Tag: new york

Trucking Group Asks Federal Court To Strip New York, California Of CDL Authority

The Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) has filed a court petition seeking to force federal regulators to decertify the commercial driver’s license programs of New York and California.

The petition, filed June 10, asks the court to review actions by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation and order the agencies to revoke the authority of New York and California to issue CDLs, escalating a dispute over immigration-related licensing policies and English-language proficiency requirements for commercial drivers.

SBTC argues that FMCSA has already determined both states were in “substantial noncompliance” with federal CDL regulations and therefore must be decertified under federal law. The organization contends that federal statutes require the transportation secretary to prohibit a state from issuing CDLs once such a determination is made.

The filing, made in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically challenges FMCSA’s April 16 final determination regarding New York and also seeks relief related to a Jan. 7 determination involving California.

SBTC alleges the agency improperly failed to act on a petition it submitted in May 2025 requesting decertification orders against several states, including New York and California.

Virginia crash cited in petition

The lawsuit comes less than two weeks after a fatal bus crash on Interstate 95 in Virginia that killed five people and injured dozens more.

According to the court filing, SBTC points to the May 29 crash as evidence that stronger enforcement of federal licensing standards is needed. The organization alleges the bus driver involved held a New York-issued CDL despite concerns about English-language proficiency.

The crash involved a bus operated by E&P Travel Inc. Federal investigators are examining the company’s connections to a broader network of bus operators in the Northeast, according to CBS News. The driver, identified by CBS News as Jing S. Dong of Staten Island, New York, faces five felony involuntary manslaughter charges.

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Serial killer Rex Heuermann sentenced to life in prison for murdering 8 women in Gilgo Beach killings

After pleading guilty to discreetly murdering eight women over 17 years in Long Island, Rex Heuermann has been sentenced to life in prison, marking the end of one of the largest serial homicide cases in New York history.

The lengthy investigation first began in 2010 during the search for Shannan Gilbert, who vanished from her home in Oak Beach. During the search, authorities discovered the remains of four other women along Ocean Parkway. In 2011, remains from more women were found, expanding the investigation into the closely watched and long-awaited criminal case.

The serial murders, which became the subject of numerous true-crime documentaries, books and podcasts, captivated public attention for years before the 62-year-old confessed in April to carrying out the nearly two-decade killing spree.

“Eight young women were aimlessly and brutually murdered,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said before the sentences were given. “The defendant has earned a maximum sentence in this case.”

After years of dead ends and investigative setbacks, the case remained unsolved until July 2023, when Heuermann was arrested in Manhattan and charged in the killings of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello. Prosecutors later broadened the case to include additional victims, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Sandra Costilla.

“There are no words I can say, but I am responsible for what was said in this room today,” Heuermann said on Wednesday, adding that, “The words I would say have no meaning and I’m going to leave it there at this time.”

Heuermann pleaded guilty in April to charges that he murdered seven women.

Under a plea deal, he also admitted responsibility for the killing of Karen Vergata in 1996, though he was not formally charged with her murder and did not receive a sentence for it.

After decades of waiting for justice, relatives of the women murdered by Heuermann faced the killer on Wednesday, berating him for his horrific crimes.

“You fill me with so much repugnance, I can’t stand it,” Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of Taylor’s, told Heuermann. “A million years isn’t enough. Nothing will ever make this right.”

JoAnn Mack, the mother of victim Valerie Mack told the killer, “Justice has been done, but it can’t replace what has been taken. She had dreams, and you took them all away from her.”

Heuermann had previously pleaded not guilty to all charges. However, extensive DNA evidence, cell phone records and other forensic findings led investigators to link him to all the victims.

Judge Timothy Mazzei did not attempt to conceal his disgust as he faced the killer in court.

“Mr. Hueurmann, as Mr. Tierney said, I know that you’re sorry that you got caught,” he said, referencing a comment from Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A Tierney. “I assume that you’re sorry for what you’ve done to your wife and children. Are you a little bit sorry for what you did to these poor innocent women? Eight women that you strangled to death, at least that we know of — are you at least a little bit sorry for that? Yes?”

When Hueurmann answered in the affirmative, Mazzei continued, “You’ve been described as a very big man, but you’re a disgusting and despicable small man, if you’re a man at all. And you’re a coward!”

After delivering multiple life sentences, Mazzei told court officers to “get him out of here.”

