With more than a quarter of workers at some important agencies still unvaccinated, it seems New York City will have to brace for potential shortages in its sanitation, police and fire departments.&nbsp;The development comes as the deadline for government’s directive for all city workers to get the Covid shot is on Friday. &nbsp;

The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) has warned that up to 20 per cent of fire companies and ambulances could be out of commission on Monday. In an apparent protest by sanitation workers, the garbage is already piling up in corners of the city.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/covid-needle-free-vaccine-patches-coming-soon-say-researchers-and-makers-425233" hreflang="en">Covid: Needle-free vaccine patches coming soon, say researchers and makers</a>&nbsp;

The vaccine mandate is the right thing to do and the city can get through any disruptions, said Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday.&nbsp;“My job is to keep people safe — my employees and 8.8 million people. And until we defeat Covid, people are not safe. If we don’t stop Covid, New Yorkers will die. We must, must stop Covid, and that must, must include our public employees. In fact, they need to lead the way,” Blasio told reporters. &nbsp;

When mayor spoke, around a thousand city workers and vaccine opponents were protesting outside his home at Gracie Mansion.

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/closed-under-covid-lockdown-auckland-tops-lonely-planets-list-of-cities-to-visit-in-2022-425235" hreflang="en">Closed under Covid lockdown, Auckland tops Lonely Planet’s list of cities to visit in 2022</a>&nbsp;

“On November 1, there’s going to be a crisis in this city. This is a crisis that is orchestrated by the mayor. People’s lives are at stake,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association president Andrew Ansbro. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Ordered by de Blasio earlier this month, the vaccine mandate will take effect at 5 pm on Friday. From Monday morning, workers, who have not received their first shot, will be barred from working and will not get paid until they can show proof of having received at least one shot. &nbsp;&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

With more than a quarter of workers at some important agencies still unvaccinated, it seems New York City will have to brace for potential shortages in its sanitation, police and fire departments.

With more than a quarter of workers at some important agencies still unvaccinated, it seems New York City will have to brace for potential shortages in its sanitation, police and fire departments. The development comes as the deadline for government’s directive for all city workers to get the Covid shot is on Friday. The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) has warned that up to 20 per cent of fire companies and ambulances could be out of commission on Monday. In an apparent protest by sanitation workers, the garbage is already piling up in corners of the city. Also Read | Covid: Needle-free vaccine patches coming soon, say researchers and makers The vaccine mandate is the right thing to do and the city can get through any disruptions, said Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday. “My job is to keep people safe — my employees and 8.8 million people. And until we defeat Covid, people are not safe. If we don’t stop Covid, New Yorkers will die. We must, must stop Covid, and that must, must include our public employees. In fact, they need to lead the way,” Blasio told reporters. When mayor spoke, around a thousand city workers and vaccine opponents were protesting outside his home at Gracie Mansion. Also Read: Closed under Covid lockdown, Auckland tops Lonely Planet’s list of cities to visit in 2022 “On November 1, there’s going to be a crisis in this city. This is a crisis that is orchestrated by the mayor. People’s lives are at stake,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association president Andrew Ansbro. Ordered by de Blasio earlier this month, the vaccine mandate will take effect at 5 pm on Friday. From Monday morning, workers, who have not received their first shot, will be barred from working and will not get paid until they can show proof of having received at least one shot. (With inputs from agencies)

As vaccine mandate deadline looms, New York City braces for worker shortage

US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison welcomed their new security ties ahead of their bilateral meeting alongside the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City.

WION-USA Direct: US President Joe Biden meets Australian PM Scott Morrison on UNGA sidelines

The foreign ministers of the European Union held a closed-door meeting in New York City. The meeting was held on the Australia-France submarine deal worth $40 billion.

WION-USA Direct: European Union foreign ministers held closed-door meet in New York City

Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi speaks at the 76th general debate at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

WION-USA Direct: Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi addresses the 76th UNGA session

In a landmark move by one of the biggest cities in the world New York, the governor there has signed into law. A bill that sets a goal for all new passenger cars and light-duty trucks to be zero-emission models by 2035.

World Business Watch: NYC Governor sets zero-emission passenger car goal

President Joe Biden took stock of the situation following torrential downpour across the northeastern coast due to Hurricane Ida. The total death toll has crossed 50 with at least nine deaths reported in Louisiana and 46 in the northeastern states.

Hurricane Ida: 50 people killed due to flash flood

Flash floods from tropical storm Ida swamped New York City. Record rainfall in the city, has prompted an unprecedented flash flood emergency and turned streets into rivers, and shut down subway services as water cascaded down platforms onto tracks.

Floods Batter United States financial capital New York

Flash floods from tropical storm Ida swamped New York City and have killed close to 41 people till now. Record rainfall in the city, has prompted an unprecedented flash flood emergency and turned streets into rivers, and shut down subway services as water cascaded down platforms onto tracks.

Flash floods from tropical storm Ida swamp New York City, 41 dead

Flash flood fury in New York City

Global star-entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s latest pictures from inside her Indian restaurant ‘Sona’ is all things glitz and glamour. The ‘We Can Be Heroes’ wore a white, high-slit dress and finished the look golden hoops, a simple neckpiece in the same colour and sky-high golden heels.

Global star-entrepreneur Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s latest pictures from inside her Indian restaurant ‘Sona’ is all things glitz and glamour. The ‘We Can Be Heroes’ wore a white, high-slit dress and finished the look golden hoops, a simple neckpiece in the same colour and sky-high golden heels. To keep the look casual and chic, she wore her hair in a loose topknot and can be seen posing for her in-house photographer and is all smiles in the photos. “Timeless India all within the heart of New York City. So much love for @sonanewyork,” she captioned the post that she has shared on Instagram which has been liked by over two million fans. Check out the post: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Jonas (@priyankachopra) × In one of her earlier posts—dressed in a neon green palazzo pants and white-and-sky blue shirt, Priyanka can be seen gorging on some classic ‘gol gappas’: a popular bite-size chaat consisting of a hollow, crispy-fried puffed ball that is filled with potato, chickpeas, onions, spices, and flavoured water, usually tamarind or mint, and popped into one's mouth whole. She had captioned the post as, “cannot believe I’m finally at @sonanewyork and seeing our labour of love after 3 years of planning. My heart is so full to go into the kitchen and meet the team that makes @sonanewyork such a wholesome experience. From my namesake private dining room, Mimi’s, to the gorgeous interiors, the stunning art by Indian artists (for sale) and the yummy food and drinks, the Sona experience is so unique and a part of my heart in the heart of New York City.” Check out the post: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Jonas (@priyankachopra) × On the work front, Priyanka is currently shooting for her spy series 'Citadel' in London which also stars ‘Rocketman’ actor Richard Madden in a pivotal role. The actress will also be seen in the fourth installment of the popular franchise ‘Matrix’ titled ‘Matrix 4’ alongside Keanu Reeves, Neil Patrick Harris, Jada Pinkett Smith, among others. Priyanka also has another romcom with Mindy Kaling in the making and a biopic on controversial cult figure Ma Anand Sheela (of ‘Wild Wild Country’ fame) and another series with Amazon that she is executive producing with her husband. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Jonas (@priyankachopra) ×

A smoking hot Priyanka Chopra Jonas gives us a tour of her new restaurant in NYC. We are distracted by her

New York City was one of the global hotspots during the pandemic. Nearly a million people were affected while 20,000 died in the big apple due to COVID. Reports reveal that the number of homeless people in New York reached record levels during the pandemic.

Number of homeless people rise to record levels in New York City

The number of homeless people in New York have risen to a record level as now more than 20,000 single adults are sleeping in shelters each night.

WION Ground Report: New York city's homelessness crisis worsens

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that New Yorkers will receive free train rides in subway stations if they get vaccinated against COVID-19, as part of a move to speed up immunizations.

New York City offers free subway rides in exchange for COVID-19 vaccination

New York City Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a major easing of coronavirus restrictions on Monday, including the imminent resumption of 24-hour operations in the city subway. NYC's subway services will return to return to 24-hour operation from May 17.

New York City's 24-hour Subway service to resume from May 17

New York City is all set to reopen fully from July 1 after more than a year of COVID-19 induced closures and capacity restrictions. Mayor Bill de Blasio cited strong Coronavirus vaccination numbers in the city as a reason for the reopening.

New York City plans to fully reopen July 1 says Mayor Bill de Blasio

A 68-year-old Sri Lankan man was riding the subway in lower Manhattan on Friday when another passenger yelled a racial slur and punched him in the head, leaving him bloodied and in critical condition.

On Saturday morning, a 66-year-old man of Asian descent was punched in the face on the Lower East Side.

Then Sunday came three more attacks, the police said: A woman of Asian descent was thrown to the ground in Midtown, another was hit in the face with a metal pipe on the Lower East Side and a third was punched twice in the face after she attended a demonstration in Union Square in support of Asian American victims with her young daughter.

The attacks around New York City over the weekend, coming as hundreds of marchers gathered in multiple protests to call for an end to such assaults, were yet more examples of violence directed at Asian Americans amid a new wave of xenophobia that emerged during the pandemic.

The assaults underscored the feelings of fear and vulnerability that had taken hold in the Asian American community, even before a shooting in the Atlanta area last week left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.

Katie Hou, 37, who is Chinese American and was attacked Sunday afternoon after she went to the demonstration in Union Square, said in an interview that she was recovering and hoped her encounter would not scare other Asian American people from speaking out.

“People need to be vigilant about their safety, but at the same time, we need to do something to stop this from happening again,” she said.

The police said they were investigating at least five different attacks that took place between Friday and Sunday, and three people have been arrested in connection with three of them.

But much is still not known about the victims or the attackers, at least two of whom appeared to be behaving erratically before the incidents.

In the assault on the subway, the man who was arrested, Marc Mathieu, posted a long, rambling video on Facebook the morning of the attack, in which he spoke unintelligibly about violent security forces working at the Staten Island Ferry, among other disjointed topics.

The man who attacked the woman after the demonstration Sunday pulled down his pants and exposed himself to witnesses and yelled at passersby, telling them they were going to jail, according to one witness of the attack.

Both of those cases are being investigated as hate crimes, the police said. But the criminal justice system has faced challenges in definitively proving racist motives in apparent anti-Asian crimes. Some advocates have pointed to shortcomings in the laws that govern hate crimes.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, during an interview with Pix11 on Thursday before the recent attacks, said the department was investigating 10 anti-Asian hate crimes reported through mid-March, compared to none in early 2020 before the pandemic reached New York.

The department recorded 29 anti-Asian attacks last year, including 25 that investigators believed stemmed from anti-Asian sentiment and the perception that the victim was carrying the coronavirus, according to police statistics released in January.

George O’krepkie, a witness to the subway assault, said the attacker threw what appeared to be a crumpled-up newspaper at the victim before charging at him and yelling a racial slur.

“He was on top of him,” he said. “Within seconds there was blood everywhere.”

The victim was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital in critical but stable condition. It was not clear if he had been released, but a man who answered the phone number listed for the victim declined to comment.

Mathieu was arraigned Monday on one count of second-degree assault, and prosecutors, who ultimately determine whether to charge anyone with a hate crime, said they were investigating if the attack constituted such a crime.

Relatives of Mathieu did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mathieu declined to comment.

The police have not released the name of the man who they believe attacked a man on the Lower East Side on Saturday. That attack is also being investigated as a hate crime.

On Sunday, Hou, who works in accounting, said she had taken her 7-year-old daughter to a rally at Union Square to learn about racial tensions in America, particularly after the shooting in Atlanta. She said the two had left the rally around 11:30 a.m. when a man walked up to Hou and asked for a sign she was carrying that read, “Hate Has No Peace” and “Racist = Psychopath.”

She said she gave him the sign because she thought he wanted to protest. But he smashed it on the ground, she said. As she tried to confront him, he punched her twice in the face, she said, but the two did not exchange any words.

DeVonn Francis, 27, who witnessed the attack, said the man began yelling at people, saying they were going to jail. Francis and others followed the man to a nearby subway station, where he exposed himself before getting on the train and riding away.

Hours later Sunday, a 41-year-old woman of Asian descent was walking in Midtown on West 31st Street when she was grabbed from behind and thrown on the ground, police said.

Patricia Melendez, 37, was arrested on charges of assault and disorderly conduct. It was not clear if Melendez had a lawyer, and her relatives could not be reached for comment.

It was not immediately clear how seriously the victim was injured, but the police said they were investigating that attack as another possible hate crime.

Still later Sunday afternoon, a 54-year-old woman of Asian descent was walking on the Lower East Side when a man confronted her and struck her in the face with a metal pipe. Police did not name the victim, but said she suffered a laceration to her nose and was taken to a nearby hospital.

The police arrested Elias Guerrero, 38, on several charges including hate crime assault, resisting arrest and harassment.

A 68-year-old Sri Lankan man was riding the subway in lower Manhattan on Friday when another passenger yelled a racial slur and punched him in the head, leaving him bloodied and in critical condition.

