The busy Northeast travel corridor ground to a halt when the huge storm slammed into New Jersey Monday evening. Train tunnels flooded, power went out, and forecasts of high winds forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights.
Travelers and commuters were forced to cobble together ways to get home, or stay where they were.

But by Wednesday, the region's massive network of planes, trains and buses was slowly restarting.

Flights resumed at airports, including two of New York City's three major airports. Limited subway service is expected Thursday in the city.

Major rail service in the region remained largely suspended, however. While some commuter lines are expected back Wednesday afternoon, Amtrak's Northeast Regional service between Newark, N.J., and Boston is suspended and so is Acela Express service for the Northeast corridor. No date is set for resumption of that service.

Air travelers stranded by Sandy are a little closer to getting home. There are limited flights at John F. Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International. The city's third major airport, LaGuardia, is still closed as authorities assessed the damage from the huge storm. Travelers hoping to fly out of New York are being told to check with their airline before heading to the airport.

Airports in Washington and Philadelphia re-opened on Tuesday.

FlightStats said the storm had caused more than 19,000 cancellations since it began, including 2,820 cancellations in North America on Wednesday.

Delta was resuming some flights at JFK on Wednesday. But other airlines, including American and Southwest, both said they won't resume New York flights until Thursday.

LaGuardia was another story. Several airlines said they hoped to resume flying there on Thursday. But airport authorities said they don't know yet when LaGuardia will reopen.

"There are a lot of contingencies before we can re-open at LaGuardia," Southwest spokesman Paul Flaningan said. "It's still barricaded at the front entrance, which makes drop-offs from taxis and buses difficult."

Airlines continued to waive fees to change tickets for flights to New York airports. Delta and United said that anyone who planned to fly there through Saturday could change their ticket. However, the re-booked travel still had to begin by Nov. 9, giving travelers a relatively narrow window to make their trip.

American's waiver was broader, covering New York tickets through Nov. 7, and allowing rebooked travel through Dec. 20.

Amtrak said on Wednesday that it has restored train service to Newark airport. But service to and from New York's Penn Station was still not operating because tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers are flooded.

Neighbors Lucille Dwyer, right, and Linda Strong embrace after looking through the wreckage of their homes in Breezy Point on October 31, 2012.
Dozens of families returned to the tight-knit community of Breezy Point on the western edge of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens on Wednesday to assess the damage. They were confronted with scenes of utter devastation, with many houses still smoldering.

Homes that did not burn had major flood damage, and houses on waterfront suffered wind damage, with some homes blown off their foundations and smashed together.

Of the 2,800 homes in Breezy Point, 111 homes were completely destroyed, an FNDY officials said Wednesday. And 20 homes had some level of fire damage.

Though there were only a few minor injuries reported among residents and firefighters, officials have not ruled out the possibility that there may have been fatalities in Breezy Point, said Joe Downey, FDNY chief of special operations, who was conducting search and recovery on Wednesday.

The cause of the inferno, to which more than 200 firefighters responded, remains unclear, fire officials said.

Linda Strong, 59, a school secretary who has lived full time in Breezy Point for 37 years, said she and her son sunk $400,000 to renovate their home. The renovation was finished in August 2011.

“I’m trying to be strong,” she said. “We wanted to build a bigger, nicer home.”

“We will rebuild again because we love the community,” Strong added.

She and her son, John Strong, evacuated on Sunday with just a few things because they believed they would be returning soon.

“I thought we’d have water damage. That’s it,” she said. “This is beyond, beyond what we expected.”

“This was my dream house,” she said, noting that she and her son saved up for 10 years to pay for the renovation.

The only thing they found and they rummaged through the charred remains of the house on Wednesday was one live plant.

“We had it bad but we didn’t lose anybody,” said John Strong, 36, an IT worker. “We’re trying to take it one step at a time.”

For Dave and Regina Hegarty, both 69, the memories go back even further. They live in Garden City, L.I., and have had a summer home in Breezy Point since 1978. Dave is a retired teacher and Regina is a retired school guidance counselor.

On Wednesday, they combed through the black pit of sludge where they bungalow once stood. All they could see was the outline of the foundation.

The couple met in Breezy Point when Regina was 16 and Dave was 17. They fell in love and eventually got married.

