Tag: new york

Tough on crime Republican busted for having fraudulent license plate on sports car

New York City Council member Vickie Paladino has been outspoken against unregistered vehicles, the need for bicycle license plates and other city requirements, making her knows as a stickler for “law and order.” But according to a report from StreetsBlog NYC, a luxury sports car parked in the Republican’s driveway bears an Arizona temporary license plate that the Arizona Department of Transportation has deemed a fraud.

“The 90-day paper tag — the kind that drivers get when buying a car — lists the same plate number as a real temporary tag that was issued in September 2022, according to Arizona DOT spokesman Bill Lamoreaux. But that real tag expired in December, meaning the one in Paladino’s driveway, which lists an August expiration date, is ‘fraudulent,’ Lamoreaux said,” StreetsBlog reported.

“Paladino said the car belongs to her son, Thomas Paladino Jr., but did not otherwise respond to a request to comment.”

Paladino Jr. denied knowledge of the fraudulent tag.

“I don’t know anything about a fraudulent temporary license plate,” he told StreetsBlog. “I have more than one car, all of which are properly licensed.”

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New York Republicans want to ban cannabis use in public

Republicans in the state Legislature are calling for a ban on smoking and consuming cannabis in public places in New York as the legal marketplace is taking hold. 

The measure, backed by state Sen. George Borrello and Assemblyman Michael Novakhov, would allow local governments to put local laws in place to ban the public consuming of marijuana. 

“State residents, including children, are now regularly assailed with the pungent odor of marijuana on public sidewalks, in parking lots and other public spaces,” Borrello said. “Many New Yorkers don’t want to be exposed to either the effects of marijuana smoke or its smell and don’t want their children subjected to it.”

New York first legalized cannabis in 2021, though the marketplace for legal retail sales has been slow to build. Lawmakers who supported legalization have framed it around the need to reverse the enforcement of previously harsh marijuana laws that were previously in place. 

State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year moved to address the sale of cannabis without a license through civil fines and the potential closure of businesses. 

Regulators are also trying to encourage further legal cannabis sales, including allowing sales at public events.

Republicans want fines of up to $125 for consuming marijuana in a public space. The Clean Air Act, as well as local bans on smoking, already place limits on marijuana smoking in public. 

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New York’s ‘Symbolic’ Failure In Cannabis Regulation

With cannabis legalization sweeping across the United States, state regulatory bodies face pressure and scrutiny in their efforts to build a legal industry from the ground up. When formulating regulations, they balance the needs of public health, public safety and social justice.

Fortunately, industry standards and recommendations from time-tested consensus standard organizations make some of their choices easy. Unfortunately, even when handed a “no-brainer” standard on a silver rolling tray, New York’s Cannabis Control Board (CCB) made an unforced error that will potentially harm children, patients, small business owners and the general public—groups that cannabis regulation is explicitly intended to protect.

CCB has faced extensive criticism for its “bungled rollout” of the adult-use cannabis industry and its failure to deliver on social equity commitments. One founding CCB member recently resigned amidst the controversy.

Regrettably, CCB has now mandated that all regulated cannabis packages bear a perplexing and intricate product symbol, serving as a persistent and highly visible reminder of its unwavering resistance to the unanimous advice of the cannabis policy community.

In March, CCB took less than two minutes to approve a set of labeling regulations, without any mention of a letter from dozens of stakeholder organizations urging them to reject their homemade symbol in favor of a straightforward industry standard. Marijuana Moment and other outlets publicized the letter in advance of the March CCB meeting.

Looking like a parody of “design by committee,” the New York symbol was designed by the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) and features three separate elements enclosed within a black rectangle.

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Everything we know about family of ‘quiet’ Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann

The suspect busted for the Gilgo Beach murders is a twice-married architect quietly raising two children — including a son with special needs — in the ramshackle Long Island home he grew up in.

Rex Heuermann’s stunned neighbors in Massapequa Park were nearly united Friday in calling him a quiet businessman and “regular family man.”

Among them was actor Billy Baldwin, 60, who tweeted his shock at waking to “learn that the Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect was my high school classmate” from Berner High School’s class of 1981.

“Married, two kids, architect. ‘Average guy… quiet, family man.’ Mind-boggling,” the local-born actor wrote.

“Massapequa is in shock.”

The 59-year-old architect was raised with his brother, Craig, in the unkempt 1956 home on 1st Avenue that is directly across the bay from where 11 bodies have been found strewn since 2010.

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NY principal allegedly seeking sex with teen on Snapchat brought chicken nuggets, shake to remote location prior to arrest

An upstate middle-school principal used Snapchat to try to lure a 16-year-old girl to meet him in a remote location for sex — bringing with him condoms, chicken nuggets and a Grimace milkshake from McDonald’s, authorities say.

Johnson City Middle School Principal Daniel Erickson was arrested Friday and charged with luring a child and attempted rape, the Broome County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Erickson, 55, had been allegedly communicating with the teen for at least a week before his arrest.

The New York principal made statements to her that indicated he was “going to engage in sexual conduct with the minor,” the sheriff’s office said.

Erickson initially posed as a younger adult before revealing his true identity to the girl, officials said.

