Tag: new york

Gov. Hochul Proposes Heavy Fines for Illicit Cannabis Shops

Illegal cannabis sellers could see sky-high fines under new legislation proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, giving state officials greater power to crack down on New York’s illicit pot market.

The bill would set fines up to $10,000 a day for shops that sell cannabis without a license, and businesses found possessing illegal marijuana plants or products could be hit with penalties as high as $200,000, according to the proposed rules.

It would also give the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), the state agency overseeing marijuana retail licensing, the authority to seize illegal products and allow OCM to shut down unlicensed cannabis retailers. 

“The continued existence of illegal dispensaries is unacceptable, and we need additional enforcement tools to protect New Yorkers from dangerous products and support our equity initiatives,” Hochul said in a statement.

Under the proposed law, OCM could investigate any location growing, distributing or selling cannabis that has not been sourced from a legal distributor and taxed. OCM, the attorney general or local police would be able to enforce a preliminary injunction to stop businesses suspected of selling cannabis without a license, according to the bill.

Hochul’s proposal is the latest move in a state and city effort to shutter the thousands of illegal pot shops that have cropped up in New York City, threatening its fledgling legal market. 

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New York City Spending $5 Million PER DAY on Housing and Feeding Illegal Immigrants

New York City is reportedly spending five million dollars a day on the feeding and housing of illegal immigrants now living on the city.

In what world is this kind of figure acceptable or even sustainable? How long can this possibly go on?

Think about the size of that number and imagine what could be done with that money to help American citizens.

If New York City has that kind of money to spend on illegal immigrants, why are there homeless people in the city? How is anyone in the city going hungry?

The New York Post reports:

NYC official says city is spending an estimated $5M a day on housing, feeding migrants

New York City is spending nearly $5 million a day to house and feed thousands of migrants — but the Big Apple is still barely getting a dime in aid from President Biden and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The mind-blowing cost of the crisis was revealed Friday afternoon after city Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol told a City Council panel that Gotham’s Department of Homeless Services and Health & Hospitals each spend an average of $363 daily to provide food and shelter for just a single migrant.

Given that there are more than 30,000 migrants currently being housed in city taxpayer-funded facilities, that would amount to a daily staggering bill of $10.89 million.

City Hall then waited until Friday night to officially correct Iscol’s comments.

After Mayor Eric Adams’ administration refused for several hours to go on the record, a spokeswoman, Kate Smart, finally wrote in an e-mail to The Post that “$364 per household is the per diem for asylum seekers.”

Based on what City Hall would only say on background earlier, “there are 12,700 households currently in our care,” that puts the daily migrant cost for the city still at a colossal $4,622,800.

This is insanity.

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NYPD Wants Businesses to Require Customers Remove Masks

The New York Police Police Department is advising businesses to ask patrons to take off their masks before entry in light of the high number of thefts and robberies across the city.

Removing face masks should be made a “condition of entry,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference last week, noting that criminals have been taking advantage of masks to avoid detection on surveillance cameras.

“People are coming up to our businesses, sometimes with masks, sometimes masks, hoods and latex gloves, and they’re being buzzed in, they’re being allowed to enter into the store and then we have a robbery or some kind of property being stolen,” Maddrey said.

“We are asking the businesses to make this a condition of entry: That people, when they come in, they show their face, they should identify themselves,” he continued. “And if they feel like they want to put their mask on after they identify themselves for their safety, by all means, they should do so.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses in the city would block customers from entering the premises with masks on, according to the police chief. But taking in masked customers is now “a way of life.”

“Since the pandemic, this is a way of life for us, where people wear masks regularly,” he said. “But we’re seeing this being used too much as a ruse to enter into businesses and to victimize our businesses.”

“We need our businesses to be proactive and do their due diligence. We need to make sure people are identifying themselves,” Maddrey said.

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Dumping 1M gallons of radioactive water in Hudson is ‘best option,’ per Indian Point nuclear plant owner

The owner of the defunct Indian Point nuclear facility says it’s planning to dump about 1 million gallons of radioactive water into the Hudson River. The move, which the company describes as the “best option” for the waste, could happen as early as August.

