CITY ISLAND MONORAIL

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Do you know about the Pelham Park & City Island Railroad?

Find out at the City Island Nautical Museum
190 Fordham Street - Sunday, June 9, at 2 p.m.

Thomas X. Casey, Bronx historian and Secretary of the East Bronx History Forum,
will give a fascinating talk about New York’s first monorail to City Island and its place in history.

Refreshments will be served and the museum shop will be open.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8gd_9iX0C4

www.cityislandmuseum.org

Bullying Prevention Program

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Kerry Kennedy, President of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center), announced the launch of a groundbreaking new initiative of the RFK Center, RFK Project SEATBELT: a comprehensive set of evidence-based tools, developed in partnership with the Making Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, to help schools, parents, and communities prevent bullying before it starts.

DNA IS THE LEGAL WAY

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DNA is now the new fingerprint, according to The US Supreme Court. The justices ruled that police are now allowed to collect DNA evidence from people they arrest, equating the procedure to standard practices as common as fingerprinting.

The high court ruling was 5-4, but not your usual 5-4. In this 5-4 vote, The US Supreme Court ruled that police officers can take DNA samples without a warrant from people they arrest for any serious crimes without violating the Fourth Amendment.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/

AAA Today?

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If you are planning a trip and decide to call AAA travel services to book your flight, please be aware that your membership fee only allows you to get an agent on the phone, but there will be a processing fee and then when your reservations are completed, you will have to go online for a seat assignment, or have to stand online at the airport.

Their web page offers the following tips:

Tip #1: Make your reservation early.

EUROPEAN VACATION

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Oh sweet, dear parents of Elena, Chloe, Sophia and Parker!

She is just days away from heading off to Italy for a looooong overdue European vacation. This trip is something Natasha and her husband Charlie have dreamed about for years and they finally got their acts together to make it happen.

Viva Italia & Francia!

That means they have both been waaaay more productive than ever to get everything done so they can can totally unplug while they're away and hard at play.

SUCCESSFUL CITY ISLAND FAIR

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According to one local merchant, City Island's first street fair of the year was a sales success.

Ron Terrner, owner of Focal Point Gallery and his wife Susan were busy on Saturday as well as Sunday. The City Island Chamber of Commerce once again sponsored this first outdoor street fair this year.

Happy vendors included small businesses on City Island, as well as local area artists.

MasTec Keeps Growing

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Cuban American Fortune 500 Firm MasTec announced it has acquired Big Country Energy Services Inc., and its affiliated operating companies (collectively, "Big Country"), a North American oil and gas pipeline and facility construction services company headquartered in Calgary, Canada. The Company also has construction offices in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, as well as in Wyoming and North Dakota.

QUEEN FOR 60 YEARS

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Great Britain is now greater as the British celebrate 60 years since Queen Elizabeth was crowned. The 87 year old monarch witnessed cheering crowds at a service in Westminster Abbey. featuring a priceless crown which has adorned the heads of British monarchs for 350 years.

Decorated with rubies, sapphires and amethysts, this golden St Edward's crown was made for the coronation of Charles II in 1661 and has been used to crown every British monarch ever since.

Across the pond here in the United States, one of her majesty's subjects tells City Island Images he is delighted with his queen. Although Dean Nelson was born in Plymouth, he had made City Island his home for the past 8 years. He says its fantastic and lovely that Queen Elizabeth has managed to continue on the throne all these 60 years and to keep her family as well as the monarchy relevant.

RIP Senator Frank R. Lautenberg

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US Senator Frank R. Lautenberg is dead at age 89. The NJ Democrat was a 5-Term Senator who fought the tobacco and alcohol industries and also promoted Amtrak while on Capitol Hill, following a successful business career. The cause was complications of viral pneumonia and he died on Monday in Manhattan with stomach cancer.

Senator Lautenberg made a special effort in May to attend a hearing to support President Obama’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. His death puts political leaders in a difficult position.

This Week in Her and History

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This Week in History, Jun 3 - Jun 9

Jun 03, 1989
Crackdown at Tiananmen begins. With protests for democratic reforms entering their seventh week, the Chinese government authorizes its soldiers and tanks to reclaim Beijing's Tiananmen Square at all costs. By nightfall on June 4, Chinese troops had forcibly cleared the square, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of demonstrators and suspected dissidents.

Jun 04, 1942
Battle of Midway begins. On this day in 1942, the Battle of Midway--one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II--begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy.

Jun 05, 1933
FDR takes United States off gold standard. On June 5, 1933, the United States went off the gold standard, a monetary system in which currency is backed by gold, when Congress enacted a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold. The United States had been on a gold standard since 1879, except for an embargo on gold exports during World War I, but bank failures during the Great Depression of the 1930s frightened the public into hoarding gold, making the policy untenable.

Jun 06, 1944
D-Day. Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east.

Jun 07, 1913
First successful ascent of Mt. McKinley. On this day in 1913, Hudson Stuck, an Alaskan missionary, leads the first successful ascent of Mt. McKinley, the highest point on the American continent at 20,320 feet. Stuck, an accomplished amateur mountaineer, was born in London in 1863. After moving to the United States, in 1905 he became archdeacon of the Episcopal Church in Yukon, Alaska, where he was an admirer of Native Indian culture and traveled Alaska's difficult terrain to preach to villagers and establish schools.

Jun 08, 1968
King assassination suspect arrested. James Earl Ray, an escaped American convict, is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, King was fatally wounded by a sniper's bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine. That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a Missouri prison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, which at the time was relatively easy.