Responding to repeated calls from big-city mayors, the US Department of Homeland Security is shifting a larger share of its annual US$3.5 billion in anti-terrorism grants to the nation's largest cities, allowing them to accelerate purchases of equipment and training needed to better defend against -- or at least rapidly respond to -- an attack.
The biggest beneficiary of the shift is New York City, which has been awarded a US$208 million grant for the 2005 fiscal year, compared with US$47 million in the 2004 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30. That should allow the city to buy more devices that can detect chemical, biological or other hazards, increase training for its police and firefighters, and spend more money on an intelligence center where it analyzes possible terrorist threats, one state official said.
PHOTO: AFP
Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Boston also are getting larger grants, although the increase is not nearly as substantial as in New York.
"We've been protecting the nation's financial and communications center on our own dime," said Raymond Kelly, New York City's police commissioner. "It's a national responsibility."
Proponents of the shift say they hope it is only a first step in a more fundamental revamping of domestic security grants. But the change has evoked protests from cities that have dropped off the list or whose allocations have shrunk, including Orlando, Florida, Memphis, Tennessee, and New Haven, Connecticut.
"We are at the crossroads of America, for cars, for trains, for river traffic," said Claude Talford, director of emergency management services in the Memphis area, which received a US$10 million grant for this year, but is not slated to get any direct grant next year.
"We are a prime location, a prime target, any way you look at it," he said.
Lobbying efforts are under way to try to reinstate financing to these communities. But homeland security officials said the grant allocations were final.
Two shifts in homeland security financing are resulting in the reallocation of the grants. First, in the 2005 fiscal year, at the urging of US President George W. Bush, a larger share of the grants will be distributed directly to cities, instead of through a state program set up to ensure that both urban and rural areas got a cut.
Second, of the money earmarked for high-risk cities, much more of it is going to the biggest cities: In the 2005 fiscal year, New York, Washington and Los Angeles will get 42 percent of the money, compared with 16 percent for the top three cities this year. This shift took place, homeland security officials said, because more possible targets -- bridges, signature buildings, government facilities and other important structures -- have been added to a database they use to calculate threats.
Domestic terrorism incidents, whether actual attacks or just false reports, also are now factored into the formula. And instead of taking into account only population density, the department also now factors in a city's overall population.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was