Marathon Canceled Too Late for Many

Fresh off his flight from San Francisco Friday afternoon, Leland Kim had just picked up his numbered marathon bib and registration packet at the Javits Center and was headed to the ING New York City Marathon Expo.

Then he got a text message from a friend: "We're so sorry the marathon got canceled."

Confused, Kim asked someone working at the expo about it, and was told the marathon was still going on. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had been saying so all week. And Kim had already spoken to runners who'd come from New Zealand, Argentina, Russia and Ireland.

But Sharon McNary, a seasoned runner from Pasadena, Calif. , soon saw people at the Javits expo walking with their heads bowed, talking into cell phones and texting as rumors of a cancellation circulated.

Although no official email came from the New York Road Runners, the official organizers of the race, those at the expo soon realized the rumors were true. Presenters folded up their booths and went home, said McNary.

"There were a few people who were expressing their anger pretty loudly, but for the most part, I think people understood that the timing was just not right for it," McNary said.

Earlier this week, Kim and his partner kept their eyes on the news as they watched superstorm Sandy unfold, wondering whether their eight months of training for their first marathon would be for naught.

The 26.2-mile race seemed unfathomable last winter, when a 3-mile run was exhausting. But this week, with the finish line in sight, they listened to Bloomberg say over and over again that the race was on. Even Friday morning, when they left for the airport, they were certain they would be running together through New York's five boroughs.

And then that text message from a friend came.

"I felt like it was kind of taken away from us at the last minute," Kim said. "I would have understood if, shortly after the hurricane, it was canceled. ' We definitely saw the devastation, and we definitely were concerned for the people that were affected by this not only in New York but in other parts of the East Coast."

He did not get an official cancellation email from the New York Road Runners until Saturday at 11:51 a.m., more than 12 hours after the mayor and race CEO Mary Wittenberg announced the race was off.

Robert Brink, a marathoner from Manhattan who was still without power, said he still hadn't gotten the official cancellation notice.

"I can't believe they still haven't sent out emails as far as I can tell," Brink said. "Especially for foreigners. I'm sure there's probably going to be some people who are flying out here who still think it's on."

The New York Road Runners did not immediately respond to a request from ABCNews.com for comment, but its email's auto reply still begins with "Thank you for your message. We are in full execution mode for the 2012 ING New York City Marathon."

Brink said he feels bad for out-of-state runners who went through the "roller coaster" of canceling and rescheduling flights as the storm moved up the Atlantic coast. Because the race was still on, they had to find a way to New York despite the frozen air traffic, only to find out that the race had been canceled once they arrived.

"I totally understand it should have been canceled because it's not right if there's people hurting," he said. "But my first reaction was, look, you made the call to go through with it. At this point, assuming no one's going to die by holding it, you just kind of have to live with that choice."

Transgender Student in Women's Locker Room Raises Uproar

                                                                                                         (Image Credit: Getty)Image Credit: Getty Images

The decision to allow a transgender 45-year-old college student who identifies as a woman but has male genitalia to use the women's locker room has raised a fracas among  parents and faith-based organizations, who say children as young as 6 years old use the locker room.

The locker room at Evergreen College in Olympia, Wash., is shared with  the Capital High School swim club and a children's swim academy, along with the students at Evergreen.

'The college has to follow state law,'  Evergreen spokesman Jason Wettstein told ABC News affiliate KOMO. 'The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity. Gender identity is one of the protected things in discrimination law in this state.'

But according to parents, the fact that the student has exposed her male genitalia, in one instance in the sauna, is cause for concern.

'[A mother] reported her daughter was upset because she observed a person at the women's locker room naked and displaying male genitalia,' said a police report filed in September by a mother on behalf of her 17-year-old daughter.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based religious liberties group, sent a letter to Evergreen College on Friday, warning it that  the decision to allow the transgender student to continue using the locker room could put the school in jeopardy.

'The fact that this individual was sitting in plain view of young girls changing into their swimsuits puts you and Evergreen on notice of possible future harm,' David Hacker, senior legal counsel, wrote.

The college has installed privacy curtains, and said it would not change its policy for now.

 

 
 

 

Shuttle Prototype Suffers Storm Damage

The flying machine that ushered in NASA's space shuttle program has suffered storm damage in New York City.

Shuttle prototype Enterprise weathered Superstorm Sandy this week at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, but it sustained minor damage to its vertical stabilizer, or tail. A small piece of foam came off, said a museum spokesman.

The damage was confirmed Friday by both the museum and NASA as shuttle Atlantis concluded its journey to retirement at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Enterprise will be repaired at the earliest opportunity, the Intrepid museum said in a statement. The museum remains closed because of storm damage.

"Enterprise remains safely in place and partially covered by the fabric of the damaged pavilion, which was left in place as a protective measure," said museum director Susan Marenoff-Zausner.

Enterprise was used for atmospheric drop tests over Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1977, four years before the first shuttle launch. It was never designed for space travel.

This past spring, the Smithsonian Institution turned the Enterprise over to the Intrepid, at NASA's instruction. The Smithsonian needed to make room at its display hangar in Virginia for the retired space shuttle Discovery.

