Newsbriefs

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(from May 11, 2006)

Frank Words
“Farmer Frank,” as he’s known in these parts, has been at odds with Shandaken’s code enforcement office for years. Since 1998 he has been bombarded with complaints from the office, being accused of operating a business without a permit and taking serious flak for having an unkempt yard at the junction of routes 28 and 42 in Shandaken. Current code officer Glenn Miller has even said that the property is an unauthorized junkyard that needs to be cleaned up.
At the May 1 session of the Shandaken town board, Miller presented a resolution to the board to prosecute Farmer Frank. Miller requested permission to hire Kingston based Attorney John Greco to handle the case in Ulster County Supreme Court, claiming that Farmer Frank has ignored notices of violation for far too long. But the resolution was tabled after the large audience hurled hisses at the board for even considering such an effort.
“I’ve lived in this town over 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said boardmember and local plumber Bob Stanley, who lives near Farmer Frank and drives by his property everyday. Stanley opposed such heavy-handed measures, as did Zoning Board of Appeals member Kathy Nolan, who suggested that Miller’s efforts might be discriminatory.
“The real question is whether the town’s laws are being applied fairly,” she said.
That’s a question Farmer Frank, otherwise known as Frank Nazzaro, has been asking all along. Nazzaro, who walked to the front of the meeting hall Monday with an air of celebrity, tipped his baseball cap to an appreciative crowd after the board decided to wait a month and give Nazzaro, who says the “junk” referred to was materials he had been picking up under the mantle of a new Business Association, a chance to clean up the land.
Miller, who sat in the front, defended his stance, saying that perpetual yard sales are illegal, and that Nazzaro has been running one for years without even applying for a permit.
But Nazzaro said he’s not the only one. He pointed out that there are many similar circumstances in town, but Miller has so far only been on the warpath about Nazzaro, which is unfair. Nazzaro drew applause when he noted that Miller’s responsibility is to enforce the code evenly, or else.
“If Mr. Glenn doesn’t do his job, he may be looking for another one,” Nazzaro warned.
Nazzaro even singled out neighbor Keith Johnson, an excavator/logger who is also the Chairman of the ZBA and town Superintendent of Highways, as having an unsightly property which goes unnoticed by Miller. Johnson later told reporters that the town has authorized him to operate a contractor’s dooryard on his property and that he is in compliance, although he does not have an official permit. In fact, Johnson claims, he is the only contractor in town to have such distinction since all grandfathering rights were stripped of contractors in 1994. Johnson said the reason he has authorization is because he is the only contractor that “came in” and got permission to continue. Johnson believes it is unfair to compare his situation with Nazzarro’s and said to do so “would open a bad can of worms.”
At the meeting Johnson scolded the board for not supporting Miller.

Vanished
Only days prior to the May 1 Shandaken town board meeting, there were a few surprised faces at town hall when attempts at viewing the town’s official website were made. Instead of seeing the official Shandaken seal, viewers were greeted by a travel agency site. All attempts made to find the real site, the one with information about the town and in particular about upcoming meetings, were in vain.
Town Clerk Laurilyn Frasier was surprised, as were staff in the Supervisor’s office.
But On Sunday Tania Andre, the town’s web mistress, was able to explain what happened.
“The town didn’t pay its bill,” she said. “That’s why the website’s gone.”
Those that prefer cyber space when it comes to finding out about town matters need not fea, Andre said. The site will return as soon as the server company gets a check.
The voucher, $185 to cover the next two years, has been signed by Supervisor Robert Cross Jr., according to Andre. With the check almost in the mail, she expects to see the site up and running again soon. Patricia Heinz, Cross’s Secretary, was livid this week over Andre’s claim and fired back that Andre had not submitted the paperwork for the payment in time.
Regardless of whose fault it was, the lack of payment and related cancellation of the website marks the latest problem with the issue of a town website and what the site should offer.
Two months ago a measure presented by Democratic Councilman Peter DiSclafani was brought forward to require the site to list resolutions after the Supervisor previously announced that he felt no obligation to the public to do so.
DiSclafani felt March was an appropriate time for the board to reconsider the matter. The week of March 13-19, he said, commemorates the New York State Freedom of Information Act and Open Government Laws enacted in 1974. Often called Sunshine laws, the Freedom of Information Law governs rights of access to government records, while the Open Meetings Law concerns the conduct of meetings of public bodies and the right to attend those meetings.
At the time, Cross noted that the laws do not require officials to post resolutions or even meeting agendas prior to meetings, and such acts are purely a courtesy to the public. Cross turned out to be the swing vote, deciding that his board would not extend any such courtesy, or at least be forced to, because he didn’t want the responsibility.
DiSclafani and Councilwoman Jane Todd voted in favor of the resolution. Cross and Robert Stanley voted against. Councilman Joesph Munster was absent.
The main clause of the resolution stated that all resolutions to be presented at the monthly meeting be posted for public review on the website by the end of the Friday business day prior to the monthly town meeting.
Although resolutions were listed last month even though the resolution failed, Andre said there were no plans to list resolutions expected for the May 1 board meeting.
“Even if the site was working, there wouldn’t be any of that on there anyway,” she said.
At press time the website was again viewable, but there are no resolutions from this month’s meeting. Still posted are the ones the town board handled in April.

