Tag: new york

New York Parents Furious as State-Mandated Electric Buses Leave Kids Without Heat in Frigid Temperatures

And the (electrical vehicle) hits just keep on coming.

Just a day after car manufacturing giant Ford Motors announced that it was eating a sizable $19.5 billion bullet for putting too many of its eggs into the EV basket, a WIVB-TV report is pouring even more cold water on the left’s EV craze.

As New York shifts to meet a new statewide mandate requiring all purchased school buses to be electric, parents have already identified a significant issue — especially in the rather chilly Empire State.

According to WIVB, parents “in the Lake Shore Central School District are speaking out, claiming some bus drivers are turning the heat down, or off completely, in an attempt to conserve battery life on their electric school buses.”

The report adds: “The kids are coming home saying their bus is freezing cold and the parents are giving them hand warmers.”

The key issue at hand is that the heating system in the buses draws from the same electrical power source the bus itself relies on.

Apparently, every single furious parent that WIVB spoke to was able to cite at least one report of the buses breaking down.

“The bus broke down on route,” one parent told the outlet. “They deployed a substitute bus, and the bus was more than 30 minutes late. My son stood outside for over 35 minutes waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming. Some of those kids are on there for upwards of a half hour or more while the bus makes its route.

“There’s no reason that the kids should freeze for all that time.”

And that parent is 100 percent correct. There is no reason kids should freeze en route to school.

But there is a reason why these kids are freezing: the EV-obsessed left and Democrats.

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Antisemitic Social Media Posts Force Mamdani Appointee to Resign

Zohran Mamdani hasn’t even taken office, yet his administration is already showing signs of trouble.

On Thursday, disturbing antisemitic comments shared online by Mamdani appointee Catherine Almonte Da Costa, set to step into the role of Director of Appointments, resurfaced, causing a firestorm.

The vile rants included comments about “money-hungry Jews” and saying the Far Rockaway train “is the Jew train.”

The Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey shared Da Costa’s posts and demanded answers from the Mamdani administration.

The group said on X, “Mayor-Elect Mamdani has announced Catherine (Cat) Almonte Da Costa as his Director of Appointments, tasked with ‘bring[ing] top talent into this administration.’”

“Her social media footprint includes posts from more than a decade ago that echo classic antisemitic tropes and otherwise demean Jewish people. Tweeting about ‘Money hungry Jews’ is indefensible.”

“We appreciate Da Costa has relationships with members of the Jewish community, but her posts require immediate explanation — not just from Ms. Da Costa, but also from the Mayor-Elect.”

“Vetting the appointment of city leaders will be Ms. Da Costa’s responsibility and the Jewish community deserves to know:

1) Were these comments previously identified by the Mayor-elect’s team? If so, why were they excused?

2) What will be the policy of the new Administration if comments like these are discovered during the vetting process?”

The organization shared screenshots of Da Costa’s tweets, which remained up until Thursday, when it appears she deleted her account.

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“Catholic” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Moves to Legalize State-Sanctioned Suicide

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is moving the Empire State toward legalizing medical-assisted suicide, rebranding it as “medical aid in dying.”

You don’t “aid” dying. Dying happens on its own. The state is approving of the intentional ending of human life.

In an op-ed published by the Times Union, Hochul made clear that she intends to sign the so-called Medical Aid in Dying Act, which would allow terminally ill patients with fewer than six months to live to receive drugs designed to “speed up the inevitable.”

Supporters describe the proposal as “compassionate.” Opponents describe it far more bluntly: state-sanctioned suicide.

In her op-ed, Hochul attempted to wrap the legislation in lofty language about America’s founding principles, claiming that “limited government and broad individual rights” somehow justify empowering doctors to help patients end their lives.

She framed the issue as one of “bodily autonomy,” placing assisted suicide alongside abortion, LGBTQ ideology, and other far-left priorities New York Democrats have aggressively pushed for years.

For the modern Left, “choice” is the ultimate moral trump card, even when that choice involves ending a human life.

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Four times as many illegals in NY prisons than their share of population

New data shows that in the state of New York, a self-designated sanctuary state, illegal immigrants make up only 3.38% to 4.15% of the state’s population. Yet, when compared to the number of illegals who are incarcerated, they are overrepresented in prison and jail populations by a factor of roughly 3 to 4 times.

