Someone, Think of the Children!
• The state budget is here — virtually on time! — and guess what provision made it in while everyone was busy arguing about hospital cuts? A program that makes 400,000 uninsured children eligible for near-free health care. [NYT]
• Hillary Clinton set a record for pre-primary fund-raising, drumming up $26 million in the first three months of 2007. Her war chest now totals $36 million, with ten left over from the layup Senate campaign. Obama is at $20 million. And Chris Dodd apparently has subway fare. [NYDN]
• Q: When does the Post become touchy-feely about animal welfare? A: When it helps torpedo a Giuliani. Turns out that in the seventies, Judith then-Nathan used to shill for a medical-supply firm that put surgical staples on live dogs during sales demonstrations. Ew. [NYP]
• Today’s USA Today profiles, in heroic prose (“tempers flare as forklifts dart”), the armed federal agents patrolling the Fulton Fish Market for illegal clams. It seems 750 probes into local seafood-smuggling operations were launched in the last year alone. [USAT]
• And a new Arabic middle school will take up the top floor of Park Slope’s P.S. 282, which put the nabe’s parents in a somewhat un–Park Slope–ian nativist tizzy — with some threatening to pull their kids out. Thing is, it’ll be an Arabic language school, not a madrassa. [MetroNY]
neighborhood watch
Coney Island to Stay Low-Profile, Literally• Coney Island: Chief circus freak lauds Bloomberg for saying that luxury high-rises don’t fit Coney’s future. [Brooklyn Paper]
• Lower Manhattan: The Fulton Fish Market and Sharper Image were only the start of changes to South Street Seaport. Pier 17’s up next. [Curbed]
• Prospect Heights: At Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards community-liaison office, they film you while you kvetch. [Atlantic Yards Report]
• Springfield Gardens: Southeastern Queens residents take to the streets to blast overdevelopment, including homes made of … foam? [Queens Chronicle via Queens Crap]
• West Village: Restaurateur Keith McNally joins the street protest over a massive billboard soon to dominate the meatpacking district. [Curbed]
• Williamsburg: McCarren Pool will host nine free concerts this summer, complete with Slip ‘n Slide and dodgeball pit. Pasty hipsters, bring sunblock. [Brooklyn Record]