JULY 9, 2015, 5:48 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015, 5:53 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — When they enter polling booths this fall, village residents will be invited to weigh in on the proposed expenditure of $15 million for a parking garage in the central business district.
The language for a non-binding referendum will ask Ridgewood voters whether they favor bonding $15 million “in public funds” for the construction of a parking garage at Hudson and South Broad streets.
The outcome of the vote will have no impact on the council’s final decision on the garage’s construction, which Ridgewood officials have been considering for months.
The financing of the garage “would be paid for by using parking revenues,” according the referendum’s language, which was read at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
Councilman Mike Sedon said Wednesday he supported gauging public sentiment on the building of a parking garage downtown. Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli also backed adding the referendum question to this fall’s ballot.
Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck said she thought it was important that Ridgewood residents understand their annual municipal taxes won’t be impacted by any garage-related costs. Councilwoman Susan Knudsen also endorsed the ballot measure.
Western societies are producing more and more Lost Boys, the fail-to-launch young men who carry dangerous social grudges.
What’s going on with young American men? Another mass shooting has led to another round of social and political recriminations. A young man—a “loner” and “adrift,” as usual—seizes a vile cause and attacks innocent people. Amidst the wreckage, we look for reasons that already fit our preconceptions about violence, and we blame racism, guns, unemployment, drugs, a bad family, or whatever else helps us to make sense of the tragedy.
But the truth of the matter is that Dylann Roof (at least from what we know) isn’t that different from so many other young, mostly white men over the past 30 years or so who have lashed out against their society in different ways. Although mass killers understandably seize our imaginations and dominate the media, and not all dysfunctional young males are violent and not all of them gain the publicity they crave. Some are terrorists, others are murderers, and some are merely vandals. A few are traitors and deserters.
What they all have in common is their gender (male), their race (most are white), and their youth (almost all under 30 at their peak destructiveness). Beyond this, they seem to share little beyond a stubborn immaturity wedded to a towering narcissism. In almost every case, they dress their anger in the clothes of ideology: white supremacy, jihad,hatred of abortion, or anti-government paranoia. Stuck in perpetual adolescence, they see only their own imagined virtue amidst irredeemable corruption. In a typical sentiment, Roof wrote before his rampage that “someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”
The Lost Boys Arise
This is the battle cry of the narcissist, and we’ve heard it before. Western societies are producing more and more of these Lost Boys, the fail-to-launch young men who carry weighty social grudges. Some of them kill, but others lash out in other, more creative ways: whether it’s Edward Snowden deciding only he could save America from the scourge of surveillance, or Bowe Bergdahl walking away from his post to personally solve the war in Afghanistan, the combination of immaturity and grandiosity among these young males is jaw-dropping in its scale even when it is not expressed through the barrel of a gun.
The federal personnel agency announced Thursday a massive hack.
BY KAVEH WADDELL AND DUSTIN VOLZ
More than 21 million Social Security numbers were compromised in a breach that affected a database of sensitive information on federal employees held by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency announced Thursday.
That number is in addition to the 4.2 million social security numbers that were compromised in another data breach at OPM that was made public in June.
Of the 21.5 million records that were stolen, 19.7 million belonged to individuals who had undergone background investigation, OPM said. The remaining 1.8 million records belonged to other individuals, mostly applicants’ families.
The records that were compromised include detailed, sensitive information about the individuals, including fingerprint data. OPM says 1.1 million compromised files included fingerprints.
Beyond the fingerprints and Social Security numbers, some of the files in the compromised database included “residency and educational history; employment history; information about immediate family and other personal and business acquaintances; health, criminal and financial history; and other details,” OPM said.
Mahwah — It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in June and a dozen people — wearing matching shirts — have gathered at Society Hill, a local condominium complex. (Nobile/The Bergen Record)
ULY 9, 2015, 8:22 AM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015, 8:23 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Transit engineers have voted to strike if their contract dispute is not resolved.
However, union members are hoping the federal government will create a panel to help bring about an agreement. Union officials say the creation of the board would be enough to forestall a strike for the immediate future.
JULY 9, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015, 1:20 AM
BY DARREN COOPER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The Charlotte Samuels story isn’t close to being over, but the book is being written.
The Ridgewood senior is the youngest person to complete the triple crown of open water swimming, traversing the English Channel, Manhattan Island and the Catalina Channel off the Southern California coast.
The 17-year old now is working on a memoir of her experiences, titled “Guts,” and consulting with a literary agent.
