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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – It is not just gays who are cheering New York’s law legalizing gay marriages that passed over the weekend. The state’s tourism industry is also applauding the move, with many advertising gay marriage specials.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to launch “NYC I Do,” a campaign selling the city as a premier gay wedding destination. Specials are already spreading across the state. The Le Parker Meridian has a “Love has No Boundaries/Born This Way” wedding package.

A report in May from the New York’s Senate Independent Democratic Conference estimated that 21,309 resident gay and lesbian couples would get married over the next three years, and the state would earn nearly $400 million during that time from gay and lesbian couples getting married in the state. That total included tourism, wedding bookings and state licensing fees.

The law goes into effect on July 24.

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Columbia, MO, United States (AHN) – Sparky’s Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Missouri, created quite a buzz by selling out of its first batch of cicada ice cream last week even before it officially went on sale. However, health officials have clipped the retailer’s wings and the first batch was also the last.

Sparky’s last Wednesday experienced a rush from customers looking for cicada ice cream, but by Thursday the rare batch was off the menu. Now area health officials are telling the retailer to not make any more of the dessert comprised of cicadas covered in brown sugar and chocolate.

Like much of Missouri, Columbia is swarming with the pest that arrives every 13 years.

Sparky’s employees had gathered the bugs, removed their wings and then boiled the insects. However, there is no clear recipe in the city’s food code on how to safely prepare the insects for consumption.

A sign on the door of Sparky’s now tells customers to come back for the cicada ice cream in 2024.

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Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has joined a prominent law firm that will draw on his two decades as the city’s top executive.

Daley, 69, will serve as counsel for Katten Muchin Rosenman, which has offices in the city, as well New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and London.

The firm will use his “vast knowledge, experience and relationships globally to contribute to [its] continued growth,” according to a statement. The Democrat will not be part of work involving the city and public agencies.

Daley served as Cook County state attorney and state senator before becoming mayor. He surprised many when he announced his retirement last September after 22 years in office, the longest of any mayor, including his father. He had a choice of several law firms but opted for Katten, a firm recognized as one of the best for women and gays.

“They have an innovative yet practical approach to helping clients accomplish their goals, and they are expanding globally,” the former mayor said in a statement. “The firm also has a demonstrated commitment to giving back to the community, which is important to me.”

“We are honored that Mayor Daley has chosen to join Katten,” said Vincent Sergi, national managing partner for Katten. “In joining our firm, he clearly recognizes what we have accomplished and that we are poised for significant growth nationally and internationally. His advice and counsel will be invaluable.”

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San Diego, CA, United States (AHN) – The search for a missing passenger of a cruise ship was set to resume Wednesday off San Diego .

A 65-year-old woman was last seen aboard the Celebrity Millennium Monday night. She was reported missing the next day after passengers were checked by customs in San Diego.

The Coast Guard used two aircraft on Tuesday to search a 175-mile area from the California coast to the Mexican city of Cabo San Lucas, where the ship departed over the weekend.

The name of the missing woman has not been released. The FBI is investigating her disappearance.

Celebrity Cruises, the operator of the 965-foot Millennium, has not issued a statement.

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MOMBASA, Kenya (IRIN) – When police in Kenya’s coastal tourist city of Mombasa conduct night raids, it is not unusual for a large number of sex workers arrested to be under 18.

The government faces a struggle to end a trade that many young girls see as a fast way out of poverty and into a more glamorous life.

Munirah* spends her days looking for customers at the city’s Kenyatta Public Beach. Just 15, she already has one child and is the sole breadwinner for her household.

“My widowed mother lost both her hands while working at a steel processing factory in Mombasa, forcing me to do what I am doing,” she told IRIN/PlusNews.

Munirah says she has been selling sex for six months and has already slept with several men, mainly tourists. Most of her clients prefer sex without a condom. When asked if she was aware of the risks of HIV, she shrugged and admitted she had never been for an HIV test.

