Social Policy

Lucky Cheng's Slapped With Violations! Owner Responds

It's just temporary, I'm sure, but the drag restaurant Lucky Cheng's--which moved to West 52nd Street last October--might have some more offensive things going on than potential bad lipsynchs. I passed by the place the other night and saw a sign in the window saying the Department of Health and Men ... More >>

If NYC Public Schools Lose $300 Million In A Week, You Can Thank Politics

Forget about the fiscal cliff in Washington; the kids of New York City are about to jump off one, too. In less than ten days, New York City's public school system stands to gain or lose nearly $300 million of the $700 million allotted to New York State under President Obama's "Race to the Top" prog ... More >>

UPDATE: Parents, Students and Community Not Sure They Have Real Voice in School Co-Location Process

UPDATE: Anyone who fought against the recent round of co-locations can now rest assured that they never had a say in yesterday's Panel on Educational Policy's vote. The PEP voted late last night to approve every co-location proposal up for consideration. The approvals came after hours of impassione ... More >>

Sick, Sick, Sick: Rightbloggers Run a Fever after Obamacare Decision

Last week's Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act (aka the ACA, aka Obamacare, aka TreasonHitlerStalin) caught nearly everyone by surprise. Among rightbloggers, most of whom had filled balloons and strung festive banners for a big post-overturn victory party, the scenes of shock and ho ... More >>

Obama's Affordable Care Act: What Does It Mean for Women?

Goddamn, have we got some good news for your ladyparts! As the Voice's inimitable Steven Thrasher reported this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, claiming that the ACA is constitutionally kosher as a tax. Almost immediately after, Planned Pa ... More >>

Will Someone Explain To Senator Rand Paul How The Supreme Court Works? Please?

Everyone is entitled to their opinion about whether they agree with Obamacare. The basic function of the Supreme Court, however, is not open for debate. Enter freshman Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is no fan of the SCOTUS' ruling that President Obama's healthcare law is constitutional -- and who i ... More >>

Supreme Court Upholds Key Portion Of Arizona's Breathing While Brown Immigration Law

The United States Supreme Court moments ago handed down a ruling on whether Arizona's controversial "breathing while brown" immigration law violates the Constitution.Details of the Court's decision are unclear at the moment -- it literally just happened a few minutes ago -- but according various med ... More >>

Should Welfare Recipients Be Allowed To Use Public Assistance Cash To Buy Junk Food?

Yesterday, we told you about a piece of legislation proposed by an Upstate lawmaker that would ban welfare recipients from using public assistance money to pay for "sin activities" like gambling, strippers, alcohol and cigarettes. In response to our post, a reader posed an interesting question: if t ... More >>

Cheap EV Favorite Tahini Shuttered by the DOH

Tahini dark during the shank of the dinner hour Tuesday On the edge of the Cooper Union campus and close to the NYU dorms, Tahini is a favorite for students seeking inexpensive Middle Eastern fare with an Israeli bent, especially falafel, chicken schwarma, bread dips like hummus and babaganoush, a ... More >>

Bloomberg Flogs Breast Milk on the Subways

This new city ad extolling the virtues of nursing has appeared on the IRT 2 and 3 trains, and probably elsewhere in the system. For those of us accustomed to the rather gruesome TV ads disseminated by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the new subway ads come as a shock and a plea ... More >>

New York AG Chimes In On Arizona's Breathing While Brown Immigration Law

The constitutionality of Arizona's controversial immigration law currently is being reviewed by the United States Supreme Court -- and for some reason New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman decided to chime in in the form of a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the SCOTUS this morning.If you' ... More >>

New York Pols Respond to Obama's State of the Union

Hooray for Obama! Just keep your promises! That seemed to be the message that tied together several electeds' obligatory response statements to the president's State of the Union on Tuesday. After his speech ended, Runnin' Scared's inbox was flooded with reactions from local pols. So we gathered a ... More >>

Preparing Students for College Is Kind of a New Thing, Education Officials Say

A City Council hearing today brought together key players in city education policy to discuss how to improve the college-readiness of public students. If only everyone could fit in the room. Runnin' Scared begged as crowds of hopeful attendees were shepherded into an additional viewing room. Eve ... More >>

Birth Control Now Considered Preventive Health Care, Will Be Available for Free

​The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has decided that FDA-approved contraceptive methods will be available for free, without co-pays or cost sharing, to women covered by new insurance plans in the U.S. "Not doing it would be like not covering flu shots," said Health and Human Serv ... More >>

Cathie Black Collateral? Education Commissioner David Steiner Out Soon Too

​In the wake of this morning's Cathie Black news, in which she was replaced as schools chancellor after only four months, New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner is seemingly being shown the door too. The New York Post reports that although "Steiner has not yet made a decision" abo ... More >>

Sidebar: Mexican Macro-Economics

Cathie Black Gets Waiver to Serve as New York City Schools Chancellor

​Despite all the Sturm und Drang, Cathie Black is poised to become the next New York City schools chancellor. Education Commissioner David Steiner passed the waiver needed -- due to her lack of education experience -- today, despite his advisory panel (and scores of others) recommending he den ... More >>

