United States of America
"Our experience with this reporter is that she is generally forward and open, but she can sometimes be unhelpful." -- New York City press person in an internal email about me
Jaadin Andersen, 28, newly unemployed and expecting her first child Dec. 8, is bursting with anticipation. "I'm ready to meet her," Ms. Andersen said as she prepared dinner in her Crown Heights, Brooklyn, apartment on a recent Saturday, waiting for her husband, Jeffrey, to return from his job as a carpenter in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
On a recent Thursday evening in an apartment somewhere in Manhattan, R&B pumped from a set of speakers in a dimly lit bedroom-and Tom, a tall, slim guy in a green shirt, parceled out marijuana into plastic bags. He labeled each bag with a red cross covered by a pot leaf and the words, "New York City Buyers Club."
Caroline Woolard first got the idea to invest in commercial property when she realized she would soon be priced out of her artist's studio in Brooklyn. But when she and a handful of her fellow renters-welders, fashion designers, painters, woodworkers-looked into investing in their space, they learned that they didn't qualify for a loan.
NYC Health + Hospitals officially took over the $237 million health program that serves inmates at Rikers Island and other city jails in January, ending the city's relationship with Corizon, a for-profit provider. While the health system begins the arduous work of addressing safety and staffing concerns, many of the same problems remain.
There is a growing movement in New York to expand options for people who are terminally ill to include physician-assisted suicide. But many who support that legislation are skeptical that doctors are complying with the laws already on the books.
The outreach table covered in condoms and HIV-prevention pamphlets that pops up every few weeks at Castro, a gay bar in Washington Heights, is low on the list of attractions there. As the Thursday after Valentine's Day turned into Friday, the DJ played deafening hip-hop, augmented by a live drummer and colorful strobe lights.
Last week, New York startup MyTransHealth made waves online-and quickly pushed itself past its $20,000 Kickstarter funding goal-by starting the Twitter hashtag #transhealthfail, triggering coverage in and other websites. Transgender and gender non-conforming people began sharing their difficulties with finding health care providers that were willing to treat them and possessed the knowledge and sensitivity to do so.
The message written across the giant inflatable joint making its way down Broadway in Saturday's pot parade seemed timely: "Obama, deschedule cannabis now!" With marijuana legal in some form in 24 states and Washington, D.C., the possibility of cannabis being "descheduled" from its federal status as a drug with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" may be closer than ever.
No matter how many condos pile up in New York, gritty, independent venues where young people can see music and art on the cheap seem to squeeze their way into the landscape. But they don't just grow spontaneously through the pavement like weeds.
NYU Langone Medical Center's agreement last week to affiliate with one of the last freestanding hospitals on Long Island is part of a much broader strategic plan that will allow it to grow and stave off competition locally.