By Thomas Altfather Good for National Writers Union – STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — April 29, 2017. On a unseasonably warm Saturday hundreds of Islanders assembled in Staten Island’s Midland Beach, a coastal community ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, to demand Climate Justice from the Trump Administration — linking economic and environmental issues. Workers from several local unions – including CWA Local 1102 and IBEW Local 3 – peace and environmental activists, and members of immigrant rights organizations gathered on Staten Island’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt boardwalk on Saturday. The protesters rallied and marched to demand climate justice from a president who appears to spend more time lounging in Mar-a-Lago and holding victory rallies than addressing pressing issues in a meaningful way. Organized by two local advocacy organizations, Sustainable Staten Island and Move Forward Staten Island, with a broad coalition of labor unions, immigration rights groups, environmental justice, social justice and other community organizations from throughout New York City, the event was timed to coinicide with climate marches held in other cities.
By Alan Collinge for The Hill – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a plan last week to provide for free tuition for people taking undergraduate courses at both the state universities (SUNY) and city universities (CUNY) in New York. He unveiled the proposal alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who hailed it as “revolutionary.” Unfortunately, the plan isn’t revolutionary. In fact, it isn’t even good. The plan, dubbed the “Exelsior Scholarship” is similar to schemes proposed by both Sanders and Hillary Clinton. It creates a new pot of money for the colleges to draw from, and apply it to tuition charges. This in itself, would be a good thing for students if all else were equal, but the fact of the matter is that colleges are very good at using public funds such as this without passing the benefit on to students. They can, and certainly will, raise the prices of their other billable items to make up for any decrease in tuition charges.
By Skyler Simmons for Earth First! News Wire – Communities in upstate New York are celebrating the recent announcement from the Department of Environmental Conservation that the Northern Access Pipeline will not receive the necessary permits for construction. The $500 million pipeline, proposed by National Fuel Gas, would have brought fracked gas from Pennsylvania to upstate NY. An announcement from the DEC on April 7 stated, “After an in-depth review of the proposed Northern Access Pipeline project and following three public hearings and the consideration of over 5,700 comments, DEC has denied the permit due to the project’s failure to avoid adverse impacts to wetlands, streams and fish and other wildlife habitat.
By Ashoka Jegroo for Truthout – This story is the fourth in a new Truthout series, Severed Ties: The Human Toll of Prisons. This series will dive deeply into the impact of incarceration on families, loved ones and communities, demonstrating how the United States’ incarceration of more than 2 million people also harms many millions more — including 2.7 million children. Paula Clarke and her family found themselves crawling half-naked on the floor of her Bronx home at 4:51 am on April 27, 2016, after multiple heavily armed men broke through her front door and demanded that she tell them where her son was. Helicopters could be heard hovering right about her home.
By Diana Strawblow, Joseph Gibson, and Lia Oprea for Sierra Club – LAlbany, NY — With less than two weeks left before the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) must grant or deny critical permits for National Fuel’s proposed Northern Access Pipeline, New Yorkers and allies from neighboring states gathered in the state capital to protest the controversial project. Landowners facing eminent domain, conservationists and concerned residents marched from DEC headquarters to the capitol building, where they spoke of the threat the pipeline would pose to their health, safety, air, water and livelihoods. The group also delivered copies of a letter signed by more than 140 organizations, businesses and faith communities calling on the DEC and Governor Andrew Cuomo to deny air and water permits for the 99-mile pipeline.
By Jon Campbell for Democrat and Chronicle – ALBANY – A state-approved bailout of three upstate nuclear power plants was the focus of a legislative hearing Monday, but New York’s top energy officials declined to attend. The state Assembly held a hearing Monday on the state’s “zero-emissions credit” plan, which kicks in on April 1 and will require ratepayers across the state to pay several billion dollars over 12 years to keep open the three aging plants, including the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant near Rochester. The hearing, however, was absent the key decision-makers in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration who were behind the initiative.
