Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts

Chad says its troops killed Algeria attack mastermind Belmoktar in Mali, but doubt is cast on claim








REUTERS


Chadian soldiers hold up their weapons as they cheer next to tanks and army vehicles ahead of their deployment in Mali. The African country said its troops killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist behind the deadly attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria.



N'DJAMENA, Chad — Chad's military chief announced late Saturday that his troops deployed in northern Mali had killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist who orchestrated the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

The French military, which is leading the offensive against al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, said they could not immediately confirm the information.





AP



This is believed to be terror big Moktar Belmoktar, who Chadian army officials say was killed by troops in Mali.





Local officials in Kidal, the northern town that is being used as the base for the military operation, cast doubt on the assertion, saying Chadian officials are attempting to score a PR victory to make up for the significant losses they have suffered in recent days.

Known as the "one-eyed," Belmoktar's profile soared after the mid-January attack and mass hostage-taking on a huge Algerian gas plant. His purported death comes a day after Chad's president said his troops had killed Abou Zeid, the other main al-Qaida commander operating in northern Mali.

If both deaths are confirmed, it would mean that the international intervention in Mali had succeeded in decapitating two of the pillars of al-Qaida in the Sahara.

"Chad's armed forces in Mali have completely destroyed a base used by jihadists and narcotraffickers in the Adrar and Ifoghas mountains" of northern Mali, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue said in a televised statement on state-owned National Chadian Television. "The provisional toll is as follows: Several terrorists killed, including Moktar Belmoktar."

The French military moved into Mali on Jan. 11 to push back militants linked to Belmoktar and Abou Zeid and other extremist groups who had imposed harsh Islamic rule in the north of the vast country and who were seen as an international terrorist threat.

France is trying to rally other African troops to help in the military campaign, since Mali's military is weak and poor. Chadian troops have offered the most robust reinforcement.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that he had "no information" on the possibility that Belmoktar was dead. The Foreign Ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

A spokesman for Chad's presidential palace did not immediately return a request for comment.

In Kidal in northern Mali, an elected official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he did not believe that Belmoktar was dead and waved off the claim as an attempt by Chad to explain the loss of dozens of their troops to a grieving nation.

"These last few weeks, the Chadians have lost a significant number of soldiers in combat. (Claiming that they killed Belmoktar) is a way to give some importance to their intervention in Mali," said the official, who keeps in close contact with both French and Malian commanders in the field.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

Both men joined the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, and later its offshoot, the GSPC, a group that carried out suicide bombings on Algerian government targets.

Around 2003, both men crossed into Mali, where they began a lucrative kidnapping business, snatching European tourists, aid workers, government employees and even diplomats and holding them for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

The Algerian terror cell amassed a significant war chest, and joined the al-Qaida fold in 2006, renaming itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Belmoktar claims he trained in Afghanistan in the 1990s, including in one of Osama Bin Laden's camps. It was there that he reportedly lost an eye, earning him the nickname "Laaouar," Arabic for "one-eyed."

Until last December, Belmoktar and Abou Zeid headed separate brigades under the flag of al-Qaida's chapter in the Sahara. But after months of reports of infighting between the two, Belmoktar peeled off, announcing the creation of his own terror unit, still loyal to the al-Qaida ideology but separate from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

It was this group that launched the fatal attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in southeastern Algeria in retaliation for the French-led military intervention in Mali.

In the attack and in the subsequent rescue attempt, 37 people, all but one of them foreigners, were killed inside the complex. Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack within hours, immediately catapulting him into the ranks of international terrorists.

In addition to the alleged killing of Belmoktar, Ngobongue said that Chad's military had also nabbed 60 of the jihadists' cars, electronic equipment and weapons. "The raid is still ongoing," he said.










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Sauce for concern: Pizza poll ranks New York City behind Chicago & Providence








It’s enough to curdle your Mozzarella.

A nationwide survey of readers of Travel + Lesiure magazine ranked US cities for best pizzas — and only placed New York third, behind Chicago and even Providence, R.I.

Rhode Island pizza?

