‘House Of Holiday’ Opens In Queens

Now that we have made it through Thanksgiving the next holiday for many people is Christmas, and one shop in Queens that is getting people into the spirit. NY1′s Bree Driscoll filed the following report.

Every year, Otto Porrazzo stops by the House of Holiday in Ozone Park to pick up some new items for his apartment in Sunnyside.

“Start small. Get something you like. You don’t have to spend a lot of money,” he said. “I always say it’s the one time of year where you can get something from the dollar store that’ll look good next to something from Tiffany’s. It’s about the feeling of it. It’s not something that’s going to be in your house forever, it’s on display for a little bit, and get what you like.”

From dancing trees that sing “Jingle Bells” to the bells themselves, every inch of the 20,000-square-foot shop is filled with holiday cheer, and owner Larry Gurino is here to make sure customers find everything they need.

“Most people walk through the front door and their mouth falls,” he said. “Then, they pick them up, and then they realize, ‘Wow, look, look what we have here.’”

You would never guess by looking at it, but the Christmas shop is only here temporarily every year. Right after Christmas, it goes back to a piano store. Then, they switch to Halloween, and after months of set up, on November 16, it is all ready for Christmas.

“Through the whole thing, they’re coming in, they’re looking, they’re seeing how it is progressing,” Gurino said. “They getting excited gets me and my crew excited.”

Gurino said that the new trend this year is real feel trees.

“The bark is something very new,” Gurino said. “You look at it, the only thing it doesn’t come with is a squirrel or a chipmunk.”

Customers said that the shop has everything to make their decorating dreams come true.

“I walk in, I look at the different designs, I see the different trees,” said one shopper. “It gives me a different idea of what I want to do. I like to change every year my themes.”

Customers are getting their fill of the festive phenomenon now because come December 26, it will be time to clean up and roll the pianos back into place.

For more information, go to houseofholiday.com.

NEWS – NY1

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18225

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

NY’s health exchange one of few Obamacare success stories

nystateofhealth.ny.gov

New York’s health exchange is one of Obamacare’s biggest success stories. Here, the exchange website.

ALBANY — President Obama has New York to thank for helping to keep his health insurance program afloat.

While federal officials have scrambled to fix their glitch-ridden online insurance exchange, New York’s Obamacare rollout — despite some initial hiccups — has become one of the initiative’s biggest success stories, officials and analysts said.

RELATED: WARREN: TOO SOON TO CALL OBAMACARE, OBAMA A FAILURE

“It’s working great,” said Elisabeth Benjamin of the Community Service Society of New York, a nonprofit group that helps people navigate the state’s health exchange. “We are enrolling people like gangbusters.”

New York’s enrollment numbers far surpass those posted by the federal government and rank third among the 16 states and the District of Columbia that operate health insurance exchanges, according to figures tracked by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

RELATED: OBAMACARE WEBSITE IMPROVED, BUT NOT FLAWLESS

The state Health Department reported that 257,413 people had completed applications on the site as of Nov. 24. Of that figure, 41,021 went on to enroll in a health insurance plan and another 35,156 qualified for Medicaid.

By the end of 2016, state officials expect 1.1 million people to have obtained coverage through New York’s site.

RELATED: NEWSERS TEST SIGNING UP FOR OBAMACARE

Only California, with 214,891 Medicaid and insurance enrollees, and Washington state, with 130,575, have had more success than New York, according to Kaiser.

“There are a handful of states that are showing that the law can work,” said Kaiser Senior Vice President Larry Levitt, who noted that California, Washington, and New York account for almost three-quarters of the total Obamacare enrollment.

Jason DeCrow/AP Images for Affinity Health Pl

New York’s enrollment numbers surpass those posted by the federal government. Here, Brooklyn residents and local elected officials celebrate the launch of open enrollment in New York’s health exchange on Oct. 1.

RELATED: DEADLINE ARRIVES FOR PROMISE TO FIX OBAMACARE WEBSITE

“It is clear from the challenges of the federal website, as well as some other states, that building these systems in the time frame required was a tough job,” Levitt said. New York developed its exchange using $ 370 million in federal grants, about a third of which was devoted to the information systems. Another $ 40 million was spent on marketing the program, including radio and television commercials.

While conceding they faced a much easier task than federal officials who had to craft a website to serve more than 30 states, New York officials pointed to a handful of steps as key to their success.

RELATED: SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS ON OBAMACARE

For starters, the executive order signed by Gov. Cuomo in April 2012 to create the exchange mandated that it be run entirely by the Health Department, which already ran the state’s Medicaid programs.