A Feb. 2 meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board heated up when the plant’s owner Holtec International disclosed the plan as part of its lengthy closure process. The contaminated water could just naturally — and safely — decay in storage onsite.

Environmental groups and residents are also concerned this could harm their community, as the Hudson River is already a federally designated toxic Superfund site. Rich Burroni, Holtec’s site vice president for Indian Point, agreed to give the community at least a month’s notice before any radioactive discharge into the Hudson River begins.

But Holtec is well within its legal rights and permits to discharge waste at the same rate as it did when operating, and it does not need federal, state or local approval to dump the contaminated water. This practice is standard for nuclear plants.

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The New York City Department of Health created “Misinformation Response Unit” to monitor social media

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene set up a “Misinformation Response Unit” to monitor what it would determine to be “dangerous misinformation” posted on social media, non-US sites, and non-English media in the US.

This “misinformation” mostly had to do with Covid vaccination – the Department was determined to drive vaccination rates up by spreading its word, and in this gathered over 100 partners whose job was to craft positive messaging around the controversial subject.

Among those the dedicated new unit is working with is Public Good Projects, otherwise known for receiving funding from a lobbying group representing two major Covid vaccine manufacturers, Pfizer and Moderna.

Their “good” work here also included sending Twitter, on a weekly basis, lists of posts slated for censorship.

In an article published by the NEJM Catalyst journal, those behind the effort are now assessing the Unit’s work as successful, what with it being able to “rapidly identify messages” deemed as containing inaccurate information about the virus, vaccines, treatment, etc.

And although admitting that “vaccine hesitancy” remains high around the world even two years after the vaccines were first introduced – and this is something attributed to “disinformation and misinformation” and continues to worry the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Surgeon General, as well as “medical experts” – the New York City Health Department thinks that it did well in getting its own narrative out, particularly in traditional media.

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New York Assembly Bill Would Prohibit Geolocation Tracking and Geofencing Warrants

A bill introduced in the New York Assembly would ban geolocation tracking and geofencing warrants. Passage of the legislation would not only protect privacy in New York; it would also hinder the growth of the federal surveillance state.

Asm. Michaelle Solages (D) and a large coalition of fellow Democrats introduced Assembly Bill 3306 (A3306) on Feb. 2. The bill is a companion to Senate Bill 217 (S217) introduced last month. The proposed law would ban the search of geolocation data or keyword data of a group of people who are under no individual suspicion of having committed a crime but rather are defined by having been at a given location at a given time or searched particular words, phrases, character strings, or websites. It would also bar courts from issuing reverse location search warrants and create a process to suppress any evidence gathered in violation of the law.

In effect, the passage of A3306 would end a process called “geofencing.” Reverse search warrants authorize police to search broad geographical areas to determine who was near a given place at a given time. In practice, these warrants give police permission to use Google location data to engage in massive fishing expeditions and subject hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people to police location tracking. According to the New York Times, federal agents first utilized the practice in 2016. According to the report, these broadly construed warrants help police pinpoint possible suspects and witnesses in the absence of other clues. Google employees said the company often responds to a single warrant with location information on dozens or hundreds of devices. Police can gather similar information using cell-site simulators, often called “stingrays.”

According to the New York Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), concerns about how location data collected during the state’s battle against COVID-19 could be used by police. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal, state and local governments were partnering in a warrantless cellphone tracking program to gather information on Americans’ movements in over 500 cities.

“We are deeply alarmed by federal, state and local officials’ growing use of warrantless location tracking and so-called ‘reverse search warrants,” STOP executive director Albert Fox Cahn said. “While this type of tracking may be appropriate for some public health officials, it’s outrageous that this information is being shared with police. COVID-19 cannot grant New York’s police departments a blank check for surveillance. Even when police gain a warrant, wide-area geolocation searches make a mockery of the Constitution. When a single court order okays searches on hundreds or even thousands of individuals, it undermines the entire purpose of requiring warrants in the first place. The judges approving these orders simply can’t know how much data they’re handing over to law enforcement when they approve the request.”

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Brooklyn District Attorney Investigates Allegations of Democrat Voter Fraud

Brooklyn Democrats added peoples’ names to petitions they didn’t sign and demanded bribes, according to news reports.