“You have to have guts,” Samuels said. “You really have to put yourself out there to accomplish things.”
While Samuels is serious about her swimming and has a new challenge lined up, she also is serious about writing. “Guts” will not be ghostwritten.
This month, Samuels is attending a young women’s writing workshop at Smith College in Massachusetts. She is refining her book – and may use her swim across the English Channel as the frame for her other life experiences — and learning about poetry.
Back home, Samuels is a star whose exploits have made headlines all over New Jersey. She was honored at the New Jersey State House, spoke at halftime of a Ridgewood football game, and was grand marshal at the Ridgewood Fourth of July parade.
(CBS) — It’s been a high-tech nightmare in the financial, and airline industries today because of separate glitches.
Trading was halted at the New York Stock Exchange for 3 1/2 hours after what has been described as an “internal problem.” Trading later resumed, with sizeable losses.
This was followed by temporary trouble accessing the Wall Street Journal’s website, and a flood of conspiracy theories on social media about a coordinated hack attack.
But before all this happened, United Airlines grounded flights across the country for nearly two hours, because of what they call a “router issue.”
CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports in every one of these incidents, it was computer technology breakdowns, not a hostile set of attacks. But one local expert says more of those are sure to come and we should be ready.
With the outages at the NYSE and United Airlines, some people wonder if this brave but vulnerable new world of computers could be open to a much bigger failure: a major enemy hack attack.
Anonymous issued cryptic tweet on eve of NYSE suspension
New York trading was suspended around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday due to a “technical issue,” the exchange said in a statement posted to Twitter.
The Department of Homeland Security said there was no indication the NYSE had been hacked, according to Bloomberg and CNN. The exchange said the glitch could not be attribute to “a cyber breach.”
“The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach,” it said in another statement. “We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue. NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers.”
The White House said President Obama had been briefed on the issue. Earlier in the day, United Airlines briefly grounded all of its flights due to a systemwide failure.
Anonymous has previously targeted Wall Street and made headlines in 2011 when it threatened to “destroy” the New York Stock Exchange.
The message could also be seen as an allusion to economic unrest in China and Greece, which has contributed to global market turmoil in recent days. U.S. stocks saw modest losses in the early hours of trading Wednesday.
JULY 8, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015, 1:21 AM
FROM STAFF AND NEWS SERVICE REPORTS |
WIRE SERVICE
Ex-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and other former officials of failed brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd., which Corzine headed, have agreed to pay $64.5 million to settle an investor lawsuit.
The proposed settlement, which requires a judge’s approval, apparently marks the first time Corzine has agreed to pay victims of MF Global’s spectacular collapse in 2011, which triggered a slew of lawsuits and an FBI investigation.
In agreeing to the settlement, Corzine and the other defendants denied any wrongdoing, according to a filing Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. Corzine’s lead attorney, Andrew J Levander, declined to comment on the settlement, which will be paid by MF Global’s insurance company.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011, after a $6.3 billion bet on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations, orchestrated by Corzine. Clients alleged in lawsuits against Corzine and other former executives that more than $1.6 billion that should have been segregated was transferred to other parts of the company during a liquidity crisis.
The settlement follows an earlier accord reached with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which agreed in April to pay $65 million to rid itself of claims tied to botched audits. Underwriters, including Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co., separately agreed in May to pay investors $74 million. That settlement was approved by a judge on June 26.
The plaintiffs also reached a separate settlement last month with Commerz Markets LLC, a unit of Frankfurt-based Commerzbank AG, which agreed to pay $933,000.
Corzine, a former Wall Street broker who rose to become co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, had entered politics by winning a U.S. Senate seat as a Democrat, representing New Jersey for five years before winning election as governor in 2005.
Corzine took MF Global’s helm in March 2010, shortly after leaving the governor’s office following his defeat by Chris Christie in his bid for reelection.
Ridgewood NJ, As you know, Kings’ Just Picked Promise Program is back in full swing again this summer, bringing Ridgewood customers locally grown, farm-fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs within 24 hours of being picked.
Like many of you we were a bit skeptical with the “farm fresh “claim , so we reached out to Kings and they offered us a behind the scenes look at the people who make this program possible…the farmers.
Meet John Ploch the farm owner of Ploch Farms in New Jersey, located south of Ridgewood in Vineland NJ and is just one of the farms that play a huge role in giving shoppers the benefits of a local farm stand in the convenience of their neighborhood food markets.