“That was a very important decision and one that was reached in part because of the need to have a marketplace that was integrated and coordinated with our public health insurance programs,” said Donna Frescatore, executive director of New York’s insurance exchange.

The state also chose a single contractor to develop the website and all the information management systems.

After an expedited bidding process, the state chose Computer Sciences Corp., a Virginia-based company that had created many of the state’s Medicaid management systems.

State officials also held public forums and meetings with business and community groups to better design the program.

Although New York’s exchange experienced freeze ups and other glitches during its first few days, officials addressed the problems by adding additional servers and tweaking some programming.

“We can make it better as we go forward, but we are very pleased with where we are today and very pleased with the engagement of New Yorkers coming to the system,” Frescatore said.

gblain@nydailynews.com

NY Daily News- Top Stories

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18223

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

City locks housing doors on veterans: lawsuit

The city is fighting a secret war against veterans — not only ignoring laws that give them preference for affordable housing but also pushing legally to erase the rules.

Air Force vet Aaron Glover, 50, is suing the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for failing to favor retired service members applying for Mitchell-Lama developments.

Glover, who works for Manhattan’s VA medical center, applied for a $ 600-a-month studio apartment at Manhattan’s Henry Phipps Plaza East last summer after seeing a newspaper ad.

But HPD staff never sifted through the nearly 30,000 applications to pick out veterans, said Glover’s attorney, Pete Kempner.

By law, ex-military are to be put at the top of the waiting list, ahead of other applicants who are placed on the list through a random lottery. Instead, HPD has been applying the veteran’s preference only after a lottery is conducted.

“They’re trying to lessen their workload at the expense of veterans — it’s a bad deal,” said Glover, who served in the Air Force for seven years and rose to the rank of senior airman. He lives with his sister in Harlem and is struggling to find an apartment on his $ 50,000 salary.

“It’s much easier to put 20,000 applications in a hopper . . . than to check if they belong to veterans,” said Kempner, who heads the Veterans Justice Project at Legal Services NYC.

Last month, HPD proposed new rules that would weaken the veteran’s preference — applying it only if vets are lucky enough to be picked out of a lottery of thousands of applicants.

“They’re looking for shortcuts, but . . . the least our veterans deserve is some time and effort,” Kempner said.

Since 2007, state law has required Mitchell-Lama developments — middle-income rental and cooperative housing built through government incentives — to give preference to disabled vets. Three years later, the law was expanded to include all veterans.

Still, a 2012 state audit found few veterans benefited from the rule. Across 18 HPD-supervised buildings, only 14 of 332 vacancies were filled by former servicemen or women. Two developments illegally skipped over vets on their waiting lists.

More than 200,000 veterans live in New York City. HPD randomly selected 2,000 applications for Henry Phipps Plaza East and 20 belonged to veterans, Kempner said.

HPD is also proposing that only veterans who are the “head of household” can be given preference — cutting out many disabled veterans who are in the care of their family.

Last year, Brooklyn veteran Martin Bumagin filed a suit against HPD for denying his veteran’s preference because his mother was the “head of household.” The case was settled after Bumagin, a Marine who served in Iraq, argued there was no such rule.

An HPD spokesman said the agency processes all applications for the head of household whether they are veterans or not. The proposed rule change is a clarification of the city policy.

Yahoo Local News – New York Post

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18221

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

Traffic Agent Fatally Struck in Manhattan

The officer, whom the Police Department identified as Kalyanarat Ranasinghe, was struck at about 2:30 p.m. at 6 East 44th Street near Fifth Avenue, a Fire Department spokesman said.

The truck, which contractors can rent to clear debris, had been parked on the curb and was pulling into traffic when it struck Mr. Ranasinghe, 71, who was standing in the street, Deputy Chief Kim Royster said. It was not immediately clear what he was doing, but he was on duty, Chief Royster said. After the accident, a bus struck the truck, she said.

Mr. Ranasinghe was pinned under the truck’s front right wheel for over two and a half hours. No one else was injured.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who arrived on the scene about an hour after Mr. Ranasinghe was hit, said it appeared to have been an accident. “It’s a dangerous job, and they don’t make a lot of money,” he said of traffic enforcement agents.

The 3,000 or so traffic enforcement agents in New York spend their days either directing traffic, checking parking meters, writing summonses or fending off insults from motorists. Their salaries start at about $ 29,000 a year.

Syed Rahim, a vice president in the union that oversees the traffic agents, said Mr. Ranasinghe was from Sri Lanka and had a wife and a daughter. He was a level-two traffic enforcement agent, meaning that he was required to write summonses as well as direct traffic. Ten days ago, Mr. Rahim said, Mr. Ranasinghe called him to complain that he was having trouble working in the cold. Mr. Rahim said he had mobility problems.

