Jun 17
2013
Erie and Niagara counties have lost population since 1990 – and added 525 miles of new roads, largely to accommodate sprawl. The cost to taxpayers is some $26 million a year. An interesting take from Buffalo Rising.
Jun 17
2013
Some critics of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg say he hasn’t done enough to boost his city’s recycling rate. Similar criticism has been aimed at Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, whose administration has seen some modest success with the green totes rolled out in December 2011 and a recycling coordinator hired last month after a four year vacancy. Neither city has been able to reach the national average rate for recycling of 34 percent. Buffalo’s curbside recycling rate for 2012 was 12.2 percent; New York City’s rate is about 15 percent. Bloomberg isn’t settling for below average. He started a pilot[...]
Jun 17
2013
Researchers have found a link between traffic-related air pollution and more attention deficits in young boys in Boston. The researchers from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Manhattan said this is the first time that an association is made between black carbon exposure and decreasing attention skills among low-income, urban children. The study found boys were more susceptible than girls. Black carbon is an indicator of combustion sources such as diesel and has a wide range of public health impacts. The researchers made the association after adjusting for numerous factors, including IQ, blood-lead levels, stress and tobacco exposure. “Inattention and hyperactivity are[...]
Jun 17
2013
Jun 17
2013
Jerry Zremski of The Buffalo News explains Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s thinking on why he thinks the state can unilaterally dissolve the authority.
Jun 15
2013
Bernie Tolbert is challenging Byron Brown in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for mayor. Tolbert, 65, is a Buffalo native with an extensive background in law enforcement. He worked as an agent and supervisor with the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1980 to 2001. His assignments included special agent in charge of FBI operations in Buffalo and Philadelphia and several stints at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. He joined the National Basketball Association in 2002, first and vice president of security and later senior vice president. He retired in 2010. Earlier in his career, Tolbert worked as a teacher and[...]
Jun 14
2013
Glenn Greenwald, who broke last week’s stories on domestic spying in the United States, writes “what we have reported thus far is merely ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world.”
Jun 14
2013
I suspect a number of newspaper readers and television viewers surmise that the Peace Bridge Authority is about to go bye-bye as a result of Wednesday’s approval by the state Legislature of a bill that would dissolve the authority that operates the Peace Bridge next year unless its governing board acts in accordance with state wishes. That would be a false assumption, and the story I did Thursday evening on WGRZ was my attempt to set the record straight. I want to expand on that story here. The bridge authority has a legal opinion from Phillips Lytle, Buffalo’s biggest law[...]