Apartment City

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has suggested the city remove the statue of Christopher Columbus near the southwest corner of Central Park, inciting a debate over the parameters of Mayor de Blasio ’s 90-day initiative to review “symbols of hate” on city-owned properties. At a Monday rally calling for the removal of a statue of J. Marion Sims, the surgeon who in the mid- 1800s performed gynecological exams on enslaved women without using anesthesia, Mark-Viverito also called on the city to remove the statue of the “controversial” Italian explorer. “I think that that has to be looked at and we have to look at history,” Mark-Viverito said during the rally, the Observer reports. “We have to look at it thoroughly. He is a controversial figure and I know that some may take offense to that but for many of us that come from the Caribbean islands, we see him as a controversial figure.” While Columbus is credited with encouraging European exploration in the Americas, many now see...

BARCELONA, Spain — The Latest on the Spain attacks (all times local): 5:15 a.m. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has asked people to pray for a young Australian boy who is missing after a vehicle attack on a popular Barcelona promenade that killed 13 people. Turnbull said Saturday that the boy's mother was badly injured and is in a hospital following Friday's attack at the Las Ramblas promenade . Turnbull says the boy's family is searching for him. He did not release the boy's name. Turnbull says: "All of us as parents know the anguish his father is going through, and his whole family is going through, as they rush to seek to find him in Barcelona." Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says four Australians were injured in the attack. ___ 2:35 a.m. Police in Catalonia say they have searched two buses in their hunt for violent extremists believed responsible for a pair of deadly attacks in the northwestern region of Spain. Police say on the...

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The Latest on the Spain attacks (all times local): 11:30 p.m. Police in the southern French city of Nimes have arrested a man unlawfully carrying a pistol into a train station, but say he is not linked to the attacks in Barcelona. After an evacuation and police operation at the train station Saturday night , the historic city quickly returned to normal, with police returning to their posts. A national police spokesman said the operation began when a passenger alerted police to a man with a weapon. Police quickly found and arrested him, said the spokesman, who was not authorized to be publicly named. The spokesman said the man has no apparent connection to Thursday's attacks around Barcelona, about 380 kilometers southwest of Nimes. French authorities increased checks of its border with Spain after the attacks, and one suspect is believed at large. ___ 10:50 p.m. Catalan regional police say they are mounting major road blocks throughout the northea...