house and destabilized a neighborhood on the East Side of Manhattan also created an opportunity for looters.

Since the March 15 accident, about $90,000 in jewelry, electronic equipment, cash and other items has been reported stolen from three apartments in two buildings near the accident site, the police said. Both buildings, on East 51st Street near Second Avenue, were evacuated the day of the collapse.

Fortunately for New Yorkers, they did not have to deal with the drug addicted burglar.

Defense To Link Marijuana In Sean Bell Killing

Lawyers for three detectives on trial in Queens in the killing of Sean Bell in 2006 will try to link small bags of marijuana found near the shooting site to one of Mr. Bell’s friends who was wounded and who fled a short distance, perhaps tossing the drugs as he ran.

The wounded friend, Trent Benefield, ran from the back seat of Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima as the police fired 50 rounds at the car in the belief that someone inside was armed and shooting back, the police have said. Mr. Benefield was stopped on a sidewalk of Liverpool Street, a short distance from the shooting near the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens.

The defense is expected to argue that if Mr. Benefield threw the marijuana away, it suggests that he knew the people shooting at them were police officers. Mr. Benefield has told investigators and a grand jury that the police never identified themselves before firing, and that he did not know who the gunmen were. He is expected to testify in the trial.

Federal Juries Reluctant To Impose Death Penalty

In the 20 years since the federal death penalty statute was revived, no federal juries have been more reluctant to sentence federal defendants to death than those in New York. According to records compiled by the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense of capital punishment cases, federal prosecutors in New York State have asked juries to impose death sentences 19 times since 1988. In only one case did a jury rule for execution.

Lawyers and other experts in the field say that a variety of reasons underpin New York’s status as a tough sell in death penalty cases. They say that there is a fundamental liberal slant to juries in the state, and that New York has some of the best death penalty defense lawyers in the country.

They also say many victims in New York capital cases are unsavory characters: drug dealers, mobsters or members of street gangs — not the sort of people whose killers are likely to be punished with death.

Bill To Delay Foreclosure Proceedings

Assemblyman James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn Democrat, and State Senator Frank Padavan, a Queens Republican, have introduced a bill in both houses that would delay foreclosure proceedings for New York residents for one year.

The measure would allow residents to remain in their homes while granting them time to work with lenders to modify their mortgages.

Commanding Officer At Sean Bell Shooting Testifies

The commanding officer of the detectives charged in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell testified on Friday that believing he was under fire, he drew his gun and pointed it toward the passenger windows of his car that night. He was ready not only for ambush, he said, but ready to add to the fusillade of 50 shots that claimed Mr. Bell’s life.

“If anyone came up on our car, I would have fired,” said the officer, Lt. Gary Napoli, in part of the second-by-second account he gave in the trial of three detectives charged in Mr. Bell’s killing after his bachelor party on Nov. 25, 2006.

The lieutenant also testified that an oft-quoted radio transmission from one of the detectives before the shooting that the situation was “getting hot” was, to his mind, a frantic call for help.

Queens Councilman May Get Plea Deal

Queens Councilman Dennis P. Gallagher who is accused of raping a woman could get off with a slap on the wrist if he agrees to a plea agreement.

Under the proposed deal, Mr. Gallagher would have to plead guilty to sexual misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor, but would not face jail time, the people familiar with the case said.

A grand jury indicted Mr. Gallagher in the summer on 10 counts of rape, criminal sexual acts and assault. In January, a State Supreme Court justice dismissed the indictment after finding that prosecutors had unfairly prejudiced grand jury members. A new indictment is possible.

Long Island Mother Kills Her Three Children

Leatrice Brewer, 27, who has been described as mentally disturbed, murdered her three children on Sunday and she then called the police. Ms. Brewer had been living with the children in an apartment in the Nassau County hamlet of New Cassel. Late Sunday evening, she was charged with the murder of all three children.

Neither the police nor the county medical examiner said what caused the death of the children, who were identified as Jewell Ward, 6; Michael Demesyeux, 5; and Innocent Demesyeux, 18 months old. But investigators said one appeared to have been drowned, while the others had been slashed to death.

The killings on Sunday appeared to add another grim chapter to a growing casebook of children slain by mothers: five drowned in a bathtub near Houston; two battered with rocks in Tyler, Tex.; three drowned in San Francisco Bay. The cases — some ending in verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity — have ignited a national debate over mental illness and the legal definition of insanity.

Irag Troops Receives Shoddy Mental Health Care At Fort Drum

Can you imagine serving four tours of duty in Iraq yet having to wait for more than a month to receive psychological help? Well, that is exactly what is going on at Fort Drum:

According to a draft report, “Fort Drum: A Great Burden, Inadequate Assistance,” which was given to The New York Times last week, uncovered several problems with the mental health services on the post, which is north of Syracuse. Based on interviews with a dozen soldiers and the mental health providers on the base, the report describes problems with under staffing, a reliance on questionnaires to identify soldiers in need of treatment and a sometimes dismissive view at the company level of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, the commander of the 10th Mountain Division, which includes the Second Brigade, acknowledged the shortcomings of the mental health care on the base, and said the problems were being addressed. In particular, he said, the providers of psychological services on the base have been expanding their effort to interview “those who are most at risk,” though “the screening process is not where we want it to be.”

Indeed, the report said that the wait for an appointment has eased since three Army psychiatrists were reassigned last month from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, joining three psychiatrists already on the base, to address the needs of 3,500 Second Brigade soldiers recently back from Iraq. But, the report noted, the reassignment was “only a temporary fix” since the psychiatrists from Walter Reed would probably return to Washington in a few weeks.

Fort Drum lacks its own hospital, so any soldier needing inpatient treatment has to be sent to Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, which recently increased the number of beds in its psychiatric unit to 32 from 24.

But the report said that when the psychological facilities at the base have closed for the day, some soldiers have bypassed Samaritan and driven more than an hour to Syracuse for treatment. The Veterans for America report said the soldiers fear that doctors at Samaritan will side with some base leaders, who had, “in some cases, cast doubt on the legitimacy of combat-related mental health wounds.”

Nor is the heavy service the only problem at Fort Drum. In the last two weeks, it has been at the center of a controversy over whether the Army instructed the Department of Veterans Affairs last March to stop helping soldiers there with their disability claims. At first, the Army surgeon general, Eric B. Schoomaker, denied that the Army had told Veterans Affairs to do so.

Fort Drum needs to be totally investigated because this is a shoddy way to treat soldiers who have given so much of themselves. Is it too much to ask that they receive the help they most desperately need?