NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Yorkers took to the streets on Sunday to help in the recovery from superstorm Sandy, volunteering to clean up devastated areas and using the annual Veterans Day parade to collect donations for victims struggling without homes or power.

Police raised the storm’s death toll in New York City to 43, adding the death of a 77-year-old retired custodian who was found last week at the bottom of the steps of his apartment building in Rockaway, Queens, paralyzed and with head injuries. He died at a hospital on Saturday, they said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After filling dumpsters with ruined inventory, many owners of New York City’s shops and restaurants find themselves waiting on emergency loans and insurance companies or trying to personally finance their recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

The progress is uneven on lower Manhattan’s trendy Avenue C, which was heavily flooded during last week’s historic storm.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nearly a million New York public school students returned to class on Monday after a week at home following superstorm Sandy, although many wore extra layers while janitors repaired drowned heating systems.

About 94 percent of the city’s 1,700 public schools reopened on Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during a visit to a school in Brooklyn that had its basement flooded by the storm last week. The school’s power and heating have been restored.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pumping water out of basements and yanking rotten food out of refrigerators, shop and restaurant owners said on Thursday they wonder when the power will come back and, more importantly, how they will possibly recover from the damage left by Sandy.

Thousands of small businesses, without power since the storm hit New York City on Monday, face the likelihood of darkness at least until the weekend, if not longer, authorities say.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The crown of the Statue of Liberty will reopen to the public on Sunday – the 126th anniversary of its dedication – after a year-long renovation to make the New York landmark safer and more accessible to people in wheelchairs.

The $30 million renovation of the statue, which towers over Liberty Island in New York Harbor, improved fire alarms, sprinkler systems and exit routes to bring Lady Liberty in line with New York City safety codes, the National Park Service said.

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Pollution from factories and
mines is putting the health of 125 million people at risk
worldwide and is as dangerous in the developing world as malaria
or tuberculosis, according to a report published on Tuesday by
two environmental advocacy groups.

The researchers behind the “2012 World’s Worst Pollution
Problems” report say theirs is the first substantial attempt to
estimate the number of people sickened or killed worldwide
because they work in or live near tanneries, recycling plants,
chemical factories or mines, among other toxic industries.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York lesbian couple said they were barred from booking an upstate farm for their wedding because they are gay and filed a discrimination complaint against the venue.

Melisa Erwin and Jennie McCarthy of Albany, New York, said in their complaint with the state Division of Human Rights that Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke refused to allow them to book the venue next summer after learning they were lesbians.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A heavy New York City police presence Saturday discouraged a group of hundreds of skateboarders from defying a court order that banned the annual race through midtown Manhattan known as the Broadway Bomb.

Many skateboarders were not deterred. At the race’s planned finish line in Manhattan’s downtown financial district, where there was a heavy police presence, many boarders said they had taken alternate routes downtown to avoid police stationed at intersections throughout midtown.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Dozens of screening officers and supervisors at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of three main airports serving New York City, face dismissal or suspension for failing to search baggage properly, the Transportation Security Administration said on Friday.

The TSA, in the largest personnel action it has taken at an airport, said it planned to fire 25 workers and suspend another 19 for up to two weeks without pay as a result of an investigation into screening practices at Newark.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Meteorites from Mars and the biggest piece of the Moon ever offered for sale went on the block on Sunday in New York in what organizers billed as history’s largest meteorite auction, which brought in over $1 million.

More than 125 meteorites were offered in the private sale, from gray pockmarked lumps of iron to highly polished slabs glittering with extraterrestrial gems. But many of the big-ticket items, estimated to sell for $50,000 or more, did not find buyers.