Stephen Nessen

It’s that time of year when we spring forward… so don’t forget to set your clocks ahead an hour this Sunday when daylight saving time goes into effect.

And while you’re changing your clocks, the New York Fire Department wants to remind New Yorkers that it is also a good time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.

Lieutenant Anthony Mancusso says smoke detectors are of no use if the batteries are dead.

More than 100 CUNY students are preparing for meetings tomorrow with Albany lawmakers to discuss Governor Paterson’s proposed $65 million budget cut to tuition aid and community college funding.

Like many students at Bronx Community College, Monique Lewis, 38, juggles work, studies and family. She is studying social work and has five children, the youngest is five and the oldest, 22. If the proposed funding cuts pass she may see her tuition rise by 15 percent or about $400.

Protest signs are held aloft at a rally May 8, 2003 in New York City calling for the repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws. (Getty)

At City Hall today, Council members heard suggestions on reforming New York's 36-year-old Rockefeller drug laws. Critics of the law say the mandatory 15-year sentence for a first time conviction for selling or possessing two ounces of a controlled substance is too harsh. Simone-Marie Meeks of the New York Academy of Medicine thinks reforms need to include integrating government and medical professionals.

The NYCLU provided a report citing criminologist Alfred Blumstein: “That with respect to drug offenses, the much higher arrest and conviction rates for blacks are not related to higher levels of criminal offending, but can only be explained by other factors, including racial bias.”

The last five remaining protesters emerged from New York University’s student center today after barricading themselves in the cafeteria Wednesday night.

Local students and city residents gathered outside NYU’s Kimmel student center today to show support. Some banged drums, others just chanted, “Solidarity.”

Drew Phillips a 22-year-old philosophy major at NYU was one of the last five protesters to emerge and said his student coalition, Take Back NYU!, felt helpless when the university did not respond to a letter written in September that called for more 'accountability and transparency' in the school's budget and funding. There demands are posted here.

Joe Baglio, November 4, 2006

Staten Island doctor Richard Lucente has been charged with illegally providing steroids to body builders, including one who had a heart transplant, and recently died of heart failure. ...