Two Plans...
Two major projects, both expected to be reviewed at the May 10th meeting of the Shandaken planning board, may move substantially closer to approval if that night goes as expected. Town planners planned to present their findings statement on the Environmental Impact Statement for Andrew Poncic’s water harvesting proposal, and finalize it. The board was also expected to begin a site plan review of the Glenbrook Park cell tower plan presented by Masterpage Communications. The company submitted a full application recently, and the board was expected to announce that the application was complete, enabling that project to move forward in the planning review process.

Jail Crimes…
Just when everyone started to think things could get no worse with the beleagured county jail project, already millions over budget and years behind schedule – with a recent state report pointing out gross mismanagement from the formerly GOP-controlled county legislature and a growing litany of calls for criminal investigations coming from various directions – it is now looking like there is no written record of a vote approving construction contracts. Why the worry? Consider the growing number of lawsuits already surrounding the project, from and against various contractors, among others, and the charges of malfeasance that will arise if the county cannot defend itself in any.
Legislature Clerk Ellen DiFalco and County Attorney Joshua Koplovitz are saying they have been unable to find meeting minutes or a purchase order to explain approval of a contract with construction manager Bovis Lend Lease, dated Oct. 25, 2000 even though contract was touted in a Nov. 2, 2000, release from the late Legislature Chairman Daniel Alfonso, R-Highland, as having been approved by the Construction Management Review Committee. Koplovitz says the origin of the committee is a mystery, including the authority that created it, whether it was subject to a county Legislature resolution, and what it was charged to do.
Under the contract, Bovis Lend Lease was designated construction manager and Crandall Associates as architect for the “Ulster County Law Enforcement Facility - A new 484 bed county jail and public safety complex to house 484 inmates (designed for 600) with a construction cost estimate of approximately $53,000,000.”
Former County Attorney Francis Murray confirmed comments from several surviving members of the county Construction Management Review Committee that no paper trail may exist showing a specific vote approving the contract.
The committee consisted of Alfonso, R-Highland, as chairman; then-Legislature Majority Leader Ward Todd, R-Shandaken; the late county Legislator Joan Feldmann, D-Saugerties; county Building and Grounds Commissioner Harvey Sleight, then-County Administrator William Darwak; then-county Purchasing Agent Arlene Kerans; former county Legislator John Naccarato, R-Kingston; and Ulster County Sheriff J. Richard Bockelmann, who announced this month that he will not seek re-election.
“Somewhere in the world, sometimes things do get lost or misplaced,” Sleight said. “What can I say?”
Murray said he was told the payment schedule for Bovis Lend Lease was acceptable after it was reviewed by Todd. Todd, who later became county Legislature chairman before stepping down in 2003 when appointed president of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce, declined to answer questions about how the contract amounts were reached. He said a vote by lawmakers was not needed on the agreement because the Legislature customarily had not voted on such contracts.
“The Legislature, if you go back into the records, didn’t vote on those contracts,” he said. “They were done by county departments.”
Meanwhile, the current Democrat-controlled legislature is asking the state comptroller’s office to go deeper with its investigation into the handling of the 6-year-old $86.16 million Law Enforcement Center project still not completed since leaders in the previous administration never admitted having watchdog procedures available but never used until 2004, when the troubles had already compounded.
The state report, which acknowledges finding $12.9 million in “unnecessary costs as a result of deficiencies,” was issued April 7 and had a May 8 deadline for a county response.
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the Ulster County lawmaker reported to have received $39.59 worth of cigars from a consultant to the county Law Enforcement Center project was in fact Todd, who also approved reimbursal of such expenses. Todd reportedly went to the county treasurer’s office in recent weeks to hand over $40 in cash to cover the expense, saying he had no recollection of receiving the gift.
Meanwhile, local legislator Robert Parete is threatening to go to court to force release of the county’s currently-quieted Hill report on the debacle, while others are saying that, reports to the contrary, there is a legal paper trail for all jail decisions.