“Whoever did this survey doesn’t know anything about pizza,” said Dan Taormina, general manager of Grimaldi’s, the celebrated pizzeria near the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I went to Providence College. So I had my experience with Providence pizza,” he said. “In Providence when you order pizza they give you a side order of blue cheese.”

“Blue cheese. To cover up the taste,” he said.




Of course, New York is where restaurant pizza was born in America.

But Travel + Leisure — which cited Grimaldi’s as among the go-to places here— defended its high rankings of the top two cities by citing their uniqueness.

Providence “offers an only-in-Providence pie, grilled pizza where the dough is cooked on one side, then flipped before the toppings are added,” the magazine said.

Chicago was ranked number one because it offers such a variety of pie experiences, including its own deep-crusted version.

Taormina scoffs at the Windy City’s deep-dish pie.

“I don’t even consider that pizza,” he said. “That’s a tomato-and-cheese what? I don’t know. Cake?”










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'Occupy' group urging straphangers to give away MetroCards in MTA protest








An Occupy Wall Street-affiliated group called “No Fare Hikes” is calling on unlimited ride MetroCard users to give away their swipes when they reach their final destination to protest looming subway fare increases.

The plan — which organizers dubbed “Swipe Back” — requires users to offer swipes to straphangers who pay per ride, thus depriving the MTA of revenue, according to the group’s website.

Activist and Occupy Wall Street protester J.A. Myerson is featured in a video on the group's website explaining why the MTA should not hike fares. It’s not illegal to give your swipe away.




Selling it, however, is.

In a flier calling for the protest, organizers said that they are trying to stop the hikes and call on the city to increase transit funding.

However, the state funds the MTA, not the city.

“If you use your unlimited card to swipe someone else in, then you’re effectively helping them boycott the fare hike, sort of like boycotting it forward,” reads a flier that the group is spreading.

MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said, “If anyone thinks the best way to balance the MTA’s budget is to reduce the amount of money we collect from customers, then their math is as bad as their logic.”

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com

Swipe Back Flyer by











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Man who shot cop he found in bed with his wife indicted for attempted murder








The Staten Island man accused of shooting an NYPD detective he found in his estranged wife’s home has been indicted in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

A grand jury hit Robert Dunbar, 35, with attempted murder charges for allegedly grabbing the off-duty cop’s service weapon and firing of several shots, including one that hit the cop, Louis Pepe, in the back.

Dunbar's lawyer said the shooter found the cop in bed with his estranged wife Aug. 12, 2012, after the couple’s child complained about strange men in the Manalapan, N.J. home.

Dunbar dropped by and found his wife, Deborah, naked in the bedroom with the off-duty cop and both men reached for the detective’s service weapon, a .38 revolver.







Robert Dunbar, accused of shooting an off-duty New York City police officer in Manalapan, NJ.





Dunbar’s lawyer has said the shooting was accidental and the estranged husband didn’t realize the man in the house with the gun and his wife was a cop.

kconley@nypost.com










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Senate confirms Hagel for defense secretary








WASHINGTON — The Senate has voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to be the nation's next defense secretary.

The vote Tuesday was 58-41, with four Republicans joining Democrats in backing President Barack Obama's nominee.

The vote ended a contentious fight over the president's choice for his second-term national security team.

Republicans opposed the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, casting him as out of the mainstream and overly critical of Israel. But Democrats stood together for Hagel, a twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran.

Hagel will succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is stepping down after four years as CIA director and Pentagon chief.



The vote came just hours after Republicans dropped their delay and allowed the nomination to move forward. The Senate vote to end the filibuster was 71-27.










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Swindler cops to stealing more than $300K from elderly dementia victim








A dapper but cruel swindler admitted today that he stole more than $300,000 as the "personal banker" of a dementia-plagued, 94-year-old Manhattan woman.

Edward Lewando, 52, of Holbrook, LI, spent his victim's money on himself at Bergdorf Goodman and Louis Vuitton, prosecutors with the Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit said.

Lewando will serve a three to nine prison sentence and hasn't paid back a cent. The victim, Helen Korne, died ten months after his arrest -- fully aware, despite her other mental frailties, that her trusted banker had stolen her life savings.




