ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – The home base for Occupy Atlanta has tested positive for tuberculosis.
The Fulton County Health Department confirmed Wednesday that residents at the homeless shelter where protesters have been occupying have contracted the drug-resistant disease. WGCL reports that a health department spokeswoman said there is a possibility that both Occupy Atlanta protesters and the homeless people in the shelter may still be at risk since tuberculosis is contracted through air contact.
Future of Occupy Burlington encampment uncertain after police clear City Hall Park to investigate man’s death
The city closed half of City Hall Park and put a halt to all camping at the Occupy Burlington site Thursday night while police investigate a shooting in a tent that cost a 35-year-old man his life. Meanwhile, the movement’s participants mourned a member of their community and planned the future of the encampment.
>Trustee Fires 1,066 Workers at MF Global’s Broker DealerWritten By Matt Egan
Just two weeks after MF Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the trustee overseeing the failed futures brokerage disclosed plans on Friday to fire all of its broker dealer employees as it liquidates the business.
In a statement, the court-appointed trustee, James Giddens, said the broker dealer’s 1,066 employees were notified on Friday that their employment has been terminated, effective immediately.
However, the MF Global trustee said the liquidation and terminations don’t apply to the parent company, MF Global Holdings, which listed 2,847 employees as of September.
>Pro Arte Chorale welcomes conductor Joshua Greene
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 BY BETSY MURPHY CORRESPONDENT THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
This very evening, Pro Arte Chorale begins its 2011-2012 season with its new conductor, Joshua Greene. Greene steps to the podium as musical director of Pro Arte Chorale after a year-long search by Chorale members and others.
From a musical family, he comes with good credentials. His father, Herbert Greene, conducted the original “Music Man” on Broadway, for which he won a Tony Award. His mother, Lucy Greene, was a concert pianist and teacher. Josh began studying piano when he was six. “I’ve been in music school all my life,” he says happily. As a child, he sang the role of the Third Spirit in “The Magic Flute” at the New York City Opera with Beverly Sills as Queen of the Night. A boy soprano, he toured the United States, Canada and Japan with the American Boychoir.
He received his bachelors of music in Orchestral Conducting from the Mannes College of Music; his masters of music in Orchestral Conducting from the Manhattan School of Music and pursued further studies at Juilliard and at Aspen Music School.
> The Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra Kicks off the 2011-2012 Season
A personal message from Maestro Leytush:
“I envision a 2011-12 season that will become a significant epoch in the “life” of our orchestra, and our loyal and devoted audience. It is with great pride that I inform you that this season’s concerts will be held in the noteworthy venue of the West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood. Not only is the West Side Presbyterian Church a visually beautiful hall but it is also a tremendous acoustical improvement from our previous location.
In this new season, we will continue to carry on in our stride to considerably raise the mastery of our musicianship to the new levels. We collectively set out on this path 2 years ago, as I became the Artistic Director of this fine institution, and have consistently executed based upon this principle. Coincidentally, this very goal of raising individual soloists, as well as groups of performers within the orchestra to the new heights, led to the upcoming season’s programs. Our joint development, and a probable next step, rests on a successful execution of such in our upcoming concerts.
Without much ado, I would like to share a sampling of some of the highlights of the upcoming season, namely, Schubert’s Symphony # 9, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #3, Taneyev’s “John of Damascus”, and Haydn’s Symphony#103. On an additional exciting note regarding this season, we will be joined by the two exceptional international soloists who will surely embellish our upcoming season; these are violinist Sergey Bolkhovets from Berlin, and flutist Claudio Barile from Buenos Aires.
We very much hope to foster listeners’ interest in our performances, boost curiosity of younger generations, and to attract new audience members and subscribers.”
Arkady Leytush Artistic Director and Conductor
Next Concert…
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 8:00 PM
West Side Presbyterian Church Varian Fry Way 6 South Monroe Street Ridgewood, NJ 07450
– March from Karelia Suite – Sibelius -Concerto for Violin & Orchestra No. 1, in D Major, Op. 19 – Prokofiev – Symphony No. 9, in C Major “Great” – Schubert
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 BY EILEEN LA FORGIA STAFF WRITER THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Artist Maureen Casey’s exhibit at the Stable Gallery this month, “Right in my own backyard,” features her oil paintings of the Celery Farm in Allendale. The natural wildlife preserve is within walking distance from her home. “And when I go home, I appreciate all those little things right in my own backyard even more, especially my garden and my dogs and cats,” said Casey. “Nature, animals and the light that illuminates them is what inspires me to paint the most.”
She says that when you are hiking in the mountains or walking through the woods, you can’t help but know when you are approaching a swamp because “the air is suddenly filled with the sound of a symphony of frogs, insects, ducks and birds of all kinds.”
>Small businesses are key to job creation, not government BY U.S. Rep. SCOTT GARRETT U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett
With New Jersey’s unemployment rate locked in at 9.2 percent, residents of the Garden State are all too familiar with the economic travails facing our country. Understanding the challenges confronting job creators is a top priority of mine as I work to put my constituents back to work, which is why I recently took to the road for a tour of businesses in the 5th District to discuss job creation and the state of the economy with local business leaders.