A 68-year-old Sri Lankan man was riding the subway in lower Manhattan on Friday when another passenger yelled a racial slur and punched him in the head, leaving him bloodied and in critical condition. On Saturday morning, a 66-year-old man of Asian descent was punched in the face on the Lower East Side. Then Sunday came three more attacks, the police said: A woman of Asian descent was thrown to the ground in Midtown, another was hit in the face with a metal pipe on the Lower East Side and a third was punched twice in the face after she attended a demonstration in Union Square in support of Asian American victims with her young daughter. The attacks around New York City over the weekend, coming as hundreds of marchers gathered in multiple protests to call for an end to such assaults, were yet more examples of violence directed at Asian Americans amid a new wave of xenophobia that emerged during the pandemic. The assaults underscored the feelings of fear and vulnerability that had taken hold in the Asian American community, even before a shooting in the Atlanta area last week left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent. Katie Hou, 37, who is Chinese American and was attacked Sunday afternoon after she went to the demonstration in Union Square, said in an interview that she was recovering and hoped her encounter would not scare other Asian American people from speaking out. “People need to be vigilant about their safety, but at the same time, we need to do something to stop this from happening again,” she said. The police said they were investigating at least five different attacks that took place between Friday and Sunday, and three people have been arrested in connection with three of them. But much is still not known about the victims or the attackers, at least two of whom appeared to be behaving erratically before the incidents. In the assault on the subway, the man who was arrested, Marc Mathieu, posted a long, rambling video on Facebook the morning of the attack, in which he spoke unintelligibly about violent security forces working at the Staten Island Ferry, among other disjointed topics. The man who attacked the woman after the demonstration Sunday pulled down his pants and exposed himself to witnesses and yelled at passersby, telling them they were going to jail, according to one witness of the attack. Both of those cases are being investigated as hate crimes, the police said. But the criminal justice system has faced challenges in definitively proving racist motives in apparent anti-Asian crimes. Some advocates have pointed to shortcomings in the laws that govern hate crimes. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, during an interview with Pix11 on Thursday before the recent attacks, said the department was investigating 10 anti-Asian hate crimes reported through mid-March, compared to none in early 2020 before the pandemic reached New York. The department recorded 29 anti-Asian attacks last year, including 25 that investigators believed stemmed from anti-Asian sentiment and the perception that the victim was carrying the coronavirus, according to police statistics released in January. George O’krepkie, a witness to the subway assault, said the attacker threw what appeared to be a crumpled-up newspaper at the victim before charging at him and yelling a racial slur. “He was on top of him,” he said. “Within seconds there was blood everywhere.” The victim was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital in critical but stable condition. It was not clear if he had been released, but a man who answered the phone number listed for the victim declined to comment. Mathieu was arraigned Monday on one count of second-degree assault, and prosecutors, who ultimately determine whether to charge anyone with a hate crime, said they were investigating if the attack constituted such a crime. Relatives of Mathieu did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mathieu declined to comment. The police have not released the name of the man who they believe attacked a man on the Lower East Side on Saturday. That attack is also being investigated as a hate crime. On Sunday, Hou, who works in accounting, said she had taken her 7-year-old daughter to a rally at Union Square to learn about racial tensions in America, particularly after the shooting in Atlanta. She said the two had left the rally around 11:30 a.m. when a man walked up to Hou and asked for a sign she was carrying that read, “Hate Has No Peace” and “Racist = Psychopath.” She said she gave him the sign because she thought he wanted to protest. But he smashed it on the ground, she said. As she tried to confront him, he punched her twice in the face, she said, but the two did not exchange any words. DeVonn Francis, 27, who witnessed the attack, said the man began yelling at people, saying they were going to jail. Francis and others followed the man to a nearby subway station, where he exposed himself before getting on the train and riding away. Hours later Sunday, a 41-year-old woman of Asian descent was walking in Midtown on West 31st Street when she was grabbed from behind and thrown on the ground, police said. Patricia Melendez, 37, was arrested on charges of assault and disorderly conduct. It was not clear if Melendez had a lawyer, and her relatives could not be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear how seriously the victim was injured, but the police said they were investigating that attack as another possible hate crime. Still later Sunday afternoon, a 54-year-old woman of Asian descent was walking on the Lower East Side when a man confronted her and struck her in the face with a metal pipe. Police did not name the victim, but said she suffered a laceration to her nose and was taken to a nearby hospital. The police arrested Elias Guerrero, 38, on several charges including hate crime assault, resisting arrest and harassment.

As protesters rally against anti-Asian hate, NYC records 5 attacks

The largest public school system in the United States has been accused of perpetuating racism. A group of students in New York City claim that the admission process for students is racist, and favours white students.

Brought to state court by multiple civil rights attorneys, the lawsuit claims that children are sorted academically using a “rigged system” as early as when they’re four-years-old. This process in turn benefits white students, while denying minority students the opportunity and access to programmes.

"Nearly every facet of the New York City public education system operates not only to prop up, but also to affirmatively reproduce, the artificial racial hierarchies that have subordinated people of color for centuries in the United States," the lawsuit reads.

The complaint urges the judge to get rid of the ongoing admissions process - especially in terms of programmes that recognise talent and that may open up access to better schools.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/school-in-new-york-asks-parents-to-rate-their-whiteness-364281" hreflang="en">School in New York asks parents to rate their 'whiteness'</a>

The lawsuit alleges that for many Black and Latino students, many high schools and programmes continue to remain out of reach. New York City’s school system - the country’s largest has approximately 1 million students, and is perceived as a deeply divided entity in terms of race and access.

According to data collected by the City Council, over three-quarters of Black and Latino students go to schools that have less than 10 per cent white students. Similarly, over a third White students go to schools that have majorly white populations.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/a-governor-in-isolation-how-andrew-cuomo-lost-his-grip-on-new-york-368705" hreflang="en">A governor in isolation: How Andrew Cuomo lost his grip on New York</a>

In 2019, city Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to abolish the admissions exam for specialised schools, but the proposal was rejected by state legislature.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include IntegrateNYC, a nonprofit led by youth focused on the integration of school systems.

The largest public school system in the United States has been accused of perpetuating racism. A group of students in New York City claim that the admission process for students is racist, and favours white students.

The largest public school system in the United States has been accused of perpetuating racism. A group of students in New York City claim that the admission process for students is racist, and favours white students. Brought to state court by multiple civil rights attorneys, the lawsuit claims that children are sorted academically using a “rigged system” as early as when they’re four-years-old. This process in turn benefits white students, while denying minority students the opportunity and access to programmes. "Nearly every facet of the New York City public education system operates not only to prop up, but also to affirmatively reproduce, the artificial racial hierarchies that have subordinated people of color for centuries in the United States," the lawsuit reads. The complaint urges the judge to get rid of the ongoing admissions process - especially in terms of programmes that recognise talent and that may open up access to better schools. Also read: School in New York asks parents to rate their 'whiteness' The lawsuit alleges that for many Black and Latino students, many high schools and programmes continue to remain out of reach. New York City’s school system - the country’s largest has approximately 1 million students, and is perceived as a deeply divided entity in terms of race and access. According to data collected by the City Council, over three-quarters of Black and Latino students go to schools that have less than 10 per cent white students. Similarly, over a third White students go to schools that have majorly white populations. Also read: A governor in isolation: How Andrew Cuomo lost his grip on New York In 2019, city Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to abolish the admissions exam for specialised schools, but the proposal was rejected by state legislature. The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include IntegrateNYC, a nonprofit led by youth focused on the integration of school systems.

New York City's public school system perpetuates racism, a lawsuit claims

Leading political figures in New York attended a rally in Manhattan Saturday in support of the Asian-American community targeted in random acts of violence recently.

New Yorkers rally against anti-Asian violence, NYC mayor attends rally

London now has the highest concentration of dollar millionaires in the entire world, trumping New York City.

At least 875,000 people from London are dollar millionaires, ie, they possess asserts worth more than $10,15,812 (£720,000), based on the annual study undertaken of the world’s wealthiest people by Knight Frank - a property consultant entity.

This implies that one out of every 10 people in London is now a dollar millionaire. The data highlights the widening inequality gap, which has become steeper owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to government figures, over 2.5 million people in London are classified as “living in poverty”.

The report adds that 874,354 people in London possess assets like property which amounts to over $1 million, making them “high net worth individuals”.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/europes-biggest-haul-23-tonnes-of-cocaine-seized-by-customs-authorities-365960" hreflang="en">'Europe's biggest haul': 23 tonnes of cocaine seized by customs authorities</a> 
 
In New York, the number stands at 820,000. Knight Frank’s global head of research, Liam Bailey told The Guardian the following - &nbsp;“The main point is that our HNWI threshold is $1m, so £720,000, and with average house prices in London at £514,000, a lot of households fall into the HNWI category… Ironically, the high cost of housing in London is the main driver for categorising so many households as being wealthy.”

The research also found that London that the most number of “prime” homes for any city in the world. There are 68,000 such prime units costing over £2m each.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/uk-ministry-confirms-second-hq-outside-london-365045" hreflang="en">UK ministry confirms second HQ outside London</a>

Expensive property sales have gone up in London during the pandemic, with foreign investors exploiting the drop in the value of the pound and tax advantages in the aftermath of Brexit.

The survey also named London the rich person’s city of choice in terms of lifestyle, and what it offers - opera houses, theatres, universities, sports, shopping facilities, and Michelin-starred restaurants.

London now has the highest concentration of dollar millionaires in the entire world, trumping New York City. At least 875,000 people from London are dollar millionaires, ie, they possess asserts worth more than $10,15,812 (£720,000), based on the annual study undertaken of the world’s wealthiest people by Knight Frank - a property consultant entity.

London now has the highest concentration of dollar millionaires in the entire world, trumping New York City. At least 875,000 people from London are dollar millionaires, ie, they possess asserts worth more than $10,15,812 (£720,000), based on the annual study undertaken of the world’s wealthiest people by Knight Frank - a property consultant entity. This implies that one out of every 10 people in London is now a dollar millionaire. The data highlights the widening inequality gap, which has become steeper owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to government figures, over 2.5 million people in London are classified as “living in poverty”. The report adds that 874,354 people in London possess assets like property which amounts to over $1 million, making them “high net worth individuals”. Also read: 'Europe's biggest haul': 23 tonnes of cocaine seized by customs authorities In New York, the number stands at 820,000. Knight Frank’s global head of research, Liam Bailey told The Guardian the following - “The main point is that our HNWI threshold is $1m, so £720,000, and with average house prices in London at £514,000, a lot of households fall into the HNWI category… Ironically, the high cost of housing in London is the main driver for categorising so many households as being wealthy.” The research also found that London that the most number of “prime” homes for any city in the world. There are 68,000 such prime units costing over £2m each. Also read: UK ministry confirms second HQ outside London Expensive property sales have gone up in London during the pandemic, with foreign investors exploiting the drop in the value of the pound and tax advantages in the aftermath of Brexit. The survey also named London the rich person’s city of choice in terms of lifestyle, and what it offers - opera houses, theatres, universities, sports, shopping facilities, and Michelin-starred restaurants.

London now has the most number of dollar millionaires, trumping New York City

Iconic yellow taxis were omnipresent on the streets of New York day and night, as emblematic of the Big Apple as the Empire State Building or Yankees caps. But the pandemic has made yellow taxis scarce and facing an uncertain future. New York taxi drivers, most of whom are first-generation immigrants, were once able to make $7,000 a month or more if they worked long hours seven days a week. So could the yellow taxis, which replaced checkered-striped cabs in the 1960s, actually disappear?

Pandemic threatens New York's iconic yellow taxis

In many tight political races, candidates battle over not just what they know, but whom they know. In the New York City mayor’s race, the most popular person to know isn’t even a New Yorker.

“I’ve literally got the vice president’s number,” Andrew Yang told the news channel NY1.

“We introduced the vice president-elect to New York City,” Raymond J. McGuire said on a podcast last month.

Maya D. Wiley, another mayoral candidate, has a picture featuring that vice president — <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/kamala-harris">Kamala Harris</a> of California — splashed across the top of her Twitter page.

As a new administration takes over in Washington, there are signs of fresh battle lines in New York’s mayoral race, centered on connections to federal power.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/kamala-harris-as-us-vice-president-cements-importance-of-india-us-ties-jen-psaki-358442">Kamala Harris as US vice president cements importance of India, US ties: Jen Psaki</a>

Political candidates often claim ties to major party figures in an effort to energize their bases, and that may be especially true with regard to Harris, the first woman and person of color to serve as the country’s vice president.

Yet this year, in a contest that may be defined by promises to stabilize an economically imperiled city, several prominent candidates are also competing over who is best equipped to capture Washington’s attention — and its assistance.

“Having the bragging rights to relationships with these folks is appealing to voters,” said Jay Jacobs, chairman of New York State’s Democratic Party. “It probably allows them to suggest that maybe they’ll be able to get additional help for the city if they become mayor.”

