While moving to New York City may not automatically increase your life expectancy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that New Yorkers, on average, are living longer than ever before, and longer than people anywhere else in the country. A chief reason for this higher life expectancy, officials say, is the city’s efforts to ensure more people get tested and treated for HIV.

According to the report, from 2000 to 2009, the life expectancy for babies born in New York City increased from 77.7 to 80.6 years, whereas the national rate increased from 76.8 to 78.2 years. Additionally, the New York City life expectancy at age 40 increased from 39.5 to 42 years, while the national average increased from 38.9 to 40.1. And at 70, the average life expectancy in New York City went from 15.4 to 16.9 years, while the national average only increased from 14.4 to 15.1.

So why the better numbers in New York City? READ MORE

The services available to me in NYC are amazing.

kaiserinderunterwelt-deactivate:

It seems like just yesterday when we reported on this “occupation” of Wall Street, whose goal was to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades, and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” At the time, we naïvely suggested that they had “better find a slogan, fast,” but we’ve since learned that demands are overrated, and by the measure of that initial goal, the movement has been a success. To celebrate the two-month anniversary of the occupation, the movement is planning to shut down the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning and “throw a block party the 1% will never forget.”

The protesters plan on ringing the “People’s Bell” instead of the trading floor bell, “and initiate a street carnival in which we rebuild and celebrate the neighborhoods that the Wall Street economy has destroyed.” Crane’s reports that the event is being organized with “more than a dozen unions and community groups,” and assuming there aren’t mass arrests in front of the NYSE, demonstrators will then fan out across the city at various transportation hubs, holding public assemblies where people can talk about their communities’ needs. All of this will end in “a rally at Foley Square and a march over the Brooklyn Bridge.”

This is probably the most ambitious event planned since the occupation itself, and it’s set to begin at 7 a.m. on November 17 in Zuccotti Park. The last time we heard that the protesters were throwing a “party,” we witnessed police ramming scooters into crowds, protesters being hit with batons, and a demonstrator getting punched in the face by a senior NYPD officer.