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  • New York recreational cannabis sales begin | CNN

    New York recreational cannabis sales begin | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The first public sales of regulated cannabis in New York began at a dispensary in Manhattan’s East Village on Thursday at 4:20 p.m., hours after the first sale was made to a city official, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced.

    Housing Works Cannabis Company became the first licensed dispensary in the state to open its location for business.

    The dispensary is operated by Housing Works, a non-profit that services people living with HIV/AIDS and those who are homeless and formerly incarcerated, Hochul said. The store will be open seven days a week and all proceeds will be directed to Housing Works, which runs a “network of charitable retail storefronts,” according to the release.

    “We set a course just nine months ago to start New York’s adult-use cannabis market off on the right foot by prioritizing equity, and now we’re fulfilling that goal,” Hochul said.

    The measure will attempt to address the racial disparities in cannabis-related arrests with a social and economic equity program to “facilitate individuals disproportionally impacted by cannabis enforcement,” city officials have said.

    The program includes “creating a goal of 50% of licenses to go to a minority or woman owned business enterprise, or distressed farmers or service-disabled veterans to encourage participation in the industry,” a city news release said.

    “Today marks a major milestone in our efforts to create the most equitable cannabis industry in the nation,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a statement on Thursday.

    “The legal cannabis market has the potential to be a major boon to New York’s economic recovery – creating new jobs, building wealth in historically underserved communities, and increasing state and local tax revenue,” Adams said.

    In March 2021, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill allowing recreational marijuana use across the state by adults 21 and older after the state Senate and Assembly voted to approve the legislation. The New York State Cannabis/Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act also expunges previous marijuana convictions for actions that would be legal under the new law.

    The bill allows adults 21 and older to buy cannabis from authorized sellers. Adults can also possess up to 3 ounces of cannabis and 24 grams of cannabis concentrate. Eighteen months after the first sales begin, the law will allow adults to grow six mature and six immature plants at home per household.

    It also establishes the Office of Cannabis Management, an independent office operating as part of the New York State Liquor Authority, to implement a regulatory framework. The office was designed to have a two-tier licensing structure that would separate growers and processors from those owning retail stores, Cuomo’s office previously said.

    The law will also add a 13% tax to retail sales for state and local tax revenue.

    The development of a regulated cannabis industry in New York has the potential to create 30,000 to 60,000 jobs and the ability to earn $350 million annually in tax collections, CNN previously reported.

    New York’s Cannabis Control Board issued the first 36 adult-use retail licenses on November 21, including 28 for qualifying businesses and eight for non-profits, according to Hochul’s office.

    Housing Works received over 2,000 responses to its invitation to RSVP for the grand opening. The line outside the store was already stretching down the block hours before 4:20 p.m., Charles King, the chief executive officer of Housing Works, told CNN on Thursday. King says the nonprofit is hoping to have a total of three marijuana dispensaries in Manhattan by the end of 2023.

    “I don’t know that we’re actually going to be able to serve everyone in the three hours that we’re open,” King said. “People are eager.”

    New York state has contracted with various laboratories to test all cannabis products to be sold for adult recreation, King says. The biggest challenge, he adds, was finding enough products to sell.

    Members of the media take pictures before the opening of the first legal cannabis dispensary in New York City, on December 29, 2022.

    Patrons must show their state or federal identification to make a purchase at the dispensary.

    “We’re required by regulation to card everyone who enters the store to make sure they’re over the age of 21 and take documentation that we’ve actually done that carding,” King said.

    Kenneth Woodin, who waited in line to enter the store for four hours, told CNN affiliate ABC 7, “I want to be part of history. I like the idea of regulated weed.”

    The federal ban on marijuana has not slowed down one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States. More than two-thirds of US states have legalized cannabis in some capacity. California was the first to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Since then, the medical use of cannabis has been legalized in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Recreational cannabis use is legal in DC and 21 states.

    Ballot measures in Missouri and Maryland to legalize recreational marijuana passed in the 2022 midterm elections, as momentum has grown nationwide to push for lifting penalties once associated with cannabis.