According to Grace Odembo, a field coordinator with the NGO, Solidarity with Women in Distress, SOLWODI, many of the girls on the streets have limited formal education and therefore little chance of gainful legal employment.

She said “beach boys” – young men who hang around the beaches – acted as pimps for tourists seeking young girls and were paid handsome commissions, fuelling the cycle of child sex work.

“This large number of small girls you see loitering along the beaches looking for wazungu [white men] and even those engaging in legitimate businesses such as selling curios… they fall prey to beach boys who [tell] them they’ll be introduced to perfect rich suitors, only to have them end up in the arms of sex pests instead,” Odembo said.

According to a 2006 study by the government and the UN Children’s Fund, as many as 30 percent of teenage girls in the coastal towns of Diani, Kilifi, Malindi and Mombasa were involved in casual sex work. More than 10 percent of girls began transactional sex before the age of 12.

The study also found that 35.5 percent of all sex acts involving children and tourists took place without condoms.

In 2004, Kenya introduced the “Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism” to create awareness and prevent commercial sexual exploitation of children. However, the code seems to have done little to deter tourists seeking sex with minors.

Members of Kenya’s tourism sector say poverty is the main reason young girls turn to sex work, and why it is so difficult to fight the phenomenon.

“The parents, most of whom happen to be poor, instead encourage their daughters [to sell sex] so as to supplement their family earnings,” said Titus Kangangi, chairman of the Kenya Association of Hoteliers. “In many cases, a guardian sides with the accused whenever sexual abuse charges are brought.”

Out of court settlements are the norm in such cases, with tourists paying off families of young girls to avoid jail terms.

Action needed

Tourism Minister Najib Balala told IRIN/PlusNews it was important to rid the coast of its reputation of a haven for child sex tourism.

“This embarrassing tag must be dealt with right from the community level; it is a cartel that needs so much attention if we have to win,” he said. “It has cost the region and country credible tourists and investors, who now see the country as a sex destination.”

Balala said the government was putting more effort into adhering to the code of conduct by cancelling the business licences of establishments allowing tourists to check in with underage girls.

SOLWODI counsels young women and offers alternative incomes through microfinance loans. However, its resources are limited and for many girls, the small loans from NGOs are no match for the income they earn from wealthy tourists.

Poverty is key

Odembo said the government needed to be more vigilant in keeping young girls off the streets. “The government needs to come up with enough rescue centres within the region,” she said. “They should also get to the bottom of why a child found loitering in the beach isn’t attending school.”

According to James Weru, programmes director for the NGO, African Pro-poor Tourism Development Centre , tackling poverty is key to ending child sex tourism.

“Tourism is one of Kenya’s biggest income earners, but less than 20 percent of this income trickles down to local economies and as a result, locals remain very poor,” he said. “The government needs to spread the income out to benefit the locals so that there is less temptation to go into sex work.”

He noted that it would also be important to enforce adherence to the code of conduct and to back this up with serious legal consequences for defaulters.

“We also need to carry out education for tourists and ensure that we are getting the right kind of tourists,” Weru added. “Many governments have lists of paedophiles who are blacklisted from entering their countries, but we have no such measures in Kenya.”

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*Only one name used to protect the child’s identity

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Toronto drivers who are issued parking tickets could dispute the charges through email or fax, instead of being required to settle the ticket during daytime at overcrowded city offices.

However, the new service launched last week applies only to parking meter violations, said Toronto City Parking Operations Manager Anthony Fabrizi. All the complaining motorists have to do is email or fax a copy of payment.

The new policy is expected to decongest the four locations where drivers with motoring violations have to pay since 40,000 of 600,000 parking meter tickets or 7 percent of tickets issued yearly are not actual violations. These are instances when the receipt was not visible to the parking fee collector or the driver inadvertently brought the receipt with him.