Alhadji Niang, 29, a vendor selling winter wear on 44th Street, said Mr. Ranasinghe often patrolled the area. “He used to give me tickets all the time,” Mr. Niang said, “but we became cool after a while.”

Yahoo Local News – New York Times

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18219

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

Man Faces Vehicular Manslaughter, Drunk Driving Charges After Fatal Queens Crash

A Queens man is facing vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving charges after a crash that killed the driver of another car.

It happened at around 1 a.m. Saturday in Howard Beach.

Police say 23-year-old James Celauro of Queens was driving southbound on 98th Street when he ran a red light and struck a car at the intersection of 159th Avenue.

Police identified the driver of the car that was hit as 38-year-old Jim Sinisi.

Friends told NY1 that he was a singer in a band called Wordy Bums.

He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.

Nearby resident John Toomey described the scene.

“My neighbor knocked on my door and I came out. The one car that had been impacted sideways was hit, sitting right about four feet from my car,” Toomey said. “Most of the people are very good as far as driving, but you do get people that make up their own rules up as they’re driving here. They ignore stop signs and red lights.”

Celauro was hospitalized after the crash and was said to be in stable condition.

NEWS – NY1

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18217

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

Cops rescue children from burning building

Two cops ran into a burning Brooklyn building and fought their way through heavy smoke to rescue two young children, police said Saturday.

Firefighters were already battling the blaze in the three-story building at 468 Wyona Street in East New York Friday when the two officers, who had been assigned to crowd control, noticed a man trying to enter the basement.

When the officers, Kevin Murtha and Jeremy Bloom, stopped him, he told them his two kids were inside.

Then went in with him and pulled out his two-year-old daughter and his son, 5, according to police officials.

There were no injuries in the blaze, but 11 people were left homeless.

Yahoo Local News – New York Post

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18215

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

Murdoch ex Wendi Deng revealed crush on Tony Blair: report

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Rupert Murdoch (right) filed for divorce after reportedly finding out about then-wife Wendi Deng spending weekends with Tony Blair. A new report says Deng expressed her feeling for Blair in a note written before the couple divorced.

Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife reportedly penned a naughty note admitting she had a “crush” on British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

And the missive was written before Wendi Deng and the media titan divorced, according to an explosive report by London’s Mail on Sunday.

It’s the latest revelation in a saucy scandal that has transfixed London and driven a wedge between the two powerful men.

The paper reported last week that Murdoch and Blair — close friends for years — had stopping speaking because of the former British leader’s relationship with Deng. The publication made a point of saying it has no evidence of an affair between Deng and Blair.

RELATED: MURDOCH EX DENG POSSIBLY CHEATED WITH TONY BLAIR: REPORT

The 82-year-old Murdoch filed for divorce when he reportedly found out Deng, 44, had spent weekends with Blair at her then-hubby’s homes, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The discovery of Deng’s note is sure to further stoke the tension between Murdoch and Blair.

A well-placed source in London said the note, found earlier this year, described in detail Deng’s feelings for the 60-year-old Blair.

The missive suggested Deng “had warm feelings” for Blair — comparable to a “crush,” according to the Mail on Sunday.

RELATED: RUPERT MURDOCH, WENDI DENG REACH DIVORCE SETTLEMENT

Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Murdoch (right) and Deng finalized their divorce last month.

The simmering feud between the two men reached a boil in July when Blair was told at the last minute he was not welcome at the prestigious Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The reason? Murdoch didn’t want him there, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Blair was expecting to receive top billing at the annual meeting of media and tech titans, which drew the likes of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

But organizers told Blair at the 11th hour his invitation had been rescinded — a humiliating snub for the political giant, who had been a regular guest at Sun Valley.

RELATED: MURDOCH DIVORCE CLOSE TO BEING FINALIZED

A source close to Blair confirmed he didn’t go to Sun Valley this year as planned but claimed “he canceled all U.S. engagements that week because of Middle East business.”

The reported rebuff came less than a month after Murdoch filed for divorce from his Chinese-born wife. The divorce was finalized last month.

Several of Blair’s close pals reportedly have asked him directly if he had an affair with Deng. He has vehemently denied it.

“I believe Tony,” a Blair friend told the paper. “He would never do such a thing and he is not a liar.”

A longstanding friend of Blair’s said: “Wendi was in a hateful marriage. Tony is a sympathetic guy and helped her through a bad time.”

With Rich Schapiro

NY Daily News- Top Stories

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=18213

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info