“It’s our roots,” Dave Hegarty said. “We raised our five sons here. They were lifeguards in the summer.”

Every year, they spent four months in Breezy Point. “It’s 4 months of good friends,” he said.

They recently restored the 1930s-style, one-story bungalow and vowed to rebuild again.

“We’re going to rebuild even if we have to do it by hand,” Regina Hegarty said.

Lt. Michael Scotko, 23, a volunteer firefighter in Breezy Point, has lived in Breezy Point his entire life and he was among those who responded to the fire.

“Everything was burning. It was like the apocalypse,” Scotko said. “The worst part of it was none of the fire hydrants worked.”

“We could see it burning for about an hour and a half before we even got here,” he said, noting the area was blocked due to high tides.

“This could have taken out all of Breezy.”

“Everything was burning around you,” Scotko said. And the waves were so high that, “anyone that tried to get out of their house would be swept away by water.”

“There were waves breaking against the houses,” he said. “It was just like total destruction watching everything burn.”

Kiernan Carly, 22, a volunteer firefighter and bartender, said his home was flooded but didn’t burn.

“It was a giant blaze. It looked like a war zone,” Carly said. “We were walking through 3 to 4 feet of water to get to the fire and try to find fire hydrants that had pressure in them.”

“It’s a mess now. But it will look beautiful in a couple of months,” he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. — That must have been the Princeton defense.

The Lakers can't put much of anything together two games into the season, failing to stop the Portland Trail Blazers a day after showing an extraordinary inability to score against Dallas.

The problem Wednesday was a lack of stops, the Lakers surrendering at will on the defensive end in a 116-106 loss to the Trail Blazers at the Rose Garden.

That they lost in Portland was about as surprising as the rain falling during the day. They are 4-17 here since 2002.

Former Lakers coach Phil Jackson used to blame the ever-present gray sky, saying it put everybody in a dour mood, but the Lakers were as pleasant and generous as could be on Wednesday.

Rookie Damian Lillard moved effortlessly through them for 23 points and 11 assists, up-and-coming forward Nicolas Batum had 26 points and Wes Matthews threw in 22 points for good measure.

"Defensively, we didn't do a good job," Lakers Coach Mike Brown said in a classic understatement.

It got worse for the Lakers a minute into the third quarter. Steve Nash left the game, trying unsuccessfully to hobble around the court after getting kneed in the lower left leg while turning to run late in the second quarter.

Nash, 38, has been durable despite his age, missing an average of 4.3 games a season since 2005. He basically spent the entire second half Wednesday in the locker room, getting treatment on his bruised leg.

"I couldn't plant on it or push off or decelerate," said Nash, who had two points and four assists after getting only seven points and four assists in his Lakers debut.

He said he hoped to play Friday against the Clippers. The Lakers, by the way, haven't started a season 0-3 since 1978-79.

There were blunders not necessarily connected with the Lakers, punch-line plays more suited for lottery teams.

Portland guard Sasha Pavlovic rebounded his own missed free-throw attempt in the third quarter and scored as Antawn Jamison, Dwight Howard and Jordan Hill watched in the lane. Bryant fumbled a simple drop-off pass out of bounds, uncharacteristically taking his eyes off of it.

Distracted? Maybe. Wavering under the crush of expectations? Possibly. Unable to put together a full game? Absolutely.

"That's the tough part about it," Brown said. "You see flashes of us moving the ball well, you see flashes of us cutting well, you see flashes of us passing well. Even defensively, at times, we're doing the right thing. We have to put it together for 48 minutes in order to be good in this league."

Right now, they're not very good in this league.

Portland fans loved it like they always do, beating the Lakers the equivalent of winning the Super Bowl up here. The crowd began the "Beat L.A." chants well before pre-game introductions and cheered gleefully as the scoreboard showed Lakers fans exiting in the final minute.

Funny thing, though, the Lakers' Princeton-based offense wasn't entirely bad, scoring 57 points in the first half and mustering some punch in the second half despite missing Nash.

Howard had 33 points, 14 rebounds and five assists. He also made 15 of 19 free-throw attempts a day after making only three of 14 from the line.

There were, however, an unacceptable 24 turnovers.

Bryant had 30 points and seemed irritated in the second half. He picked up a technical foul for arguing a non-call and could have easily earned another one late in the game for spiking the ball on the court after being called for a foul.