Furthermore, the Empire State has, according to the Department of Homeland Security, released 6,947 illegal immigrants since January 20 of this year, while still holding roughly 7,100 such individuals in its prisons and jails. These incarcerated illegal aliens account for approximately 14% of the total prison population of approximately 50,803, despite comprising only 3.20% to 3.38% of the state’s overall population of about 19.99 million.

DHS: “The worst of the worst” 

This results in an overrepresentation factor quadruple their demographic share. The state also has an attitude of reluctance toward sharing immigration status and therefore, these estimates are conservative. 

The released 6,947 illegal immigrants were convicted of severe offenses, including 29 homicides, 2,509 assaults, 199 burglaries, 305 robberies, 392 dangerous drug offenses, 300 weapons offenses, and 207 sexual predatory crimes. 

Meanwhile, the current inmates with active ICE detainers include 148 convicted of homicide, 717 for assaults, 134 for burglaries, 106 for robberies, 235 for dangerous drugs, 152 for weapons offenses, and 260 for sexual predatory acts. 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has characterized these individuals as encompassing “hundreds of murderers, hundreds of sexual predators, drug traffickers, the worst of the worst.”

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HS Senior Escorted from School for Following Doctors’ Orders and Skipping Vaccine Booster

A high school senior in a western New York school has been banned because she did not get a vaccine booster that causes her to have serious side effects.

Depew High School senior Kayci Rae was escorted out of school on Oct. 16 because she did not get a meningitis booster shot, according to WKBW-TV.

“I just sit and scroll, there’s really not much else I could do,” she said. “It’s more emotional with it being my senior year. I feel like I’m shunned from Depew.

“They wouldn’t let me say goodbye to teachers, they wouldn’t let me go into the classroom,” Rae said. “I was in tears. It was hard, it was truly devastating, honestly.”

She is now in limbo, because the email she used to connect with the school was recently disabled.

“She had leg pain,” Andrea Billi, Rae’s mother, said. “You know, when you’re younger, having growing pains? That’s what we thought, then it progressed. Her legs will turn purple and go numb.”

Kayci’s aunt Shannon told WBEN-AM that at first, “We kind of almost ignored it, because we were like, ‘Is [she] just trying to get attention for it?’ But then she started showing us her legs when she would get these flares, her legs started to mottle. I don’t know if anybody knows what that is, it’s almost like a marbling of your skin, and essentially it’s a vasospasm of your legs. So her legs would blanch, turn colors, and she would get this pain.”

“It’s disabling for her,” Shannon said, indicating the problems have not gone away.

“She’s had her friends give her piggyback rides because her legs would literally hurt her. There was a time where she collapsed at her softball game, which the school nurse was her softball coach and her softball coach witnessed all of this,” she said.

“And she was in softball two, three years ago, and she would actually have to sit out mid-game because her pain would start to flare from the high intensity activity. And her teammates would be there rolling their bats on her legs,” Shannon said, adding that the school was told of this.

Billi said her daughter has had multiple tests that have come up empty.

“The only factor that we came to a conclusion on was this all started after she got the vaccine,” she said.

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Socialist Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Appoints a Convicted Armed Robber to Lead His Criminal Justice Team in New York City

New York City’s incoming socialist mayor is already proving exactly why voters should be worried.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a convicted armed robber to help shape the city’s public-safety and criminal-justice agenda, according to new reporting from Fox News.

Mamdani appointed Mysonne Linen, a 49-year-old rapper, activist, and former Def Jam signee who spent seven years in prison for two violent taxi-driver robberies, to serve on his City Hall transition team.

According to court records and reporting from Fox News, citing the New York Daily News, Linen was convicted in 1999 for two separate armed robberies of taxi drivers:

• In June 1997, Linen and accomplices robbed cab driver Joseph Exiri, smashing him in the head with a beer bottle during the attack.
• In March 1998, prosecutors said Linen held up another cabbie, Francisco Monsanto, at gunpoint, stealing cash and a ring before fleeing into the night.

Both victims took the stand and identified Linen as one of their assailants.