Now Brooklyn’s District Attorney, Eric Gonzalez, plans to investigate.

“This matter is under investigation,” his office’s spokesman Oren Yaniv told The Epoch Times. He declined further comment.

A news report by The City, a local paper, announced that five Brooklyn citizens said their names were on petitions asking to remove candidates for Democrat Party positions from June’s primary ballot.

But they never signed them, they added.

Brooklyn woman, Charlene Davis, said when she tried to get a job as a poll worker, people told her she had to get voter signatures for petitions supporting Democrat Party executives.

Davis told The City the district attorney’s office asked if the petitions supported Democrat Party leaders Dionne Brown-Jordan and Michael Silverman. Davis told them Brown-Jordan prevented her from getting poll work.

The Epoch Times attempted to contact Brown-Jordan via Twitter but by deadline, had not heard back from her. The Epoch Times was unable to locate Silverman for comment.

Brown-Jordan has not been accused of any crimes and she has previously denied the allegations.

However, the Board of Elections reportedly confirmed she had asked for Davis to be listed on the poll workers roster as “temporarily inactive.”

Democrat Anthony Jones, the leader of Brownsville’s Community 1st Democratic Club, told The City last April that the fake signatures were a “setup.”

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Kathy Hochul moves to ban gas stoves in New York

On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul gave her State of the State address which included detailing “The New York Housing Compact,” which she described as a “strategy to address New York’s housing crisis,” and part of the compact involves a ban on gas stoves, oil furnaces, and hot water heaters in commercial construction and new homes. Gas stoves are used in roughly 40 percent of American households.

In her remarks, Hochul said, the compact would mandate “all new construction to be zero-emission, starting in 2025 for small buildings and 2028 for large buildings,” and she said that her plan to use more electric appliances would help “residents struggling with high electric bills.” 

Hochul’s spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays said, “Governor Hochul has been clear that we have to take bold steps on climate to protect the health and safety of our children, and 30 percent of state greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings.” 

A report from Bloomberg earlier in the week claimed that the Biden administration was looking into banning gas stoves to “reduce climate-warming emissions (such as from methane) that exacerbate climate change.” US Consumer Product Safety Commission Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr said, “This is a hidden hazard” and “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” 

According to Bloomberg, “peer-reviewed research published last month” connected 12 percent of asthma cases in American children to emissions from gas stoves, and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering regulating gas stoves as a response.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization have claimed that gas stoves emit gasses such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide at levels that are “unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions.”

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Suspect Behind NYPD New Year’s Eve Attack Was on FBI Radar – Trevor Bickford a Recent Convert to Islam

A rookie NYPD officer was stabbed in the head Saturday night near Times Square amid New Year’s Eve celebrations.

A second NYPD officer was struck with a pipe or a blunt object.

The suspect was shot by police and taken into custody.

The police officer was rushed to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover.

According to the New York Post, the injured police officer was a rookie on his first day on the job.

The suspect, 19-year-old Trevor Bickford of Wells, Maine, was shot in the shoulder and taken to a nearby hospital.

According to FOX News Trevor Bickford was on the FBI radar and recently converted to Islam.

A high-level police source also tells Fox News Digital that Bickford was being watched by the FBI’s counterterrorism task force in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s attack. The source also said Bickford recently converted to Islam and a tipster claimed he had expressed interest in going to Afghanistan.

The first cop, a rookie on his first night of policing, was slashed in the head, prompting another nearby officer to shoot Bickford. That officer was also struck, but he was not seriously injured. The first officer, identified by authorities only as Paul, is expected to recover.

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REPORT: 97% Of Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes In New York Were Committed By Other Minorities

Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) released a report revealing that 97% of hate crimes against Jews in New York between 2018 and 2022 were committed by other minority groups.

AAA’s report was first posted on AAA founder Dov Hikind’s Twitter account Wednesday. The report documented 194 cases of assault against Jews from April 2018 to August 2022, and, in 99 of those assaults, official reports included the ethnicity of the perpetrator revealing 97% were committed by other minorities.

Black perpetrators were responsible for 69% of physical or verbal assaults, Asians made up 17%, Hispanics accounted for 11% and white attackers committed 3%.

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