There won't be many jokes in the Lakers' locker room in the near future.

"It's going to be a little edgy because I'm not a very happy camper walking around here right now," Bryant said. "There's some things we have to shore up. We have to make sure we keep a sense of urgency."

The Lakers, not a happy bunch. The Clippers, eager to see them soon.

David Stern is in his final full year as commissioner of the NBA.
David Stern couldn’t wait to start packing a suitcase when he left his press conference last week, the one where he announced he’ll be stepping down as commissioner on Feb. 1, 2014.

“First I’m going to Miami, then I’ll be going to Brooklyn for the opener, then I’ll be at the Garden for the Knicks’ home opener, and then I’ll be going down to Memphis,’’ he said walking out of a 20th floor conference room in the St. Regis Hotel. “It’s a great way to start the season. I’m looking forward to all the stops.’’

But after Hurricane Sandy obliterated the New York area, affecting millions, Stern finally had to change his itinerary, along with the NBA schedule.

Stern doesn’t normally take orders. But when Mayor Bloomberg called Wednesday to say he thought that the league should postpone Brooklyn’s big night and the season-opener between the Nets and Knicks, the commissioner did the right thing.

The NBA didn’t object. Everyone knows it had to be done.

As of Wednesday morning, it bordered on incredible that the NBA was still willing to give the Nets what they had lusted for long before the schedule came out. It’s as if Stern was sitting out in Omaha, oblivious to what Sandy had done right below his nose.

Before the games were set, New York’s new team pushed hard for an opening-night extravaganza in its new home. And it targeted one team, and only one team, to have to come to Brooklyn.

For so long the No. 2 NBA franchise around here, and deservedly so, the Nets wanted to show everyone what they have in store for the Knicks, for years to come. An arena full of Brooklyn fans - real, live Nets fans - hating on James Dolan’s team.

There will be plenty of time for that. As for now, there are a lot of more important things going on in Brooklyn and other parts of the city than worrying about whether 16,000 basketball fans can make it safely to an NBA game, when just getting down the street these days takes an Herculean effort.

When it comes to promoting their new digs, Bruce Ratner and everyone else associated with the Nets have trumpeted the same sensible advice from the get-go: Don’t drive. Take the subway. After what Sandy did, it’s become, what subway? Thankfully, no one is going to have to figure out a way to get to a place no one wants to take his car to.

The Knicks get a bigger break here than the fans because they were no more ready to play a game that counts in the standings than Amar’e Stoudemire.

Don’t believe a word that Mike Woodson told you about his team’s preseason.  It was a disaster for the Knicks.

Woodson has a new starting backcourt that played all of one exhibition game together.  He never was able to get his starting five on the court for even a minute, in any of the six tune-ups. The Knicks aren’t just the oldest team in the NBA now. They’re already looking like one of the most brittle and they haven’t played a game.

Woodson saw Marcus Camby go down to a leg injury in the fourth practice of training camp, which was a turn-back-the-clock moment for Knick fans who remember Camby’s first, injury-plagued go-round in the Garden. He saw Tyson Chandler, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and his anchor on the back line, hobbled by a knee injury.

Then came Stoudemire’s latest physical setback.

Don’t the Knicks wish they still had that amnesty chip in their back pocket to make their starting forward disappear. But there will be no getting out from under his $100-million deal, with three more seasons to run, as he continues to break down at the ripe, old age of 29. He turns 30 in 15 days and already has had more injuries in his career than most players.

Woodson now has to play the first six weeks, if not longer, without Stoudemire, the only other player defenses really have to pay attention to, after Carmelo Anthony. He has to hope this undersized team, always vulnerable on its defensive glass, has achieved some sort of chemistry, although usually it takes more than talking about it to make that so.

By not having to play Thursday, the Knicks came out looking like winners, fleeting as it will be.

LeBron James and Miami arrive in the Garden Friday and there are no more hurricanes in the forecast to save Woodson’s team.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/lawrence-nba-good-call-bring-relief-knicks-article-1.1195321#ixzz2AxY9JI1e

Happy Halloween at this dad's house means not having loser candy. It means not being a mean monster to the Winnie-the-Pooh who takes too many treats. And  it means letting a tiny policeman use the bathroom.