John Ploch from Ploch Farms shares his day-to day experience explaining how, “Every day is something a little different, especially if we received weather overnight. We start our day at 5:00 a.m. assessing the harvest and assigning responsibilities to our crews for the day. We’ll then spend the remainder of the morning planting and bringing in produce that is going out that evening or the next day. By midday we have to be in the packing house due to the heat because we can’t harvest when it’s hot out. We finish up reviewing orders for the next day and trying to get as ahead as possible.”
John notes that his farm history goes back to the 1800s with his great grandfather who moved from Germany to Northern New Jersey and started a dairy farm, where they were only a nine acre farm back then. Today, they farm about 250 acres, between the main farm and rented property.
The farm provides Kings’ Just Picked program with greens, including arugula, chard, collards, dandelion greens, kale, lettuce, and spinach as well as its herbs, including basil, dill, mint, and parsley.
When asked what his most rewarding part of his job is, John said, “Working with my father. We both have a great work ethic and work well together – you really can’t beat it.”
Its local farmers like John allow Kings’ Just Picked Promise Program to bring its customers the freshest, seasonal products over the summer months.
RIDGEWOOD, NJ , Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) honored Korean War Veteran and Wanaque resident Thomas Falato, during today’s flag raising ceremony, which traditionally starts the Annual Ridgewood 4th of July Parade. Reaching the rank of Corporal, Mr. Falato served in the Second Korean Winter of 1951-1952, where his many medals included the Korean Service Medal with two Bronze Stars. He served in the U.S. Army from 1951-1953 and the U.S. Army reserves from 1953-1957.
“What better time of the year to be reminded of what great country we live in, then to pay tribute to our veterans, especially those who fought in the dangerous and often inhospitable battle conditions of Korea,” said Garrett while presenting a congressional resolution to Mr. Falato, which recognizes his dedicated and unselfish service to his country.
Born and raised in Hackensack, Mr. Falato has stayed active in veteran activities, serving as Post Commander of Korean War Veterans Association Taejon Chapter #170 in Saddle Brook. He is also a retired manager from Verizon.
What’s it going to take for the networks to start seriously reporting on the IRS scandal again? On Tuesday, Judicial Watch announced the stunning revelation that newly discovered Department of Justice and IRS documents showed there was “an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.” This latest bombshell has yet to be reported on any of the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks.
The July 7 Judicial Watch press release added: “The newly obtained records also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress. Records also detail how the Obama IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks, containing 1.25 million pages of confidential IRS returns from 113,000 nonprofit social 501(c)(4) welfare groups – or nearly every 501(c)(4) in the United States – as part of its prosecution effort.”
DreamstimeStates that adopted the Common Core national education standards still can’t provide textbooks that actually teach what the standards require. That’s a big problem for students who have to take Core-mandated standardized tests that are misaligned with their teachers’ instructional materials.
An eye-opening investigation by Matt Collette of The Daily Beast reveals that most textbooks don’t fully meet the standards, despite advertising themselves as Core-aligned. Collette consulted EdReports, a non-profit that evaluates textbooks; the group recently reviewed more than 80 textbooks and found that only 11 of them matched Common Core requirements.
Most damning of all was the fact that Pearson—a publishing giant with significant Common Core ties and exclusive contracts to develop testing materials for some Core-compliant states—“had zero textbooks evaluated as being aligned with the Common Core,” according to Collette. This means, in a sense, that the gigantic corporation making the tests is also producing textbooks that don’t teach to those tests.
Additionally ironic—and certainly noteworthy—is the fact the EdReports is funded by the Gates Foundation, an organization that funded and developed the Common Core and lobbied for its widespread adoption. I would thus expect EdReports to air on the side of favorable coverage for Core-related matters. That even a Gates-funded endeavor has serious concerns about textbook compliance suggests to me that concern is indeed merited.
Scott Garrett : I voted today to give control of our children’s education back to parents, teachers, and school boards by supporting H.R. 5, the Student Success Act.
New Jersey has many of the best schools and educators in the United States, yet the parents I speak to are concerned about the negative impact that federal programs like Common Core are having on the quality of our students’ education. For years, Washington has dangled federal funds in front of states and forced them to adopt their one-size-fits-all standards—this has to stop. The Student Success Act is an important first step towards ending the cycle of federal coercion and allowing New Jersey to determine its own success.
Rep. Mark Walker / @repmarkwalker / July 08, 2015
Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican, represents North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Innovation starts locally—not in Washington.