    A poll by the Pew Research Center conducted in October found that 59% of adults believe marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, while 30% believe it should be legal for only medical use. However, just 10% of adults say marijuana use should not be legal, the survey found.

    In October, President Joe Biden took the first significant steps by a US president toward removing criminal penalties for possessing marijuana by pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that senior administration officials said would affect thousands of Americans charged with that crime.

    Biden has also tasked the Department of Health and Human Services and Attorney General Merrick Garland to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.

    New York’s bill follows marijuana legalization in neighboring New Jersey. In February 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed bills to legalize and regulate marijuana use for those 21 and older, decriminalize possession of limited amounts of marijuana and clarify marijuana and cannabis use and possession penalties for those younger than 21.

    There are wide racial disparities in marijuana-related arrests nationwide, according to a study by the American Civil Liberties Union.

    “On average, a Black person is 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though Black and white people use marijuana at similar rates,” the ACLU said in a 2020 report.

    “In every single state, Black people were more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, and in some states, Black people were up to six, eight, or almost 10 times more likely to be arrested,” the report said.

    Policymakers and industry members should not lose sight of how individuals, especially people of color, continue to be criminalized for activities that are now legal at the state level, Amber Littlejohn, CEO of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, previously told CNN.

    “First and foremost, we need to get people out of prison, and we need to stop arresting people for doing things that folks are making lots of money doing,” Littlejohn said.

    People of color also face tremendous barriers operating within the industry. Attempts have been made to create paths into the industry for those with non-violent marijuana convictions whose communities were negatively impacted from the War on Drugs. But these efforts have largely been unsuccessful due to state policies that limit licenses, fail to offer financial and business resources to people of color and that benefit deeper-pocketed multistate operators, Littlejohn says.

    “I think one of the biggest problems is there seems to be an incredible disconnect between what people say they support and believe in and what [becomes law],” she said. “It’s up to us, the collective us, to be holding folks accountable.”

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  • As Buffalo officers fan out to perform welfare checks, harrowing accounts emerge of those who died in the storm | CNN

    As Buffalo officers fan out to perform welfare checks, harrowing accounts emerge of those who died in the storm | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    As police in Buffalo, New York, sifted through 911 and welfare check calls dating back to the earlier days of the deadly winter storm, harrowing accounts of those lost in the storm have emerged.

    Among the victims was Monique Alexander, a 52-year-old mother who died in the Buffalo storm, her daughter Casey Maccarone said. Alexander had rushed out of the house as conditions were worsening, saying she would be right back, Maccarone said.

    Two hours later, when she had not returned, her daughter said she posted on a Buffalo blizzard Facebook group asking if anyone had seen her mom. Just minutes later, a stranger messaged her and asked to call her, Maccarone said.

    “He just instantly broke down crying,” Maccarone said. “He was stranded as well and he was walking down the street and he saw her in the snow. So he picked her up and he placed her under the awning … so that she wouldn’t get snowed on anymore.”

    “Her grand kids were waiting for her to come home. We were waiting for her to come home,” Maccarone said.

    The death toll in Erie County, New York, climbed to 37 by Tuesday evening as first responders went door-to-door and car-to-car checking on people they couldn’t reach days ago, when a blizzard swept through the area, trapping residents and snarling emergency response during the holiday weekend.

    It took until Wednesday evening for Buffalo Police to announce they were done following up on the unanswered 911 and welfare check calls – which at some point reached 1,100 calls, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia said.

    Some officers checking on residents arrived to find that, in some cases, they were too late.

    “It’s a grueling, gruesome task that they had to do,” Gramaglia said. “They recovered a substantial amount of bodies and it’s terrible.”

    Some people have been found dead in cars, on streets or in snowbanks, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.

    Among the storm’s victims is Anndel Taylor, 22, whose family said she was found dead in Buffalo over the holiday weekend after getting trapped in her car by the blizzard.

    After losing contact with her, her family also posted her location to a private Facebook page related to the storm to ask for help, and a man called to say he had found her without a pulse, her sister said.