"Financial abuse of senior citizens is the most common form of elder abuse," DA Cyrus Vance said after Lewando's plea and sentencing. Often, as in Korne's case, victims are preyed on by trusted caregivers, the DA said.

Lewando is the former employee of no fewer than six banks, met Korne when he worked at City National Bank. He talked the then-91-year-old's family into letting him consolidate her multiple bank accounts into one, and to letting him pay her bills.

Weeks later he lost his bank job -- but still made regular visits to Korne's home, setting check after check in front of her, often made out to cash, and telling her to sign them.

"He took advantage of his role as a private banker, and a trusted fiduciary -- to enrich himself and feed his lavish lifestyle," Elizabeth Loewy, who heads the DA's Elder Abuse Unit, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Mullen.

"He exploited a woman in her early 90s who was living a happy and somewhat modest life -- and stole over $300,000 from her over a period of two years," she said.










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Death of ex-Post employee 'suspicious'








The death of a former New York Post employee whose body was found in her Cobble Hill apartment Friday is being investigated as suspicious, sources said.

Elizabeth Borst, 55, was found on her kitchen floor after her husband, Gaetano Lisco, called neighbors and asked them to check on the victim because he couldn't reach her.

Although Borst's death has not been ruled a homicide, the autopsy on her was inconclusive, and the victim had several unexplained injuries, sources said.

Borst suffered broken ribs, a broken wrist, a ruptured spleen and a gash to her head, sources said. Toxicology reports have not been completed.



The victim called cops on her husband for a domestic dispute March 4, 2010 but no one was injured, records show. He was grilled by detectives after she was found dead but released.

kconley@nypost.com










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Bank moves to foreclose on Kiss guitarist

YORKTOWN — One of the founding members of the rock band Kiss is in danger of losing a New York home to foreclosure.

The Journal News newspaper reports that a bank initiated foreclosure proceedings on Feb. 15 on a Yorktown property owned by former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley.

The three-bedroom house is in a wooded area off the Taconic State Parkway north of New York City.

U.S. Bank National Association said in a court filing that Frehley stopped paying his mortgage in 2011. The Yorktown tax receiver's office also lists liens for thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes on the house.




Getty



Singing the blues: former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley could lose his New York home.



Frehley was with Kiss in its 1970s heyday, performing in heavy makeup as a character known as the "Spaceman."

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Teens arrested over grade-school girls fight posted on YouTube








YouTube



Two teens were arrested today for orchestrating a fight between two grade-school girls in The Bronx that was videotaped and posted on YouTube, police said.

The girls, 14 and 15, were charged as juveniles with child endangerment, police said.

The twisted viral video shows the two youngsters, 6 and 7, pulling each other’s hair and hitting one another at Poe Park on Jan. 3.

Older girls can be heard laughing and egging children on.

The fight allegedly stemmed from an early fight between two older girls over candy, police source said.

Police are still determining whether anyone else was behind the video. The video has since been taken off YouTube.











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Crook who fatally shot cab driver refuses to apologize to family, gets 30 years








A defiant career criminal was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for the 2009 shooting death of a Bronx livery cab driver who refused to hand over his hard earned cash.

Benny Delgado, 35, stood emotionless during the sentencing and refused to apologize to the family of Jose Pena-Segura, a father of four daughters, who died shortly after he was shot in the head with a .25-caliber revolver handgun near St. Mary’s Park in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

Delgado faced life in prison if convicted of murder but he agreed to plea to first degree manslaughter and gun possession in exchange for 30 years.



“It’s over for him (Delgado)” said Sugura’s wife, Natalia Espinosa, who clutched one of the cabbie’s daughters. “But it’s not over for us --- we have to live the rest of our lives without the person we love.”










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MTA veteran in $11K brass heist








An MTA worker with 31 years on the job was caught stealing $11,000 in brass subway parts, which he resold for scrap, officials said today.

Keith Barton, 62, was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. He faces up to seven years in jail if convicted.

A supervisor who worked with him at the Coney Island rail yard noticed that several brass axel rings — which connect the axel to the wheels on subways — were missing.

That supervisor alerted the MTA, who launched an investigation.

Barton was caught loading the rings into his car on Saturday at 4:30 am.




