Live as in if you touch it you could die.
And Con Edison had left it there. Why? No one knows, but clearly someone screwed up. Folks on the block had called Con Ed but had gotten nowhere. Then they called us. We sent Jim Dolan out to do the story last night....
...and guess what? Today, Con Ed crews were there fixing the problem.
Nice when our stories make a difference, right?
We'll have the follow up tonight at 11.
Don't invade Iraq and why are we still in Afghanistan? That demand and question were spoken often 11 years ago, and the Bush Administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq, even though there was no evidence of any weapons of mass destruction. We went in anyway.
Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, no question. But is Iraq better off today than it was under Hussein the dictator? Hard to make that argument without scores of qualifications. Chaos, that's what rules Iraq right now. Suicide bombers killing lots of people today, and al Qaeda rules some cities, like Mosul and Tikrit, as the militants creep closer to Baghdad, and Iraqi troops abandon their posts and run away.
Are Iraqi militants basically serving as emissaries of Iran? There are many who believe that to be the case. And today, word from the U.N. that there could soon be up to a million refugees, fleeing al Qaeda. And here's a shocker: The U.S. State Department is now warning Americans that they shouldn't travel to Iraq unless absolutely necessary. (I know so many Americans who will now be cancelling their summer vacation plans. Not.)
And late this afternoon the White House described the situation in Iraq as "grave," and hinted that there may indeed be humanitarian assistance offered. Tonight the streets of Baghdad are nearly empty, as Iraqis are afraid to move around the capital city.
Meanwhile, the mess created by the flood of returning U.S. veterans continues. The Veterans Hospital system is now under investigation by the FBI, in the light of the scandal that has cost some vets their lives when they had to wait for long periods of time to get care.
And now comes word that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, freed by the Taliban in Afghanistan in exchange for 5 Taliban militants held in Guantanamo Prison, was kicked out of the Coast Guard before he enlisted in the Army because he had "psychological issues." So why did the Army let him in? Remember, in 2008 the Army was granting a record number of waivers to allow more Americans to be able to enlist, including waivers for past criminal records.
So Bergdahl was allowed in. The Washington Post today reported that Bergdahl's handwritten journal and various emails sent to a friend "paint a portrait of a... complicated and fragile young man who was by his own account struggling to maintain his mental stability from the start of basic training until the moment he walked off his post" in Afghanistan.
Why there aren't more people like Bergdahl is the issue. Maybe there are, and we just haven't heard about them.
We'll have any new developments from the war zones, tonight at 11.
Also at 11, we're at the funeral tonight for 18-year-old Tanaya Copeland, who was stabbed in Brooklyn two weeks ago. The main suspect is Daniel St. Hubert, the man accused of stabbing two kids in their building elevator a couple of days after Copeland was killed. Josh Einiger is at the young woman's funeral for us tonight.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Meteorologist Lee Goldberg's AccuWeather forecast, and Rob Powers with the huge mountain the Rangers have to climb to win the Stanley Cup, after their loss to the L.A. Kings last night. The Rangers trail in the series 3 games to none, and only one team in hockey history has come back from that deficit to win the Cup, and that was in 1942. Can the Rangers start that quest tonight or will this be the end of their season? I hope you can join Diana Williams (in for Sade Baderinwa) and me, tonight at 11.
BILL RITTER
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