Women use kids to scam people

From the Daily News:

That panhandling mom with a child in her lap?

Oh, baby! It’s a scam, according to NBC New York. While panhandling is legal in New York, a month-long investigation followed nine women around the city and concluded that they were working and living together.

Social service workers said the women have repeatedly refused shelter and aid because they only want cash.

"This is a scam — a business," the non-profit The Doe Fund’s George McDonald told NBC New York.

McDonald said his organization has done its research on the women and witnessed them handing off the same children, exploiting them by “working in shifts.”

Homeless women are seen more and more bringing their children along to panhandle.

Research suggests that some of the women are 'working in shifts' and handing off the children to each other to use as props.

Children can’t be used to peddle, according to seldom-enforced state law. But it’s a statute that’s being flaunted as video shows these women collecting fast cash from sympathetic passersby.

But the investigation found the women were using Grand Central Terminal as a meeting point and living in the same East New York building.

Lots of Republicans running for mayor

From the Village Voice:

Day by day, the wide open upcoming race to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg is getting more entertaining, and morphing into a new year's gift for reporters, political junkies, and maybe the public.

Last week, Mayor Giuliani's former deputy mayor, Joseph Lhota, a man not known for conversational subtlety, confirmed he was running as a Republican. This week, we learned that supermarket mogul John Catsimatides, an old-fashioned boot strap guy turned billionaire, put up $1 million of his own money to start building a campaign operation. Local newspaper publisher Tom Allon has raised $234,000. Doe Fund founder George McDonald has declared, but has yet to report any fundraising numbers.