Tag: new york

Feds Mull Ban on Chocolate Milk in School Cafeterias

The feds are now mulling a ban on chocolate milk for school cafeterias.

The USDA is weighing a ban on chocolate and strawberry milk for elementary and middle school cafeterias because of the added sugar, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“From a public-health perspective, it makes a lot of sense to try to limit the servings of these flavored milks because they do have quite a lot of added sugar,” Erica Lauren Kenney, a public health professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the decision to ban the sugary milks will likely take effect for the 2025-2026 school year.

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New York City Calls The Cops On Unruly Elementary Schoolers Hundreds of Times Each Year

Each year, police are called thousands of times to New York City schools over incidents where children become emotionally distressed or disruptive. In 2022, according to a new investigation published jointly by ProPublica and THE CITY, schools called police 560 times to deal with children under 10 years old. Even when they don’t threaten themselves or others, these children are frequently restrained by police or sent to local hospitals. Some of these children have been as young as four years old.

According to THE CITY reporter Abigail Kramer, New York City public school employees called the police on emotionally distressed students 2,656 times in 2022. In five incidents, school employees called the police on four-year-olds. While black students only make up 25 percent of New York City schools’ population, they comprise 46 percent of “child in crisis” police calls and 59 percent of the students who are handcuffed at school.

While New York City schools policy dictates that a police call should only be used as a last resort, parents told Kramer that school officials used these calls to punish unruly students who were not posing a legitimate safety threat. Further, these parents claimed that police calls frequently ended with their children—many of whom have developmental disabilities—being taken to local hospitals despite no medical emergencies occurring, leading to expensive medical bills.

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New York’s Heavy Hand Keeps Illegal Marijuana and Tobacco Dealers in Business

While I have fond memories of life in New York, many of them involve defying some stupid rule or regulation. It’s a pleasure to now live in Arizona where government, while still idiotic, generally has a lighter touch. Unfortunately for friends and family I left behind, Empire State officialdom still hasn’t learned its lessons, as evidenced by the heavy regulatory hand stifling sort-of-legalized marijuana, and proposals to similarly reinforce the black market with an outright ban on cigarette sales.

“Governor Kathy Hochul today signed new legislation to increase civil and tax penalties for the unlicensed and illicit sale of cannabis in New York as part of the FY 2024 Budget,” the New York governor’s office announced this week. “The legislation, first proposed by the Governor in March, provides additional enforcement power to the Office of Cannabis Management and the Department of Taxation and Finance to enforce the new regulatory requirements and close stores engaged in the illegal sale of cannabis.”

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Video showed cop trying to stop his partner from killing a man. Police investigators never even asked about the footage.

In the spring of 2019, two New York City Police Department officers entered the Bronx apartment of Kawaski Trawick. The 32-year-old personal trainer and dancer had called 911 after locking himself out.

But 112 seconds after their arrival, footage showed, one of the officers shot and killed Trawick, despite the officer’s more-experienced partner repeatedly telling him not to use force.

When an internal investigation later cleared the officers — saying “no wrongdoing was found” — the NYPD offered no explanation for its reasoning. But records obtained by ProPublica can now reveal how the department came to that conclusion.

Investigators never explored key exchanges between the two officers in the run-up to the shooting. They also never followed up with the officers when their accounts contradicted the video evidence.

“Any conversation between you and your partner?” the head of the investigative unit asked Officer Herbert Davis hours after the shooting.

“No,” Davis answered.

That wasn’t true.

After arriving at Trawick’s apartment and finding him holding a stick and a bread knife, body-worn camera footage shows that Davis, who is Black, told his less-experienced white partner, Officer Brendan Thompson, not to use his Taser. “Don’t, don’t, don’t,” he said, motioning for Thompson to step back.

Thompson fired his Taser anyway, causing Trawick to become enraged, and Davis then tried to stop Thompson from shooting Trawick. “No, no, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” Davis said, before briefly pushing Thompson’s gun down.

The investigators had access to all that footage. They never asked either officer about it.

ProPublica obtained the NYPD’s full internal investigation, including audio of interviews with both officers, via a Freedom of Information Law request.

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New York becomes first US state to ban gas in new buildings

New York has become the first US state to pass a law banning gas stoves and other fossil fuels in most new buildings, in a victory for environmental activists.

The legislation adopted by lawmakers in the Democratic-run state legislature late Tuesday will require newly built homes to be all-electric in three years’ time.

The move aims to tackle climate change by reducing New York’s dependence on natural gas.

“Changing the ways we make and use energy to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels will help ensure a healthier environment for us and our children,” said state assembly speaker Carl Heastie.

The law, which could face legal challenges from the gas industry, will require solely electric heating and cooking in new buildings under seven stories from 2026.

For taller skyscrapers, the deadline is 2029.

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New York Legalized Marijuana, but a Legal Typo Is Hindering Implementation

The cannabis legalization bill that New York enacted in 2021 included a provision that was supposed to help people convicted of marijuana felonies by downgrading their records in line with current law. But a typographical error made that relief harder to obtain than legislators promised.

The section of the law dealing with prior marijuana convictions describes two situations. Paragraph 2(a)(i) refers to a person convicted of a marijuana offense that “would not have been a crime” had the 2021 changes been in effect. Paragraph 2(a)(ii) refers to a person who “would have been guilty of a lesser or potentially less onerous offense” under current law.

Paragraph 2(b) says a court that receives a petition from someone convicted of a marijuana offense that no longer exists “shall….grant the motion to vacate such conviction.” It adds that a court “may substitute, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so, a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when “the petition meets the criteria in subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a).”