For other parking violations, the motorist must follow a four-cumbersome procedure which involves filling up forms, filing a notice, scheduling a trial date and appearing in court. Toronto drivers have complained about this tedious procedure, which leads some motorist to temporarily ignore parking tickets they receive until they renew their licenses and pay instead the total amount due, including penalties, rather than spend hours waiting in line to pay or dispute the ticket.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – The Ontario government approved Wednesday a law that banned Toronto Transit Commission works from striking by declaring the firm as an essential service.

The province’s legislature approved the request of Toronto by a vote of 68 to 9.

The law’s passage came at the time that the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113′s contract with the TTC lapses Thursday midnight.

ATC Local 113 President Bob Kinnear warned Toronto not to bully their workers while the union and TTC sit down to negotiate a new collective contract. Talks are going on between the two sides, but the union and the transit have yet to place their offers on the negotiating table.

Toronto pushed for the strike ban because previous job walk offs have cost the city’s economy $50 million daily, while making life difficult for 1.5 million TTC riders.

At the same time, Ontario will allow Toronto to push through with a $12.4-billion project that would fund the construction of two extensions to Toronto’s Sheppard subway.

Upon construction, the LRT under Eglinton Avenue would be the longest all-new subterranean transit lit built in Canada since the 1960s which would connect the city’s midtown district with distant suburb neighborhoods in the east and west.

The $12.4-billion cost is broken down into $8.2-billion for Eglinton line and the cost of replacing the aging Scarborough Rapid Transit elevated train with LRT technology, and $4.2-billion for the expansion of the Sheppard subway.

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Israel TML – Attempting to curb the flight of Palestinian Christians from Jerusalem, the city’s Latin Patriarchate is taking an unusual role in developing real estate projects that will provide affordable housing to its flock and others.

The church recently obtained building permits for 72 housing units to be built in the Beit Safafa neighborhood of southern Jerusalem on land purchased by individuals from the Al-Alami and Al-Husseini families. Last November, 68 Christian families entered their new homes in the Al-Shayah neighborhood on the Mount of Olives, in another project supported by the church.

Although the city is filled with churches, monasteries and other Christian institutions, its Christian population has been in a freefall. They numbered 31,000 in 1948, but today only 15,400, or just 2% of the city’s population, identify themselves as Christians, according to statistics published by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) on Christmas Eve.

“The Beit Safafa project is intended for church employees,” Msgr. William Shomali, auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “We aren’t building a Christian ghetto there; even Muslims have encouraged this project because they realize that we are a small minority that needs to preserve itself.”

While the Christian population in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East has been in decline for decades, Jerusalem presents a special problem. The city has limited room to expand, putting land at a premium and raising the cost of housing. The Israeli planning bureaucracy makes getting approvals for construction a slow and cumbersome process.

Shomali said he didn’t believe that Christians received preferential treatment from Jerusalem’s municipality, adding that zoning for the project began 15 years ago. He downplayed the distinctly Christian character of the project, saying the Latin Patriarchate was willing to facilitate purchasing groups from all segments of Palestinian society.

“Obtaining a permit is much easier for groups than for individuals,” he said. “I encourage all Palestinians to form such groups, and we will help them.”

Shomali insisted the church’s involvement was limited to coordination between the buyers, providing lawyers and engineers for the project. Funding, he said, was provided entirely by the buyers who take out loans from the Arab Bank, a Jordan lender that operates in the West Bank, never from church funds.

Rula Shehedeh, a 22-year-old Christian resident of the A-Tur neighborhood of Jerusalem, said housing was unaffordable for both Christians and Muslim youth in Jerusalem. Muslims often refuse to rent their homes to Christians, she said.

“To buy a house you often need your parents’ assistance,” Shehedeh told The Media Line. “Christian monasteries, such as Al-Faji on the Mount of Olives, sometimes fund building projects for Christians within the monastery confines.”