Yet, over the past few years, we have witnessed the unprecedented expansion of the federal government into our classrooms.
Decades of regulations, mandates and rules have been piling up on our educators, but failing to improve our students’ education.
Congress is set to reconsider, and potentially reauthorize, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
This law outlines federal programs for K-12 education and was last reauthorized in 2002 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which further expanded Washington’s intrusion in our schools by creating new federal mandates.
No Child Left Behind also expired in 2007.
This means the Obama administration has been able to operate without certain limitations and has strong-armed states into complying with its liberal education agenda.
Thankfully, we have the opportunity to get Uncle Sam out of the business of micromanaging our schools from the top-down and return control to our local families, educators and officials.
This week in the House, my colleagues and I are revisiting the way Washington approaches our K-12 federal education policy with consideration of H.R. 5, the Student Success Act.
This bill repeals and reforms many failed education policies like the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) mandate, but I challenge that we can do even better for our children and future generations.
Conservatives have the largest majority in Congress that we have had in years, and we have a real opportunity to stand against Washington’s culture of bureaucracy and make a difference in our federal approach to education—let’s ensure we truly return education decisions back to the local-level.
We all agree that local communities—and ultimately parents—are best equipped to meet the unique needs of each student. Accordingly, they should be able to decide how best to utilize federal funding.
This is why I introduced the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) amendment to the Student Success Act with Rep. Ron DeSantis (FL-06). The A-PLUS amendment would give states maximum flexibility by allowing them to opt-out of federal mandates and programs while retaining federal funding.
We can strengthen the Student Success Act’s goal of removing the federal government from our classrooms with this simple, common sense policy change.
States and taxpayers should be able to keep their dollars, opt-out of federal education programs without repercussion and focus on the needs of their students and communities.
Greater flexibility will yield greater accountability. A-PLUS would truly restore local control of education.
The status quo is failing our children and we need to ensure each child has access to a quality education and the opportunity to achieve their dreams.
Increasing local control of education and empowering parents and children through school choice initiatives is how we break these patterns and foster innovation in our school systems.
A-PLUS would restore state and local control of education and put parents, teachers and school leaders back in the driver’s seat.
China looks like it is heading for its version of the 1929 stock market crash
While all Western eyes remain firmly focused on Greece, a potentially much more significant financial crisis is developing on the other side of world. In some quarters, it’s already being called China’s 1929 – the year of the most infamous stock market crash in history and the start of the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression.
In any normal summer, a 30pc fall in the Chinese stock market – a loss of value roughly equivalent to the UK’s entire economic output last year – after an ascent which had seen share prices more than double within the space of a year would have been front page news across the globe.
The dramatic series of government interventions to stem the panic – hitherto unsuccessful, it should be added – would similarly have been up there at the top of the news agenda. Yet the pantomime of the Greek debt talks, together with the tragi-comedy of will they, won’t they leave the euro, has relegated the story to little more than a footnote – even though 940 companies, more than a third, have now suspended trading on China’s two main indices.
San Francisco (CNN)The gun used in the killing of a San Francisco woman in a case that gave new political prominence to the issue of illegal immigration was stolen from a vehicle belonging to a federal Bureau of Land Management agent, a source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.
Kate Steinle was shot to death on July 1 on one of San Francisco’s busiest piers.
The .40-caliber pistol was a personal weapon, not an official firearm, the source said. Investigators still are trying to determine how Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, the man accused in Steinle’s killing, allegedly obtained the weapon, according to the source.
Earlier, a source close to the probe told CNN that the gun belonged to a federal agent.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that the weapon was stolen in a car burglary in June, citing sources close to the investigation.
Kate Steinle, 32, died after being shot July 1 at a San Francisco pier.
Lopez-Sanchez told CNN affiliate KGO-TV that he fired the weapon, but it was an accident. He said he’d found the gun wrapped inside a T-shirt before it accidentally went off.
It was not clear if Lopez-Sanchez understood all the questions posed in English and Spanish during the KGO interview. He appeared disoriented and gave contradictory answers about what had happened and how he felt.
Shooting victim Kate Steinle known for thinking of others first
Lopez-Sanchez is an undocumented immigrant and a repeat felon who has been deported to Mexico five times, according to immigration officials.
The case has drawn the attention of presidential candidates and brought a renewed focus on U.S. immigration laws and the role local authorities should play in enforcing them.
The key question is whether San Francisco’s policies set the stage for the shooting by putting a criminal on the streets instead of delivering him into the hands of federal authorities who could have deported him again.