From Franklin Lakes to Belvidere, I made stops across the district during my business tour. The topics I discussed along the way ranged from the costly effects of burdensome regulations to the lack of capital available to small-business owners to grow their businesses and hire new workers. While each business faces unique challenges, one word rang true in all my conversations: uncertainty.
Business owners are uncertain if their taxes are going to go up if the $1.6 trillion budget deficit isn’t handled in a responsible way. Businesses owners are uncertain if they will have the ability to access the capital they need to expand.
Businesses owners are uncertain about the cost of Obamacare and whether or not they will have to let employees go — much less hire new ones — because of increased health care costs.
Business owners are uncertain about rising compliance costs due to never-ending regulations from every level of government.
So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we’re all supposed to hate?
If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it’s obvious. They’re either “trust-fund babies” who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven’t worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they’ve been getting even richer. Worse, they don’t even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
In reality, each of these stereotypes is wrong.
By and large, the wealthy have worked hard for their money. Roughly 80 percent of millionaires in America are the first generation of their family to be rich. They didn’t inherit their wealth; they earned it. How? According to a recent survey of the top 1 percent of American earners, slightly less than 14 percent were involved in banking or finance.
Roughly a third were entrepreneurs or managers of nonfinancial businesses. Nearly 16 percent were doctors or other medical professionals.
>Dems prepare to push agenda : Taxes, Regulation, More Government and more Taxes
The Democrats who control New Jersey’s Legislature are turning to a veteran Bergen County lawmaker known for her confrontations with Governor Christie to help set a new, aggressive tone in Trenton.
State Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck — a frequent critic of Christie who has loudly challenged the Republican governor on out-of-state travel and women’s health care funding — was unanimously selected by the Senate’s Democratic caucus Thursday to serve as its majority leader. (Reitmeyer, The Record)
New Jersey’s registered voters set a state record this past Tuesday, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Of the 5.2 million registered voters in New Jersey, the Wall Street Journal reported that only 1.4 million came out to vote, a total of about 26 percent.
Essex County led, or trailed the list, with only 18 percent of its registered voters voting, according to election records. Hudson County had 19 percent voter participation, and 225 came out in Passaic County. Only 34 percent of registered voters came out in Atlantic County, where the ballot question on sports betting would have the most impact. (Holt, New Jersey Newsroom)
>Since Obamacare’s Passage, Millions Have Lost Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance 4:42 PM, Nov 11, 2011 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
Throughout the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly promised, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Now, Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months.
>White House Email: ‘Coming Storm’ Over Solyndra ‘And Other Inside DOE Deals’
By MATTHEW MOSK Nov. 11, 2011
New internal White House emails reveal that a scathing critique of Energy Secretary Steven Chu by a former Obama political advisor was widely circulated at the highest levels of the administration.
The Feb. 25, 2011 email that sparked the deliberations landed on West Wing desks just as the solar energy firm Solyndra was starting to show outward signs of financial trouble. It was sent by Dan Carol, a former Obama campaign staffer and clean energy advocate who was described by Obama’s then-Chief of Staff Pete Rouse as someone whose views “reflect the President’s general philosophy on energy policy.”
>A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search By ERIC LIPTON and CLIFFORD KRAUSS Published: November 11, 2011
WASHINGTON — Halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on a former cattle ranch and gypsum mine, NRG Energy is building an engineering marvel: a compound of nearly a million solar panels that will produce enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes.
The project is also a marvel in another, less obvious way: Taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of the project. Similar subsidy packages have been given to 15 other solar- and wind-power electric plants since 2009.
The government support — which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electric customers to pay higher rates — largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come. The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG — even Google.
>Ahead of expected Christie proposals, NJEA unveils school reform plan at annual Atlantic City convention
The New Jersey Education Association has a new message for Gov. Chris Christie, the man who has relentlessly hammered the teachers union over the past year for opposing his education policy proposals.
“When it comes to education reform, educators are taking the lead,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said today at the union’s annual convention in Atlantic City.
This week, for the first time since Christie took office and made education reform a top priority, the union released its own comprehensive set of reform proposals, such as increasing students’ access to high-quality preschools and making it harder for teachers to earn tenure. (Calefati, The Star-Ledger)
>At $15 million, virtual charter causes a real case of sticker shock
With two virtual charter schools approved in New Jersey and a third proposed, legislators and advocates are pressing the state to bring its laws up to date with the technology.
The latest development involves questions as to how the schools are to be funded — and by how much, given the potential savings in brick-and-mortar costs.
The district of Teaneck would like to see both questions resolved ASAP. It received notice from the state this week that it should set aside more than $15 million to pay for up to 1,000 students who would attend the proposed Garden State Virtual Charter School housed in that community. (Mooney, NJ Spotlight)