He’d come in to steal the rings even though he wasn’t working, said MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger.

“The supervisor deserves the credit for catching him,” said Kluger.

Brass sells for about $4 or $5 a pound.

It’s unclear how much Barton made reselling the rings, which weigh 18 pounds each.

Barton declined comment.

Fifteen Long Island Rail Road employees were arrested last month for stealing copper wire from the MTA and reselling it for scrap.

The men stole more than $250,000 worth of copper, according to authorities.

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com










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Ex-cop & killer Christopher Dorner 'did his homework' cops say








Rogue former cop Christopher Jordan Dorner “did his homework,” stalking potential targets, before he was named a murder suspect and went on the run, police said today.

Dorner killed four people during a 12-day terror spree that ended when who blew his brains out last week as cops cornered him in a burning mountain cabin.

The disgraced former officer killed the daughter of a former cop and her fiance on Feb. 3, before he was named a suspect on Feb. 6. But before Dorner’s name went public, he apparently checked out homes and neighborhoods of potential victims.




“We believe based on our investigation, Dorner did his homework," LAPD chief Charlie Beck said.

The LAPD fired Dorner in 2008 after concluding that he made up brutality allegations against a supervisor.

The termination sent Dorner into a tailspin. He wrote a lengthy manifesto, railing on racism within the LAPD and naming enemies.

Dorner was headed to one of his potential targets in the early hours of of Feb. 7 in Corona, Calif., where he was met by cops guarding the would-be victims.

Dorner survived a shootout before killing a defenseless Riverside city cop, who was stopped at a traffic light, moments later.

Before committing suicide on Thursday, Dorner killed a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputy during his last stand.

"We hear threats all the time, but rarely so specifically, and that someone has already carried out in the most cowardly way," said LAPD Capt. Phil Tingirides, who along with his cop wife were under armed protection during Dorner’s bloody spree.

Capt. Tingirides was on the internal review board that fired Dorner.

Dorner’s first victim, Cal State Fullerton assistant women’s basketball coach Monica Quan, is the daughter of a cop-turned-lawyer who represented him during that review.

Sgt. Emada Tingirides said her family struggled to keep the threat off their minds as, cops stood constant guard in the family’s backyard during Dorner’s time on the lam.

"We shut the TV off after the first day," said Sgt. Tingirides, who is black. Capt. Tingirides is white.

Dorner died five days after the city of Los Angeles offered a $1 million reward for any tips that led to his capture and conviction.

Since Dorner was never captured or convicted, it wasn’t clear if anyone would get the money.

Chief Beck said donors -- including the city of LA, police support groups, private contributors and other local government agencies -- are huddling come up with a fair solution.

“It is my desire that the reward money be used," Beck said. "It isn't as easy as me coming out with a big check two days later.”

Several people could be in line for at least a cut of the seven-digit award.

Dorner was holed up inside a Big Bear Lake cabin when its owners walked in on him. He tied them up and stole their car, but they freed themselves to call police.

Moments before his last stand, Dorner carjacked a 61-year-old camp caretaker, who also called cops and directed them to the gunman’s direction.










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NFL lineman busted with loaded pistol at JFK








A muscle-bound NFL lineman was busted at LaGuardia Airport today for packing a loaded .40 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol.

Da’Quan Bowers - a second-year defensive end for the Tampa bay Buccaneers - was arrested at 11 a.m. at a US Air ticket counter as he was about to board a plane for North Carolina.

Sources believe Bowers arrived in New York with the gun on Friday, and was carrying the piece and a clip with eight rounds in a carry-on bag.

“The two of them were in the same bag, under the law it’s considered a loaded gun,” the source said.

Bowers, a Tampa resident, was boarding a flight to North Carolina, with his unidentified girlfriend, who lives in Raleigh.





ASSOCIATED PRESS



Da'Quan Bowers at practice for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.





The former Clemson All-American was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and was awaiting arraignment.

Bowers, 22, a South Carolina native, just completed his second NFL season in 2012.

For his career he has 38 tackles and 4.5 quarterback sacks.










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Club cad bloodies Rihanna in bottle attack, after yelling something about Chris Brown: report








Startraksphotos / Splash


Rihanna leaves a London nightclub worse for wear after bottle attack.



