News

A fundraiser was held last night at the Dog House in Nanuet for Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Hi-Tor Animal Shelter. A Ramapo police officer adopted a rescue dog that was named in honor of Jayde Marks, the 21 year-old New City woman who was killed last month, allegedly by a drunk driver who was also a friend of hers. Pete Martinez is the president of a Jeep club called Xtreme4Low, a community group that raises funds for various organizations…

Marks was driving on Germonds Road in Clarkstown when 22 year-old Michael Mercado of West Haverstraw allegedly went through a red light at the intersection of 304, crashing into Marks’ car, killing her. Mercado is charged with second-degree vehicular manslaughter, DWI and other charges.

China may go farther than expected to win the trade war. WRCR’s Market Analyst Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management cites Goldman Sachs, who thinks China will wait it out until after the presidential election in 2020…

According to CNBC, China retaliated against Trump’s surprise tariffs threat last week, by halting purchase of U.S. agricultural products, which hurts farmers in the Midwest.

Learn the early signs of Alzheimer’s. Ray Botto of the RCC Senior Club says if you’d like to do that, you should attend the “Ten Early Signs of Alzheimer’s” presentation at the club’s monthly meeting tomorrow…

The presentation is by Jody Addeo, the Community Engagement Manager of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Hudson Valley Chapter. It gets underway tomorrow at the RCC Tech Center starting at noon.

Toni Morrison, author of “Beloved” and “Song of Solomon” died late Monday of complications from pneumonia. Morrison came to live in Nyack in 1983, though her home was destroyed in a fire ten years later. Bill Batson helped establish the Toni Morrison Society’s “Bench by the Road” monument project in Nyack’s Memorial Park in 2006. Batson says the project honors Morrison’s observation that there were no historical markers to commemorate the lives of slaves in the United States…

In addition to the Nyack bench there are 20 others around the country, including in South Carolina, Massachusetts, Paris and Harlem. People will be gathering at the bench in Nyack Memorial Park tonight at 5:30 to read from her work. Morrison was the first African-American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature, she also won a Pulitzer and in 2012, president Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor for an American civilian. Morrison was 88 years old.

Building codes around the state are not being enforced. That’s the conclusion of a six-month investigation led by North Rockland state Senator James Skoufis, who released the report Monday. It looked at various communities, including Ramapo, Albany, Newburgh and Mount Vernon. The report concluded Ramapo has failed to properly enforce codes, even with a state oversight official to monitor related activities. Senator Skoufis says it’s more than a quality-of-life issue…

The report encourages Ramapo to cooperate with the efforts of the Rockland Codes Initiative, which the county executive launched in April, 2015, to combat housing and fire safety issues. Ramapo supervisor Michael Specht says he and his staff are reviewing the report, and while they found some credible statewide recommendations, he says there were some inaccurate statements about the town.