NEW YORK (Reuters) – Kerry Kennedy, the ex-wife of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, had a common sleeping pill in her system when she collided with a tractor-trailer, according to a toxicology report filed on Wednesday.

Kennedy, 52, was found slumped in her white Lexus on the morning of July 13 in North Castle, north of New York City. Witnesses said she had been driving erratically, swerved into the tractor trailer on Interstate 84 and left the scene.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large sodas is expected to pass in September, but that didn’t deter hundreds who showed up on Tuesday either to praise the measure as a way to battle obesity or oppose it as pointless and unfair.

The proposal before the city Board of Health, the first of its kind in the nation, would limit servings of sugary drinks to 16 ounces (473 ml) at most restaurants, theaters, delis, vending carts and stadium concessions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Israeli man who pleaded guilty to illegally brokering kidney transplants for profit in the United States, the first such conviction under federal law, was sentenced on Wednesday to 2-1/2 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a 61-year old Israeli citizen who lived in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty last October to charges that he brokered kidney transplants between paid donors and recipients on three occasions.

NEW YORK, July 9 (Reuters) – Could apartments in New York
City get any smaller? Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes so.

On Monday he announced a competition for architects to
submit designs for apartments measuring just 275 to 300 square
feet (25.5 to 28 square meters) to address the shortage of homes
suitable and affordable for the city’s growing population of
one- and two-person households.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey surgeons removed a rapidly growing, 51-pound (23-kg) cancerous tumor from a woman who had delayed treatment for more than a month until she became eligible for health insurance, her doctor said on Tuesday.

“She was a skinny lady with a huge belly. I mean it looked like she was literally pregnant with triplets,” said Dr. David Dupree, who led the surgery on the 65-year-old woman, at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The parents of a Rutgers University student who committed suicide after learning his roommate spied on his gay tryst said his death has caused them to rethink their views on homosexuality, which they no longer believe is a sin.

Tyler Clementi’s parents, in an interview to be aired on NBC on Thursday, spoke publicly for the first time since the roommate, Dharun Ravi, was sentenced for using a webcam to observe Clementi kiss another man and for encouraging others to watch too.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than two dozen students graduated on Tuesday from one of New York City’s more unusual schools, where pens are forbidden and armed guards watch over every classroom.

The ceremony at the East River Academy on Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail, allowed prisoners to take a step toward a better future with a high school equivalency diploma, known as a GED.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Record-breaking temperatures spiked into the 90s on the first day of summer on Wednesday, sending children facing an untimely ice cream shortage to seek relief in the spray of fire hydrants in New York while in New Jersey ambulances raced to an overheated school graduation ceremony.

Warnings abounded, from health officials urging the public to stay hydrated to utilities girding for excess power demand from air conditioners.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. immigration officials will not seek to deport the former Rutgers University student who was convicted in March of bias crimes for using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate’s encounter with another man, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said on Monday.

The decision likely means that Dharun Ravi, 20, will be allowed to continue living in the United States after he is released from jail, which was expected to occur on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. immigration officials will not seek to deport the former Rutgers University student who was convicted in March of bias crimes for using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate’s encounter with another man, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said on Monday.

The decision likely means that Dharun Ravi, 20, will be allowed to continue living in the United States after he is released from jail, which was expected to occur on Tuesday.