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NY DailyNews reports a custodian shoveling snow outside an East Harlem school was slashed across the face by three teens in an apparently random attack early Wednesday, police said.

Edward Maldonado, 43, was clearing the sidewalk in front of Public School 102 on E. 113th St. when he was attacked at 3:51 a.m., police sources said.

Three males in their late teens asked Maldonado for the time and then pounced when he looked at his watch, police said. He was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital and needed stitches to close a deep cut on his face, cops said.

A teacher, who didn’t want to be identified, said the custodian was well-liked.

"He's going to be OK, thankfully. But he's got a really bad gash and got plenty of stitches," the teacher said. "It's terrible. It really is. We are all upset. And to think, this poor guy was just trying to clear snow so kids could get to school."

The teacher said cops told employees the attack might have been gang-related. 

"From what we were told, it sounds like it might be a gang initiation type of situation," the teacher said. 

An NYPD spokesman was unable to confirm the gang link.

Maldonado, who was outside with two other men, told cops he didn’t know his attackers.

“There were three grown men here, and these kids still went up and attacked him," the teacher said.

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Real ClearPolitics reports with the advent of this election year, the time to turn from generalities/playing field pieces to tracking specific races is fast approaching.
But before picking up my series on competitive Senate races (I wrote on three with relatively well-formed dynamics last year: Kentucky, Montana, and Arkansas), I do have a few more things to say about the playing field.

As a general matter, the journalistic narrative hasn’t yet caught up with the deterioration of the Democrats’ political standing since the early summer. Polls showing tight Senate races in New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Michigan are met with surprise and disbelief. But they are exactly what we’d expect to see given the president’s national job approval rating. I think they’re accurate barometers of the state of the races.

I noted at the end of last year that the Senate playing field in 2014 is substantially worse for Democrats than it was in 2010. If Democrats ultimately suffer losses in marginal seats at the rate they did in 2010, we’d expect them to lose nine to 10 seats. This time, I’m going to take a slightly different tack, and look at these races from the point of view of the president’s job approval.

It’s no secret that I think elections are largely referenda on the party in power. Jay Cost noted in late 2011 that the state-by-state outcomes in the 2004 election corresponded heavily to President Bush’s job approval in the state as measured by exit polls. Bush lost only four states where his job approval was positive, and won zero states where his job approval was negative. Going back to 1972, incumbents rarely win the votes of those who do not approve of them.

This correlation makes perfect sense for presidential elections, but in fact it extends beyond those races. As I’ve noted, presidential job approval is one of the best predictors of House election outcomes. In 2010, Nate Silver’s postmortem took this down to the individual race level, observing that the Democrats’ debacle might best be thought of as an “aligning election,” where right-of-center congressional districts elected Republicans while left-of-center congressional districts continued to elect Democrats (indeed, you could probably characterize the entire 2006-to-2010 series as “an alignment”).

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CNN reports said the Iranian foreign minister, "The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitment. And I'm not interested in that. I'm simply saying, why don't we all stick to what we agreed? Why do we need to produce different texts?"

CNN reporter: "Explain, then, to our viewers, what's different in terms of Iran's commitment to what you agreed to and what the White House says you agreed to?"
The Iranian responded, "Well, the terminology is different. The White House tries to portray it as basically a dismantling of Iran's nuclear program. That is the word they use time and again. And I urge you to read the entire text. If you find a single, a single word that even closely resembles dismantling or could be defined as dismantling in the entire text, then I would take back my comment."

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THE HILL - Target Corp. announced on Tuesday it would no longer offer healthcare coverage to its part-time employees.

In a blog post on the company’s website, Jodee Kozlak, the executive vice president of human resources, framed it as a positive development for part-time employees of the company.

“The Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time members may prefer,” she wrote. “In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.”

Kozlak added that at present, fewer than 10 percent of part-time employees that are eligible have actually enrolled in the company’s healthcare plan.

“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan,” Kozlak continued.

The company’s new policy goes into effect on April 1, 2014. Consumers have until mid-March to sign up for ObamaCare to be eligible for coverage this year.

Target said it has a transition program in place to “minimize any disruption and reduce confusion” for those who will no longer be eligible for the company’s healthcare plan.

The company will provide a $500 cash payment to employees losing coverage, as well as access to a benefits consultant.

Target stressed the company would not be reducing hours for any employees.

Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said employers have been dropping coverage for years, and that under the Affordable Care Act, employees have will have an alternative when that happens.

"Since the Affordable Care Act became law, health care costs have been slowing and premiums are increasing by the lowest rates in years," she said in a statement. "Employers have been dropping coverage for more than a decade, long preceding the Affordable Care Act. But now, unlike before, employees have the option of shopping in the Marketplace for quality, affordable coverage, where they may be able to qualify for a tax credit to help pay for the cost."

Still, the announcement could reignite criticism over President Obama’s pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it.

Many conservatives have warned that a wave of plan cancellations by private employers would be the next shoe to drop on the healthcare law./blockquote>

Via: Memeorandum