By Staff of Reuters – Dozens of protesters gathered outside of Goldman Sachs Group Inc headquarters on Tuesday to rally against President-elect Donald Trump’s picking several former executives of the Wall Street bank for top jobs in his administration. Some of the 50 or so protesters wore swamp-monster masks in reference to Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” that he said Washington has become and get rid of special interests. About 20 of them brought sleeping bags, intending to camp outside 200 West Street until Trump’s inauguration on Friday. Goldman Sachs security guards sent employees and guests to entrances on the north side of the building on the rainy evening as protesters unrolled green sleeping bags on the southwest corner.
By Mia Summerson for Niagara Gazette – AMHERST — Locals who have been vocally opposed to the construction of a natural gas pipeline and related structures in Niagara Country attempted to get their message to Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his State of the State address on Monday. Despite frigid temperatures, protestors stood outside the University at Buffalo’s Center for the Arts to request that the governor take action by denying the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s water permit for the project. The Northern Access Pipeline, proposed by National Fuel, includes constructing a pipeline between Wheatfield and Pendleton…
By Philip Guelpa for WSWS – With the strike of 700 workers against Momentive Performance Materials in Waterford, New York, north of Albany, entering its third month and the plant manned with scab labor, it is clear the company is determined to break the workers’ resistance to sweeping concessions. At the same time, the International Union of Electrical Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE/CWA), Locals 81359 and 81380, have collaborated in the slow strangulation of the strike. The company is seeking major cuts in health care, pensions and other benefits.
By Catherine Pearson for The Huffington Post – The Women’s March on Washington is happening. It has permits. It has a starting location. More than 150,000 people have indicated on Facebook that they will be there ― a number that grows by the day. Now march organizers are helping attendees get from New York City to Washington D.C., running what the New York City chapter of the Women’s March described in a statement as a “massive fleet of buses.” The buses will pick up marchers in 56 neighborhoods, traveling 70 distinct routes, and return to the city the same day. Tickets cost $62 (plus tax) round-trip. “It is our highest priority to ensure that this march is accessible for people from every demographic in New York.
By Cora Currier for The Intercept – EARLIER THIS MONTH, on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the lower tip of Manhattan was thronged with soldiers in uniform, firefighters marching with photos of lost friends pinned to their backpacks, and tourists bumbling around the new mall at the World Trade Center. Firetrucks and police cars ringed Zuccotti Park and white ribbons adorned the iron fence around the churchyard on Broadway. Trash cans were closed up, with signs announcing “temporary security lockdown.”
By Zahra Hirji for Inside Climate News – New York environmental regulators have suspended their review of two proposals to renew and expand operations at a Port of Albany oil terminal until Global Partners LP addresses a laundry list of concerns over environmental, public health, safety and climate change. Officials at the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) told the company in a letter on Sept. 16 it has three months to provide plans for the following…
By Staff of We Are Cove Point – Verplanck, NY, and Annapolis, MD – Saturday afternoon, as Spectra Energy prepared to drag its 42-inch diameter, high pressure, fracked-methane gas pipeline under the Hudson River adjacent to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, activists boated out on the Hudson to the pipeline site to protest the pipeline project. Spectra Energy’s proposed Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline would bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New England, despite a report from the Massachusetts Attorney General that shows no need for this gas.
By Linda Sarsour for The Guardian – Each year, I look so forward to Eid Al Adha – the holiest holiday for Muslims worldwide – but not this year. As I watched my daughters prepare for the celebrations with joy, I learned of a horrific crime. A 36-year-old woman dressed in traditional garb was set on fire on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. She was the same age as me, walking in the city where I was born and raised. This comes at the heels of two Muslim women in Brooklyn who were physically assaulted by a woman as they pushed their babies in strollers.
By Staff of NYCLU – The NYPD Inspector General today released a report that examined the NYPD’s compliance with the HandschuGuidelines — which protect New Yorkers’ lawful political and religious activities from unwarranted surveillance – while investigating a sample of cases closed between 2010 and 2015 that mostly involved American Muslims. The report found that the NYPD failed to adhere to important safeguards that protect people’s rights and the integrity of investigations
|
|