Enterprise was flown atop a modified jumbo jet to New York in April and moved to the Intrepid museum in June.

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Online:

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum: http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/

Screams of Joy as Power Restored

Screams of joy erupted through the canyons of lower Manhattan today when the lights came back on through a large section of the city, four days after Sandy's flood waters knocked out power to the city's financial district.

The power surge will allow greater movement of the city's crippled subway system and was a major step in the recovery from the killer storm, whose death toll had topped 90, according to the Associated Press.

When traffic lights came on, screams of joy could be heard in Soho, Chelsea and other Manhattan neighborhoods that have had to go without heat, light, elevators and restaurants since Monday.

Increasingly impatient Sandy survivors got another glimmer of hope when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that a flotilla of ships and barges began unloading gasoline in an effort to reduce long lines of gas-desperate motorists.

"The issue of gasoline has created concern and anxiety and practical problems all throughout the region," Cuomo said at a news conference today. "People can't get gas. It's slowed down the delivery of service, it's increased the stress level all across the region."

Hurricane Sandy: Full Coverage

Some gas stations in New York and hard hit New Jersey have fuel in the ground, but are unable to pump it without power. Others have power but have no gas due to shortages and difficulties in transporting the fuel.

At the gas stations that do have power, police have been keeping order at hours-long lines, but the fight for fuel has been getting nasty. Authorities say a motorist was arrested after he tried to cut in line at a gas station in Queens Thursday and allegedly pointed a pistol at another motorist who complained, according to the Associated Press.

The man was identified as Sean Bailey, 35, and he faces charges of menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.

Cuomo said that debris in New York's harbor, much of it ship containers blown into the water and lurking below the surface, had posed a threat to navigation until they were cleaned up. The port was reopened Thursday.

In addition, Sandy's flooding damaged some pumping equipment used to move the gas.

"There should be a real change in conditions and people should see it quickly," Cuomo said.

Despite the good news, millions still shivered in dark and unheated homes. Their anger forced New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to cancel Sunday's New York City Marathon after city officials and those suffering from Sandy's wrath argued that the marathon would detract from recovery efforts.

Those still waiting for electricity were further daunted by the news that temperatures are expected to dip into the 30s this weekend with a possible Nor'easter on the way.

Some parts of the region hammered by Sandy feel they have been left behind in the rush to restore power to Manhattan.

Staten Island was one of the hardest-hit communities in New York City. More than 80,000 residents are still without power, many are homeless, and at least 19 people died there because of the storm.

Can Obama Win Black Votes and Support Gay Marriage?

Election night 2008 was an historic moment for the country, particularly for many African-Americans.

An African-American man was elected president of the United States for the first time, largely with the help of a community that voted for him at an unprecedented level. Barack Obama won 94.2 percent of the black vote in 2008.

As the results came in on Nov. 4, 2008, tears flowed freely. Many people watching were filled with emotion, hard for some of them truly to explain. Some in the black community wrestled with thoughts of the past, present and future, thoughts of Jim Crow and overcoming, all of which were crystallized in one epic moment.

But it is now four years later and there is a looming question: Will African-Americans turn out for Obama on Election Day as enthusiastically as they did before?

Black voters' participation in a race many say to be too close to call could prove critical to President Obama's chances for re-election.

A new BET documentary, "Second Coming: Will Black America Decide 2012," tries to take the pulse of the community in the final days of the campaign. Film director Marc Levin sent teams around the country to talk to African-Americans from every walk of life, from celebrities to everyday people. The producers found the euphoria of 2008 has given way to some harsh realities.

"I think there is no doubt the thrill is gone and that for the African-American community, for a lot of young people, for a lot of Americans, period, that moment in 2008 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Levin said.

the Great Recession has hit the African-American community hard. The ABC News polling unit said unemployment among African-Americans is at 14.3 percent, nearly double the national rate.

"To me, [Obama] hasn't done anything," said an African-American man in the BET documentary. "The economy hasn't gotten better, nothing's gotten better. We're in the same spot we were when Bush was in presidency."

Aside from the economy, one issue has risen to the top of the most contentious issues among many blacks, and influential black clergy: gay marriage. Many in African-American church congregations are opposed to President Obama because he supports gay marriage.

"We are living in days of darkness," Pastor Michael Stevens of Charlotte, N.C. said in the documentary. "To declare what the word of God says about male and female and man and woman and husband and wife, now I am the homophobic bigot."

Baltimore Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant is an Obama supporter who also appears in the film. He too opposes the president on the gay marriage issue. Bryant said he believes that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to share insurance and be able to leave their property to their partners in their wills. But marriage, he said, is reserved for a man and woman.

Bryant told "Nightline" there are some pastors in the African-American community who are telling their congregations either to stay home or vote the other way on Election Day, but it's a small minority. He said he still believes that African-Americans "are walking in lockstep" with the president.

"The African-American community is not myopic by nature. We have more than one opinion," he said. "I think that those parishioners are still going to go vote and in large numbers, they're going to vote for President Obama."