Facing Bonacic
Susan Zimet, Ulster County Legislator from New Paltz, announced her candidacy to represent the 42nd District in the New York State Senate on Wednesday, May 3, at an Orange County Democratic Annual Dinner, chosen to start her run in the backyard of incumbent Republican John Bonacic. Senate Democratic Leader David A. Paterson introduced Susan Zimet. The 42nd Senate District includes all of Sullivan and Delaware, most of Ulster and part of Orange counties.
Zimet is a two term Ulster County Legislator representing the 10th District and the former Supervisor of the Town of New Paltz, the first woman to hold that office. Running on a theme of One New York In Partnership For Reform, Susan Zimet will be part of the Democratic effort to gain the majority in the NY State Senate. She is a fiscally conservative, socially conscientious Democrat acknowledged for her work on open government, budget and taxation reform, clean elections, protecting women’s and veterans’ health, school safety, alternative energy, sustainable economic development and the creative economy.
Bonacic, while strong with local initiative projects involving Belleayre Mt. Ski Area, has come under fire for partisan involvement in a number of key development issues facing the Catskills, as well as his convoluted involvement in the passage of controversial Large Parcel legislation.

County Accounts
Longstanding Ulster County Treasurer Lewis C. Kirschner recently announced that the 2005 Annual Financial Report for the County of Ulster has been completed and filed with the State Comptroller, with an overall Unreserved/Unappropriated General Fund Balance of $11.9 million, an increase of $10.7 million compared with 2004. Major contributors to this increase were due to one shot transactions such as an accounting change that eliminated the Medicaid Lag Accrual which resulted in a $5 million increase in the Fund Balance and the settlement of tax delinquent properties resulted in another positive increase to the fund balance of $6.4 million. In addition the sale of serial bonds resulted in a revenue of $3.5 million. Kirschner added, however, that county debt payments increased by $2.7 million over the prior year, retirement costs continued to escalate, amounting to $2.3 million over last year, and hospital and medical premiums cost the County an addition $1.4 million compared with 2004. These costs, expected to continue to increase in the coming years, are fast eroding any one-time savings. Furthermore, the treasurer pointed out that the state recommends that municipalities should maintain an unreserved/unappropriated fund balance of between 5% and 10% of their total general fund budget, which presently would amount to a minimum of $12.5 million… below what is there now. The Ulster County Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee has meanwhile endorsed $1.33 million in proposed budget cuts while recommending against imposing new mortgage taxes and additional vehicle registration fees to increase revenues this year. Their proposed spending cuts appear to offset a projected deficit exceeding $1 million. Among the cuts are $44,754 in benefits to lawmakers, including $3,300 for travel reimbursements; $13,780 for health insurance contributions; $9,324 for health insurance buyouts; and $18,550 for the Flex insurance plan. Other proposed reductions in county department budgets include a drop in spending of $107,815 for Mental Health, $45,444 for Public health, $3,798 for Probation, $1,892 for the Medical examiner, $16,926 in Personnel costs, $103,300 for the Buildings and Grounds department, $87,650 for Information Services, $29,664 for the Board of Elections, $12,847 in District Attorney expenses, $19,206 for the Public Defender, $6,306 for the Medical Examiner, $36,000 for the County Treasurer, $21,213 for County Purchasing, $11,193 for the Office of Real Property Tax Services, $95,442 in County Clerk costs, and $10,280 for County Attorney.

Local Honorees
The Greater Margaretville Chamber of Commerce will honor five local business people at its Annual Dinner on Wednesday, May 24 at 6 p.m. at the Hanah Country Resort, Margaretville, with a good half associated with Shandaken-based Belleayre Mountain Ski Center. Receiving special recognition at the dinner will be Tony Lanza, superintendent of Belleayre Mountain; Joe Kelly, chairman of the board of directors of the Belleayre Conservatory; Carol and Peter Molnar, proprietors of Margaretville Lodging; and Dave Riordan, executive director of the Delaware & Ulster Railroad in Arkville. The honorees were chosen by the chamber because of their “diverse contributions to the local business community.” In addition to the presentation of awards, the Annual Dinner will include an evening of socializing and dancing. Tickets for the Annual Dinner are $45 each in advance and are available by contacting the chamber office at 845 586-3300. Tickets at the door will be $55.