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The Wish List Of The New York City Council For The City Budget

The deadline for the New York City deadline for the first budget negotiation cycle is looming for June 30, 2026. The elephant in the china shop is how to close the city’s budget gap projected to reach into the multi-billions of dollars. Thanks to Albany’s bailout which mitigated the impending financial disaster, Mayor Zhoran Mamdani was able to avoid raising property taxes. Nonetheless, the City Council giddily advocates significant NEW spending initiatives. Taxpayers from New York State have facilitated Mamdani’s proposing a $124.7 billion dollar executive budget.

Will the Big Apple expand its Rental Voucher program? Currently the 2023 eligibility rules are in force, although some council members desire an expansion. The mayor already campaigned on expansion but dropped that promise when he realized the prohibitive costs. Any expansion would necessarily exceed the current almost $1.8 billion budget. This contentious issue promises to be a potential sticking point in budget negotiations.

Low income public transportation riders already enjoy a 50% discount, but some council members are proposing up to $135 Million dollar more to make those fares free. Were this initiative to be passed the standing $96 Million dollar would double. However, the IBO (Independent Budget Office) underscores that a Fair Fare expansion would still be cheaper than “Fast and Free” buses.

In what seems to many as counterintuitive, the council, charged with living within budget constraints, still envisions staff increases rather than staff reductions which would add $32 Million over the next three years.

In a point of contention, Mayor Mamdani had initially proposed to cut 100 positions for Parks Enforcement Patrol officers. The council, on the other hand, desires to employ 200 new officers which would raise the budget allocation by about $40 Million.

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Radical Woke Mount Sinai Hospital Exposed: DEI, Child Sex Changes & Epstein Ties Prioritized Over Patients

Consumer protection organization Consumers’ Research began a campaign Monday highlighting New York City-based nonprofit Mount Sinai Hospital‘s prioritization of what Consumers’ calls the hospital’s woke and political ideology as well as having what it says are questionable partnerships such as ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Executive director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild told The Center Square that “Mount Sinai is another example of a nonprofit hospital that has seemingly abandoned its core mission of patient care in favor of a radical political agenda.”

“The hospital has a history of prioritizing radical causes like DEI, child sex-change procedures, and climate activism, and has maintained a deeply troubling and disturbing relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, accepting donations and giving him special access to doctors and hospital resources,” Hild said.

“This behavior by nonprofit health systems like Mount Sinai should be investigated for supporting these political agendas at taxpayers’ expense,” Hild said.

Hild told The Center Square that “Consumers’ Research is exposing nonprofit hospitals for using taxpayer dollars and federal revenue streams and benefits to put politics over patients.”

“Taxpayers and elected officials need to be aware that health systems are misusing their resources and these practices need to be examined by lawmakers,” Hild said.

Mount Sinai media relations has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Included in Consumers’ Research’s campaign are a mobile billboard circling the Mount Sinai campus, a website, and “targeted digital around Capitol Hill.”

The mobile billboard displays statements such as Mount Sinai “performed over 130 sex change procedures on kids,” “provides transgender resources for 8-year-olds,” and has ties to Epstein.

Consumers’ Research’s website campaign goes further in depth, showcasing the hospital’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, transgender ideology promotion, climate activism and “questionable partnerships.”

According to the campaign, Mount Sinai operates an Office for Health Data, Outcomes, and Engagement Strategy “to promote health equity cultural awareness.”

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Gonorrhea Rates Are Soaring In NYC: Mamdani Rushes Free Chocolate Condoms To Citizens Of Big Apple!

So what’s the priority of New York City’s Mamdani administration these days?

FrontPage Magazine reported:

Gonorrhea rates in New York City have more than doubled in a decade and syphilis is ‘surging’ statewide. Mamdani’s Department of Health has responded to this crisis by rushing a free supply of lubricant and chocolate flavored condoms.

Beam me up, Scotty.

FPM quoted NYC Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Helen Arteaga as stating,

“Providing high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare services is a priority for the Mamdani Administration. Making safer sex products more accessible to the most affected and vulnerable communities is a critical public health need.”

Well, it’s good to have priorities. But are chocolate-flavored condoms safer than regular old garden-variety ones? I’m guessing not, but I couldn’t tell you from experience.

FPM again:

Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a Mamdani ally, explained that the free chocolate flavored condoms were necessary because “inequities persist among women, low-income households, and Black and Latino New Yorkers.

Women, low-income households, and black and Latino New Yorkers are adversely and disproportionately affected by a relative dearth of chocolate-flavored condoms? Is New York a den of iniquity inequity?