Boy Influenced by TV Show in Murder

A 10-year-old boy told police that he figured that if he killed his neo Nazi father, he might not get in trouble because that's what happened on a television program he had watched.

"A bad father did something to his kids and the kid did the exact same thing I did ' he shot him," the boy said in a videotaped interview with detectives, as reported by the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "He told the truth and wasn't arrested and the cops believed him. He wasn't in trouble or anything. I thought maybe the exact same thing would happen to me," he said of the episode of "Criminal Minds."

Prosecutors played the video in court on Wednesday, the second day of the boy's murder trial. He is accused of shooting Jeff Hall with a .357 Magnum at point-blank range while he slept on a sofa in their home.

If a judge finds the boy murdered his father, he could be jailed until he is 23. The Associated Press is not identifying the boy because he is a juvenile.

The prosecution claims the boy, now 12, killed his dad to keep him from splitting up with his stepmom, while the defense says the stepmother manipulated the boy to shoot Hall because she was angry he might leave her for another woman.

The boy says in the video that he wanted to end his father's abuse and to ensure he would live with his stepmother because he thought the couple was going to divorce. He said he was scared and angry about his father's temper and threats.

"I thought it would be a good idea to end it ' to shoot my dad in the head," he said in the video. "I shot him because I was upset. He was always taking off. He also hit me."

At one point in the video, the boy says he thought his dad would recover. "I was choosing who should leave and I chose my dad," the boy said. "I thought he would get out of the hospital and maybe we could go back to being friends and start over."

As the video was shown, the boy clanked his ankle chains and rested his head on the table. The judge stopped the video at one point because the boy was falling asleep

The little sister of the boy tearfully testified earlier in the day that her brother had plotted the shooting days in advance.

At the time of the shooting, the girl was asleep, but she said her brother told her of his plans four days earlier.

"Did you know ahead of time that someone planned to shoot your father?" Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Soccio asked her.

"Yes," she said quietly.

The girl, now 11, also testified that she lied to authorities that stepmother Krista McCary told the boy to shoot Hall.

McCary initially told police she killed Hall but testified Tuesday that she was lying to protect the boy. She has pleaded guilty to one felony count of child endangerment and criminal storage of a firearm.

Soccio said the white supremacist beliefs of Hall, an unemployed plumber who was a regional leader of the National Socialist Movement, had nothing to do with the crime and that the boy's history of violence dated to his first day of kindergarten when he stabbed a teacher with a pencil.

The defense claims the boy was influenced by being raised in an abusive, violent, racist environment where he was taught to shoot, attended Nazi rallies and was taken to the border once on a mission to learn how to keep Mexicans out of the U.S.

Military Airlift Gear for Sandy Repairs

Linda Welz/U.S. Air Force

The Pentagon has begun an airlift of  69 vehicles from California to help restore power in New York and New Jersey in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

Utility crews and their trucks are driving into the New York area from all parts of the country, including some teams from California that will arrive in three to five days after driving cross country  on flat bed trailers.

To accelerate the repairs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the Pentagon to transport 69 vehicles from Southern California Edison into the hard hit areas of the east coast.

Air Mobility Command arranged for five huge  C-5 cargo planes and 12 C-17 aircraft  from a dozen bases across the country to travel to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif., where they would pick up the equipment to be taken east.

Air crews worked all night Wednesday to load 60 passengers and approximately 632 tons of equpiment and supplies onto the aircraft  bound for New York.

The first of the planes is scheduled to arrive Thursday afternoon at Stewart Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.,  which is about 60 miles north of Manhattan.  The additional planes will continue to fly in Thursday and over the course of the coming days.

The planes are carrying  10 double bucket cherrypicker trucks, four line trucks, a flatbed digger, eight trouble trucks, a mobile command center, three Rangers, 14 companion trucks, two mechanic trucks, and a slew of F-150 pickup trucks .

Most of the utility personnel who will man the equipment have already been flown by commercial air to the east coast.

About 10,000 National Guardsmen have been mobilized by states affected by Sandy's destructive power.  At FEMA's request the Defense Department can augment the assistance provided by the National Guard

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has taken a lead role in helping to 'dewater' New York.   They are working to deploy 100 powerful water pumps  that are being delivered to FEMA mobilization centers.  U.S. Northern Command is also providing an additional hundred pumps to the effort.

The Corps has also provided 200 power generators to four locations in the New York and New Jersey area that can be deployed by FEMA as needed.

Three Navy ships including the helicopter carrier USS Wasp were pre-positioned by the Navy near the New Jersey coast, but they have not been asked to assist with relief efforts.

If FEMA requests the use of the ships, the Wasp could serve as a landing deck for helicopters helping with relief efforts.  In a pre-emptive move the Navy has also sent six helicopters to the Wasp in case they are needed ashore.

The Wasp is not carrying helicopters aboard, but if its services are requested by FEMA it could serve as a landing deck for helicopters helping with relief efforts.

On Wednesday, per a request from the Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Transportation Command airlifted in about  120 medical personnel to New York City to augment medical staff providing care to nursing homes and at-risk elderly patients.