Miley Cyrus has been working overtime lately to prove to the world that she's all grown up, from her engagement to Liam Hemsworth and seductive "Two and a Half Men" cameo to her chopped-and-dyed hair and ... shooting a video with a porn star?

That was the latest headline Wednesday (October 31) about the onetime Disney princess, but it's not as salacious as it might sound. The music video, for the dubstep track "Decisions" by Borgore, happens to feature Cyrus (who sings on the chorus) and the Israeli DJ's ex-girlfriend, adult-film star Jessie Andrews. Borgore wrote the song about Andrews, who won Best Actress at the AVN Awards this year, so when she popped up on set, of course the track's inspiration had to make a cameo.
"I was actually just coming to support," Andrews told MTV News on Wednesday. "I wasn't supposed to be in the video. They needed more girls, and they were like, 'Be in it! Be in it!' And I was like, 'No,' because the song is about me."

Andrews ended up relenting, but by the time she arrived on set around 2 a.m., Cyrus had already finished filming her scenes. Even if they didn't have screen time together, Andrews said she totally gets what Miley is going for with the wild new video, which premieres Thursday.

"I understand where she's coming from, trying to break away from that," she said of Cyrus' child-star past. "She doesn't want to be Hannah Montana anymore; she wants to be her own person. ... The way she's dressing, the hair, the music — everything is outside of the box. It didn't really surprise me."

Cyrus told Rolling Stone last month that the "Decisions" video shoot was quite the scene. "That sh-- was crazy!" she said. "[Borgore] walked into his hotel room, and it was people in the weirdest clothes you've ever seen. My fiance was dressed as a unicorn. We make out in the video, which is very funny. It's just the most random group. We walk in and we're like, 'This feels like a party,' so it's dope."

So what other craziness did Andrews witness on set? "There was a goat, there was a dog, there was a lot of little people, like six midgets," Andrews told us. "There was a huge Amazon lady and a lady with huge, huge boobs. Just a lot of crazy things and half-naked girls and cakes."

Borgore didn't know Cyrus before she recorded vocals for "Decisions," Andrews said, and he was just as surprised as Miley's fans were when she ended up on the dance track.

"He wrote the song just as a single for him, and he didn't know Miley was going to be on it until after the fact," she revealed. "They wanted to put a girl vocal on it, but they didn't know who. Both of them are with the same management, so they decided that she would be good for it. And they pitched it to her and she liked it, so she got on the track.

"It was really random, because he had put out the single and everything, and nobody could really tell who it was," she added. "And then one day, [ Miley ] randomly tweeted it. And he was like, 'I don't know if this is good or bad.' I was like, 'I mean, it's good. There's a lot of PR now about it and you're shooting a music video. So it's good.' "

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

The women spoke through a translator in the company of their attorney, Melanio Figueroa. Both asked that their identities remain obscured for fear of reprisals in the Dominican Republic.

When shown a photograph of Sen. Menendez, the women said they recognized him as the man with whom they’d had sexual relations at Casa de Campo this spring. Both said they were brought to the resort with the understanding they would be paid for sex.

Neither knew the identity of the man at the time. Both claimed to recognize him later as Sen. Menendez.

“He called him[self] ‘Bob,’” said one.

One woman said Menendez wooed her with compliments like “beautiful” before they slept together. The other woman recounted, with apparent bitterness, receiving from an intermediary only $100 of the $500 she had been promised.

“He lies,” she said of Menendez. “He says one thing and does another.”

According to the translator’s summary, Menendez “was nice at first, but then later he did not seem to care about her.”

Menendez, who is 58 and divorced, has represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat since being appointed to fill a vacancy in 2005. He is up for re-election on Nov. 6.

Asked about the allegations, Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright refused to answer any questions on the subject. “We’re not going to respond to a completely false accusation,” she wrote by email.

It is known that Sen. Menendez has been a regular visitor to the Dominican Republic. On at least one occasion, according to a news account, Menendez has been a guest at the Casa de Campo home of a friend and campaign donor named Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist and owner of an eye clinic in Florida.

Melgen has donated $14,700 to Menendez’s campaigns since 1993, with the bulk of it coming since he became a U.S. Senator, according to Federal Election Commission data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Melgen also appears to have lent Menendez the use of his plane on several occasions.