Unfortunately for virtue-signaling do-gooders, the free chocolaty condoms are coming from Karex, a Malaysian company that is apparently the largest manufacturer of condoms on Earth.

Why is this unfortunate?

According to The Telegraph, some Karex workers said they are put up in cramped and undignified conditions, with as many as a dozen housed in damp and unhygienic dormitories.

Workers at one site are allegedly granted just half of a steel bunkbed, with no mattress — and only have access to a filthy, broken toilet. And for these “amenities,” about 12 dollars a month is deducted from their wages. The Telegraph reported that one Karex employee said “sometimes poisonous snakes come in” to the dorms.

Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.

“Forget the crime! Forget the fact that the city is broke! Chocolate condoms for everybody!” does not seem like a winning slogan for Mamdani … but what do I know?

Ask not what you can do for the city, ask what Mayor Mamdani can do to — I mean for — you!”

I’m sure someone in the Mamdani administration will tout the mayor’s actions thusly: “These delectable prophylactics will be generously distributed, free of cost, to all genders with a penis … and to all those that love them! Mayor Mamdani is hard at work to make your lives better!”

Considering the shape the city is in, this may be the biggest cover up in the history of the Big Apple.

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NYC Erupted in Violence After Knicks Clinched First Title in 53 Years, 63 Arrested, 10 Cops Injured, School Buses Torched and Shooting in Times Square

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the New York Knicks ended a 53-year championship drought on Saturday night, defeating the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to claim the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

What began as jubilant celebrations across Manhattan quickly spiraled into widespread violence, with the NYPD reporting 63 arrests overnight into Sunday morning as crowds turned destructive in Midtown and Times Square.

Large crowds of tens of thousands of unruly fans and rioters gathered north of Madison Square Garden between Fifth and Ninth Avenues as the game concluded and after the final buzzer.

According to the NYPD, the groups refused to disperse, blocked major streets and avenues for hours, climbed light poles, traffic lights, scaffolding, and vehicles, lit fireworks in dense crowds, engaged in physical fights, and hurled bottles and other objects at police.

Much of the violence and chaos was captured on camera by independent journalist Nick Sortor, who was posting clips to X in real time.

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Lawmakers Consider Hiking Fees for Filling Prescriptions

Legislation that would potentially increase New York’s pharmacy costs by hundreds of millions of dollars annually is moving toward final passage in Albany’s end-of-session rush.

The bill would require the companies that process prescription drug claims on behalf of most health plans – known as pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs – to pay pharmacies minimum prices for drugs, including a dispensing fee of $10.18 for each prescription filled.

That represents a roughly 400 percent increase over current dispensing fees, which average about $2, which would add about $570 million per year to drug costs for health plans, employers and consumers, according to an estimate from the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents PBMs.

Sponsored by Assemblyman John McDonald of Albany County, a former pharmacy owner, and Sen. James Skoufis of Orange County, the so-called Patient Access to Pharmacy Act passed the Senate last week by a vote of 58-2.

In the Assembly, the bill moved through the Ways and Means and Rules committees on Thursday, setting it up for a possible vote by the full house before lawmakers adjourn for the summer, which is scheduled to happen Friday.

The Senate previously approved the legislation at the end of last year’s session, but it was never taken up by the Assembly.

The bill mirrors a regulatory proposal put forward by the Department of Financial Services in the fall of 2023 – but which the department dropped in the face of widespread opposition from insurers, employers and labor unions.

In response to that opposition, the bill’s sponsors amended the bill to exempt the “collectively bargained” health plans covering union members. It also does not apply to Medicare or the “self-insured” health plans offered by most large employers, which are exempt from state regulation by federal law.

As a result, the bill primarily targets the health plans purchased from insurance companies by small and medium-sized employers – where it will add to premium costs that are already among the highest in the U.S.

Critics have also argued that the mandate would apply to the state-run Essential Plan and Child Health Plus, although Skoufis said that had not been the intent.

The bill would not affect the state’s Medicaid health plan for the low-income and disabled, because it already pays a dispensing fee of $10.18 – which is the basis for the fee in the McDonald-Skoufis legislation.

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Trump Admin Shuts Down Mamdani’s Attempt to Meet with Foreign Leader

President Donald Trump’s administration has thwarted a planned meeting between two prominent democratic socialists.

