Bloomberg wants to ban New Yorkers smoking in their OWN homes

Anti-smoking police are set to patrol New York neighbourhoods and stop people smoking in their own homes, secret new documents reveal.
Community groups will be sent out to convince landlords and tenants across the city to turn their private buildings into smoke-free zones, according to the documents seen by the New York  Post.
The community groups would 'work with property managers, tenants, and others on adoption of voluntary smoke-free policies', the document says.
In return for their work, each community group will collect a $10,000 bounty — paid for out of a Centers for Disease Control grant.
The news comes one year after the city banned smoking in parks and beaches, despite promises by Mayor Bloomberg that there were no plans to extend a ban to apartment buildings.
The document explains how neighbourhood contractors would help develop New York health department's agenda in tobacco, alcohol, exercise and diet.
Contractors would improve community awareness and promote 'voluntary adoption of smoke-free policies to reduce tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke'.

Critics called the plan an affront to personal freedom and suspect that it has long been in the pipeline and waited for the public to get used to the public smoking ban before introducing one in homes.

City politicians denied there was any such plan.
Bloomberg spokesperson Samantha Levine said: 'The city is not banning smoking in private residences; as part of this federal grant, organizations can apply to fund projects that, among other things, educate the community on voluntary smoke-free housing policies.

Ban: Landords will be able to change the wording on the lease and implement ban when lease comes up for renewal

Landlords interested in introducing a smoking ban need only change the wording on the lease once it comes up for renewal. Tenants would then have the choice of signing the new lease and accepting the terms or moving on.
There are no laws prohibiting a landlord from banning smoking, according to real-estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey. Landlords need only change the language of the lease, and once it’s time to renew, the smoker can decide to move or stay.
Landlord owners of condominiums would need a 66 per cent majority vote among their tenants in favour of a ban in order to implement it.
Most restaurants in the city outlawed smoing in 1995, followed by bars and bar areas of restaurants in 2002.
The document revelas that although the number of smokers in the city has dropped,  850,000 adults and about 18,000 high school students still smoke.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2249355/Mayor-Bloomberg-ban-New-Yorkers-smoking-OWN-homes.html#ixzz2FRFU4u2y

Man arrested in plot to blow up Federal Reserve bank in New York

The Federal Reserve Bank in New York was the apparent target of a terror plot, officials said Wednesday.

Editor's note: Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafism, a 21-year-old man, has been arrested on suspicion of planning to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, federal officials said. Authorities say he attempted to detonate what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb. This story is developing. As soon as we learn information we'll update the blog below.

[Posted at 4:18 p.m. ET] Paul J. Browne, deputy commissioner of the New York City Police Department, released the following statement on the alleged plot:

"Whether al -Qaeda operatives like Iyman Faris or those inspired by them like Jose Pimentel, terrorists have tried time and again to make New York City their killing field. We're up to 15 plots and counting since 9/11, with the Federal Reserve now added to a list of iconic targets that previously included the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York Stock Exchange, and Citicorp Center.
After 11 years without a successful attack, it's understanding if the public becomes complacent. But that's a luxury law enforcement can't afford.
Vigilance is our watchword now and into the foreseeable future. That's why we have over 1,000 police officers assigned to counter-terrorism duties every day, and why we built the Domain Awareness System. I want to commend the NYPD detectives and FBI agents of the Joint Terrorist Task Force for the work they did in the case and in other ways every day to help New York City safe from terrorists."

[Posted at 4:08 p.m. ET] U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch from the Eastern District of New York made the following statement regarding the alleged terror plot attack:

"As alleged in the complaint, the defendant came to this country intent on conducting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and worked with single-minded determination to carry out his plan.
The defendant thought he was striking a blow to the American economy. He thought he was directing confederates and fellow believers. At every turn, he was wrong, and his extensive efforts to strike at the heart of the nation’s financial system were foiled by effective law enforcement.
We will use all of the tools at our disposal to stop any such attack before it can occur. We are committed to protecting the safety of all Americans, including the hundreds of thousands who work in New York’s financial district.
I would like to thank our partners at the FBI, NYPD, the other agencies who participate in the JTTF, and the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, for their hard work on this important investigation. I would also like to thank the security teams at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and the New York Stock Exchange for their assistance."

[Posted at 4:08 p.m. ET] Nafis appeared to have had a back-up plan.
He met an undercover agent that supplied him with what he thought were explosives on Wednesday morning. After meeting up, they both traveled in a van to a warehouse, the Justice Department said.
That’s apparently when Nafis told the agent he had a "Plan B."
If Nafis felt his attack was about to be thwarted by cops, he would invoke the back-up plan, which involved a suicide bombing operation, the criminal complaint alleges.
When the pair arrived at the warehouse, Nafis began putting together what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb inside the van. Then they drove together to the target: The New York Federal Reserve Bank. As they drove, he armed the purported by putting together the detonator and the explosives, the criminal complaint says.
The van was then parked next to the bank. The pair went to a nearby hotel, where Nafis apparently recorded a video statement meant to be shown to the American public in connection with the attack.
"We will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom," he said, according to the criminal complaint.
He then tried, several times unsuccessfully, to detonate the device, which was actually inert explosives.
Nafis was then arrested.
A good portion of the sting operation was caught on tape, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
[Posted at 3:59 p.m. ET] The plot came to light as an FBI undercover agent posed as an al-Qaeda facilitator, federal authorities say.
Nafis asked the undercover agent for 50-pound bags of what he thought were explosives, and then worked on putting together an explosive device, according to prosecutors.
"Nafis purchased components for the bomb’s detonator and conducted surveillance for his attack on multiple occasions in New York City’s financial district in lower Manhattan," a Justice Department press release describing the criminal complaint said. “Throughout his interactions with the undercover agent, Nafis repeatedly asserted that the plan was his own and was the reason he had come to the United States."
[Posted at 3:56 p.m. ET] We now have some more detail about the plot to blow up the reserve bank from a press release that breaks down the criminal complaint filed against Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis:

