Talk Bronx New York

News 12 The Bronx Celebrates 10 Years Of Local News Coverage

The borough’s first and only dedicated news channel marks its 10th year on cable television; The cable-exclusive channel made its debut in 1998 as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx.

Bronx, NY (PRWEB) June 30, 2008 — News 12 the Bronx is celebrating 10 years as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx. The cable-exclusive channel began bringing local news to the borough of the Bronx in 1998. Ten years later, News 12 continues to serve the Bronx community with its 24-hour news channel, and has expanded to multiple distribution platforms including an on-demand channel (News 12 Interactive, channel 612 on iO TV), a cell phone service (News 12 to Go), and on the world-wide-web (www.news12.com). All services are provided at no additional cost to Cablevision subscribers.

“It was a very easy decision to start up a News 12 franchise in the Bronx”, said Patrick Dolan, President of News 12 Networks. “It was clear that Bronx residents were interested in news coverage that reflected the borough they were so proud to call their own. Most news coverage in the area up to that point was focused on crime stories. When News 12 the Bronx launched and showed the real people of the Bronx on television - from the teachers to the firemen to the community leaders and more - we were embraced. We’re proud of our involvement in this incredible area.”

“The Bronx is an interesting place to live and work. It’s diverse. It’s dynamic. It has a wonderful sense of community,” said Leesa Dillon, News Director of News 12 the Bronx. “News 12’s commitment is to provide fair and unbiased coverage of the news that the residents of the Bronx need and want to know. It’s been so for the last 10 years and will continue to be so into the future ”

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Push in Bronx for H.I.V. Test for All

Dr. Donna Futterman, left, with Rosita Gonzalez and colleagues at Montefiore Medical Center, helped the city shape the plan.

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.

“Routine would mean if you came into the emergency room for asthma or a broken leg, we test everyone for H.I.V., if they’re willing,” the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in an interview on Wednesday.

While Manhattan has long been the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in New York, with the highest incidence of both AIDS and H.I.V., the virus that causes it, the Bronx, with its poorer population, has far more deaths from the disease. Public health officials attribute this to people not getting tested until it is too late to treat the virus effectively, thus turning a disease that can now be managed with medication into a death sentence.

Several AIDS experts said on Wednesday that the Bronx campaign was the most aggressive testing effort they could recall in the nation. Two years ago, Washington, D.C., made a high-profile push to test 450,000 residents, enlisting celebrity endorsements and distributing 80,000 free testing kits, but the campaign resulted in only about 45,000 people being tested.

“What’s new here is that we are implementing it on this large a level,” said Dr. Donna Futterman, director of the adolescent AIDS program at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who helped New York develop the new program. “The Bronx has 1.3 million people. It’s bigger than most cities, bigger than Boston, bigger than Washington. We’re talking about a significant urban population.”

City officials estimate that 40 percent of the 830,000 people ages 18 to 64 in the Bronx have been tested for H.I.V. in the past year. Half of the remainder, about 250,000 people, have never been tested, and the goal is to test them first. Tests would be given at 40 designated sites, including clinics, community centers, churches and emergency rooms. Dr. Monica Sweeney, an assistant health commissioner for H.I.V. prevention, said the city had not set aside money specifically for the program, but would absorb the $12 cost of each test.

In organizing the campaign, which formally begins on Friday, Dr. Frieden has enlisted support from elected officials, health care providers and clergy members in the Bronx. But the proposal is raising some concerns.

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New York Gets Technical To Eliminate Rats .. Starting In Bronx

Juan Cardenas was tossing his trash into a garbage can in his Bronx apartment last summer when something suddenly appeared on his arm. It wasn’t a loose piece of trash _ it was a rat.

“I was traumatized,” said Cardenas, 21. “I screamed and ran.”

Cardenas is just one of the millions of New Yorkers who have been terrorized by the red-eyed rodents. But help could soon be on the way.

The city Health Department recently launched a program in the Bronx in which inspectors equipped with hand-held computers canvass neighborhoods in search of evidence of rat infestations. They will then develop a neighborhood rodent profile to better target infestations.

“No one wants to live in a neighborhood with a serious rat problem,” said Dan Kass, who worked on designing the program. “They are capable of contaminating food supplies. They damage utility pipes and electrical wires.”

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