Author: jon2009

Advocates for homeless people have raised concerns about the move to deploy more than 600 New York City uniformed police officers to patrol the subway system in the wake of deadly stabbings.

Two people were killed and four were injured in a rash of stabbing attacks over the weekend. All of the victims appeared to be homeless.

Transit Chief Kathleen O’Reilly said 644 officers will patrol platforms, inspect trains, secure entryways and ride in subway cars for the “foreseeable future.”

But homeless advocates argued the heavy police presence won’t protect those in need of shelter.

“Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo need to respond not with more stigmatization and callousness toward people without homes, or heavy-handed police removals, but with real and immediate access to housing for unsheltered New Yorkers,” Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless in New York, told ABC News.

She pointed out that officials have promised time and time again to prevent violent crimes like last weekend’s stabbings from occurring.

“These devastating attacks are a reminder that failing to offer the dignity and safety of a real home during this historic pandemic is literally a matter of life and death,” she added.

The Salvation Army Greater New York Division also slammed the move to increase the number of officers on subways.

“The vast majority of unhoused people are peaceful and penalizing poverty will not solve the homeless crisis in New York City,” a Salvation Army spokesperson told ABC News.

The organization said a more effective solution to protecting the vulnerable homeless population is to allocate funds to “expand safe, non-congregate housing for people experiencing homelessness” that will “restore safety and dignity to all.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) closed the subway overnight during the pandemic, essentially kicking out homeless people who often flock to subway stations for warmth in the cold winter months.

Rigoberto Lopez, 21, who police say is homeless, was arrested and charged with the murder of two people on the A subway line last weekend, according to local ABC affiliate WABC.

Other violent incidents have also been reported over the past few months.

Last week a man was stabbed on the 1 train platform at the Christopher Street station in Manhattan and in January a person was caught on body camera footage trying to shove a woman in front of a moving train.

O’Reilly said the new group of patrol officers include 331 Transit Bureau officers and 313 Patrol Bureau cops and they’ll be spread out across the subway system, especially for morning and evening rushes.

She assured the public the Big Apple’s public transit system “remains one of the safest large transit systems in the world,” adding, “When a crime does occur, our officers move swiftly to make immediate arrests.”

The influx of officers is still less than the additional 1,000 officers the MTA asked for.

Former Sen. Bob Dole announced Thursday morning he has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

The 97-year-old former GOP senator and presidential nominee announced in a tweet that he will begin treatment on Monday.

“While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own,” Dole said.

Dole served as a congressman and then senator from 1961 to 1996 from his home state of Kansas.

He spent his first eight years in Washington as a member of the House of Representatives before graduating to the Senate in 1969 and serving through 1996.

Dole’s involvement in presidential politics is as lengthy as anyone to never hold the office. He ran for president once, vice president once and twice came up short for the GOP nomination for president.

Dole was previously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Bill Clinton, just months after losing the presidential election to him.

In 2018, Congress awarded him the Gold Medal.

ABC News’ Mark Osborne contributed to this report.

A dozen people were rescued after they became trapped in houseboats when the roof of a boat dock collapsed in Tennessee.

Rescue crews rushed to the Blue Turtle Bay Marina in Old Hickory, about 20 miles southwest of Nashville, on Wednesday night after receiving reports of several people trapped, according to the Nashville Fire Department.

When the fire department arrived, the 100-yard boat dock was in the frigid Cumberland River and inaccessible by foot, officials said. Once a water rescue was launched, 12 people were retrieved from several boats that were taking on water or already sinking.

The roof fell in as the South was being walloped with the second winter storm in one week, bringing snow and record cold to the region.

While the dock is designed to move along with the water, the snow and ice jammed up the mechanism, causing the dock to sink and eventually collapse, officials from the Nashville Fire Department told ABC Nashville affiliate WKRN.

Crews went boat to boat to make sure no one else was trapped inside, Nashville Fire Department Public Information Officer Kendra Loney told reporters at a press conference Wednesday night. No one was injured in the incident.

The fire department reminded the public that it is unsafe to operate a boat or vehicle in such inclement weather.

More than 100 coronavirus cases have been diagnosed at the Rauma shipyard, with many other workers at the facility quarantined.

The deteriorating situation may end up delaying the completion of the yard’s Aurora Botnia ferry project.

Rauma Marine Construction CEO, Jyrki Heinimaa, confirmed there were delays in building the ship and that there is a risk work on the effort may be halted entirely.

Heinimaa noted that it was impossible to predict how the construction schedule would be affected, but confirmed delivery of the ship would be delayed if the coronavirus situation at the shipyard worsens.

Story continues after photo illustration.

The Aurora Botnia ship is scheduled to replace the Wasa Express ferry in early May, continuing to shuttle freight and passengers between the Finnish city of Vaasa and Umeå in Sweden.

If delivery is delayed, Wasa Express will continue to operate as it has, according to Peter Ståhlberg , CEO of ferry operator Wasaline.

The total number of coronavirus cases at the shipyard rose to 106 on Thursday, when 52 new cases were confirmed. About 350 tests at the yard were carried out on Thursday.