Also read|<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/twitter-cant-keep-calm-as-it-discovers-kamala-harris-is-a-part-of-bts-army-358228">&nbsp;Twitter can't keep calm as it discovers Kamala Harris is a part of BTS ARMY</a>

New York already has vigorous champions for federal aid, starting with the new Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who is known to be attentive to his home state’s needs. And for mayors, the most urgent and fraught relationship to manage is often the one with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has vast control over city operations and has his own dealings with Washington.

But after New York’s rough relationship with the Trump administration, many mayoral candidates agree that the city needs as many strong ties as possible to the new Washington to help navigate issues like housing, transportation and pandemic relief.

Yet there are sharp distinctions in the ways the candidates approach discussing Washington.

Some of the leading contenders — like Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president — are vocal about the need for more federal relief, and they appear to be betting that the next mayor of New York will get through to Washington regardless of previous relationships.

“It’s a powerful argument to remind people in power time and time again in Washington that New York City continues to be the epicenter of the national economy,” said Stringer, who as comptroller laid out New York’s “most urgent” economic needs in a recent letter to President Joe Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “The quicker we bring back New York City, the better it will be for everybody.”

Also read|<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kamala-harris-indian-family-is-waiting-for-her-to-become-president-358310">&nbsp;Kamala Harris' Indian family is waiting for her to become president</a>

For candidates with fewer established ties to city politics, national name-dropping can be part of a broader effort to explain the less conventional ways they would fight for New York, or simply a tactic aimed at standing out through association.

It is an approach that may attract attention from donors and endorsement gatekeepers, though many New York political experts are skeptical that such appeals move votes.

Embracing the new administration may not be viewed as a particular asset in the most liberal corners of New York, where the White House is sure to be seen as too moderate. And strategists warn that the impact that Washington has on New York can be an abstract concept for voters grappling with more tangible challenges.

“If you’re an insider, it obviously plays a larger factor,” the Queens borough president, Donovan Richards Jr., said. “For the person on the food line who’s disconnected from government, they don’t necessarily care about your relationship to Washington, D.C. They care about you being able to put some food on their plate.”

Yang is trying to address the latter concern with a broad suite of policies as he seeks to emerge as the anti-poverty candidate. But Yang, a former presidential contender and political surrogate, is also emphasizing national relationships — even as he faces scrutiny over his connections to the city in which he has never voted for mayor.

“My ties are strong with our partners in the White House and the Capitol; I have a lot of their phone numbers,” he said last week, adding that Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia had recently called him (though newly elected officials often make many phone calls to thank supporters).

Calling Biden, Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary nominee, “friends of mine,” Yang added, “These relationships will pay dividends for our city when we want to get things done.”

He also posted pictures of himself with Biden, Harris and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Cory Booker of New Jersey. (Booker, declining to name the mayoral candidates he knew best, said he did not expect to endorse in the race because “I have so many friends that are running.”)

The candidate with the deepest federal management experience is Shaun Donovan, who was a housing secretary under former President Barack Obama, and Donovan makes no secret of it. The biography on his campaign website opens with the promise to work with Biden, “ensuring that New York City’s voice is heard in the White House.”

His campaign also issued a news release that highlighted “Obama-Biden alumni” donors, including Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Biden’s choice to lead the Homeland Security Department, and Tom Vilsack, his choice for agriculture secretary.

Donovan said in an interview that his Washington relationships positioned him to see fresh opportunities for collaboration.

“The question is, how deep are those relationships, how much trust do you have in the ability not just to call them on the phone, but to actually have worked side by side with them in moments of crisis?” he said. “No one has the depth and breadth of relationships that I do.”

Despite those high-profile contacts, Donovan failed to meet the thresholds to qualify for the city’s matching-funds program, according to numbers released last week.

Then there is McGuire, a longtime Wall Street executive, who has been a major Democratic donor himself and was a supporter of Harris before she ran for president.

McGuire does not mention her at every turn, but he does have ties to her 2020 presidential primary infrastructure: The national finance chairman of her campaign, Jonathan Henes, is now a finance co-chair of his campaign, and there is additional overlap among prominent donors and on the finance team.

McGuire and his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, also have personal relationships with Harris, according to a person who has worked for both McGuire and Harris. The person recalled, for instance, that after Harris gave a book talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan several years ago, she and her husband dined on cartons of Chinese takeout at the McGuires’ home.

That doesn’t mean a Harris endorsement is imminent for McGuire or anyone else. A Harris aide said her team had been focused on the inauguration and on managing the coronavirus crisis. Others who have worked with her are skeptical that she would wade into a crowded mayoral primary.

But the relationship is part of McGuire’s pitch that he would activate his sprawling network on behalf of the city. McGuire has publicly cited his ties with Harris and his connections with Washington decision-makers.

“Given that this is arguably the most important city in the country, it is important to have a relationship with one of the two most important leaders of the country,” he said last week, asked why that relationship was relevant.

Wiley’s embrace of Harris is literal: The photo on her Twitter page shows her cheek touching Harris’ temple.

In an interview, she detailed her own experiences navigating Washington, including testifying before Congress and meeting key officials across federal agencies, and described opportunities for the next mayor to work with an increasingly powerful New York delegation. And Wiley, who is Black and hopes to be the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, also noted the historic nature of Harris’ ascension to the vice presidency.

Female voters, she said, are “very energized by this White House, and by what it represents, not just symbolically but practically.”

“The national and local are deeply connected for folks because we do need help from Washington,” said Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst who has worked with Harris’ sister, who added that she had traded the occasional text with Harris.

Then there are the veteran New York politicians like Stringer and Adams who lack much of a national platform but do have deep local relationships.

Given New York’s stature, some officials say, that should be enough — a stance adopted by Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner who is also running for mayor.

“You are still the mayor of the premier city of the United States,” she said. “They’re going to take your call.”

Former Rep. Charles Rangel, the onetime dean of the New York House delegation, suggested that the mayoral candidates should keep fully focused on their own city.

“I refuse to say anything that could be misinterpreted as not being positive about the power of the vice president of the United States,” he said. “But I’ll be goddamned if I can ever remember going to the vice president for any help for my city.”

In many tight political races, candidates battle over not just what they know, but whom they know. In the New York City mayor’s race, the most popular person to know isn’t even a New Yorker.

In many tight political races, candidates battle over not just what they know, but whom they know. In the New York City mayor’s race, the most popular person to know isn’t even a New Yorker. “I’ve literally got the vice president’s number,” Andrew Yang told the news channel NY1. “We introduced the vice president-elect to New York City,” Raymond J. McGuire said on a podcast last month. Maya D. Wiley, another mayoral candidate, has a picture featuring that vice president — Kamala Harris of California — splashed across the top of her Twitter page. As a new administration takes over in Washington, there are signs of fresh battle lines in New York’s mayoral race, centered on connections to federal power. Also read| Kamala Harris as US vice president cements importance of India, US ties: Jen Psaki Political candidates often claim ties to major party figures in an effort to energize their bases, and that may be especially true with regard to Harris, the first woman and person of color to serve as the country’s vice president. Yet this year, in a contest that may be defined by promises to stabilize an economically imperiled city, several prominent candidates are also competing over who is best equipped to capture Washington’s attention — and its assistance. “Having the bragging rights to relationships with these folks is appealing to voters,” said Jay Jacobs, chairman of New York State’s Democratic Party. “It probably allows them to suggest that maybe they’ll be able to get additional help for the city if they become mayor.” Also read| Twitter can't keep calm as it discovers Kamala Harris is a part of BTS ARMY New York already has vigorous champions for federal aid, starting with the new Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who is known to be attentive to his home state’s needs. And for mayors, the most urgent and fraught relationship to manage is often the one with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has vast control over city operations and has his own dealings with Washington. But after New York’s rough relationship with the Trump administration, many mayoral candidates agree that the city needs as many strong ties as possible to the new Washington to help navigate issues like housing, transportation and pandemic relief. Yet there are sharp distinctions in the ways the candidates approach discussing Washington. Some of the leading contenders — like Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president — are vocal about the need for more federal relief, and they appear to be betting that the next mayor of New York will get through to Washington regardless of previous relationships. “It’s a powerful argument to remind people in power time and time again in Washington that New York City continues to be the epicenter of the national economy,” said Stringer, who as comptroller laid out New York’s “most urgent” economic needs in a recent letter to President Joe Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “The quicker we bring back New York City, the better it will be for everybody.” Also read| Kamala Harris' Indian family is waiting for her to become president For candidates with fewer established ties to city politics, national name-dropping can be part of a broader effort to explain the less conventional ways they would fight for New York, or simply a tactic aimed at standing out through association. It is an approach that may attract attention from donors and endorsement gatekeepers, though many New York political experts are skeptical that such appeals move votes. Embracing the new administration may not be viewed as a particular asset in the most liberal corners of New York, where the White House is sure to be seen as too moderate. And strategists warn that the impact that Washington has on New York can be an abstract concept for voters grappling with more tangible challenges. “If you’re an insider, it obviously plays a larger factor,” the Queens borough president, Donovan Richards Jr., said. “For the person on the food line who’s disconnected from government, they don’t necessarily care about your relationship to Washington, D.C. They care about you being able to put some food on their plate.” Yang is trying to address the latter concern with a broad suite of policies as he seeks to emerge as the anti-poverty candidate. But Yang, a former presidential contender and political surrogate, is also emphasizing national relationships — even as he faces scrutiny over his connections to the city in which he has never voted for mayor. “My ties are strong with our partners in the White House and the Capitol; I have a lot of their phone numbers,” he said last week, adding that Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia had recently called him (though newly elected officials often make many phone calls to thank supporters). Calling Biden, Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary nominee, “friends of mine,” Yang added, “These relationships will pay dividends for our city when we want to get things done.” He also posted pictures of himself with Biden, Harris and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Cory Booker of New Jersey. (Booker, declining to name the mayoral candidates he knew best, said he did not expect to endorse in the race because “I have so many friends that are running.”) The candidate with the deepest federal management experience is Shaun Donovan, who was a housing secretary under former President Barack Obama, and Donovan makes no secret of it. The biography on his campaign website opens with the promise to work with Biden, “ensuring that New York City’s voice is heard in the White House.” His campaign also issued a news release that highlighted “Obama-Biden alumni” donors, including Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Biden’s choice to lead the Homeland Security Department, and Tom Vilsack, his choice for agriculture secretary. Donovan said in an interview that his Washington relationships positioned him to see fresh opportunities for collaboration. “The question is, how deep are those relationships, how much trust do you have in the ability not just to call them on the phone, but to actually have worked side by side with them in moments of crisis?” he said. “No one has the depth and breadth of relationships that I do.” Despite those high-profile contacts, Donovan failed to meet the thresholds to qualify for the city’s matching-funds program, according to numbers released last week. Then there is McGuire, a longtime Wall Street executive, who has been a major Democratic donor himself and was a supporter of Harris before she ran for president. McGuire does not mention her at every turn, but he does have ties to her 2020 presidential primary infrastructure: The national finance chairman of her campaign, Jonathan Henes, is now a finance co-chair of his campaign, and there is additional overlap among prominent donors and on the finance team. McGuire and his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, also have personal relationships with Harris, according to a person who has worked for both McGuire and Harris. The person recalled, for instance, that after Harris gave a book talk at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan several years ago, she and her husband dined on cartons of Chinese takeout at the McGuires’ home. That doesn’t mean a Harris endorsement is imminent for McGuire or anyone else. A Harris aide said her team had been focused on the inauguration and on managing the coronavirus crisis. Others who have worked with her are skeptical that she would wade into a crowded mayoral primary. But the relationship is part of McGuire’s pitch that he would activate his sprawling network on behalf of the city. McGuire has publicly cited his ties with Harris and his connections with Washington decision-makers. “Given that this is arguably the most important city in the country, it is important to have a relationship with one of the two most important leaders of the country,” he said last week, asked why that relationship was relevant. Wiley’s embrace of Harris is literal: The photo on her Twitter page shows her cheek touching Harris’ temple. In an interview, she detailed her own experiences navigating Washington, including testifying before Congress and meeting key officials across federal agencies, and described opportunities for the next mayor to work with an increasingly powerful New York delegation. And Wiley, who is Black and hopes to be the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, also noted the historic nature of Harris’ ascension to the vice presidency. Female voters, she said, are “very energized by this White House, and by what it represents, not just symbolically but practically.” “The national and local are deeply connected for folks because we do need help from Washington,” said Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst who has worked with Harris’ sister, who added that she had traded the occasional text with Harris. Then there are the veteran New York politicians like Stringer and Adams who lack much of a national platform but do have deep local relationships. Given New York’s stature, some officials say, that should be enough — a stance adopted by Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner who is also running for mayor. “You are still the mayor of the premier city of the United States,” she said. “They’re going to take your call.” Former Rep. Charles Rangel, the onetime dean of the New York House delegation, suggested that the mayoral candidates should keep fully focused on their own city. “I refuse to say anything that could be misinterpreted as not being positive about the power of the vice president of the United States,” he said. “But I’ll be goddamned if I can ever remember going to the vice president for any help for my city.”