The Bangladeshi national allegedly came to the United States in January to carry out a terror attack on U.S. soil and said he had overseas connections to al-Qaeda. As he attempted to recruit others to join his cell, he tried to recruit someone who turned out to be an FBI source, the criminal complaint says.
Nafis initially had a few targets in mind, according to the complaint, including  "a high-ranking U.S. official and the New York Stock Exchange." In the end, Nafis settled on the New York Federal Reserve Bank, federal officials said.
"In a written statement intended to claim responsibility for the terrorist bombing of the Federal Reserve Bank on behalf of al-Qaeda, Nafis wrote that he wanted to 'destroy America' and that he believed the most efficient way to accomplish this goal was to target America’s economy," the Justice Department press release said. "In this statement, Nafis also included quotations from 'our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden' to justify the fact that Nafis expected that the attack would involve the killing of women and children."
The "explosives that he allegedly sought and attempted to use had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public," according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch.
[Posted at 3:41 p.m. ET] Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, was arrested for allegedly attempting to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan, the Department of Justice and a U.S. attorney's office said in a press release.
He will be charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda, the press release said.
[Posted at 3: 40 p.m. ET] A man has been arrested for planning to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to a federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation.
The man was arrested as part of a string operation conducted by the FBI and NYPD as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a federal law enforcement source said.
"Attempting to destroy a landmark building and kill or maim untold numbers of innocent bystanders is about as serious as the imagination can conjure. The defendant faces appropriately severe consequences," FBI Acting Assistant Director Mary Galligan said in a statement. "It is important to emphasize that the public was never at risk in this case, because two of the defendant’s ‘accomplices’ were actually an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent. The FBI continues to place the highest priority on preventing acts of terrorism."

Raccoons Slowly Taking Over New York City

Raccoons are invading.
They’re getting into garbage cans, backyards and even breaking into homes. And what’s more, these resourceful raccoons are outsmarting the most determined of trappers, CBS 2’s Dave Carlin reported.
Clinton Hill, Brooklyn resident Susan DeBrango snapped pictures of the suspects, their faces masked, trying to get inside her home.
“They are adorable but not in your backyard when they impact your life,” DeBrango said. “When he saw at me he stood up on two legs and hissed at me.”
They are getting more brazen on Washington Avenue, rummaging through trash, and running right up to neighbors. One even went face-to-face with Barbara Mattocks on her own front stoop.
“I don’t want that feeling ever again. I was petrified,” Mattocks said.
It’s gotten so bad, one 3-year-old Maltese named ‘Snowball,’ who used to love to play outside, is now a prisoner in his own home, according to his owner.
“He refuses to go out in the yard,” Mattocks said.
Neighbors said they called 3-1-1 but were told the city will not respond unless the raccoons appear disoriented and potentially rabid. So, the residents chipped in for the services of a humane trapper. However, in three weeks of setting out cat food in cages not a single raccoon was caught.
Raccoon experts said they are not surprised.
“They are extremely intelligent animals. In terms of trying to trap them, once they’ve been trapped once they’ll know not to go in that trap again,” said Rich Weddle of the Animal Husbandry Department at Liberty Science Center.
Weddle said raccoons can spread rabies and distemper, which is a concern for dogs, not to mention parasites, fleas and ticks.
“Some child or some person is going to have to get attacked. Maybe somebody’s pet. Why does it have to come to that?” DeBrango said.
DeBrango said she is organizing a public meeting on Oct. 17, calling it a “Raccoon Summit,” with neighbors, local politicians and raccoon experts. That’s because fighting foes this resourceful means securing trash can lids, bringing cat, dog and bird food inside, and making house repairs to cut them off from cozy places to sleep.
The idea is to hopefully force these crafty characters to move on.