Hanna ‘Issa, who oversees Christian affairs in the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments, bemoaned the flight of Christians from the Palestinian territories.

“The emigration of Christians from Palestinian land has become a disconcerting phenomenon in recent times,” ‘Issa told the London-based Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. “Recent statistics indicate that 600 Christians emigrate annually from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.”

Bishop Shomali said it was initially his idea to help Christians purchase homes in Jerusalem and that the church gradually came to support it. He added that the main problem facing Jerusalem Christians wasn’t unemployment, but rather the high price of land in the city.

Hana Bendcowsky, director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations (JCJCR), said that previous building projects were undertaken on church land in Jerusalem, with new buildings rented out to young couples for cheaper than market prices.

“The Latin Patriarchate owns buildings in the Old City, which it rents out, and the Lutheran Church developed its property on the Mount of Olives,” Bendcowsky told The Media Line. “It’s hard to tell what will keep Christian families from leaving the city, but it’s certainly helpful when you have somewhere to live.”

As 2010 came to a close, Pope Benedict XVI took the opportunity to acknowledge the plight of Middle East Christians, pointing the finger at Israeli occupation as the main reason for the flight of Christians from the Holy Land.

“[Attacks against Christians] spread fear within the Christian community and [create] a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life,” the pope said. “The Israeli occupation is making their life difficult and the Israeli occupation is responsible for the declining of number within the Christian community.”

Bendcowsky said Israel’s security barrier, which cut off some Palestinian neighborhoods from Jerusalem, contributed to the price increase in neighborhoods, which were left within the city’s municipal boundaries.

“Neighborhoods such as Beit Hanina and the Old City, with high Christian populations, have seen a huge price increase over the last 10 years,” Bendcowsky said.

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Boston, MA, United States (AHN) – Boston Properties purchased Wednesday the landmark John Hancock Tower for $930 million.

The 62-floor glass skyscraper, located at the city’s Back Bay, was one of the first prized buildings to flounder when the property boom ended in 2008.

The edifice was initially purchased at a foreclosure auction 18 months ago by Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners for $660.6 million. That was about 50 percent off the building’s price in 2006.

Boston Properties paid Normandy and Five Mile $289.5 million cash and assumed $640.5 million in debt.

A founding partner at Normandy’s described the resale of the Hancock tower as a combination of real estate genius and capital power.

Real estate experts said the deal indicates the growing optimism in the industry as commercial buildings begin to recover their value and investors seek good buys that will provide an equally good cash flow.

The Hancock Tower, built in 1975 and with 1.7 million square feet of space, is considered a benchmark of the boom and bust cycles of the real estate industry.

Months prior to the merger of John Hancock and Manulife Financial of Canada, the former sold the tower and three other properties in 2003 for $926.8 million to Beacon Capital Partners.

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Montreal, Quebec, Canada (AHN) – Environment Canada admitted it was way off the mark when it released its weather forecast for Quebec.

The weather agency estimates it made a 1,000 percent miss when it said Quebec residents should expect just 2 to 4 centimeters (0.78 to 1.6 inches) of snow on Monday.

However, by Tuesday afternoon up to 25 cm (9.8 inches) of snow had blanketed Quebec City and there were more coming.

Vehicles and fire hydrants were buried by the snow, while in Montreal long lines of travelers were waiting for trains and buses Monday evening.

A meteorologist of the agency said they use a tool called numerical guidance that simulates weather patterns.

He said the guidance is not capable of picking up fine details of the weather pattern, leading to a low snow volume forecast. He added Quebec’s first snowstorm had a very unusual weather pattern that caused the agency to miscalculate snow volume.

Although city crew were clearing streets and sidewalks, officials said it could take five days to remove the heavy snowfall.

Another city that struggled with heavy snowfall was London in Ontario, where over 100 cm (39.4 inches) of snow fell in the past two days. It is just a few centimeters away from the snow that fell in the city from December to March.

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