Presidentially…
It’s looking like New York may be fielding not one or even two presidential candidates for 2008, but three. In addition to Hillary, former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and retiring Governor George Pataki are showing strong intersst in running for the Republican Party nomination… but also facing growing concerns about their ability to win over the GOP’s increasingly conservative heart.
Party pollsters and pundits contend that Giuliani and Pataki, supporters of abortion and gay rights as well as tough gun control laws, are too liberal for the conservative Republicans who tend to dominate the presidential primaries.
Both have started visiting primary states, giving speeches and attending lunches and dinner events, while also carefully crafting their story lines: Giuliani as the resolute leader in the face of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Pataki as the Republican who won three terms in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. But omitted from both biographies is any mention of their longtime policies.
“When was the last time Republicans nominated a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights Northeasterner with an iffy record on taxes and spending?” asked Nelson Warfield, an aide to Bob Dole’s failed 1996 Republican presidential campaign. “That’s the hurdle both Giuliani and Pataki face.”
Independent pollster Lee Miringoff said if Giuliani and Pataki decide to seek national office, they eventually will have to deal with the “litmus issues.”
“It’s a question of whether they can effectively make counter arguments. I assume they will talk about their values and what their vision of the Republican Party is,” said Miringoff, head of Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “I don’t think they’re in a position to say, ‘That’s not really what I meant.”’
Giuliani courting the right, recently spoke to a Global Pastors Network conference of evangelicals in Florida and is set to headline a fundraiser in Atlanta for Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader now running for lieutenant governor in Georgia… even though the Rev. Jerry Falwell recently said he could not support Giuliani for president because of “irreconcilable differences on life and family and that kind of thing.”
Despite the criticism, Giuliani is riding high in national polls that show him and Sen. John McCain of Arizona leading the pack of potential 2008 GOP presidential contenders. Those polls have Pataki as a statistical afterthought.

Guzzle This!
Nine states, including ours, have sued the administration of President George W. Bush for lenient automotive fuel economy standards that they say worsen an energy crunch and contribute to air pollution and climate change. The lawsuit says that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has failed to meet federal laws requiring government to determine the impact of regulation on fuel conservation and the environment.
“At a time when consumers are struggling to pay surging gas prices and the challenge of global climate change has become even more clear, it is unconscionable that the Bush Administration is not requiring greater mileage efficiency for light trucks,” said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a press release.
In March, the Bush administration approved a 1.9 mile-per-gallon increase in the standards for sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickups — all in the light truck class that includes big gas guzzlers — to 24.1 mpg between 2008 and 2011. It also rewrote the rules for calculating how far light trucks must go on a gallon of gasoline.
But the lawsuit, joined by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont, says the move included language that could “create incentives to build larger, less fuel-efficient models” and attempts to pre-empt a California law requiring a reduction of greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions. The attorney general of the District of Columbia and the corporate counsel for New York City have also joined.

Uninsured
The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage. Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.
About 45.8 million Americans did not have health insurance in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage of individuals earning less than $20,000 a year without insurance rose to 53 percent, up from 49 percent in 2001. Overall, the percentage of people without insurance rose to 28 percent in 2005 from 24 percent in 2001. The study also found that 59 percent of uninsured with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes either skipped a dose of their medicine or went without it because it was too expensive. One-third of them those in that group visited an emergency room or stayed in a hospital overnight or did both, compared to 15 percent of their insured counterparts. That study found that cost prevented 41.1 percent of uninsured adults from seeing a doctor, compared to 9.2 percent of individuals with coverage. Meanwhile, 51 percent of women without health insurance haven’t had a mammogram in two years, compared to 22.8 percent of women with insurance. And 76.3 percent of uninsured men between the ages of 40 to 64 haven’t had the PSA test, which detects prostate cancer, in two years. That compares to 52.2 percent of their insured counterparts.

Broken Laws
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ‘’whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ‘’to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ‘’execute” a law he believes is unconstitutional.
Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.
But with the disclosure of Bush’s domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override. Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush’s theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