Menendez’s 2012 public schedule shows no events listed for Easter or the following three days. On Easter Sunday this year, aircraft records obtained by TheDC show that Melgen’s plane left Florida the morning of Easter Sunday, stopped at the Teterboro private airport near Menendez’s home in New Jersey, and flew on to the Dominican Republic.

Two days later it returned to the United States, from a private airport near Casa de Campo.

Skeletons, ghouls, and goblins … OH MY!!! Whether or not you celebrate the holiday, you know that the presence of scary decorations and tons of candy means that it’s Halloween time. Though the origins of Halloween have more to do with remembering those who have passed on, trick or treating and costumes of all types have become a fixture of Halloween traditions. One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the United States is purchased for Halloween. Ever since the late 1800s, Americans decided to make Halloween more about community instead of pranks and witchcraft. Around the country, there are community activities that will take place on Halloween to bring everyone together for a good time and a good cause.

On Halloween night visit any Chipotle Mexican Grill for Boorito. From 4 p.m. until closing, Chipotle will treat customers dressed in costumes to a burrito, bowl, salad, or order of tacos for only $2. All proceeds, up to $1 million, will benefit the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation which helps fund initiatives that support sustainable agriculture, family farming, and culinary education.

Also on Halloween night in Ash down, Arkansas, families can join the Ash down Police Department for a safe, fun filled night of games for kids 12 and under. Families can come out and meet McGruff the Crime Dog and see the police cars, fire trucks, and ambulance. In Torrance, California, you can visit The Haunted Shack on Halloween night for a good time. The admission to the haunted house is free, but donations are accepted and will be given to Susan G. Komen for the Cure for breast cancer research.

Here in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana the Fifth Annual Zombie Walk will take place at Shreveport’s Downtown Festival Plaza. Last year was its biggest and most successful with 600 event goers. The four-hour long even allows attendees to participate in a Zombie Tattoo Contest, meet and greet with horror authors Joe McKinney and Rhiannon Frater, listen to great music by The Moulin Dudes, enter a costume contest, and so much more. The only thing that attendees are asked to bring is a non-perishable food item to donate to the Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana. In 2010, the Zombie Walk raised almost 900 lbs of food for needy families. Also here in Shreveport, many schools and churches are having various festivals or carnivals where there will be plenty of food to eat and games to play for the whole family. Another event that my church and many other churches and schools are participating in is Trunk or Treat. During Trunk or Treat, children will be able to go car to car and collect candy as opposed to going house to house which isn’t as safe as it used to be.

Whether you’re into blood and guts, or butterflies and fairies, Halloween is supposed to be fun and safe for the whole family. It’s not every day that you get to be anyone or anything and no one will call you crazy. Though Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday, I do enjoy the imagination and fun behind it. Halloween is a time when you can let your imagination run wild and it’s perfectly alright. Last year, my daughter was a Halloween Fairy Princess. I’ve never heard of a Halloween Fairy Princess, but it’s what she imagined and the costume that we created was pretty amazing and creative. This year, let your imagination take the wheel ... if only for one night.

Some have been pushing for famous Christian and virgin Lolo Jones to start dating famous Christian and virgin Tim Tebow, but that relationship hasn't come to fruition (pun intended) so here we are, and TMZ caught Tim Tebow out on the town with his new girlfriend.

Tim Tebow and Camilla Belle showed up at Latitude 30 in Jacksonville, Florida on Tuesday night. An arcade-style venue, it was perfect for a relatively chaste outing; the couple bowled and partied.

The couple was somewhat affectionate throughout the evening, holding hands and touching. There were no reports of out-and-out Kristen Stewart / Rupert Sanders style making out, however.

It is unclear when the couple met, but Tebow and Belle both attended the "Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2012 in New York City (shown above).

Camilla Belle has a history with virginal celebs. She once dated Joe Jonas, but the pair split in 2009.

Tebow is in Jacksonville, Florida during the New York Jets' bye week. Although it's been rumored that the Jets might trade Tebow to the Jacksonville Jaguars before the NFL trade deadline on Thursday, that's certainly not the only reason Tebow could be in Florida. After all, Tebow went to the University of Florida and grew up in the Jacksonville area.

That said, because of his roots, a trade might make a ton of sense PR-wise, but perhaps not football-wise. A recent SI poll said Tebow was the most overrated player in the NFL.