He then used “his position as the Johnson City Middle School Principal and school district database information to convince the 16-year-old girl who he really was,” authorities said.

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‘Woke or KKK’: NYU Hosts Whites-Only ‘Antiracism’ Workshop for Public School Parents

New York University hosted a whites-only “anti-racism” workshop for public school parents in New York City, barring minorities from a five-months-long seminar that legal experts say was a brazen violation of civil rights law.

The all-white seminar, “From Integration to Anti-Racism,” cost $360 to attend and met six times between February and June, according to a description of the program that has since been scrubbed from the university’s website without explanation. Organized by NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, the workshop was “designed specifically for white public school parents” committed to “becoming anti-racist” and building “multiracial parent communities.”

But to promote solidarity with all races, participants were told, it was necessary that the seminar include only one.

A few days before the first session, facilitators circulated a short handout, “Why a White Space,” to explain “why we are meeting as white folks for these six months.” The handout, produced by the nonprofit Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere, argued that white people need spaces where they can “unlearn racism” without subjecting minorities to “undue trauma or pain.”

Facilitators reiterated this argument on day one of the seminar, audio and video of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. When a parent questioned the premise of the workshop—saying it seemed “a little counterintuitive” to exclude minorities from an anti-racism seminar—Barbara Gross, the associate director of Steinhardt’s Education Justice Research group, assured her that it was for their own good.

“People of color are dealing with racism all the time,” Gross said. “Like every minute of every day. It’s a harm on top of a harm for them to hear our racist thoughts.”

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Eric Adams’s Fallen Cop Photo Is a Fake

Democratic New York City mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly shown off a picture of a murdered police officer, saying he has kept the picture in his wallet for decades. In reality, the picture was a Google printout that Adams aides altered last year to make it look like “the mayor had been carrying it for some time,” the New York Times reported Thursday.

Adams has used the picture to tout his image as tough on crime, saying last year that the killings of two police officers “reminded him of the 1987 line-of-duty death of a friend, Officer Robert Venable,” according to the Times report. “I keep a picture of Robert in my wallet,” Adams said. One week later, the mayor posed for a picture in which he held up the photo of Venable. He has “repeated the moving anecdote”—and held up the Venable photo—multiple times since.

But the photo “had not actually spent decades in the mayor’s wallet,” the Times reported. Adams had, in fact, instructed City Hall employees to print out a Google image of the fallen officer and make it look older, “including by splashing some coffee on it.” Two former City Hall aides confirmed that “they were informed about the manipulated photo last year, not long after it was created.”

This is far from the first time Adams has faced accusations of manipulating the truth. The mayor, who claims to be a vegan, was caught ordering fish only days after he ordered New York City schools to serve only vegan food on Fridays, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

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2 decapitated goats found in plastic bags were slaughtered in ‘ritual sacrifice’ on Long Island

Two decapitated goats that were found stuffed inside plastic bags on Long Island were slaughtered in a “ritualistic sacrifice,” authorities said.

The Suffolk County SPCA made the gruesome discovery on Thursday behind a Burger King at 96 Broadhollow Road in Farmingdale.

The headless goats had been put inside black bags “along with other items that would suggest a ritualistic animal sacrifice,” according to Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA.

The organization is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for mutilating the animals.

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Lawmakers Push For Investigation Into Secret “Problem Codes” Database Kept on Unvaccinated Teachers

A group of nine Congressional representatives from New York have taken a united front, urging the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to conduct a full investigation regarding secret “problem codes” databases, alongside fingerprints, that were kept on teachers who opted not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The representatives have penned a letter to the NYC DOE Chancellor, David Banks, expressing their concerns.

The gravity of the issue is rooted in the NYC DOE’s utilization of the same “problem codes” database — ordinarily assigned to individuals accused of severe offenses like child abuse, rape, or assault—for educators who were put on unpaid leave due to their refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, as per an internal email in 2022. The comparison of unvaccinated educators with individuals implicated in heinous crimes has created a maelstrom of concerns.

Mary Holland, former president of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), an organization actively advocating for a bipartisan congressional investigation since March, was emphatic about the lack of transparency. She stated that the city’s “unwillingness to be transparent about how and when these codes are used and under what circumstances requires a thorough and complete investigation.”

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Midtown Gets Paywall: Feds Approve NYC Congestion Toll

The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration approved the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s congestion tax scheme to charge drivers entering New York City’s midtown Manhattan. The tax is the first of its kind in the nation, expected to fleece hardworking Americans between $9 and $23 per day to drive through the district, reported Bloomberg.

“Congestion pricing will reduce traffic in our crowded downtown, improve air quality and provide critical resources to the MTA,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

Hochul said, “I am proud of the thorough environmental assessment process we conducted, including responding to thousands of comments from community members from across the region.”

She added: “With the green light from the federal government, we look forward to moving ahead with the implementation of this program.”

The MTA operates NYC’s subways, buses, and rail lines. It’ll be responsible for implementing the tax scheme as soon as April 2024. Bloomberg said motorists driving south of 60th Street would be able to use an E-ZPass.

The new tax aims to fleece motorists and raise $1 billion of new annual revenue for the MTA. NYC officials want to reduce the number of daily vehicles entering the district by up to 20%.

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