Bloody hell: Some lout in London crashed Rihanna's party.

The sultry singer was bloodied after a man threw a bottle at her during a night out at nightclub The Box, apparently enraged because of her decision to get back together with abusive ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, MediaTakeOut.com reported.

Rihanna stumbled and fell into a grate, slicing open her leg. Her assailant yelled something about Brown before hurling the bottle of soft drink Lucozade at the star, the site reported.




Brown infamously beat up Rihanna in 2009, and fans have never forgiven him. Apparently some of that anger has spilled over to Rihanna, after her decision to get back together with the hothead last month.

Brown and Rihanna raised eyebrows at last Sunday's Grammys when they smiled and snuggled throughout the ceremony, four years and a day after he sent her to the hospital on Feb. 8, 2009.

Earlier this month, Brown was accused of faking his way through the community service he got for the attack.










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Upstate fire department's squirrel hunt fundraiser draws ire








HOLLEY — A weekend squirrel-shooting contest in upstate New York is a sell-out, with all 1,000 tickets spoken for, organizers said, despite a push by animal rights groups and others to cancel the event.

The 7th annual "Hazzard County Squirrel Slam" will raise money for the volunteer Holley Fire Department, the event sponsor.

Prizes ranging from $50 to $200 will be given out Saturday for the largest squirrel shot and the heaviest group of five squirrels. Five rifles and shotguns are to be raffled off, according to a flier on the western New York fire department's website.




Critics have sought to stop the event through online petitions and protests, calling the event cruel and a bad example for children. The contest targeting red and gray squirrels is open to anyone over age 12 with a hunting license.

"Declaring someone a winner for killing the most animals influences children and the wider community to believe that wildlife is unimportant and killing for a monetary prize is meritorious," Brian Shapiro, New York state director of the Humane Society of the United States, wrote in a letter to Holley Fire Chief Pete Hendrickson.

Supporters say hunting is just part of life upstate, including in the largely rural village of 1,800 people on the Erie Canal.

"This is a community of hunters and they're going to hunt anyways. Why not hold a fundraiser that will reach our community," the event's chairwoman, Tina Reed, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. She said the event has grown each year: This year, 1,000 tickets were made available after it sold out of 200 tickets last year.

Participants must abide by New York's hunting regulations, hunting only where it is permitted and killing no more than six squirrels in a single day. Shooting will be followed by a weigh-in, then a dinner.

State Sen. Tony Avella, a Queens Democrat, called the contest insane during an Albany news conference with the group Friends of Animals earlier this week. The group planned to protest outside the Holley Fire House on Saturday afternoon.

Avella's upstate colleague, Sen. George Maziarz, a Democrat who represents Holley, defended the fundraiser, saying hunting, fishing and shooting sports are part of the region's lifestyle.

"It's like a fishing derby but it's squirrels, not fish," Maziarz spokesman Adam Tabelski said Friday.

Neither the fire department nor members of its board of directors returned telephone and email messages from The Associated Press.










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Stripping mom halts school assembly








ALBANY — Police say a parent who got on stage and started to strip during an upstate New York school assembly is facing child endangerment and lewdness charges.

Albany police say they arrested 24-year-old Aydrea Meaders at the North Albany Academy at about 10:30 a.m. Friday.

They say school staff told them the assembly was halted and the cafeteria cleared after Meaders began dancing onstage and took off some of her clothes.

She's charged with seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one of public lewdness.

An Albany City Court clerk says Meaders was arraigned Friday afternoon and ordered held on $3,000 bail. She doesn't have a lawyer yet.



The North Albany Academy is a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade school in the Albany district.










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Devout Catholic SI mom sues city for not allowing daughter to attend class over religious exemption








A devout Catholic mom on Staten Island is suing the city, saying her daughter was barred from attending class because the Board of Education wouldn't recognize her religious exemption from receiving required medical vaccinations.

Dina Check, of West Brighton, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city accusing it of prohibiting her 5-year-old from attending PS 35 on Tuesday -- because of the family's belief that forced immunization violates important tenets of their faith.