Why Kamala Harris is a star of the New York City Mayor’s race

The New York Legislature on Monday overwhelmingly passed one of the most comprehensive anti-eviction laws in the nation, as the state contends with high levels of unemployment caused by a pandemic that has taken more than 330,000 lives nationwide.

Tenants and advocacy groups have been dreading the end-of-year expiration of eviction bans that have kept people in their homes even as they fell months behind in their rent. Under the new measure, landlords will be barred from evicting most tenants for at least another 60 days in almost all cases.

The measure will not only block landlords from evicting most tenants but will also protect some small landlords from foreclosure and automatically renew tax exemptions for homeowners who are elderly or disabled.

The Legislature convened an unusual special session between Christmas and New Year’s to pass the measure, acting quickly because the governor’s executive order barring many evictions was slated to expire on Dec. 31. The legislators’ urgency reflected a national concern over the fate of millions of people without jobs and access to job opportunities, as the pandemic continues to eat away at the economy.

The passage of the bill comes as a relief for renters like Vincia Barber, 40, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who said she lost her job as a nanny and hasn’t paid rent in months.

“This is the best thing they could do for us today,” said Barber, who added that two of her relatives had died of the coronavirus.

Once the bill becomes law in New York, tenants like Barber can protect their homes by submitting a document stating financial hardship related to the coronavirus. As many as 1.2 million New York households are currently at risk of being removed from their homes, according to a database maintained by Stout, a consulting firm.

For eviction cases that are already working their way through the courts, the law will halt proceedings for at least 60 days. Landlords would not be allowed to begin new eviction proceedings until at least May 1.

Some landlords resisted the measure, arguing that the law didn’t adequately distinguish between tenants with resources and those without. They said the new law paid too little heed to property owners who are themselves grappling with diminished financial resources, as tenants fall behind on rent and ground-floor retail tenants go out of business.

The legislation attempts to address those concerns by making it harder for banks to foreclose on smaller landlords who are themselves struggling to pay bills.

On Monday evening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the bill, which will go into effect immediately.

The state’s emergency action comes a day after President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion relief package, which included $1.3 billion in rental relief for New Yorkers and extended a federal eviction moratorium — and two days after unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans.

The state and federal legislation speak to the precarious financial situation facing millions of Americans, nine months into the pandemic.

Nationally, an estimated 7 million to 14 million households are at risk for eviction, according to Stout’s database. They are thought to be short between $11 billon and $20 billion in rent.

Other states have taken steps to delay evictions as well. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut has extended that state’s ban until Feb. 9. Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington extended an eviction moratorium until March 31.

New York and the other states acted to plug holes in a federal moratorium that housing advocates say does not do enough to protect tenants from losing their homes. The requirements to qualify for eviction protection are considered onerous, and several states took their own action.

The New York Senate approved the new measure 40-21 on Monday, while the state Assembly voted 99-47.

What makes New York’s new law exceptional is its reach: It eases the process for tenants and small landlords to claim financial hardships and eliminates hurdles for disabled and older homeowners to renew tax exemptions.

In New York state, even under Cuomo’s order, eviction proceedings have continued, but landlords have largely been barred from physically removing tenants from their homes. A smattering of evictions resumed in October, particularly for those tenants who were unable to convince judges that their financial hardships were related to the coronavirus.

As of late November, there have been 38 requests for eviction warrants in New York City, according to a recent analysis by the New York University Furman Center. Every one of those cases began before the pandemic and most involved properties in central Brooklyn.

Since October, Zellnor Myrie, a state senator representing central Brooklyn, has had at least three eviction warrants issued in his district. The most recent warrant was issued for a tenant who was unable to pay rent.

“So even with the constellation of moratoria, there have still been landlords going after tenants,” said Myrie, a sponsor of the legislation.

As of November, 8% of New York state residents were unemployed, more than twice as many as this time last year. State Labor Department figures indicate that the unemployment rate in New York City is significantly higher. Small businesses and their employees in Manhattan’s core have been especially hard hit, as commuters have all but vanished.

Winsome Pendergrass, 63, a tenant and activist from the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, lost her main source of income providing in-home care. Three months behind in rent, she said the legislation will bring her some relief.

“I myself suffer from high blood pressure and I don’t want to be running out there and overexert myself in the pandemic, because the money I am coming up with is just to pay the rent,” she said.

But landlords argue the bill oversteps, allowing tenants to avoid eviction by merely stating financial hardship rather than proving it.

“With no requirement of proof that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected their income, and no income limitation to qualify for eviction protection, a tenant whose household income went from a half-million dollars to $250,000 would qualify for eviction protection by declaring that their income has been ‘significantly reduced,’” said Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group.

The new state law will allow evictions to proceed in cases where judges find tenants have persistently created a nuisance for neighbors, like playing loud music at 3 a.m., or created hazardous conditions.

The hardship declaration would not only cover financial hardship but also a “significant health risk” of moving in the pandemic.

The law also seeks to address the plight of landlords who own 10 or fewer apartments, allowing them to file similar financial hardship declarations with their mortgage lenders, to delay foreclosure proceedings. The law also applies to foreclosures involving tax liens.

Jay Martin, the executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, said that while he understands the legislators’ desire to focus on smaller landlords, the law is unnecessarily narrow.

“The reality is a majority of renters in this city get their housing from what the legislature would consider non-small operators,” said Martin, whose organization represents landlords of rent-stabilized buildings. “Even a four- or five-story walk-up has more than 10 units in New York City.”

Since March, the governor, the state’s courts and the legislature have instituted a series of sometimes overlapping measures designed to forestall evictions during a crisis that has thrown millions out of work, and made it untenable for many tenants to pay rent. Tenants’ inability to pay their landlords has, in turn, made it difficult for some property owners to pay their own bills.

But the ever-shifting state rules and court guidance have sown substantial confusion among renters seeking to make sense of the legal morass. Tenant attorneys have also expressed displeasure with how some housing court judges interpret the law.

More than elsewhere, courts in the Albany region and in Rochester “have been remarkably unsympathetic to tenants’ situations,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society.

The new law is by no means a panacea. Tenants will continue to owe landlords any back rent they haven’t paid, once the moratorium ends.

The $1.3 billion in rent relief authorized by the federal government should help, tenant advocates say, but it will not be enough to cover all tenants’ back rent.

Michael McKee, the treasurer of Tenants PAC, a tenants rights group, praised the law as “very close” to everything his organization wanted, but also warned that “when this is all lifted, there will be people owing thousands and thousands of back rent they cannot pay.”

The New York Legislature on Monday overwhelmingly passed one of the most comprehensive anti-eviction laws in the nation, as the state contends with high levels of unemployment caused by a pandemic that has taken more than 330,000 lives nationwide.

The New York Legislature on Monday overwhelmingly passed one of the most comprehensive anti-eviction laws in the nation, as the state contends with high levels of unemployment caused by a pandemic that has taken more than 330,000 lives nationwide. Tenants and advocacy groups have been dreading the end-of-year expiration of eviction bans that have kept people in their homes even as they fell months behind in their rent. Under the new measure, landlords will be barred from evicting most tenants for at least another 60 days in almost all cases. The measure will not only block landlords from evicting most tenants but will also protect some small landlords from foreclosure and automatically renew tax exemptions for homeowners who are elderly or disabled. The Legislature convened an unusual special session between Christmas and New Year’s to pass the measure, acting quickly because the governor’s executive order barring many evictions was slated to expire on Dec. 31. The legislators’ urgency reflected a national concern over the fate of millions of people without jobs and access to job opportunities, as the pandemic continues to eat away at the economy. The passage of the bill comes as a relief for renters like Vincia Barber, 40, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who said she lost her job as a nanny and hasn’t paid rent in months. “This is the best thing they could do for us today,” said Barber, who added that two of her relatives had died of the coronavirus. Once the bill becomes law in New York, tenants like Barber can protect their homes by submitting a document stating financial hardship related to the coronavirus. As many as 1.2 million New York households are currently at risk of being removed from their homes, according to a database maintained by Stout, a consulting firm. For eviction cases that are already working their way through the courts, the law will halt proceedings for at least 60 days. Landlords would not be allowed to begin new eviction proceedings until at least May 1. Some landlords resisted the measure, arguing that the law didn’t adequately distinguish between tenants with resources and those without. They said the new law paid too little heed to property owners who are themselves grappling with diminished financial resources, as tenants fall behind on rent and ground-floor retail tenants go out of business. The legislation attempts to address those concerns by making it harder for banks to foreclose on smaller landlords who are themselves struggling to pay bills. On Monday evening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the bill, which will go into effect immediately. The state’s emergency action comes a day after President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion relief package, which included $1.3 billion in rental relief for New Yorkers and extended a federal eviction moratorium — and two days after unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans. The state and federal legislation speak to the precarious financial situation facing millions of Americans, nine months into the pandemic. Nationally, an estimated 7 million to 14 million households are at risk for eviction, according to Stout’s database. They are thought to be short between $11 billon and $20 billion in rent. Other states have taken steps to delay evictions as well. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut has extended that state’s ban until Feb. 9. Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington extended an eviction moratorium until March 31. New York and the other states acted to plug holes in a federal moratorium that housing advocates say does not do enough to protect tenants from losing their homes. The requirements to qualify for eviction protection are considered onerous, and several states took their own action. The New York Senate approved the new measure 40-21 on Monday, while the state Assembly voted 99-47. What makes New York’s new law exceptional is its reach: It eases the process for tenants and small landlords to claim financial hardships and eliminates hurdles for disabled and older homeowners to renew tax exemptions. In New York state, even under Cuomo’s order, eviction proceedings have continued, but landlords have largely been barred from physically removing tenants from their homes. A smattering of evictions resumed in October, particularly for those tenants who were unable to convince judges that their financial hardships were related to the coronavirus. As of late November, there have been 38 requests for eviction warrants in New York City, according to a recent analysis by the New York University Furman Center. Every one of those cases began before the pandemic and most involved properties in central Brooklyn. Since October, Zellnor Myrie, a state senator representing central Brooklyn, has had at least three eviction warrants issued in his district. The most recent warrant was issued for a tenant who was unable to pay rent. “So even with the constellation of moratoria, there have still been landlords going after tenants,” said Myrie, a sponsor of the legislation. As of November, 8% of New York state residents were unemployed, more than twice as many as this time last year. State Labor Department figures indicate that the unemployment rate in New York City is significantly higher. Small businesses and their employees in Manhattan’s core have been especially hard hit, as commuters have all but vanished. Winsome Pendergrass, 63, a tenant and activist from the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, lost her main source of income providing in-home care. Three months behind in rent, she said the legislation will bring her some relief. “I myself suffer from high blood pressure and I don’t want to be running out there and overexert myself in the pandemic, because the money I am coming up with is just to pay the rent,” she said. But landlords argue the bill oversteps, allowing tenants to avoid eviction by merely stating financial hardship rather than proving it. “With no requirement of proof that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected their income, and no income limitation to qualify for eviction protection, a tenant whose household income went from a half-million dollars to $250,000 would qualify for eviction protection by declaring that their income has been ‘significantly reduced,’” said Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group. The new state law will allow evictions to proceed in cases where judges find tenants have persistently created a nuisance for neighbors, like playing loud music at 3 a.m., or created hazardous conditions. The hardship declaration would not only cover financial hardship but also a “significant health risk” of moving in the pandemic. The law also seeks to address the plight of landlords who own 10 or fewer apartments, allowing them to file similar financial hardship declarations with their mortgage lenders, to delay foreclosure proceedings. The law also applies to foreclosures involving tax liens. Jay Martin, the executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, said that while he understands the legislators’ desire to focus on smaller landlords, the law is unnecessarily narrow. “The reality is a majority of renters in this city get their housing from what the legislature would consider non-small operators,” said Martin, whose organization represents landlords of rent-stabilized buildings. “Even a four- or five-story walk-up has more than 10 units in New York City.” Since March, the governor, the state’s courts and the legislature have instituted a series of sometimes overlapping measures designed to forestall evictions during a crisis that has thrown millions out of work, and made it untenable for many tenants to pay rent. Tenants’ inability to pay their landlords has, in turn, made it difficult for some property owners to pay their own bills. But the ever-shifting state rules and court guidance have sown substantial confusion among renters seeking to make sense of the legal morass. Tenant attorneys have also expressed displeasure with how some housing court judges interpret the law. More than elsewhere, courts in the Albany region and in Rochester “have been remarkably unsympathetic to tenants’ situations,” said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society. The new law is by no means a panacea. Tenants will continue to owe landlords any back rent they haven’t paid, once the moratorium ends. The $1.3 billion in rent relief authorized by the federal government should help, tenant advocates say, but it will not be enough to cover all tenants’ back rent. Michael McKee, the treasurer of Tenants PAC, a tenants rights group, praised the law as “very close” to everything his organization wanted, but also warned that “when this is all lifted, there will be people owing thousands and thousands of back rent they cannot pay.”

