Tag: new york

New York Town Declares State Of Emergency Banning Hotels, Facilities From Housing Immigrants

Riverhead in Suffolk County, New York, declared a state of emergency on May 16 in an effort to prevent an influx of illegal immigrants from being sent to the small town following the expiration of Title 42.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar signed the emergency declaration after reports emerged that officials from New York City were arranging to transport immigrants to a number of hotels and motels in the town.

According to a statement from Aguiar’s office, the order was signed “based on information received and in response to reports that the New York City Department of Homeless Services has, or will be arranging for the transportation and relocation of undocumented migrants and/or asylum seekers to hotels or motels within the Town of Riverhead.”

Aguiar told News 12 Long Island that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, had recently sent out an advisory to all housing facilities in Suffolk County stating that the city would pay for the housing of immigrants for 12 months if the facilities agreed to accommodate them.

The advisory reportedly stated that the city would sign a contract with the facilities that agreed to house the immigrants.

Aguiar told the publication that three facilities in the small town of roughly 33,539 people had agreed to house immigrants and offered to sign the contract.

In response, Aguiar—who previously worked as a detective sergeant for the NYPD Counter Terrorism Division—declared a state of emergency to stave off what she anticipates would be thousands of immigrants heading to the small town, leaving it overburdened.

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Parents hit out at Waldorf school’s explicit sex ed curriculum featuring graphic pictures: ‘Nauseous’

Parents at the progressive Waldorf School of Garden City, Long Island, are angry and some are threatening to pull their kids out school because of new mandatory sex education for fifth graders that teaches, among other things, oral and anal sex and masturbation — with illustrations.

Part of the new sex ed curriculum, which originated with the Unitarian Universalist Church and is called Our Whole Lives (OWL), was just formally announced to Waldorf parents in March by the school.

It includes a controversial book called “It’s Perfectly Normal” that has been around since the early aughts but which parents say was originally meant for older kids but contains material too graphic for fifth graders.

“It made me physically nauseous,” one mother told The Post.

“There’s a whole page on contraception and vaginal and anal sex and more about how it’s perfectly normal. This is clearly agenda-pushing and it’s so outrageous.”

The Waldorf schools are based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the 19th century Austrian philosopher and teacher, who believed more in experiential and gentle teachings rather than disciplined pedagogy.

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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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