Linen faced up to 25 years for the violent crimes and ultimately served seven years. At the time, his defense argued he had no motive because he was writing songs for Lil’ Kim and Mase

The announcement wasn’t made in a City Hall press release, but instead through an Instagram post from the radical social-justice organization Until Freedom, where Linen serves as a leader.

“We are proud that Until Freedom leaders have been chosen to serve on Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team on committees for public safety and criminal justice respectively.

This is a testament to our decades of work advocating on behalf of Black and Brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy and criminal justice reform.

We are building something different.”

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U.S. Supreme Court Smacks Down Lower Court in Major Win for Amish Families Fighting New York’s Draconian School Vaccine Mandates

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reversed a lower-court decision that had sided with New York State’s sweeping school vaccine mandates, and ordered the case back to the appeals court for a full reconsideration.

At the center of the case is a shocking and deeply disturbing campaign by New York officials to bankrupt Amish schools, intimidate parents, and shut down religious education entirely, all because the Amish refuse to inject their children with state-mandated vaccines that violate their longstanding religious beliefs.

Despite admitting that the Amish families were sincere in their religious beliefs, the New York Department of Health slapped three one-room Amish schools with devastating penalties:

  • $52,000 against Dygert Road School
  • $46,000 against Twin Mountains School
  • $20,000 against Shady Lane School

These fines were issued for a single day of alleged “noncompliance,” and the DOH openly bragged in its filings that it was being “generous,” warning that future fines would be even more severe.

The department declared that each unvaccinated child attending school constituted a separate violation worth up to $2,000 per day.

The Amish schools, which receive no government funding, operate on private land, and are central to the community’s religious life, face closure because the families have no means of paying these six-figure state-imposed financial attacks.

In one year alone, some New York schools granted medical exemptions to 30–50% of their students, depending entirely on local administrator discretion. But the Amish? Zero tolerance. Zero accommodation. Zero exemptions.

Lower courts dismissed their claims. But on Monday, the nation’s highest court issued a rare and forceful correction.

In its Monday order, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for reconsideration “in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522 (2025),” a landmark ruling handed down earlier this year strengthening protections for religious objectors against state public-health mandates.

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Young farmer’s crusade to protect vanishing farmland pits her against solar developers in New York

Renewable energy developers say local opposition is one of the biggest impediments to building wind and solar projects in the U.S. Besides the impact of large-scale industrial projects littering the view of the countryside, opponents are also concerned about the impact on their land values and the destruction of precious limited farmland. 

In 2023, Alexandra Fusalo bought 6.74 acres of land near Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, and she set out to create a pollinator farm. That’s a type of farm that produces a productive habitat for pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, with diverse native plants, water sources and nesting areas. She documents her farming efforts in her “House of Green” Substack. 

“My goal this year was to see how many rare, endangered and common pollinators I could attract,” Fusalo told Just the News. She said she counted a couple dozen monarch butterflies on her land on one day in September. 

Her involvement with solar opposition began one day when she was working in her garden and a neighbor told her that he’s often approached by solar developers looking to buy his land. “It kind of sent shivers down my spine. All these pollinators I’ve attracted to my farm, what would happen to them? What would happen to my investment?” she said. 

Vanishing farmland: 24 million acres fewer than we had 2017

The neighbor assured her that he wasn’t going to sell his land to solar developers, but Fasulo said the developers are aggressive and many farmers do end up selling. Between 2017 and 2024, the U.S. saw a decline of 24 million acres of farmland, a trend that worries Fasulo.

The average age of farmers is rising, and few young people aren’t pursuing careers in agriculture, making it attractive to sell off unused farmland to developers. 

Farmland is being sold for other types of development than renewable energy. But renewable energy takes up large amounts of land, and unlike other types of energy, rural land is an attractive location to site wind and solar projects. 

Fusalo said on various social media platforms that young farmers will become rarer if farmland continues disappearing. To help protect farmland, she established the nonprofit American Land Rescue Fund, which pays for “environmental attorneys who take on industrial and governmental projects that threaten rural communities, ecological integrity, and agricultural sustainability.”

She posted a video about what her neighbor had told her, and soon after that, she went to Schuylerville, a small village near her farm, to speak to the Saratoga Town Board about a law placing more restrictions on solar development.  

