New York Still Vulnerable 12 Years After Historic Blackout

Op-ed by Rob DiFrancesco For 45 million people in eight Northeastern states and parts of Canada, August 14, 2003 proved just how crucial it is to have reliable electric power. On that day, a massive blackout shut off the electricity that is crucial not only to our lives and livelihoods, but also to our health […]

Citizen Angels for Families of the Missing

BY DIANE DIMOND Sometimes out of tragedy comes triumph. Such is the case for Julie Pendley of Fayetteville, Arkansas. In May, her cousin Ben Baber and his best friend Cody Parrick went missing. The two 20-year-olds had driven from their homes in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, to attend a concert in Pryor, about an hour-and-a-half away. That […]

The County Executive’s Corner: We Spoke – They Listened

By Rockland County Executive Ed Day Rockland County’s Office of Fire and Emergency Services this week took part in a scheduled exercise to test response plans developed to protect the public in the event of an emergency at Indian Point. The state-evaluated drill involved a fictitious radioactive emergency at the nuke plant and assessed the […]

We’ve Tied Ourselves in Knots of Outrage

BY DIANE DIMOND The world has gone all topsy-turvy. Citizens can no longer speak their minds and have conversations about differing points of view. Facts don’t seem to matter much anymore. And there seems to be this universally accepted idea that one must prostrate themselves while publicly apologizing if they utter something that might — […]