Bob Hennelly

After a spirited debate, the New York City Council voted to ban smoking in parks and on beaches in what Mayor Bloomberg called a major milestone in the city's efforts to improve public health. 

On Tuesday, the City Council will hold a hearing on the Bloomberg administration's overhaul of the city's 911 emergency call system. City officials have known the system was inadequate and badly in need of updating since September 11, 2001.

In fact, the 911 Commission flagged the call system as a problem in its comprehensive report.

“The 911 system was not equipped to handle the enormous volume of calls it received. Some callers were unable to connect with 911 operators, receiving an ‘all circuits busy’ message,” the 911 Commission concluded. “Transfers were often plagued by delays and were in some cases unsuccessful. Many calls were also prematurely disconnected.”

Almost a decade after September 11, 2001, callers to 911 in a high volume scenario may still find that the system continues to fail New Yorkers when they need it most.

On an average day, 911 handles 30,000 calls without a problem. But when there are large-scale emergencies that prompt wider calls for help, the system still can’t handle it. Callers are more likely to get a busy signal or a recording.

There have been recent upgrades, but the critics contend that some of the most recent changes to the system for efficiency may actually be a step backward for accuracy, for key information like where exactly to send a fire truck.

Gangs are present in all 21 counties in New Jersey and extends to urban, suburban and rural communities, an analysis by the state police revealed.

In Tunisia, Wikileaks’ disclosures of State Department cables describing the self-dealing  of former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's regime greased the skids for his exit. Sunlight may be a great antiseptic, but it is also a lubricant to move stuck history right along.

In a few days, the passion of the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution had swept across the Maghreb as far east as Egypt, touching down in Yemen and even the Sudan. The whole world watched as long-suffering people were inspired to put their life on the line to make their own history.

Nowhere has there been a greater need for Wikileaks than at the Federal Reserve. The Fed was created by an act of Congress in 1913 to regulate banking, but it has long been a captive of that industry.

This week, hundreds of New Jersey business leaders and politicians are traveling on a special train to Washington booked by the state's Chamber of Commerce. The trip to Washington...

President Obama did a low energy version of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" when he proclaimed the "worst of the recession is over."

While 44 of the nation's states are looking at a $125 billion dollar shortfall and hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension and health care liabilities, they did not make the president's State of the Union final cut.

The Jersey City Museum, founded more than 100 years ago and home to more than 20,000 piece art collection, has shuttered its doors following state and city budget cuts and an unsuccessful bid to partner with New Jersey City University.

In Washington and around the country, chief executives including the president, the governors, and local mayors are all giving their annual takes on reality.

On Tuesday, from President Obama, we are going to hear about a nation that is still hurting but has turned a corner toward recovery.

But how is it really going on America's Main Streets?

Mayor Bloomberg sounded more engaged by the city he leads this week than at any other time during his decade-long tenure. But the mayor's upbeat State of the City address, his 10th, comes on the heels of two major failures of oversight, raising the prospect that he is suffering symptoms of detachment born of three term-itis.

Veteran New Jersey prosecutor Peter Harvey said the mob is very much alive -- even in the wake of the FBI's takedown of organized crime members that resulted in the arrests of more than 100 alleged mobsters.

At the landmark St. George Theater, the choir from PS 29 sang as the mayor took to the stage and delivered a confident speech — with no apology for the snow removal fiasco. He said the city was leading the nation from recession to recovery.
 
"In fact for the first time in decades New York City entered a national recession later than the rest of the country and now we have come out of it faster and stronger than the rest of the country," Bloomberg declared to loud applause.

For Mayor Bloomberg's tenth State of the City, he will use the landmark St. George Theater on Staten Island as a backdrop. The resourceful restoration of the 1929 theatrical space, not far from the St. George Ferry Terminal, overlooks New York Bay. It hosted a range of legends from Al Jolson to Don McClean. And like the city it's in, the St. George fell on hard times in the 1970s only to rebound.

As Mayor Bloomberg delivers the address he will mark the end of his first year in his third term. He faces another grim budget year ahead. And with both Albany and Washington tightening spending, new initiatives with high price tages are not likely.

WNYC reporter Bob Hennelly talks about the New Jersey Supreme Court and other current events.

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We are basically seeing that the very tough debate is being presaged in the public sector union that we're having nationally about the social contract that existed and was implied i...

More than 40 years after Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech challenged the nation, that American "promissory note" remains an IOU for millions of Americans.

Ridgewood, NJ—It was Palm Sunday in 1968,  just 72 hours after Dr. King had been murdered. My parents thought it was important that I go with my father to attend an impromptu eccumenical service at the Mount Bethel Baptist Church at the center of the African American section of Ridgewood. 

Even though I was just 12, it was one of those formative moments that helped convince me that I had, even as a pre-teen, some social obligation to a sphere that extended beyond my family. What we all did mattered. The world would become only what we made of it.

When we arrived there was a massive multiracial crowd that the local Ridgewood News put at 2,000. We could not get inside and so I looked up at the front of the church as I listened to eulogies and impassioned sermons. The call to action over the loudspeakers felt taller than the church's towering brick facade.

Market watchers say not since the 2008 meltdown have municipal and state governments had such a hard time finding buyers for  the bonds as they did this week. That global anxiety over public debt was felt by the state of New Jersey.

To help put a lid on exploding costs, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and 32 other Republican governors want the White House to let the states decide who qualifies for Medicaid.

With two more months of winter to go, the city has already blown its budget for snow removal for the entire season.

One year into Gov. Christie's tenure, the Democrats, who control both houses of the legislature, are still struggling to get even a quarter of the media attention that he gets daily.