According to The Washington Post, U.S. diplomats in the Colombian capital of Bogotá told Colombian officials that a planned meeting between Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City and leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro in New York this week would violate U.S.-imposed visa restrictions against Petro.

Colombian officials took that to mean that the U.S. might arrest Petro if he went ahead with the Mamdani meeting.

Petro’s visa restrictions stem from comments he made outside United Nations headquarters in September 2025.

“I ask all the soldiers of the army of the U.S. not to point their rifles at humanity,” the Colombian president said to a group of pro-Palestinian supporters. “Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity.”

“A visa is a privilege, not a right,” a State Department official told the Post. “Any individual’s U.S. visa is at risk of revocation if they visit America and outrageously implore U.S. soldiers to disobey orders of the duly elected president of the United States.”

Petro has also accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” for supporting Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump, meanwhile, called the democratic socialist a “lunatic who’s got a lot of problems, mental problems.”

The two presidents did have what Trump characterized as a “terrific” meeting in February.

Since then, however, Petro has reportedly irritated Secretary of State Marco Rubio by criticizing U.S. boat strikes in Latin America and the capture earlier this year of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

According to The New York Times, the Colombian president’s criticisms of the boat strikes in particular prompted sanctions from the U.S. Treasury. Federal prosecutors also launched an investigation into possible drug-trafficking ties.

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Ads in New York must now label AI-generated ‘synthetic performers’

Any advertisements in New York that feature artificial intelligence-generated people in place of actors will now be violating state law if they don’t clearly label that they have used a “synthetic performer.”

The law, signed in December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, went into effect Tuesday. Her office is calling it a “first-in-the-nation law” that will boost transparency at a time when it says AI generated performers are popping up across all forms of media, including on social platforms and in digital advertising.

Synthetic performers are defined under state law as “digitally-created media that appear as a real person.” The law applies to ads in any medium.

“In New York, we are setting the rules of the road instead of letting AI run the show,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement. The “simple, honest disclosure” required by the law “protects consumers, respects our creative workforce and keeps New York at the forefront of responsible innovation,” she said.

Ads that don’t “conspicuously disclose” that they have used a synthetic performer will be subject to a penalty of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for any further violations.

There are specific carve outs listed in the law to exempt ads for movies, television shows, streaming content, video games and other works that feature synthetic performers in the entire work. It also doesn’t apply to audio advertisements or ads where AI is solely used for language translation.

When the law was making its way through the state legislature last year, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and several other advertising organizations issued statements in strong opposition to the law.

The 4As, as the organization is better known, said in one blog post that it would hurt advertisers by “injecting compliance uncertainty into the advertising process, burdening brands (and their agencies) who advertise in New York and undermining creative and technological innovation.”

Other organizations, like the The New York State Broadcasters Association, said in public statements during the legislation’s journey to become law that they were relieved to see some of those carve outs that were created through amendments, but remained concerned about the broad definition of a synthetic performer. David Donovan, the president of the organization, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that local broadcast stations are ready to comply with the law.

The biggest supporter of the law was SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union that recently ratified a new contract with studios and streamers that they say provides further protections against synthetic performers.

The law is one of many proposed or enacted in several U.S. states with the goal of boosting job security for real humans or curbing the potential privacy and safety risks posed by AI. The existing state laws that have been passed include barring deepfakes in specific instances, limiting the collection of certain personal information and requiring more transparency from companies.

Just after Hochul signed the synthetic performers law in December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order pressuring states not to regulate AI. The move came out of fear that the patchwork of regulations across the states could impede AI companies’ growth and allow China to catch up to the U.S. in the AI race. Critics of the executive order argue it will allow tech companies to operate with little to no oversight.

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NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Announces Multi-Million ‘Investment’ in Gender Affirming Care, Weeks After Claiming City is in ‘Historic’ Budget Crisis

Back in April, New York City’s new Democratic Socialist (communist) Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared that the city was in the midst of an ‘historic’ budget crisis. He framed it as a very serious problem and even claimed that unless new sources of revenue were found, people would be denied various services.

Now, the mayor is announcing that his administration is making a $15 million ‘investment’ in providing ‘gender affirming care’ a term that is flowery language used to describe genital mutilation and the prescribing of hormones.

So which is it? Is the city really that broke, or is there really enough money to spend a cool $15 million on trans drugs and surgeries? And since when was it the responsibility of a city government to provide ANY of this to the people who live there?

Mamdani made the comments at a ‘Pride’ party at city hall.

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