Council speaker Quinn to marry partner this weekend

  by SAMANTHA GROSSNEW YORK -- From the beginning, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's wedding plans have played out on a very public stage: Last year, she interrupted a news conference to announce the passage of same-sex marriage legislation and said it would make her own nuptials possible.

But the celebration itself will be mostly private. The media isn't invited on Saturday, when Quinn - the city's first openly gay council speaker - marries her longtime partner, Kim Catullo.

In the days leading up to the ceremony, happening a short walk from their home in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, City Hall has been a backdrop for a flurry of wedding preparations. Earlier this week, Quinn's father interrupted a news conference to hand her a bag containing a hair comb. A question-and-answer session with reporters was dominated by queries about the couple's plans.

Quinn acknowledged that, with four days to go until the ceremony, there was at least one important detail that she still had to take care of.

"I have not yet written my vows. But I have stressed over them a great deal," she said. "Kim has, she's way ahead of me on this."

Among the guests expected at the event are Gov. Andrew Cuomo - who pushed through the law that makes the wedding possible - as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.

Both women lost their mothers to cancer when they were teenagers, and they have established a women's cancer research fund in their honor in advance of the ceremony. Bloomberg, a billionaire who lobbied for the marriage legalization along with Quinn, has said he will make a donation.

The wedding comes 10 days after President Barack Obama voiced his support for same-sex marriage. After his announcement, Quinn - who is expected to run to replace Bloomberg next year and currently leads the pack of presumptive candidates in fundraising - said it made her feel that the president himself would be walking her down the aisle.

"It makes you stand a little taller. It makes you carry your head a little higher. It makes you feel better about who you are," she said.

Last June, tears welled in Quinn's eyes as she described how New York's same-sex marriage law would change things for her and Catullo.

"I was never sure this bill would pass," she said. "Even this morning as I stood in my apartment getting ready, I was so nervous, because I had begun to plan the wedding in my mind. And I thought, 'What if it doesn't happen again,' the disappointment will be so tremendous."

"It's hard to describe the feeling of having the law of your state changed to say ... what you know in your heart is true, that you are a full member of the state, and that your family is as good as any other family," she said.

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LIRR banning alcohol on overnight weekend trains

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- Forget the BYOB on the LIRR at the midnight hour.

Starting this weekend, the Long Island Rail Road is banning alcohol on overnight weekend trains out of Penn Station.

The pilot program is an effort to curb disorderly passengers and attacks on train crew members.

It will affect all trains out of Penn Station between midnight and 5 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Officials say attacks on LIRR train crews have been on the rise. Six attacks were reported last year, the highest in at least five years.

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'Super Moon' to fill sky this weekend

Saturday night, if the full moon, rising in the East, strikes you as unusually large, you'll be right. It will loom larger than usual. Though it's hardly a scientific term, it will be what's known as a "supermoon."

If the weather is clear where you are, it should be a sight to see. It happens because -- despite what our senses usually tell us -- the moon does not orbit us in a perfect circle. It follows a slightly elliptical path every month. On Saturday night at 11:35 p.m. EDT, say astronomers, it will come within 221,802 miles of us -- coincidentally about one minute before it's at its fullest. Two weeks later, on the opposite side of its orbit, it will be about 252,000 miles away.

The "supermoon" of March 19, 2011, seen from England. Ben Birchall/PA/AP Photo.

The result: When the moon is closest to Earth, it appears 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than when it's farthest from us.

Remember the numbers. They'll come in handy at the end of this story.

"The full Moon has a reputation for trouble," wrote Tony Phillips, an astronomer who maintains NASA's Science News site. "It raises high tides, it makes dogs howl, it wakes you up in the middle of the night with beams of moonlight stealing through drapes.

"If a moonbeam wakes you up on the night of May 5th," he added, "you might want to get out of bed and take a look."

But is there really anything "super" about it, beyond the spectacle? Astronomers say emphatically not. It may increase high tides in places by a few inches, but that's about it.

For all the folklore about full moons and mental illness ("lunacy"), social scientists have searched in vain for correlations between the moon and crime rates or admissions to psychiatric institutions.

So if the weather cooperates (check our weather page for a forecast), look outside -- fearlessly -- and drink in the moonlight. Many people say the best time to look is early evening, just as the moon is coming up over the horizon. You'll see the moon, pumpkin-colored, slowly rising in the East -- and, boy, will it look large.

It is, in fact, no larger in the sky than when it's overhead, but our minds fool us, perhaps because we have a reference point -- something on the horizon -- that we lack when it is high among the stars.

"For instance," said Phillips in an email, "when you see the moon in close proximity to a tree, your brain will miscalculate the distance to the moon, mentally bringing it closer (like the tree) and thus making it bigger. It seems so real, but this beautiful illusion is all in our minds."

We said it would be useful to remember the moon's changing distance from Earth, and here's why:

Two weeks from now, on the afternoon of May 20, the moon will be in its new phase, passing between Earth and the sun.