Whoops. That clearly should have been “the criteria in subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (a),” since it makes no sense to substitute “a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when no such offense exists. Because of that mistake, people with marijuana felony convictions cannot use the streamlined relief process the law was supposed to provide.

Under prior law, someone caught with eight ounces to a pound of marijuana was guilty of a felony. Under current law, possessing that amount in public is a violation punishable by a maximum fine of $250, while possessing five pounds or less at home is legal. Public possession of one to five pounds, which used to be a felony, is now a misdemeanor.

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Friends Urging Convicted Sex Offender Anthony Weiner to Run for NYC Mayor

Friends of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), a convicted sex offender, are urging him to run for political office again — making a comeback by pitching himself as a moderate Democrat to rebuild New York City.

Curtis Sliwa, the former GOP mayoral candidate for New York City, said he and others are encouraging Weiner to run for office again.

“He has been encouraged to run for office by me and others,” Sliwa said on his 77 WABC radio show which he hosts with Weiner. ” … to be the moderate Democrat, to be what this city needs now to take it back from [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. He knows the moderate path to save the city.”

Weiner’s problems in public life first started in May 2011 when he mistakenly posted a photo of his penis to his Twitter page. Weiner quickly deleted the post and claimed, repeatedly, that he was hacked.

Andrew Breitbart, founder of Breitbart News who died in February 2012, published the deleted post on his website at the time as establishment media took Weiner at his word that he had been hacked.

Breitbart even posted his first-hand account of the scandal.

Then, months later, Breitbart posted a photo of Weiner that he had sent to another woman which prompted the then-congressman to call a press conference. At the press conference, Breitbart spoke to the media and defended his reporting on Weiner’s sexting habits.

When Weiner took to the podium, he admitted that he had, in fact, posted the initial photo of his penis on his Twitter page and was not hacked. Weiner also apologized to Breitbart directly before stepping down from office days later.

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Video shows suspect accused of operating secret Chinese police stations mingling with Schumer, Adams

One of the two men accused by federal prosecutors of running a secret Chinese police station in New York City purportedly has been captured on video attending an event alongside two prominent Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

Video recorded on March 18 appears to show Lu Jianwang standing alongside Adams most recently at an event where Schumer also spoke. Lu was arrested last week and charged with conspiring to act as an agent of China’s government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. 

In a statement, Adams’ office told Fox News that the mayor’s attendance at an event is either to show support for a local community or the city and does not signal any kind of endorsement. 

A spokesperson for Adams also said he does not know Lu. 

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NY Gov. Kathy Hochul ‘test-marketing’ a ban on all tobacco sales

The pro-legal weed Hochul administration is quietly trying to fire up support for a complete ban on the sale of tobacco products in New York, The Post has learned.

The state Health Department commissioned a new survey aimed at gauging support for an all-out prohibition — despite Gov. Hochul’s failure to secure support from state legislators to include a ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products in the yet-to-be-approved state budget.

“What is your opinion about a policy that would end the sale of all tobacco products in New York within 10 years?” were among the questions asked last week in the “New York Local Opinion Leaders Survey,” examined by the Post.

Another asks: “What is your opinion about a policy that would ban the sale of all tobacco products to those born after a certain date? For example, those born after the year 2010 or later would never be sold tobacco.”

The poll also solicited input on whether there’s backing for other tobacco-related measures, including capping the number of retailers who can sell “products in a community” and prohibiting its sales near schools.

The survey, conducted by nonprofit research organization RTI International, was distributed to “community leaders” statewide, including “county legislators and county directors of public health,” according to an April 13 memo to prospective participants from Jennifer Lee, director of the Health Department’s Bureau of Tobacco Control. 

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New York City Should Have Always Smelled Like Pot

“​​The degree to which Manhattan air is now just saturated with the aroma of marijuana is frankly absurd,” tweeted writer Thomas Chatterton Williams back in January. “New York Smells Like a Declining City,” declared The Wall Street Journal last month. “It’s like everybody’s smoking a joint now,” New York City’s own mayor, Eric Adams, commented last year.

Though New York state legalized recreational weed in 2021, it’s taken two years for the cannabis industry to actually get it off the ground. Just a few dispensaries have opened up in the city so far, but much has been made about its alleged transformation into either a Reefer Madness hellscape or a stoner Xanadu, depending on who you ask.

“Let’s be blunt—legal weed is turning New York workers into zombies,” wrote Steve Cuozzo for the New York Post just days ago, complaining of worse customer service than he encountered yesteryear. “the weed / garbage / piss cocktail of smells in parts of manhattan is truly nauseating,” one Twitter user chimed in. “The biggest change is the smell of marijuana. It’s EVERYWHERE. Inescapable. It’s made the city a lot grimier, and much more unsafe,” added another.

Now that they no longer have to fear arrest, more people may indeed be lighting up in public. As with many things in New York, private behavior—a couple’s fight, a parent disciplining their child, a group of friends who are too boisterously drunk—spills into public spaces. We’re tasked with learning how to tolerate, or at least look past, the low-grade deviancy and etiquette missteps we encounter in streets and subway stations, shared hallways and stoops. “For the record, I don’t care if people smoke (or drink!), but the imposition of the odor all over public spaces is weird and feels deeply unserious,” Chatterton Williams (one of the more reasonable pot critics) added.

Still, many of the tweets and articles in this genre clumsily attempt to underscore the same idea: New York is getting worse by the day—and pot must be to blame.

But the aroma of weed in the air ought to be interpreted as people relishing their newfound freedom, a sign that tolerance toward people’s mind-alteration preferences has rightfully prevailed.

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