Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The New York Times

Anne Barnard writes: “A year after controversy engulfed plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, the project’s developers are quietly moving ahead: In recent months they have hired a paid staff, started fund-raising drives and continued holding prayers and cultural events in their existing building two blocks from ground zero.”

Dan Bilefsky reports: “Flushing, Queens, is one of New York’s most polyglot immigrant neighborhoods. But a member of the City Council, who is known by some as the unofficial mayor of Flushing, is railing against the dominance of Chinese, Korean and other foreign languages on storefronts.”

Sam Dolnick notes: “Rikers Island officials have long compiled lists of foreign-born inmates who end up in their custody. They routinely give this information to federal immigration officials, who have their own office at the jail. Deportations often follow. With the city’s assistance, immigration authorities annually detain and deport thousands of inmates charged with a range of offenses, from misdemeanors for theft to felony drug dealing. But now the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, wants to curtail this practice by permitting the jail to cooperate with the federal immigration authorities only in limited circumstances.”

Russ Buettner looks at how Medicaid money is spent on the developmentally disabled in New York.

Columnist Michael Powell reflects on the impending departure of the MTA’s Jay Walder.



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