No More Soda
The nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all soda sales to public schools, according to a deal announced by the William J. Clinton Foundation. Under the agreement, the companies have agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schools, said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton. Diet sodas would be sold only to high schools. Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and the American Beverage Association have all signed onto the deal, Carson said, adding that the companies serve “the vast majority of schools.” The American Beverage Association represents the majority of school vending bottlers.
The deal follows a wave of regulation by school districts and state legislatures to cut back on student consumption of soda amid reports of rising childhood obesity rates. Soda has been a particular target of those fighting obesity because of its caloric content and popularity among children. Nearly 35 million students nationwide will be affected by the deal, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation said in a news release. The group, a collaboration between Clinton’s foundation and the American Heart Association, helped broker the deal.
“This is really the beginning of a major effort to modify childhood obesity at the level of the school systems,” said Robert H. Eckel, president of the American Heart Association. Under the agreement, high schools will still be able to purchase drinks such as diet and unsweetened teas, diet sodas, sports drinks, flavored water, seltzer and low-calorie sports drinks from distributors.
The agreement applies to beverages sold for use on school grounds during the regular and extended school day, Carson said. Sales during after-school activities such as clubs, yearbook, band and choir practice will be affected by the new regulations. But sales at events such as school plays, band concerts and sporting events, where adults make up a significant portion of the audience, won’t be affected, he said. How quickly the changes take hold will depend in part on individual school districts’ willingness to alter existing contracts, the alliance said. The companies will work to implement the changes at 75 percent of the nation’s public schools by the 2008-2009 school year, and at all public schools a year later.
Many school districts around the country, such as Onteora, have already begun to replace soda and candy in vending machines with healthier items, and dozens of states have considered legislation on school nutrition this year.

National IDs…
Reacting to the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress passed the Real ID law last year, intending to make it tougher for terrorists to obtain driver’s licenses and for people without proper identification to board planes or enter federal buildings. But with the deadline for setting up the law two years away, states are frustrated, saying the law — which requires states to use sources like birth certificates and national immigration databases to verify that people applying for or renewing driver’s licenses are American citizens or legal residents — will be too expensive and difficult to put in place by the May 2008 deadline. Another issue is the privacy impact of the requirement that states share, through databases, the personal information needed for a driver’s license.
Concerns are so great that last week, the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators issued a report saying that the states have not been given the time or money to comply with the law and that they need at least another eight years. And two states, including ours, have considered resolutions calling for the law to be repealed, the New York City Council passed a resolution opposing it and New Hampshire is considering opting out entirely.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration, facing complaints from border-state lawmakers, is considering scaling back strict passport security requirements for people who infrequently travel between the United States and Canada. The concession may not be enough for lawmakers who want to delay rules requiring passports or other tamper-resistant ID cards for all who enter the United States beginning Jan. 1, 2008.
The ID rules were part of a 2004 intelligence overhaul law, overwhelmingly approved by Congress, to tighten U.S. borders against terrorists. They have since pitted lawmakers from border states against those from the heartland, strained relations with Canada, and forced Homeland Security to roll out technology and training under a deadline that may prove too aggressive to meet.

Failed States
Despite large-scale U.S. support, Iraq and Afghanistan rank among the world’s 10 most vulnerable states. In its second annual “failed states” index, Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace concluded that Sudan is the country under the most severe stress because of violent internal conflict. Eleven of the 20 most vulnerable countries of the 148 examined in the survey are in Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ivory Coast, both chronically volatile in recent years, ranked second and third. Each country was given a score based on data from numerous available sources. A “failing state” was described as one in which the government does not have effective control of its territory, is not perceived as legitimate by a significant portion of its population, does not provide domestic security or basic public services to its citizens and lacks a monopoly on the use of force.
According to the review, the situation in Iraq (No. 4) and Afghanistan (No. 10) deteriorated since 2005, the first year the survey was taken. “For Iraq, the index category that worsened most was human flight,” the report said. “The exodus of Iraq’s professional class has accelerated, leaving the country without the trained citizens it needs to staff important posts.”
Iraq’s instability was underscored in a State Department report last week that said fully 30 percent of all terrorist attacks worldwide last year occurred in Iraq.

Where’s That?
Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.
Among the findings: One-third of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi. Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill. Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan. Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia. While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East. Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language. Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

City Asthma…
The number of New Yorkers suffering from asthma symptoms in the past week has more than doubled, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said recently. Hospital emergency room visits for asthma symptoms increased from 250 a day during the first three weeks of April to an average of 500 a day over a recent week, the agency said. In addition, sales of over-the-counter allergy medications increased more than twofold over the past two weeks, a pattern observed every year that marks the beginning of the spring allergy season, it said.
“New Yorkers with asthma should talk to their doctor about avoiding asthma triggers, developing and following an asthma action plan, and taking asthma control medications as prescribed,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden. “Proper asthma management can prevent severe asthma episodes, emergency department visits and hospitalizations.”
The agency said sufferers should contact their doctor if they have more than two asthma attacks per week or nighttime symptoms more than twice a month.