New York briefs

New app helps

calculate calories

There are apps to help one figure out what to cook for dinner and how to prepare it. Now, the city announced yesterday that the Health Department is offering an app that calculates how many calories you are eating.

The free CalCutter app, available for Android and iPhone, lets users plug in ingredients and the number of servings to figure out if they're eating too much. It also incorporates alternatives to high-calorie ingredients.

Conn. woman faces

fraud charges

A Connecticut woman has been charged with stealing $100,000 in New York City welfare benefits even though she was employed in her home state.

Acting New York State Welfare Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott said yesterday that Angie Colon was arraigned on charges of welfare fraud and offering a false instrument for filing.

The East Haven resident pleaded not guilty in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. Her bail was set a $5,000. Attorney information was not immediately available.

Prosecutors say Colon, 46, used a Manhattan address she never lived at to apply for the benefits from Medicaid and other programs.

They say she lived in Connecticut while she collected benefits from 2009 to 2012.

Bronx Zoo releases

salamanders

The Bronx Zoo has released 38 salamanders called Eastern hellbenders into streams in western New York.

The effort to help the species survive is a collaboration between the Bronx Zoo, the Buffalo Zoo and the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The DEC collected the eggs from the Allegheny River. They hatched at the Buffalo Zoo in 2009.

The hatchlings were raised at the Bronx facility's Amphibian Propagation Center.

The salamanders were returned last week to the area where the eggs were found.

Each hellbender was tagged with a microchip so their health can be tracked.

New York State lists the hellbender as a species of special concern.

Eastern hellbenders are also known as devil dogs, Allegheny alligators and snot otters. They measure nearly 2 feet in length as adults.

Compiled with

wire service reports