"Nobody Likes Cathie Black": This Week's Score Card

​Cathie Black, Mayor Bloomberg's Schools Chancellor appointee that nobody likes, is getting less popular with each passing day -- so unpopular, in fact, that she was given a big "thumbs down" by the panel chosen to evaluate her. Several groups, including city councilmen, state assemblymen, par ... More >>

Cathie Black's Appointment Generating More Pushback

​Over the weekend, Mayor Bloomberg experienced more pushback against Cathie Black, his choice for Chancellor of Schools. The only real variable in whether or not Bloomberg will get his choice is if State Education Commissioner David Steiner will grant Black a waiver or not, as she lacks the ne ... More >>

Cathie Black, Schools Chancellor: Liked by Nobody. (Updated)

​Mayor Bloomberg's announcement last week appointing Hearst executive Cathie Black as the city's new schools chancellor drew a lot of skepticism -- and ire -- from critics who think the magazine publisher isn't qualified enough (or...at all) for running the city's public schools. Last week, a stat ... More >>

Inside the Brutal World of America's Kidnapping Capital

Immigration Raids Under Obama On Track to Beat Bush

​A new study from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows what many immigration activists have suspected for some time: Federal raids against undocumented immigrants under the Obama administration are reaching the highs of the Bush administration in one agency, ... More >>

Worlds Apart

Federal law gives gay citizens with foreign partners tough choices: Leave the U.S. Lose your love. Break the law.

Arizona: Now Banning Pretty Much Everything

​On Tuesday of this week, Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill banning schools from teaching classes "that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals, or promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, ... More >>

Rick Lazio's History of Fearmongering with 'Misinformation' on Health-Care Reform. We Dig Up a Memo.

Lazio needed health care in 2000 when he fell and busted his lip in front of everyone on the first day of his futile Senate campaign. See Jon Stewart's clip.By Scott Greenberg Gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio's "Stop Obamacare" campaign sounds suspiciously like one of his fearmongering strategies ... More >>

19 NYC High Schools Were Illegally Closed, Judge Rules; Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein Get Smacked Down

A judge ruled today that New York City's Department of Education illegally closed 19 high schools earlier this year. Several news outlets are reporting the breaking decision (Post, WABC). The move to close the schools earlier this year was contentious and included a protest in front of Mayor Bloomb ... More >>

Poll: Americans Like Barack Obama, Disapprove of Barack Obama; Want Health Care Reform, Disapprove of Health Care Reform, Etc.

​In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, President Obama has a 51 percent approval rating, and the same respondents disapprove of his handling of the economy (53 percent), the deficit (56 percent), and health care (53 percent). They approve of the way he handles terrorism (56 percent), and p ... More >>

Arizona's Sheriff Arpaio takes on the feds

​Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose aggressive racial profiling, attempted intimidation of the press, and flashy abusive treatment of the prisoners under his supervision have made him a hero on the nativist right, says the feds are not the boss of him. Arpaio, who has carried out 11 "sweeps" of suspec ... More >>

Thompson Says DOE Overspent Madly on Ballroom Dancing, Etc.

How did a contact for leasing Xerox machines that was supposed to cost the Department of Education one million dollars end up jumping by more than 6,700 percent? How did a company that was supposed to deliver restaurant supplies to school cafeterias for $15,000 end up billing the city more than $8 ... More >>

Daschle Out at HHS

While new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner owed $34,000 in taxes, he had an excuse, if not a good one, in his confusion over his salary arrangements with the World Bank, and it's not like a Treasury Secretary has that much to do with finance anyway. But Tom Daschle, Senate lion and proposed Health a ... More >>

Spitzer Drops License Plan; Tells Fed to 'Fix It'

Flashback: Here Comes John Roberts, There Goes Roe v. Wade

Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood is only the start

Roe v. No

The fight over Alito misses the daily defeat of legal abortion

The Culture Wars

Repubs and Dems fight for the conservative base

Time for Plan B

New tactics for the same pressing issues

Fighting the Tide

Claiming Special Circumstances, a Family Battles Deportation

Wheedle, Leverage, Organize

Paul Wellstone's Lesson for the Overwhelmed Dems

How Does His Dole Grow?

Bloomberg Balances Needs—His and the Poor's

War at the Door

INS Crackdowns and Bureaucracy Threaten America’s Tradition as a Nation of Immigrants

In School: The 'Success' of Failure

'The Dropout Rate Is Rising'

Round Up the Unusual Suspects

A New Health-Emergency Law Raises Concerns for the Immune Compromised

Red Tape 101

A Young Mother Fights for Education and Training on Welfare

Reading Between the Lines

How Ashcroft Could Make an End Run Around Roe v. Wade

'Freedom Is Participation in Power'

Nader Tells New York Crowd to Grab the Reins

Debating the Obvious

Inside the South African Government's Controversial AIDS Panel

Presidential Prescriptions

Gore and Bradley on Health Care: The Differences Are in the Details

Pataki's Pick

A new hire could cast the governor's prochoice stance further into doubt

Rudy's Milky Way

An Administration 'Of, For, and By White People' Has No Time or Room for Blacks

Children Lost in Our Schools

A Federal Charge of Race Discrimination Against Rudy Crew

The 'Partial' Ploy

How the antichoice campaign against a nonexistent procedure threatens Roe