The result will be a solar eclipse -- one that will be visible in a strip of the Western United States, stretching southeastward from the Oregon-California border to Lubbock, Texas.

Annular eclipse of Jan. 15, 2010.

It should be a spectacular sight, visible from Reno, Albuquerque, Zion National Park and parts of the Grand Canyon -- but it won't be the kind of eclipse you most often see pictured.

Recall that on Saturday the moon, at perigee, will appear 14 percent larger? On May 20, it will seem 14 percent smaller -- in other words, not quite enough to block the sun.

The result will be what's known as an annular eclipse. A blindingly-bright ring of sun ("ring" in Latin is "annulus") will surround the black disc of the moon.

Still worth a trip if you're inclined, but a bit less "super" than other such sights. It's the price we'll pay for a big, bright "supermoon" this weekend.

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Subway track work throught NYC this weekend

A train arrives to the Astor Place station early Friday, Dec. 16, 2005 in New York. (AP Photo/ Dima Gavrysh)

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- The holidays are over and so is the break from subway work.

Maintenance was scaled back over the Christmas and New Year holiday, but it returns this weekend.

You can expect changes on 16 lines, especially the number 2, 3, and 4 trains.

LINK: MTA Track Work Guide

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Holiday weekend fun on Long Island

  Eyewitness NewsEAST MEADOW (WABC) -- Nassau County officials prefer residents to come here and safely watch fireworks, rather than set off them off at home.

They gave a preview of their holiday show on Friday morning.

The county will host "Celebrate America" on Saturday night at Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre.

It is free, and sponsored by TD Bank.

The gates open at 5:00 p.m. There will be two pre-show bands and fireworks at dusk.

Thirty-thousand people are expected to attend the fireworks show here at the Larry Chapin Lakeside theatre.

Now, only 8 to 10 thousand people can fit on the lawn. If want to view the show, you have to have a ticket, which you can get from any TD Bank in Suffolk or Nassau County.

It is also a busy beach weekend in Nassau County, so the county is also encouraging beach safety.

At this point, most beaches will be open. Piping Rock Beach Club in Lattingtown is closed to bathing due to elevated bacterial levels.

For up-to-date recorded information on beach closings and openings in Nassau County, call 516-227-9700.

(Copyright ©2011 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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Giffords visting hometown of Tucson this weekend

This, most recent photo of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot, was posted to her public Facebook page by her aides Sunday morning June 12, 2011. The photo was taken May 17, 2011 at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital, the day after the launch of Endeavour and the day before she had her cranioplasty.Giffords could be released from a rehabilitation hospital in Houston sometime this month, a top aide says, offering the latest indication that the Arizona congresswoman is making progress in recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. Woman in background is unidentified. ((AP Photo/Giffords Campaign - P.K. Weis))

  By AMANDA LEE MYERSPHOENIX -- Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was back in her hometown Friday, visiting Tucson for Father's Day weekend in her first time back to her hometown since she was shot in January.

"We've been dreaming of this trip for some time," Giffords' astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, said in a news release. "Gabby misses Tucson very much and her doctors have said that returning to her hometown could play an important role in her recovery."

Kelly said the trip "is sure to be very emotional" and hopes the news media respects their privacy. Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said the Democratic congresswoman traveled by private plane from Houston to Tucson with Kelly and one of his daughters and she'll spend Father's Day weekend with her family.

According to a Twitter posting from her staff, Giffords' plane landed in Tucson on Friday evening.

"Wheels down Tucson. Gabrielle & Mark looking forward to a beautiful weekend," the tweet said.

Giffords was released from a Houston hospital Wednesday, five months after being shot in the head during a Tucson political event. She had been in the rehab facility since late January, a few weeks after the shooting that killed six and wounded 13.

Giffords will make no public appearances and will grant no interviews during her visit to Tucson, according to Karamargin.

He said Giffords often speaks of Tucson and has said repeatedly, "I want to go home."

"Going home has been something that's been right at the top of her list," Karamargin said. "She is a child of the desert. This is where her heart is. There is no doubt that this will provide a boost in her recovery."

She has left Houston twice since she arrived there in January, first in late April for Kelly's space shuttle launch. When the launch was scrubbed for mechanical reasons, she returned to Florida again for the successful May 16 launch.

Giffords is now living in Kelly's home in League City, a town 26 miles south of Houston. She will continue outpatient therapy at the same hospital where she underwent rehabilitation.

Giffords, who was shot in the left side of her head and has been struggling to relearn how to speak and walk, will be assisted by a 24-hour home health provider, according to a statement from the hospital.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Weekend work on No. 7 subway line

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- The No. 7 train will be disrupted this weekend as the MTA deals with increased signal-related delays.

Recent delays have been caused by an aging signal system and water related issues in the East River tunnels.

Work is being done that will eventually eliminate some of the delays.

But from May 20 to May 23, there will be no subway service between Times Square and Queensboro Plaza on the 7 line.

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