New York bans most evictions as tenants struggle to pay rent

<article>
On Easter weekend in 1947, New York City buzzed with an air of invincibility. The miseries of World War II were finally over, and New York, like the rest of the country, was buoyant. The future promised great things. The Polaroid Land camera had just been invented. Consumer TV sets were appearing in living rooms. The transistor radio was in the works.

What the public didn’t know was that smallpox, the scourge of civilizations, had improbably reemerged in the city five weeks earlier.

On March 1, a 47-year-old American businessman, Eugene Le Bar, arrived in New York after a long bus ride from Mexico City. He was on his way to Maine, but he had been feeling sick and checked into a Midtown hotel with his wife. After sightseeing, he collapsed into bed, exhausted, with a headache and a pain in the back of his neck.

By March 5, Le Bar was in Bellevue Hospital with a 105-degree fever and a peculiar rash on his face and hands. Three days later, he was transferred to Willard Parker, the city’s communicable disease hospital. His doctors considered several diagnoses, none definitive. Because he had a vaccination scar, they ruled out smallpox. On March 10, Le Bar was dead.

Soon, more patients at Willard Parker began exhibiting symptoms similar to Le Bar’s: first, a 22-month-old from the Bronx named Patricia; then a 27-year-old man from Harlem, Ismael Acosta. A 30-month-old toddler, John, followed. The doctors thought they were looking at chickenpox but were flummoxed by the patients’ rashes, which didn’t fit the diagnosis.

On April 4, the results came back from the U.S. Army Medical School Laboratory in Washington. All three were confirmed cases of smallpox, which had not been seen in New York City since before the war. Health officials began connecting the dots, and the dots led back to Le Bar, patient zero.

The city’s health commissioner, Israel Weinstein, had taken the job 10 months earlier. He had been a child on the Lower East Side when a smallpox outbreak brought the city to its knees in the early 1900s, killing 720 New Yorkers in two years. Now he was both a medical doctor and a scientist; he had a doctorate from New York University, along with a doctorate and an M.D. from Columbia.

So when he got the lab results, he knew what he was up against.

Smallpox had plagued humankind for thousands of years. According to the World Health Organization, it claimed the lives of 300 million people in the 20th century alone.

All it takes for smallpox to spread is a cough, a sneeze or a touch. Then, it’s only a matter of days before the virus triggers fever, aches, pains and nausea. A rash appears on the face and soon covers the body, sprouting into fluid-filled pustules. Three out of 10 cases are fatal. Those who survive are often left deeply scarred, blind or both.

“In the pantheon of infectious diseases, smallpox is in the top five,” said Dr. Charles DiMaggio, professor of surgery and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “It was thoroughly horrifying because it disfigured people it didn’t kill, and it killed indiscriminately.”

Thanks to a vaccine developed in the late 1700s and refined in the decades that followed, smallpox outbreaks had generally been contained.

In 1980, the WHO officially declared smallpox eradicated.

“The smallpox eradication program is absolutely considered one of the crowning achievements of global public health,” DiMaggio said. “And it’s never been duplicated. Just the very idea that a disease was eradicated — a disease that ravaged humankind for millennia — is remarkable. And the reason we were able to do that is because of vaccinations.”

In 1947, most New Yorkers had been inoculated against smallpox. They had been told the inoculation would protect them for life, but there was no guarantee. In some cases, the vaccine didn’t take. In others, the immunity wore off. Le Bar was proof of that.

Weinstein had some tough decisions to make.

The lab results reached him on Good Friday, April 4. In two days, New Yorkers would be gathering for the annual Easter Parade. If only one of them had smallpox, even among a vaccinated population, the resulting outbreak could be devastating.

“Imagine the Easter Parade and all these people crowded together on Fifth Avenue,” said Dr. Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. “All of them cheering and chanting and potentially coughing and sneezing, and you have smallpox introduced into that picture. That is a public health nightmare.”

Weinstein wasted no time. Knowing there was only one way to deal with the virus — vaccination — he took action. At 2 p.m. that day, he held a news conference, urging all city dwellers to get vaccinated immediately, even if they had been inoculated as children. Revaccinations were necessary, he said, in case people had lost their immunity.

It was hardly without risk. Not only could the announcement cause mass hysteria, but in 1947, vaccines were not tested the way they are today. The vaccine available at the time could trigger rare but dangerous side effects, especially in people with weakened immune systems or particular skin conditions.

According to Dr. David Oshinsky, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, Weinstein acted in line with the scientific knowledge of the era. He made the right move, which was to vaccinate as many people as possible.

Markel agreed. “Weinstein was doing his job as best he could,” he said. “The risk of smallpox spreading and causing disease and death was far, far greater than the tiny risk of getting encephalitis or dying of the vaccine. So I come not to bury Weinstein but to praise him.”

In a series of daily radio addresses, Weinstein focused on transparency and a consistent message. The vaccine, he said, was free, and there was, in his words, “absolutely no excuse for anyone to remain unprotected.” In a calm, clear voice, he promoted the rallying cry that would appear on posters throughout the city: “Be Sure. Be Safe. Get Vaccinated!”

“The first thing he did was level with the public,” Oshinsky said. “He told them that smallpox had arrived in the city and that it was possible there was going to be a spread — and that it was an extremely communicable and dangerous disease. And he said, ‘We will provide enough vials of vaccine to effectively protect the city.’”

But the municipal stockpile contained nowhere near enough to vaccinate all of the city’s 7.8 million residents.

With the full cooperation of Mayor William O’Dwyer, Weinstein secured 250,000 units of vaccine from the naval medical supply depot in Brooklyn. He had 780,000 doses flown in from military bases in California and Missouri. He bought an additional 2 million from private manufacturers, and then he ordered more.

He directed his Bureau of Laboratories to convert its bulk supplies into single-dose units, and he began a tracing program to locate and vaccinate those who had been in contact with the victims.

The vaccine rollout was remarkably swift and uncomplicated, and it’s one that almost certainly couldn’t happen today.

“In 1947, the city was able to act alone, as opposed to navigating a complicated relationship with the governor of New York and the federal government,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “The city was able to say, ‘We’re going after this,’ and then make it happen.”

At first, the public’s response was lackluster. Easter Sunday turned out to be surprisingly warm and sunny — the temperature hit a record 79 degrees — and more than 1 million New Yorkers turned out for the parade. That weekend, only 527 people requested vaccines. But days later, when news broke that Ismael Acosta’s wife, Carmen, had died from smallpox and that three more cases had been discovered, people’s minds changed — and, as it happened, so did the weather.

New Yorkers were soon standing for hours, often in chilly rain, outside public and private hospitals, clinics and police stations, waiting to get their inoculations. For them, vaccinations were nothing new. Many had served as soldiers in World War II; they had been vaccinated against a host of viruses and saw the inoculations as a matter of course. Moreover, today’s anti-vaccination movement did not exist.

Oshinsky, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Polio: An American Story,” offers yet another reason. “This was the height of polio in the United States,” he said. “People had a much better sense of the impact of infectious disease. They saw it all the time, and they were rightly fearful. But they were also optimistic that medical science could conquer this. In 1947, there was tremendous faith in the medical community, unlike today.”

In front of news cameras, Weinstein vaccinated O’Dwyer, who had already been inoculated four times in the Army. President Harry Truman also got into the act. His visit to New York on April 21 was accompanied by news reports that he, too, had rolled up his sleeve.

“In today’s vernacular, O’Dwyer and Truman were influencers,” said Lisa Sherman, president of the Ad Council, the nonprofit group working on a campaign for the COVID-19 vaccines. “They could deliver important information that people wanted to hear. They were trusted messengers.”

The response was so great that the city enlisted thousands of civilian volunteers to help deliver inoculations. Armed with vials of vaccine, the volunteers, along with professional health care providers, administered as many as eight doses per minute. Making their way through every school in the city, they inoculated 889,000 students. In the first two weeks, 5 million New Yorkers were vaccinated against smallpox.

By mid-April, the city’s stockpile was nearly depleted. O’Dwyer convened an emergency meeting of drug company representatives, all but threatening them with public scorn if they didn’t ramp up delivery. Within 48 hours, 1 million more doses arrived.

In early May, 10 weeks after Le Bar stepped off a bus in Manhattan, Weinstein announced that the danger had passed.

Later that year, he summed up the case in The American Journal of Public Health. “In a period of less than a month, 6,350,000 people were vaccinated in New York City,” he wrote. “Never before had so many people been vaccinated in such a city and on such short notice.”

The final tally was 12 infections and two deaths.

“What Dr. Weinstein did in 1947 is something we’re still studying and referring to,” Markel said. “The fact that they developed the logistics — the delivery of vaccine, the large public spaces where people could line up to get vaccines, the manpower in the form of nurses and doctors who would give the vaccine — is pretty incredible. Weinstein is to be credited.”

“It stands out as a remarkable achievement by any measure,” DiMaggio said. “It was a public health triumph.”

Weinstein resigned from his post in November 1947, seven months after the smallpox outbreak. He left behind a blueprint for containing an infectious disease in a large, dense city.

But this time, with the coronavirus pandemic, New York faces a logistical hurdle. Experts in infectious disease point to a hollowing out of the public health infrastructure — not just in the city but across the country. Yet they believe the biggest obstacle is not distribution but the public’s distrust of government, science and the media.

“We’re coming out of a train wreck of messaging,” Redlener said. “We’ve learned that politics is poison to a public health initiative, especially during a crisis. Honesty and straightforward, clear messaging are absolutely critical.”

In 1947, Weinstein was the only voice with a megaphone. He spoke, and people listened.

“Back then, there was a much simpler media landscape,” Sherman said as she laid out the Ad Council’s campaign, which is due to kick off early next year. “In today’s environment, we’re dealing with a highly, highly fragmented media. We’ll be relying on microinfluencers who are the trusted voices.”

So, as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in New York City began this past week, a major question remains: Can the city come close to what it accomplished 73 years ago?

Redlener, who serves as an adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio on emergency response, said he believes that New York will meet the challenge again. But, he added, “It’s almost inconceivable that we’re going to be able to do something similar as rapidly and as effectively.”
</article>

On Easter weekend in 1947, New York City buzzed with an air of invincibility. The miseries of World War II were finally over, and New York, like the rest of the country, was buoyant.