New York City's air is full of foreign matter

Aaron Showalter for New York Daily News

Scientist and author Bill Logan examines spore samples taken from different neighborhoods in his downtown Brooklyn apartment.

nydailynews/Big Apple air is a bizarre brew of bacteria, pollen, clothing fiber, fungus, tire rubber, dead skin cells, cooking fat and carbon emissions.
The truth of exactly what New Yorkers breathe comes courtesy of air expert Bill Logan, who grabbed a “spore sucker” of his own design and joined the Daily News for a tour of the city.
The results might surprise you.
Yes, there’s the expected pollution in midtown and the South Bronx, and neighborhoods with lots of trees tend to have pollen and fungus in the air. But each breath you take — about 33,000 a day — also might include spores, bacteria, pollens, tiny bits of glass, starch and fat.
“Fat? I’ve never heard of that before!” said a surprised Alexis Lum, 32, in Brooklyn Heights. “It’s kind of gross.”
Actually, it’s kind of normal, said Logan, author of “Air: The Restless Shaper of the World.” Air samples from midtown, for example, had a high number of skin cells from all races — a reflection, no doubt, of the neighborhood’s diversity. Chinatown had noticeable starch and fat in the air — “probably from the cooking of rice and noodles,” Logan said.
A neighborhood’s air is an invisible stamp of its business, lifestyle and even culture, Logan said. That explains the readings in Williamsburg — elevated levels of blue jeans, tire rubber, nail polish and pollen, which Logan dubbed “the hipster sample.”
The range of aerosols found in the air didn’t surprise Judith Zelikoff, a professor in the department of Environmental Medicine at New York University. “A lot of things that are in the air are a kind of a signature of what’s in that environment,” she said.

New York Daily News Illustration; Photos by John Haines

The potential danger of any one aerosol, including black latex from tires or carbon, isn’t clear without a particle count. “Without a concentration, we can’t say if it’s going to be hazardous,” she said. “But we can say, ‘Yes it is there.’ Or even why it’s there and how it got there.”
“It’s everywhere,” Logan said. “We have to wake up to how remarkable this stuff is. The common, everyday stuff.”
To take his readings, Logan employs a tiny vacuum cleaner he rigged to pick up only the smallest particles and dump them into an uncontaminated sealed canister.
Picturesque Brooklyn Heights — the corner of Joralemon St. and Garden Place — had the most airborne fat, perhaps from the neighborhood’s many restaurants, Logan said. The city’s first suburb was also full of organic plant matter, such as fungi and bacteria that act as “nature’s recycler.” The area — near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — also had a good amount of tire rubber in the air, as well as cotton fiber, silica glass and powdery mildew.
“Move out of New York if you want to avoid that,” said Rifkie Stark, 28, who comes to Brooklyn Heights for work every day.
Meanwhile, in Williamsburg, there was hair in the air. The corner of Bedford Ave. and N. Seventh St. was the only place in the city where samples revealed bits of human hair — and quite a bit of it, Logan said. Skin cells and tiny “glassy and spherical” paint particles were linked back to a nearby nail salon.

Anthony Lanzilote/ for the New York Daily News

Bill Logan tests the air quality around Lesser Ave. at Bruckner Blvd. in the Bronx.

The sample also included molds, rusts, the fungus ganoderma and “numerous” pollen grains. Tire rubber and carbon were evident, but not overwhelming.
In keeping with the “hipster sample,” there were also a fair amount of natural fibers, including blue and green cotton and a silk thread.
On Chinatown’s narrow streets, airborne starch dominated the samples. Logan said the starch was likely the result of cooking rice and noodles and from detergents at some laundermats.
At the corner of Mott and Pell Sts., Logan’s spore sucker also pulled in some fat molecules and phytoliths, a kind of mineral plant secretion. The area’s numerous clothing stores emitted many tiny fibers, including one sizable, bright red polyester thread.
At 43rd St. and Eighth Ave., a busy stretch near Times Square and the Port Authority, cars and people have left their mark.
Logan’s air samples included “lots of carbon” from bus and automobile exhaust. Soot, shreds of tire rubber and a few drops of fat were mixed in with some plant diversity, including spores, ganoderma — a decay fungus — and “lots of pollen grains.”
The other big mark in midtown: many dead skin cells of every imaginable pigment.

Anthony Lanzilote for New York Daily News

Bill Logan tests the air quality around Garden Place at Joralemon in Brooklyn Heights.

That didn’t gross out tourist Papa Sab, 28, visiting from France. “The air has to be better than in Paris,” he said. “It is way more polluted there.”
Urban woe seemed to dominated the samples at Bruckner Blvd. and Leggett Ave. in the South Bronx. “Not much nature,” Logan said.
The sample was filled with carbon, remnants of tires and diesel smoke. Such readings likely help explain why asthma rates for school-aged children in the South Bronx are nearly twice the citywide rate.
“You can just feel it,” said Franklin Rodriguez, 18, who suffers from asthma that he got “a few months after moving” to the South Bronx from Washington 10 years ago. “I have an inhaler, I just live with it.”
Queens’ famous diversity is mirrored by its air: Samples taked at 94th St. near 23d Ave. in East Elmhurst turned up a huge array of rust spores, a fungus. They could have come from grass, a nearby pine tree, or “something succulent and living,” Logan said.
Tiny bits of colorful glass, maybe from airplanes taking off or landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport, also appeared on Logan’s slides — and Elmhurst had its fair amount of carbon, tire rubber, starch and even teeny bits of insect exoskeleton.
“That’s crazy,” said David Gomez, 17. “We can breathe that?”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/new-york-air-full-junk-article-1.1176851#ixzz28kRoWlpz