At this meeting, a representative of Cypress Creek Renewables came out from Santa Monica, California, to argue that the law was “excessively restrictive,” according to the minutes of the meeting. 

“We’re in the boonies up here. It’s freezing. There’s more trees than humans. It’s not New York City. So I was sitting there thinking, ‘why is there a person from California in our little town board meeting?’” Fasulo said. 

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NYC’s Radical Socialist Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Posts Video Coaching Illegals on How to Evade ICE – Urges People to ‘Stand Up’ to Feds

New York City’s incoming mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, released a video on X Sunday morning offering step-by-step advice to illegal immigrants on thwarting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Standing in front of a flip chart labeled “Know your rights,” Mamdani positioned himself as the defender of NYC’s “more than 3 million immigrants,” vowing to protect them from federal raids amid President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.

The video comes on the heels of a disrupted ICE raid in Chinatown last weekend, where nearly 200 protesters blocked agents from leaving a parking garage.

“Last weekend, ICE attempted to raid Canal Street and detain our immigrant neighbors,” Mamdani said in the video posted to X on Sunday. “As mayor, I’ll protect the rights of every single New Yorker. And that includes the more than 3 million immigrants who call this city their home.”

Mamdani continued, “But we can all stand up to ICE if you know your rights.”

“ICE cannot enter into private spaces like your home, school, or private area of your workplace without a judicial warrant signed by a judge,” Mamdani said.

“You have the right to say, ‘I do not consent to entry,’ and the right to keep your door closed,” he continued.

Mamdani showed an example of ICE paperwork that may be mistaken for a warrant.

“ICE is legally allowed to lie to you. But you have the right to remain silent. If you are being detained, you may always ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ repeatedly until they answer you,” Mamdani continued.

“You are legally allowed to film ICE, as long as you do not interfere with an arrest,” he stated.

Mamdani also not-so-subtly urged people to protest.

“New Yorkers have a constitutional right to protest, and when I’m mayor, we will protect that right,” Mamdani said.

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NYPD Recruit Gets Arrested, Shining Light on an Evil No One Dares to Discuss

It’s a sad, shameful case, but unfortunately, all too common: a man in New York City has been arrested for rape. Compounding the evil in this case is the fact that the accused was a New York City Police Department (NYPD) recruit, but there is abundant precedent for that sort of thing as well. It is good that this man was caught before he actually joined the force, and we can hope that even in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, his arrest will prevent him from ever becoming an NYPD officer. There is, however, another aspect of the case that no one dares to discuss, but is crucial to understanding why cases of this kind are likely to recur in the future, in New York City and all over the country.

The New York Daily News reported Thursday that the NYPD recruit was “four months into his police academy training” when he  was “arrested on rape charges in Queens.” The would-be police officer, Ahmed Elnahtawy, who is 24 years old, “was taken into custody at the NYPD Police Academy in College Point just after 8 a.m. and charged with rape, forcible touching and sex abuse.” 

The arrest comes after an NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau investigation into Elnahtawy’s behavior. “The sex crime he’s accused of committing occurred weeks ago. It wasn’t immediately clear if it happened before he joined the academy.” Elnahtaway “joined the NYPD on Aug. 20 and was expected to graduate the academy in February,” but now, of course, those plans are all on hold.

The one aspect of the story that is getting no attention anywhere is the fact that the perpetrator in this case is a Muslim. Now, before you dismiss this point as another manifestation of that terrible malady, “Islamophobia,” consider the fact that while there are rapists of all cultures and backgrounds, but only one culture gives rape, under some circumstances, a divine sanction. And that happens to be the culture from which Ahmed Elnahtawy has emerged.

The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). In one of those verses, Qur’an 4:24, Allah forbids Muslims to marry women who are already married, but a specific exception is made for slave women. The renowned and mainstream Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathir explains that Muslim men “are prohibited from marrying women who are already married,” with one notable exception: “those whom you acquire through war, for you are allowed such women after making sure they are not pregnant. Imam Ahmad recorded that Abu Sa’id Al-Khudri said, ‘We captured some women from the area of Awtas who were already married, and we disliked having sexual relations with them because they already had husbands. So, we asked the Prophet about this matter, and this Ayah was revealed…Consequently, we had sexual relations with these women.’”

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