Our block is residential and the restaurant at 461 West 23rd Street (Barchetta) has applied for outdoor cafe tables. They are doing this with disregard for the fact that our block is residential and this would set an unacceptable precedent. They said they are doing it to "advertise" their location. Their outdoor cafe tables will negatively impact the quality of life for all residents on the block. It will obstruct and restrict the sidewalk for people with disabilities, the elderly, people with children (strollers) and pet owners. It will cause excessive noise, smoke, garbage, odors, vermin and lower the quality of life for residents and lower property values. OUR BLOCK IS RESIDENTIAL---NO SIDEWALK CAFES!

There are several off-shelves video phone communication products such as Skype, ooVoo, FaceTime, Tango, among countless different products available for customers to choose. At the moment, they are not interoperable with each other, forcing us to have each one in our systems or various hardware to choose to talk to friends on a similar system. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the power/authority to order interoperability among those products. We need to ASK FCC to do this so our customers can choose a product of their own to work with their peer's choices of products just like the current Cellular/ Land-line phone systems work. Please sign the Petition to show FCC, “we the people” need all videophones to be interoperable! We need to work together to ask FCC to make this happen so we all can communicate with anybody without going through the hassle of making sure what product the other end has. This will help increase true accessibility for our Deaf & Hard of Hearing friends in reaching out to their peers and hearing counterparts without the manipulation of the current Video Relay Service companies to be coerced into utilizing their product only.

My children and their friends studied Andrew Jackson and decided he should not be on our money. They need 100,000 signatures to their White House petition to get the president to respond. Please go to the website to read more and sign the petition: http://wh.gov/lADtA

Almost without fail, every mass murderer and serial killer, when captured, has admitted that one of the reasons he did it was that he wanted to "make a name for himself." As someone said, "In their warped minds, it's better to be a terrible somebody than a pathetic nobody." The media has always been happy to fulfill this twisted need for fame at any cost. Charles Manson, who should have been shot behind the courthouse the day he was found guilty of multiple murders in 1971, is still alive and enjoying his fame. He has been interviewed multiple times, always smiling arrogantly while his victims' remain dead and their names fade from memory. Do you see something wrong with this picture? To make matters worse, future killers, seeing the fame their fellow sicko's achieve, are encouraged to embark upon their serial killing career, or plan the mass murder that will make them famous, too. Example: In 1966, a man who I will call RBS went into a beauty parlor, found five women and two children (girls) there, forced them all into a back room at gunpoint, made them lay on their stomachs, then shot them all in the head twice. Yes, even the children. Two miraculously didn't die. When he was arrested, he said, "I wanted to be known. I just wanted to get myself a name." He was disappointed because there were usually 40 women there at that time of day. When the police arrived, he "gleefully" confessed, anxious to begin his 15 minutes of fame. Asked later what he would have done if his mother and sister had been in the room, he said, "I would have shot them, too. I wanted to kill about 40 people so I could make a name for myself. I wanted people to know who I was." We all want a safer world. One of the simplest ways to make it safer would be to stop making murderers famous. After killing children, I want them erased, if not by the death penalty they so richly deserve, then by deleting their existence from society. Basically, the exact opposite of what we're doing in the name of "freedom of the press." The press is already required to not release the names of minors. Not releasing the names of mass murderers would not inhibit freedom of the press. They would still be able to report all the gory details to titillate their viewers and satisfy their sponsors. The only thing that would be omitted would be the name and image of the killer, which doesn't matter to the story, anyway. The blackout should go into effect the second any suspected serial killer or murderer is arrested so that they know they will not become famous, and in fact will lose their name and be issued a number for the rest of their lives (if convicted.) A black hood should be put over their heads to conceal their identities anytime they're in public. Do we really need to know their names or see their smirking faces, anyway? Every bit of notoriety they are given only encourages others to commit similar atrocities in the future, making our world more unstable. There are those who will say we need to make murderers' identities known so we can study them and prevent future atrocities. However, I would argue that they can be studied with a number for a name just as easily. Their personal information can also be given without revealing their identity. If we REALLY want these mass murders to stop, we must take drastic action. Business as usual is not working. Please sign this petition to make the world safer for yourself and everyone you love. We can do better. Of course, there will still be mass murders occasionally simply because there will always be disturbed human beings, but at least we will know that we are not contributing to these events by granting the dearest wish of most mass murderers - fame. Someone said "Evil flourishes when good people do nothing." Signing this petition is your chance to do something - potentially something very significant - to prevent another mass murder. Or we can just sit by and passively watch it happen again and again and again, while the murderers laugh at us from our TV screens, and the news channels line their pockets in the most socially irresponsible and morally reprehensible way possible - with the blood of children and other innocent people.

Mike Michaud has a track record of working across the aisle and years of respected public service in Augusta and Washington, D.C. His election would guarantee health coverage for 70,000 working poor Mainers. And perhaps most importantly, he's the candidate with the best chance of keeping Paul LePage from embarrassing Maine for another four years.

The closing of Page Hill on the Northumberland side has a direct impact on the economy in Lancaster AND Northumberland. Lets stand together and get this portion of road opened back up.

Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Elshamy has disappeared from his prison cell in Cairo after launching a hunger strike against his indefinite detention.

Conversion of existing carpool lanes into paid toll lanes is unfair and is causing more traffic jams on the slow lanes. This is a reversal of the whole idea behind having carpool lanes in the first place. Ultimately, it's creating a 2-tiered traffic system where non-paying drivers have to suffer worse traffic. It is also a double taxation as the tax-payers already paid for the freeways.

My petition is about the accessibility of public transportation in the New York Tri-State Area, specifically making the New York City Subway System accessible to all passengers at all stops during all times.

Does it matter who runs this country as long as they are fair? The NBA stood up fiercely about racist remarks the owner said, but no one stands behind our president. I heard someone say that it's just the principle of it all -- RESPECT. I would like everyone to stand up for the President of the United States, the one who we voted to hold this country in his hands. Put aside your dislikes and say enough is enough. The President of the United States should not be called names by those under him, or around him. It's not OK, it's Wrong. Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. "A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." Martin Luther King Let's Stand Up Straight and Say No to Racism

Lake Avenue in St. James is a very dangerous place to walk, drive or cross the street. Lake Avenue is also home to an Elementary School and many family friendly businesses. It is time to end speeding and dangerous driving and parking.

NC House of Representative GK Butterfield and Kansas House of Representative Pompeo are supporting a bill which would virtually deny any state the right to label GMO food products. ASA President Ray Gaesser has said the bill "is a commonsense, science-based approach to an issue we realize is close to the hearts and minds of so many consumers," Join me and let Representative Butterfield and all US State Representatives know consumers have the right to know what we are eating!