"To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith in God and His way," Check says in the lawsuit."Life is a gift from God, and the body is a marvelous work of divine creation to be reverenced as a temple of God."




The controversy was caused in part by a paperwork snafu - because her daughter already had been granted an exemption from vaccination on religious grounds by state health officials when she attended a YMCA preschool, Check says in the suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court this week.

To make matters worse, Check says she made repeated complaints to city school officials about the issue - only to see them fall on deaf ears, the suit says.

Despite her impassioned pleas asking officials to correct the paperwork error and list her daughter as being exempt from medical treatment on religious grounds, she received nothing more than a litany of e-mails from the Education Department denying her requests, the lawsuit claims.

Some of the correspondence Check sent to education officials quotes various passages of Scripture, Canon law proclamations from the Vatican, and contains earnest pleas asking the authorities to respect the family's religious beliefs.

In the lawsuit, Check also notes that her family physician had given a formal opinion that because the child suffers from immune deficiencies and gastrointestinal problems, immunization posed a medical risk for the girl.

But city school officials rejected that argument, too, ruling that the child's condition was insufficient to warrant exemption from vaccination based on medical grounds, the suit claims.

The suit charges that city school administrators violated laws that exempt children with deeply-held religious beliefs from receiving vaccines.

Check has asked a federal judge to intervene and force the city schools to exempt her daughter from future medical treatment. She also asks for unspecified damages.

mmaddux@nypost.com










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JFK airport staffer allowed Kanye West and Kim Kardashian to sneak past security checkpoints








Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

VLNY / Sharky / Splash News

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.



Celebrity lovebirds Kanye West and Kim Kardashian forced an airplane full of travelers to wait for takeoff at JFK after an airline employee allowed them to bypass security screening, sources told The Post.

The stars -- who were running late for an American Airlines flight – were ushered around a security checkpoint before boarding the plane from New York to Los Angeles yesterday.

But airport officials got wind of the special treatment and yanked them off the plane – giving them a private pat-down and delaying the flight by nearly an hour.



The stars arrived in JFK on a flight from Rio De Janeiro, where they were celebrating Carnivale. They cleared Customs and were through the baggage area when the airline employee gave them the unsolicited escort through a restricted area, the sources said.

Rules require all airline passengers to pass through the TSA security checkpoint at the airport.










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Gangemi challenging Adams for Brooklyn borough president








State Sen. Eric Adams won’t have a clear path to becoming Brooklyn's next borough president after all.

John Gangemi Sr., a lawyer and former at-large City Councilman during the 1970s, confirmed today he plans to make a political comeback by challenging Adams in this year’s Democratic primary.

“I miss politics,” said Gangemi, 73, of Dyker Heights, who plans to formally announce his candidacy as early as Thursday.

Gangemi said term-limited Beep Marty Markowitz has done “a fantastic job” promoting the borough, but if elected, he’d rely his 48 years of experience as a lawyer and former prosecutor to boost Brooklyn.




“I’d be less about ribbon cuttings and be more of an advocate for Brooklyn” by pushing legislation and new development to benefit the borough, said Gangemi, an at-large councilman from 1971 to 1976.

Gangemi’s Bay Ridge law practice was under fire a decade ago when his son Frank, a former lawyer, pleaded guilty to grand larceny after swindling 20 elderly people out of $2 million. The elder Gangemi, who was not charged with any wrongdoing, said his son “has done his time” behind bars and doesn’t expect the matter to become a campaign issue.

Meanwhile, Gangemi, who has yet to begin raising campaign funds, needs to get to work fast. Adams’ campaign account as of last month had $373,857 in hand, records show.










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Lindsey Vonn mending after surgery on right knee








Instagram



FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The doctor who operated on Lindsey Vonn's injured right knee thinks the four-time overall World Cup champion just might return to the circuit as soon as November.

That's the goal, anyway, with Vonn being back in top form by the Sochi Games, where she will try to defend her Olympic downhill title.

Dr. Bill Sterett, a surgeon for the U.S. Ski Team, examined Vonn on Monday and was optimistic about what he saw: Less swelling around the knee and an increased range of motion a day after a procedure to repair two torn ligaments.



Vonn was hurt during a crash last week at the world championships in Schladming, Austria.










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