On Easter weekend in 1947, New York City buzzed with an air of invincibility. The miseries of World War II were finally over, and New York, like the rest of the country, was buoyant. The future promised great things. The Polaroid Land camera had just been invented. Consumer TV sets were appearing in living rooms. The transistor radio was in the works. What the public didn’t know was that smallpox, the scourge of civilizations, had improbably reemerged in the city five weeks earlier. On March 1, a 47-year-old American businessman, Eugene Le Bar, arrived in New York after a long bus ride from Mexico City. He was on his way to Maine, but he had been feeling sick and checked into a Midtown hotel with his wife. After sightseeing, he collapsed into bed, exhausted, with a headache and a pain in the back of his neck. By March 5, Le Bar was in Bellevue Hospital with a 105-degree fever and a peculiar rash on his face and hands. Three days later, he was transferred to Willard Parker, the city’s communicable disease hospital. His doctors considered several diagnoses, none definitive. Because he had a vaccination scar, they ruled out smallpox. On March 10, Le Bar was dead. Soon, more patients at Willard Parker began exhibiting symptoms similar to Le Bar’s: first, a 22-month-old from the Bronx named Patricia; then a 27-year-old man from Harlem, Ismael Acosta. A 30-month-old toddler, John, followed. The doctors thought they were looking at chickenpox but were flummoxed by the patients’ rashes, which didn’t fit the diagnosis. On April 4, the results came back from the U.S. Army Medical School Laboratory in Washington. All three were confirmed cases of smallpox, which had not been seen in New York City since before the war. Health officials began connecting the dots, and the dots led back to Le Bar, patient zero. The city’s health commissioner, Israel Weinstein, had taken the job 10 months earlier. He had been a child on the Lower East Side when a smallpox outbreak brought the city to its knees in the early 1900s, killing 720 New Yorkers in two years. Now he was both a medical doctor and a scientist; he had a doctorate from New York University, along with a doctorate and an M.D. from Columbia. So when he got the lab results, he knew what he was up against. Smallpox had plagued humankind for thousands of years. According to the World Health Organization, it claimed the lives of 300 million people in the 20th century alone. All it takes for smallpox to spread is a cough, a sneeze or a touch. Then, it’s only a matter of days before the virus triggers fever, aches, pains and nausea. A rash appears on the face and soon covers the body, sprouting into fluid-filled pustules. Three out of 10 cases are fatal. Those who survive are often left deeply scarred, blind or both. “In the pantheon of infectious diseases, smallpox is in the top five,” said Dr. Charles DiMaggio, professor of surgery and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “It was thoroughly horrifying because it disfigured people it didn’t kill, and it killed indiscriminately.” Thanks to a vaccine developed in the late 1700s and refined in the decades that followed, smallpox outbreaks had generally been contained. In 1980, the WHO officially declared smallpox eradicated. “The smallpox eradication program is absolutely considered one of the crowning achievements of global public health,” DiMaggio said. “And it’s never been duplicated. Just the very idea that a disease was eradicated — a disease that ravaged humankind for millennia — is remarkable. And the reason we were able to do that is because of vaccinations.” In 1947, most New Yorkers had been inoculated against smallpox. They had been told the inoculation would protect them for life, but there was no guarantee. In some cases, the vaccine didn’t take. In others, the immunity wore off. Le Bar was proof of that. Weinstein had some tough decisions to make. The lab results reached him on Good Friday, April 4. In two days, New Yorkers would be gathering for the annual Easter Parade. If only one of them had smallpox, even among a vaccinated population, the resulting outbreak could be devastating. “Imagine the Easter Parade and all these people crowded together on Fifth Avenue,” said Dr. Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. “All of them cheering and chanting and potentially coughing and sneezing, and you have smallpox introduced into that picture. That is a public health nightmare.” Weinstein wasted no time. Knowing there was only one way to deal with the virus — vaccination — he took action. At 2 p.m. that day, he held a news conference, urging all city dwellers to get vaccinated immediately, even if they had been inoculated as children. Revaccinations were necessary, he said, in case people had lost their immunity. It was hardly without risk. Not only could the announcement cause mass hysteria, but in 1947, vaccines were not tested the way they are today. The vaccine available at the time could trigger rare but dangerous side effects, especially in people with weakened immune systems or particular skin conditions. According to Dr. David Oshinsky, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, Weinstein acted in line with the scientific knowledge of the era. He made the right move, which was to vaccinate as many people as possible. Markel agreed. “Weinstein was doing his job as best he could,” he said. “The risk of smallpox spreading and causing disease and death was far, far greater than the tiny risk of getting encephalitis or dying of the vaccine. So I come not to bury Weinstein but to praise him.” In a series of daily radio addresses, Weinstein focused on transparency and a consistent message. The vaccine, he said, was free, and there was, in his words, “absolutely no excuse for anyone to remain unprotected.” In a calm, clear voice, he promoted the rallying cry that would appear on posters throughout the city: “Be Sure. Be Safe. Get Vaccinated!” “The first thing he did was level with the public,” Oshinsky said. “He told them that smallpox had arrived in the city and that it was possible there was going to be a spread — and that it was an extremely communicable and dangerous disease. And he said, ‘We will provide enough vials of vaccine to effectively protect the city.’” But the municipal stockpile contained nowhere near enough to vaccinate all of the city’s 7.8 million residents. With the full cooperation of Mayor William O’Dwyer, Weinstein secured 250,000 units of vaccine from the naval medical supply depot in Brooklyn. He had 780,000 doses flown in from military bases in California and Missouri. He bought an additional 2 million from private manufacturers, and then he ordered more. He directed his Bureau of Laboratories to convert its bulk supplies into single-dose units, and he began a tracing program to locate and vaccinate those who had been in contact with the victims. The vaccine rollout was remarkably swift and uncomplicated, and it’s one that almost certainly couldn’t happen today. “In 1947, the city was able to act alone, as opposed to navigating a complicated relationship with the governor of New York and the federal government,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “The city was able to say, ‘We’re going after this,’ and then make it happen.” At first, the public’s response was lackluster. Easter Sunday turned out to be surprisingly warm and sunny — the temperature hit a record 79 degrees — and more than 1 million New Yorkers turned out for the parade. That weekend, only 527 people requested vaccines. But days later, when news broke that Ismael Acosta’s wife, Carmen, had died from smallpox and that three more cases had been discovered, people’s minds changed — and, as it happened, so did the weather. New Yorkers were soon standing for hours, often in chilly rain, outside public and private hospitals, clinics and police stations, waiting to get their inoculations. For them, vaccinations were nothing new. Many had served as soldiers in World War II; they had been vaccinated against a host of viruses and saw the inoculations as a matter of course. Moreover, today’s anti-vaccination movement did not exist. Oshinsky, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Polio: An American Story,” offers yet another reason. “This was the height of polio in the United States,” he said. “People had a much better sense of the impact of infectious disease. They saw it all the time, and they were rightly fearful. But they were also optimistic that medical science could conquer this. In 1947, there was tremendous faith in the medical community, unlike today.” In front of news cameras, Weinstein vaccinated O’Dwyer, who had already been inoculated four times in the Army. President Harry Truman also got into the act. His visit to New York on April 21 was accompanied by news reports that he, too, had rolled up his sleeve. “In today’s vernacular, O’Dwyer and Truman were influencers,” said Lisa Sherman, president of the Ad Council, the nonprofit group working on a campaign for the COVID-19 vaccines. “They could deliver important information that people wanted to hear. They were trusted messengers.” The response was so great that the city enlisted thousands of civilian volunteers to help deliver inoculations. Armed with vials of vaccine, the volunteers, along with professional health care providers, administered as many as eight doses per minute. Making their way through every school in the city, they inoculated 889,000 students. In the first two weeks, 5 million New Yorkers were vaccinated against smallpox. By mid-April, the city’s stockpile was nearly depleted. O’Dwyer convened an emergency meeting of drug company representatives, all but threatening them with public scorn if they didn’t ramp up delivery. Within 48 hours, 1 million more doses arrived. In early May, 10 weeks after Le Bar stepped off a bus in Manhattan, Weinstein announced that the danger had passed. Later that year, he summed up the case in The American Journal of Public Health. “In a period of less than a month, 6,350,000 people were vaccinated in New York City,” he wrote. “Never before had so many people been vaccinated in such a city and on such short notice.” The final tally was 12 infections and two deaths. “What Dr. Weinstein did in 1947 is something we’re still studying and referring to,” Markel said. “The fact that they developed the logistics — the delivery of vaccine, the large public spaces where people could line up to get vaccines, the manpower in the form of nurses and doctors who would give the vaccine — is pretty incredible. Weinstein is to be credited.” “It stands out as a remarkable achievement by any measure,” DiMaggio said. “It was a public health triumph.” Weinstein resigned from his post in November 1947, seven months after the smallpox outbreak. He left behind a blueprint for containing an infectious disease in a large, dense city. But this time, with the coronavirus pandemic, New York faces a logistical hurdle. Experts in infectious disease point to a hollowing out of the public health infrastructure — not just in the city but across the country. Yet they believe the biggest obstacle is not distribution but the public’s distrust of government, science and the media. “We’re coming out of a train wreck of messaging,” Redlener said. “We’ve learned that politics is poison to a public health initiative, especially during a crisis. Honesty and straightforward, clear messaging are absolutely critical.” In 1947, Weinstein was the only voice with a megaphone. He spoke, and people listened. “Back then, there was a much simpler media landscape,” Sherman said as she laid out the Ad Council’s campaign, which is due to kick off early next year. “In today’s environment, we’re dealing with a highly, highly fragmented media. We’ll be relying on microinfluencers who are the trusted voices.” So, as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in New York City began this past week, a major question remains: Can the city come close to what it accomplished 73 years ago? Redlener, who serves as an adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio on emergency response, said he believes that New York will meet the challenge again. But, he added, “It’s almost inconceivable that we’re going to be able to do something similar as rapidly and as effectively.”

How New York City vaccinated 6 million people in less than a month

A gunman in New York City who opened fire from the stairs of Cathedral Church of St John the Divine was shot dead by police on Sunday.

Reuters reported that the gunman was shouting “Kill me!” Before being accosted by the police, where he showed up right after an outdoor choir performance.

No injuries were reported as officers who were present on the scene immediately dealt with the suspect.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/ufo-sightings-in-new-york-city-jumped-by-over-283-this-year-compared-to-2018-349410" hreflang="en">UFO sightings in New York City jumped by over 283% this year compared to 2018</a>

The yet-to-be identified subject was hit by a bullet in the head once during the exchange of gunfire, after which he was taken to a local hospital, where he succumbed to the wounds.

According to New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, the suspect was shot at by the police at least 15 times.

Soon after the encounter, the police found two semiautomatic handguns from the scene. Shea claimed that they also found a bag which contained a can of petrol, a rope and wire, several knives, a copy of the Bible, and tape.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/indoor-dining-will-shut-down-in-new-york-city-again-349290" hreflang="en">Indoor dining will shut down in New York City again</a>

"I think we can all surmise the ill intentions of the proceeds of this bag," he added. The man had started firing just 15 minutes after an outdoor choir performance attended by around 200 people had concluded.

To keep in line with COVID-19 safety requirements, the choir’s annual Christmas holiday concert was moved outdoors. By the time the shooting had begun, the audience had either left the spot, or had moved inside the church.

When the gunman started screaming “Kill me” and “shoot me”, around 15 people were present on the scene, who scrambled to safety soon after he started firing.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/several-injured-after-car-rams-into-black-lives-matter-protesters-in-new-york-city-349190" hreflang="en">Several injured after car rams into Black Lives Matter protesters in New York City</a>

According to Reuters, police officers had urged the suspect to drop his weapons several times before shooting him. The choir members were safely inside the church by the time the shooting had begun.

"Thankfully, this year with COVID, there was a much smaller event than normal… It is by the grace of God today that we don’t have anyone struck”, She added.

A gunman in New York City who opened fire from the stairs of Cathedral Church of St John the Divine was shot dead by police on Sunday. Reuters reported that the gunman was shouting “Kill me!

A gunman in New York City who opened fire from the stairs of Cathedral Church of St John the Divine was shot dead by police on Sunday. Reuters reported that the gunman was shouting “Kill me!” Before being accosted by the police, where he showed up right after an outdoor choir performance. No injuries were reported as officers who were present on the scene immediately dealt with the suspect. Also read: UFO sightings in New York City jumped by over 283% this year compared to 2018 The yet-to-be identified subject was hit by a bullet in the head once during the exchange of gunfire, after which he was taken to a local hospital, where he succumbed to the wounds. According to New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, the suspect was shot at by the police at least 15 times. Soon after the encounter, the police found two semiautomatic handguns from the scene. Shea claimed that they also found a bag which contained a can of petrol, a rope and wire, several knives, a copy of the Bible, and tape. Also read: Indoor dining will shut down in New York City again "I think we can all surmise the ill intentions of the proceeds of this bag," he added. The man had started firing just 15 minutes after an outdoor choir performance attended by around 200 people had concluded. To keep in line with COVID-19 safety requirements, the choir’s annual Christmas holiday concert was moved outdoors. By the time the shooting had begun, the audience had either left the spot, or had moved inside the church. When the gunman started screaming “Kill me” and “shoot me”, around 15 people were present on the scene, who scrambled to safety soon after he started firing. Also read: Several injured after car rams into Black Lives Matter protesters in New York City According to Reuters, police officers had urged the suspect to drop his weapons several times before shooting him. The choir members were safely inside the church by the time the shooting had begun. "Thankfully, this year with COVID, there was a much smaller event than normal… It is by the grace of God today that we don’t have anyone struck”, She added.

Gunman wielding guns, screaming 'kill me' shot dead by police in New York City

NEW YORK — Indoor dining will once again be barred in New York City restaurants starting Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday, a significant reversal of the city’s reopening that comes as officials try to halt the escalation of a second wave of the coronavirus and avoid a broader shutdown.

The decision, which Cuomo earlier this week suggested was all but certain, is a crushing blow to the city’s restaurant industry, a vital economic pillar that has been struggling all year in the face of pandemic restrictions and a national recession.

Cuomo acknowledged the hardship his decision was likely to cause and once more called on federal lawmakers to provide relief to the hospitality industry. Congressional leaders have so far failed to reach an agreement on a new economic stimulus package.

Even as he announced the new restriction, the governor provided data that showed restaurants and bars were likely not the primary driver of new cases in the state, lagging far behind private gatherings.

Still, the governor portrayed the end of indoor dining in New York City as necessary given new federal guidance, an increasing rate of virus transmission and the city’s population density. Cuomo has warned that an anticipated surge in cases this winter threatens to overwhelm the medical system. Over the last month, while preparations have begun to distribute the first doses of a vaccine, virus-related hospitalizations in the state have more than tripled.

The governor said Friday that the city was on a trajectory to hit 90% of its hospital capacity, at which point he would close down all nonessential businesses. He described the prohibition on indoor dining as an attempt to avoid such a move.

Restaurants and bars, Cuomo said, are “one of the few areas that we think we can actually make a difference.”

The order came as the 21 Club in Manhattan appeared to become the latest iconic New York City restaurant to succumb to the pandemic. In a notice filed Wednesday with the state’s labor department, the restaurant — a favorite of President Donald Trump — said it would “indefinitely” cease its operations and lay off all of its employees in March.

In a statement, the restaurant’s owners said that the pandemic, and an anticipated long recovery, made it unfeasible to reopen the 21 Club “in its current form for the foreseeable future.” But the owners said they hope to reopen at some point, and are exploring long-term options, according to the statement.

