Thousands Rally for Darfur
Thousands of people rallied in Central Park last weekend to protest violence in the Darfur region of Sudan, whose president has rejected the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops.
GOP Rivals Square Off with Dem. Primary Victors
Republican candidates used harsh words to try to slow the momentum of the Democratic victors of last week's primary. The GOP contenders are underdogs in each of the high-profile races for senate, attorney general, and governor. Republican Jeanine Pirro, challenging Andrew Cuomo for attorney general, accused her opponent of hiding behind surrogates to sully his opponents. John Faso, who is challenging Eliot Spitzer for Governor, called the popular prosecutor a tax raiser and a "grandstander" who sought high-profile cases on shaky grounds. And John Spencer, facing Hillary Clinton for the Senate, said his opponent is compromised by ambitions for the presidency.
—Mike McPhate
Exclusive: Affordable Housing For Chelsea
The city wants to build three new affordable housing projects in Chelsea and Clinton. The complexes would rise from city-owned parking lots at West 18th Street and Ninth Avenue, West 25th Street and Ninth Avenue, and West 55th Street and Tenth Avenue. Housing advocates said the project, which would comprise 438 apartments, was devised to meet a shortfall of cheap apartments planned for the city's renovation of Hudson Yards. John Raskin, a lobbyist with the tenants’ advocacy group Housing Conservation Coordinators, welcomed the plan as a step toward offsetting a wave of new luxury housing in Chelsea and Clinton. Construction on the apartment buildings would begin in the spring of 2008 with residents moving in by the summer of 2009.
—Mike McPhate
City to Create Hundreds of Miles of Bike Lanes
Biking advocates welcomed a new plan to create 240 miles of new, color-coded biking lanes but said the city must also take a tougher stand against reckless drivers. The plan was spurred by a study that found 225 deaths and 3,462 injuries among city cyclists over the past decade, the majority involving crashes with cars, trucks or buses. Charles Komanoff, former president of the non-profit Transportation Alternatives, said New York authorities continue to “massively downplay the responsibility of drivers” in bike fatalities. “The emphasis should be on changing the equation on the streets,” he said.—Paul Chi