The restaurant, which opened as a speakeasy during Prohibition, first closed and laid off employees on March 16, when the governor ordered nonessential businesses in the state to shut down. Though officials eventually permitted outdoor dining and limited indoor dining, the 21 Club remained closed to customers.

Bill Granfield, president of Local 100 of UNITE HERE, the union representing the restaurant’s workers, said the union was hopeful that the restaurant might one day reopen in some fashion.

Andrew Rigie, director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said in a statement that the governor’s decision “is at odds with the state’s own data that’s been presented as driving these decisions, and it will be the last straw for countless more restaurants and jobs.”

Rigie also called for more economic support for struggling restaurants and bars, saying the end of indoor dining would “severely jeopardize” their survival.

For months, New York City’s restaurant owners have warned that their businesses, many of which operate on tight margins in the best of times, are on the edge of financial collapse. Thousands of employees, many of them low-wage workers, have been laid off since March, and their jobs have yet to fully return.

The industry’s anxieties are only mounting as winter approaches and frigid temperatures threaten to deter customers from dining outdoors. Industry groups have called repeatedly for federal or state financial assistance, with restaurant and bar owners watching nervously as stimulus talks drag on in Washington.

The governor’s announcement came after weeks of shifting messages on indoor dining, which resumed in New York City only at the end of September.

As virus cases rose across the state this fall, Cuomo hesitated to impose the widespread restrictions that he implemented in March, when he limited restaurants and bars to takeout and delivery.

In October, the governor said he would shutter indoor dining only in the hardest-hit areas in the state: so-called microclusters. He briefly changed course in late November, saying he would shut down indoor dining citywide if the seven-day average test positivity rate hit 3%. He walked back that statement about a week later.

Cuomo and his aides have said that the state’s approach has changed to follow evolving guidance from epidemiologists. Until this week, the governor had focused much of his attention on parties and other indoor gatherings and had downplayed the risks of indoor dining, even as growing evidence suggested it was a significant source of the virus’s spread.

But Monday, Cuomo had warned that he would curb indoor dining in regions where hospitalizations did not stabilize, citing recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that described eating at indoor restaurants as a “particularly high-risk” activity.

Then on Friday, Cuomo said that contact tracing data showed that restaurants and bars were the fifth main source of new infections in the state, well behind household and social gatherings. The data is based only on those who give a response to contact tracers and does not capture every infection in the state, officials have said.

Of 46,000 cases between September and November, 1.43% could be linked to restaurants and bars, compared to 73.84% connected to private gatherings and 7.81% tied to the health care system, the second-largest source.

The governor acknowledged the disparity but said the state was limited in how it could address such gatherings and other sources of infection.

“We’re doing everything we can,” he said.

Cuomo did not announce new restrictions on restaurants and bars in the rest of the state, which were allowed to reopen more quickly and have been operating at 50% maximum capacity indoors, compared to 25% in New York City.

However, he said the state would monitor hospitalization numbers over the weekend and “make any adjustments next week” if the data suggested it was necessary.

The governor also did not provide a timeline or threshold for indoor dining to resume in New York City. An adviser, Jim Malatras, said the state would monitor virus cases and hospitalizations over a two-week period to see if trends allowed for eating indoors to restart.

As of Friday, 1,668 people were hospitalized with the virus in New York City, Cuomo said. Statewide, 5,321 people were hospitalized. The rate of transmission in the state was estimated at 1.3, meaning that each infected person was estimated to infect 1.3 other people.

NEW YORK — Indoor dining will once again be barred in New York City restaurants starting Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday, a significant reversal of the city’s reopening that comes as officials try to halt the escalation of a second wave of the coronavirus and avoid a broader shutdown.

NEW YORK — Indoor dining will once again be barred in New York City restaurants starting Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday, a significant reversal of the city’s reopening that comes as officials try to halt the escalation of a second wave of the coronavirus and avoid a broader shutdown. The decision, which Cuomo earlier this week suggested was all but certain, is a crushing blow to the city’s restaurant industry, a vital economic pillar that has been struggling all year in the face of pandemic restrictions and a national recession. Cuomo acknowledged the hardship his decision was likely to cause and once more called on federal lawmakers to provide relief to the hospitality industry. Congressional leaders have so far failed to reach an agreement on a new economic stimulus package. Even as he announced the new restriction, the governor provided data that showed restaurants and bars were likely not the primary driver of new cases in the state, lagging far behind private gatherings. Still, the governor portrayed the end of indoor dining in New York City as necessary given new federal guidance, an increasing rate of virus transmission and the city’s population density. Cuomo has warned that an anticipated surge in cases this winter threatens to overwhelm the medical system. Over the last month, while preparations have begun to distribute the first doses of a vaccine, virus-related hospitalizations in the state have more than tripled. The governor said Friday that the city was on a trajectory to hit 90% of its hospital capacity, at which point he would close down all nonessential businesses. He described the prohibition on indoor dining as an attempt to avoid such a move. Restaurants and bars, Cuomo said, are “one of the few areas that we think we can actually make a difference.” The order came as the 21 Club in Manhattan appeared to become the latest iconic New York City restaurant to succumb to the pandemic. In a notice filed Wednesday with the state’s labor department, the restaurant — a favorite of President Donald Trump — said it would “indefinitely” cease its operations and lay off all of its employees in March. In a statement, the restaurant’s owners said that the pandemic, and an anticipated long recovery, made it unfeasible to reopen the 21 Club “in its current form for the foreseeable future.” But the owners said they hope to reopen at some point, and are exploring long-term options, according to the statement. The restaurant, which opened as a speakeasy during Prohibition, first closed and laid off employees on March 16, when the governor ordered nonessential businesses in the state to shut down. Though officials eventually permitted outdoor dining and limited indoor dining, the 21 Club remained closed to customers. Bill Granfield, president of Local 100 of UNITE HERE, the union representing the restaurant’s workers, said the union was hopeful that the restaurant might one day reopen in some fashion. Andrew Rigie, director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said in a statement that the governor’s decision “is at odds with the state’s own data that’s been presented as driving these decisions, and it will be the last straw for countless more restaurants and jobs.” Rigie also called for more economic support for struggling restaurants and bars, saying the end of indoor dining would “severely jeopardize” their survival. For months, New York City’s restaurant owners have warned that their businesses, many of which operate on tight margins in the best of times, are on the edge of financial collapse. Thousands of employees, many of them low-wage workers, have been laid off since March, and their jobs have yet to fully return. The industry’s anxieties are only mounting as winter approaches and frigid temperatures threaten to deter customers from dining outdoors. Industry groups have called repeatedly for federal or state financial assistance, with restaurant and bar owners watching nervously as stimulus talks drag on in Washington. The governor’s announcement came after weeks of shifting messages on indoor dining, which resumed in New York City only at the end of September. As virus cases rose across the state this fall, Cuomo hesitated to impose the widespread restrictions that he implemented in March, when he limited restaurants and bars to takeout and delivery. In October, the governor said he would shutter indoor dining only in the hardest-hit areas in the state: so-called microclusters. He briefly changed course in late November, saying he would shut down indoor dining citywide if the seven-day average test positivity rate hit 3%. He walked back that statement about a week later. Cuomo and his aides have said that the state’s approach has changed to follow evolving guidance from epidemiologists. Until this week, the governor had focused much of his attention on parties and other indoor gatherings and had downplayed the risks of indoor dining, even as growing evidence suggested it was a significant source of the virus’s spread. But Monday, Cuomo had warned that he would curb indoor dining in regions where hospitalizations did not stabilize, citing recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that described eating at indoor restaurants as a “particularly high-risk” activity. Then on Friday, Cuomo said that contact tracing data showed that restaurants and bars were the fifth main source of new infections in the state, well behind household and social gatherings. The data is based only on those who give a response to contact tracers and does not capture every infection in the state, officials have said. Of 46,000 cases between September and November, 1.43% could be linked to restaurants and bars, compared to 73.84% connected to private gatherings and 7.81% tied to the health care system, the second-largest source. The governor acknowledged the disparity but said the state was limited in how it could address such gatherings and other sources of infection. “We’re doing everything we can,” he said. Cuomo did not announce new restrictions on restaurants and bars in the rest of the state, which were allowed to reopen more quickly and have been operating at 50% maximum capacity indoors, compared to 25% in New York City. However, he said the state would monitor hospitalization numbers over the weekend and “make any adjustments next week” if the data suggested it was necessary. The governor also did not provide a timeline or threshold for indoor dining to resume in New York City. An adviser, Jim Malatras, said the state would monitor virus cases and hospitalizations over a two-week period to see if trends allowed for eating indoors to restart. As of Friday, 1,668 people were hospitalized with the virus in New York City, Cuomo said. Statewide, 5,321 people were hospitalized. The rate of transmission in the state was estimated at 1.3, meaning that each infected person was estimated to infect 1.3 other people.

Indoor dining will shut down in New York City again

A Brooklyn trial was postponed after the defense lawyers said they were unwilling to spend weeks in a cramped courtroom. In Manhattan, a woman summoned for jury duty told the court she had been sick with the coronavirus and was symptomatic. Another trial, in the Bronx, was canceled when four courthouse staff members tested positive.

Since October, state and federal court officials have taken extraordinary measures to restart criminal trials in New York City. They have constructed Plexiglas boxes with special air filters in court. They have asked witnesses to testify in face shields and have spread jurors out in courtroom galleries.

But those efforts have not stopped the virus from disrupting nearly every step of the process. The state and federal courts in the city have been able to complete only nine criminal jury trials since the pandemic hit in March, officials said. Last year, there were about 800 criminal trials in the city.

For months, the logistical problems have threatened the ability of hundreds of defendants to secure their constitutional right to a speedy trial. Now, as a second wave of the virus threatens the region, the delays are worsening — and officials foresee the backlog of unresolved cases continuing to grow.

Last month, the chief judge in New York state halted new jury trials until further notice because of surging virus cases. More than 400 defendants have been waiting in New York City jails for more than two years for their cases to be resolved, according to the mayor’s office.

“Is it fair for people to be languishing in pretrial detention and presumed innocent with no prospect of a trial in the future for them?” said New York’s chief administrative judge, Lawrence K. Marks. “A criminal justice system cannot be, in any sense of the word, fully functioning, if it is not conducting jury trials.”

And in the last week, the federal courts in the city also announced that all trials would be suspended until mid-January.

Some prosecutors, citing safety concerns, have pushed to delay trials because their witnesses live out of state or work in hospitals with COVID-19 patients. In other cases, prosecutors said the fears of catching the virus during trials had been overblown.

The problems in New York have been mirrored across the country. Federal judges in Nebraska, Nevada, Colorado and several other jurisdictions recently suspended jury trials in response to rising virus cases. A court in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, held the state’s first virtual criminal trial last month.

Each court has determined its own protocols. One local courthouse in Orange County, California, has completed 114 criminal trials since May, while the federal courthouse across the street has determined it is unsafe to hold any trials.

In New York City courts, the challenge of preventing the virus’s spread is magnified by the dense population. In normal times, clerks, court officers and lawyers squeeze into courtroom galleries and line the crowded hallways, waiting for cases to be called.

In November, at least three dozen people who appeared in nine criminal courthouses in the city tested positive for the virus, according to the state’s court administrators.

Many judges have been eager to begin trials, worried about violating the constitutional rights of people charged with crimes. Without speedy trials, jails become overcrowded, evidence grows stale, and witnesses’ memories fade.

Early in the pandemic, after New York City officials released hundreds of inmates, the city’s jail population dropped to its lowest level since the 1940s. But the population has increased again — to 4,669 people last month — raising fears about the virus spreading among inmates and jail staff. Most of the inmates are awaiting trial, according to the Center for Court Innovation, a criminal justice nonprofit.

But one of the biggest hurdles to restarting trials has been finding defense lawyers who are willing to do them.

At a federal hearing in Manhattan, Susan Kellman, a defense lawyer, said she felt unsafe visiting her client in jail, which hindered their ability to prepare for a drug-trafficking trial that had been scheduled for October. Her client has been adamant about going to trial quickly, she said, and regularly screams at her on the telephone.

“I’m a single parent. I have two kids. I’m really not ready to die,” she told the judge, who rescheduled the trial.

In Brooklyn, Alexander Zhukov, a defendant charged in a cybercrime scheme, was finally set to begin trial last month after waiting in jail for two years. But all three of his lawyers asked to quit weeks before the start date, citing fears about the new virus wave.

Saritha Komatireddy, a prosecutor on the case, questioned why the lawyers had raised the concern for the first time so close to trial.

“They may be entitled to their own fears, but they’re not entitled to their own facts,” she said at a recent hearing. “Trials are possible.”

Out of desperation, Zhukov asked the judge if he could represent himself, even though Zhukov, a Russian national, has never studied American law.

“For me, there is no options any more,” Zhukov said at the hearing. “It’s a must choice right now. It’s the only opportunity to get to trial on time. Otherwise, it will be postponed, postponed, postponed, postponed.”

The judge assigned Zhukov a new lawyer and delayed the trial until at least February.

Courthouse security officers and defense lawyers have sued to oppose the reopening of New York’s state courts, accusing court administrators of failing to take adequate safety measures.

The chief administrative judge has said the courts are thoroughly and regularly cleaned. But a team of physicians hired by the city’s public defender groups contended in an August report that the state’s courthouses were ill-equipped to stop the spread of a virus, pointing to crowded holding cells for defendants, improperly installed plexiglass and poorly ventilated rooms.

The virus has infiltrated the city’s courtrooms in ways that threaten the health of those inside and the constitutional rights of defendants.

At a drug trial in state court in Manhattan in October, a police officer testified while wearing a see-through mask and face shield, surrounded by Plexiglas. But his testimony was interrupted by drilling noises from the sidewalk, which were audible because the courtroom’s windows had been propped open to improve ventilation.

The jurors and the defendant, Demetre Cornish, strained to hear the officer. The judge decided to close a window, but kept the others open, saying, “We want to keep the air circulating.”

Cornish was acquitted by the jury of some drug and firearm offenses but convicted of others. His lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, filed a motion Monday asking the judge to set aside the verdict, arguing that his client did not have a fair and public trial because of restrictions caused by the pandemic.

Cornish’s relatives were denied entry into the courtroom. Their presence would have “had the potential to allow jurors to see him as an individual as opposed to an anonymous masked Black man sitting in the defendant’s chair,” Kenniff wrote.

Face coverings prevented the defense from assessing facial expressions and reactions of potential jurors, Kenniff said.

And the 12-person jury had included only two Black jurors and did not reflect the demographics of the borough, Kenniff said. Some defense lawyers have raised concerns that the virus’s disproportionate effect on Black and Latino residents might make jury pools less representative.

Even before trials were halted entirely, jury selection had been transformed during the pandemic, screening out anyone uncomfortable with health risks. Once seated, juries deliberated in a separate courtroom, giving them more space than they had in cramped jury rooms.

Still, some jurors have not seemed keen to stay for too long. A murder trial in the Bronx in July ended in an acquittal on all charges after jurors deliberated for less than an hour. A federal gun possession trial in Brooklyn last month led to a guilty verdict in 30 minutes.

Communication between lawyers and their clients, who are supposed to sit 6 feet apart during trial, has been difficult. Federal courts have provided special phones that operate like walkie-talkies, although lawyers have said that the whispered conversations are picked up by microphones used to address the court.

“The whole technology seems like it was from the days of Alexander Graham Bell,” said Eric Creizman, a lawyer whose client was convicted of securities fraud last month after a federal trial in Manhattan.

Even with careful preparations, trials have been derailed by the pandemic.

On Long Island, a judge stopped a trial after two days of testimony in September when the defendant revealed that his wife had tested positive for the virus. He said he was unable to isolate from her inside their small house. The trial resumed last month, and a jury convicted him on several drug offenses.

One or two other trials that had been halted in March may have also resumed during the pandemic, state court officials said.

“We are concerned for both victims and defendants that the wheels of justice continue to move,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, chief assistant to the Manhattan district attorney. “Languishing court cases is not good for anybody.”

A Brooklyn trial was postponed after the defense lawyers said they were unwilling to spend weeks in a cramped courtroom. In Manhattan, a woman summoned for jury duty told the court she had been sick with the coronavirus and was symptomatic.

A Brooklyn trial was postponed after the defense lawyers said they were unwilling to spend weeks in a cramped courtroom. In Manhattan, a woman summoned for jury duty told the court she had been sick with the coronavirus and was symptomatic. Another trial, in the Bronx, was canceled when four courthouse staff members tested positive. Since October, state and federal court officials have taken extraordinary measures to restart criminal trials in New York City. They have constructed Plexiglas boxes with special air filters in court. They have asked witnesses to testify in face shields and have spread jurors out in courtroom galleries. But those efforts have not stopped the virus from disrupting nearly every step of the process. The state and federal courts in the city have been able to complete only nine criminal jury trials since the pandemic hit in March, officials said. Last year, there were about 800 criminal trials in the city. For months, the logistical problems have threatened the ability of hundreds of defendants to secure their constitutional right to a speedy trial. Now, as a second wave of the virus threatens the region, the delays are worsening — and officials foresee the backlog of unresolved cases continuing to grow. Last month, the chief judge in New York state halted new jury trials until further notice because of surging virus cases. More than 400 defendants have been waiting in New York City jails for more than two years for their cases to be resolved, according to the mayor’s office. “Is it fair for people to be languishing in pretrial detention and presumed innocent with no prospect of a trial in the future for them?” said New York’s chief administrative judge, Lawrence K. Marks. “A criminal justice system cannot be, in any sense of the word, fully functioning, if it is not conducting jury trials.” And in the last week, the federal courts in the city also announced that all trials would be suspended until mid-January. Some prosecutors, citing safety concerns, have pushed to delay trials because their witnesses live out of state or work in hospitals with COVID-19 patients. In other cases, prosecutors said the fears of catching the virus during trials had been overblown. The problems in New York have been mirrored across the country. Federal judges in Nebraska, Nevada, Colorado and several other jurisdictions recently suspended jury trials in response to rising virus cases. A court in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, held the state’s first virtual criminal trial last month. Each court has determined its own protocols. One local courthouse in Orange County, California, has completed 114 criminal trials since May, while the federal courthouse across the street has determined it is unsafe to hold any trials. In New York City courts, the challenge of preventing the virus’s spread is magnified by the dense population. In normal times, clerks, court officers and lawyers squeeze into courtroom galleries and line the crowded hallways, waiting for cases to be called. In November, at least three dozen people who appeared in nine criminal courthouses in the city tested positive for the virus, according to the state’s court administrators. Many judges have been eager to begin trials, worried about violating the constitutional rights of people charged with crimes. Without speedy trials, jails become overcrowded, evidence grows stale, and witnesses’ memories fade. Early in the pandemic, after New York City officials released hundreds of inmates, the city’s jail population dropped to its lowest level since the 1940s. But the population has increased again — to 4,669 people last month — raising fears about the virus spreading among inmates and jail staff. Most of the inmates are awaiting trial, according to the Center for Court Innovation, a criminal justice nonprofit. But one of the biggest hurdles to restarting trials has been finding defense lawyers who are willing to do them. At a federal hearing in Manhattan, Susan Kellman, a defense lawyer, said she felt unsafe visiting her client in jail, which hindered their ability to prepare for a drug-trafficking trial that had been scheduled for October. Her client has been adamant about going to trial quickly, she said, and regularly screams at her on the telephone. “I’m a single parent. I have two kids. I’m really not ready to die,” she told the judge, who rescheduled the trial. In Brooklyn, Alexander Zhukov, a defendant charged in a cybercrime scheme, was finally set to begin trial last month after waiting in jail for two years. But all three of his lawyers asked to quit weeks before the start date, citing fears about the new virus wave. Saritha Komatireddy, a prosecutor on the case, questioned why the lawyers had raised the concern for the first time so close to trial. “They may be entitled to their own fears, but they’re not entitled to their own facts,” she said at a recent hearing. “Trials are possible.” Out of desperation, Zhukov asked the judge if he could represent himself, even though Zhukov, a Russian national, has never studied American law. “For me, there is no options any more,” Zhukov said at the hearing. “It’s a must choice right now. It’s the only opportunity to get to trial on time. Otherwise, it will be postponed, postponed, postponed, postponed.” The judge assigned Zhukov a new lawyer and delayed the trial until at least February. Courthouse security officers and defense lawyers have sued to oppose the reopening of New York’s state courts, accusing court administrators of failing to take adequate safety measures. The chief administrative judge has said the courts are thoroughly and regularly cleaned. But a team of physicians hired by the city’s public defender groups contended in an August report that the state’s courthouses were ill-equipped to stop the spread of a virus, pointing to crowded holding cells for defendants, improperly installed plexiglass and poorly ventilated rooms. The virus has infiltrated the city’s courtrooms in ways that threaten the health of those inside and the constitutional rights of defendants. At a drug trial in state court in Manhattan in October, a police officer testified while wearing a see-through mask and face shield, surrounded by Plexiglas. But his testimony was interrupted by drilling noises from the sidewalk, which were audible because the courtroom’s windows had been propped open to improve ventilation. The jurors and the defendant, Demetre Cornish, strained to hear the officer. The judge decided to close a window, but kept the others open, saying, “We want to keep the air circulating.” Cornish was acquitted by the jury of some drug and firearm offenses but convicted of others. His lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, filed a motion Monday asking the judge to set aside the verdict, arguing that his client did not have a fair and public trial because of restrictions caused by the pandemic. Cornish’s relatives were denied entry into the courtroom. Their presence would have “had the potential to allow jurors to see him as an individual as opposed to an anonymous masked Black man sitting in the defendant’s chair,” Kenniff wrote. Face coverings prevented the defense from assessing facial expressions and reactions of potential jurors, Kenniff said. And the 12-person jury had included only two Black jurors and did not reflect the demographics of the borough, Kenniff said. Some defense lawyers have raised concerns that the virus’s disproportionate effect on Black and Latino residents might make jury pools less representative. Even before trials were halted entirely, jury selection had been transformed during the pandemic, screening out anyone uncomfortable with health risks. Once seated, juries deliberated in a separate courtroom, giving them more space than they had in cramped jury rooms. Still, some jurors have not seemed keen to stay for too long. A murder trial in the Bronx in July ended in an acquittal on all charges after jurors deliberated for less than an hour. A federal gun possession trial in Brooklyn last month led to a guilty verdict in 30 minutes. Communication between lawyers and their clients, who are supposed to sit 6 feet apart during trial, has been difficult. Federal courts have provided special phones that operate like walkie-talkies, although lawyers have said that the whispered conversations are picked up by microphones used to address the court. “The whole technology seems like it was from the days of Alexander Graham Bell,” said Eric Creizman, a lawyer whose client was convicted of securities fraud last month after a federal trial in Manhattan. Even with careful preparations, trials have been derailed by the pandemic. On Long Island, a judge stopped a trial after two days of testimony in September when the defendant revealed that his wife had tested positive for the virus. He said he was unable to isolate from her inside their small house. The trial resumed last month, and a jury convicted him on several drug offenses. One or two other trials that had been halted in March may have also resumed during the pandemic, state court officials said. “We are concerned for both victims and defendants that the wheels of justice continue to move,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, chief assistant to the Manhattan district attorney. “Languishing court cases is not good for anybody.”

Only 9 trials in 9 months: Virus wreaks havoc on NYC courts

Macy's unveiled the new additions to its annual New York City Thanksgiving Day parade on Monday. The new balloons are The Boss Baby, and Red Titan from "Ryan's World."

New Thanksgiving parade balloons, floats unveiled

A rise in unemployment claims has stalled New York City’s economic recovery in past weeks. Small businesses, particularly restaurants, saw more activity. But persistently high levels of unemployment continue to threaten the economic recovery. Susan M. Tehrani reports from the heart of New York City.

US Election 2020: Ground reports from New York City

New York City will impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as the rate of positive tests for the novel coronavirus climbed above 3% for the first time in months, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday.

Officials will first offer free masks to those caught not wearing one. If the person refuses, they will face an unspecified fine, de Blasio told reporters.

"Our goal, of course, is to give everyone a free face mask," de Blasio said. "We don`t want to fine people, but if we have to we will."

The new rule extends across the city a similar policy imposed earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, in which commuters who refuse to wear a mask on public transit face a $50 fine.

The citywide daily positive test rate was 3.25%, which the mayor attributed in part to nine zip codes that city health officials say has seen a worrying uptick in cases, including several tight-knit Hasidic Jewish communities. The seven-day rolling COVID-19 positivity average was 1.38%.

New York City will impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as the rate of positive tests for the novel coronavirus climbed above 3% for the first time in months, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday.

New York City will impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as the rate of positive tests for the novel coronavirus climbed above 3% for the first time in months, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday. Officials will first offer free masks to those caught not wearing one. If the person refuses, they will face an unspecified fine, de Blasio told reporters. "Our goal, of course, is to give everyone a free face mask," de Blasio said. "We don`t want to fine people, but if we have to we will." The new rule extends across the city a similar policy imposed earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, in which commuters who refuse to wear a mask on public transit face a $50 fine. The citywide daily positive test rate was 3.25%, which the mayor attributed in part to nine zip codes that city health officials say has seen a worrying uptick in cases, including several tight-knit Hasidic Jewish communities. The seven-day rolling COVID-19 positivity average was 1.38%.

New York City to fine people who refuse to wear mask as COVID-19 positive rate rises

As New York City prepares to open public schools on September 21st, some educators and parents are pushing for students to have more outdoor learning because they say outdoor learning is safer during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Some NYC parents/teachers pushing for outdoor school

According to preliminary findings from physicians at New York City's largest hospital system, treating Coronavirus patients with blood thinners may help in boosting survival rate of patients. Watch the full report to know more.

Study says blood thinners reduce deaths among COVID-19 patients

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