    Also among the fatalities was 46-year-old Melissa Morrison, a Buffalo mother of two whose body was found in the snow near a Tim Horton’s, her mother Linda Addeo told CNN.

    Addeo had worried about her daughter after her son came across social media posts on Friday about a body that was found near the coffee shop that Morrison lived by, she said.

    On Tuesday, the coroner’s office informed the family that the same body was positively identified as that of Morrison, Addeo said.

    Another storm-related death involved a 26-year-old man, Abdul Sharifu, who left to get provisions for a family who asked for his help on Saturday morning, his cousin Ally Sharifu told CNN.

    His wife – who is pregnant and days away from giving birth – woke up that evening to find him gone. After sharing a photo of the missing man on Facebook in a desperate attempt to find him, the family got a call about a man who was found lying on the street and rushed to a children’s hospital, Ally Sharifu said.

    Ally Sharifu said he ended up identifying his cousin’s body at a hospital the next morning. Abdul Sharifu and his cousin are refugees from Congo who were resettled in the US in 2017 after they lived for about five years in a refugee camp in Burundi, Ally Sharifu said.

    “The stories are heartbreaking, just heartbreaking,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said.

    The police commissioner said he expects that rising temperatures in the coming days will melt the snow and uncover more storm victims. Officers will be out on Thursday searching in areas where bodies were reported but never found, Gramaglia said.

    The winter storm’s grim effects have been widespread, with reports of fatalities stretching beyond New York and across 11 other US states. There have in total been least 62 storm-related deaths reported nationwide, and they mainly involved weather-related traffic accidents or fatalities related to the cold.

    Ohio confirmed 9 weather-related deaths, Colorado recorded 2 deaths, Kansas and Kentucky confirmed 3 deaths each, South Carolina confirmed 2 deaths, and Missouri, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin each recorded one storm-related death.

    Sha'Kyra Aughtry helps a man she found stranded in the snow in Buffalo

    As emergency services were restored in Buffalo, the New York National Guard said they made at least 86 rescues, including getting a woman to the hospital just before she gave birth.

    Police were also back out, making ten arrests in Buffalo as of Wednesday in connection with suspected winter storm looting, the police commissioner said in a Wednesday news conference.

    But, Mayor Brown stressed, “This is a minority of individuals.”

    “In typical ‘city of good neighbors’ fashion, people have come together – they’ve assisted each other. Neighbors have helped neighbors. Friends have helped friends, and members of this community have helped people that they have never met before,” the mayor said Wednesday.

    One Buffalo woman, Sha’Kyra Aughtry, said she looked out her window on Christmas Eve to find a frostbitten man calling for help in the frigid cold.

    Her boyfriend carried the man, 64-year-old Joe White, into the house, and she used a blow dryer to melt the ice off his red and blistered hands, Aughtry said.

    After she called 911 and no one came to help, Aughtry said, she took to Facebook to plead for assistance and ended up getting White to the hospital with help from good Samaritans who came and snowplowed them out, she said.

    Social media also proved useful when a woman went into labor two days before Christmas.

    When Erica Thomas began having contractions, the snow from the winter storm had piled up about halfway up the front door of her Buffalo home and she and her husband, Davon Thomas, couldn’t get out.

    The soon-to-be father called 911 for help and was told they’d attempt to get an emergency vehicle there as soon as possible. He was later told responders had attempted to get to their house but couldn’t.

    Davon Thomas called a friend who made a post for the couple on a Buffalo Facebook group, asking for help and the couple ended up getting in touch with Raymonda Reynolds, an experienced doula of five years.

    Reynolds and her friend, doula and nurse Iva Blackburn, got on a video call with the couple and guided them through delivering the baby and cutting the umbilical cord.

    “We started screaming like it was a Buffalo Bills touchdown,” Reynolds said, describing the moment the baby girl was born. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve been a part of.”

    In another act of kindness, a Buffalo barbershop owner, Craig Elston, ended up opening his store for people to seek refuge from the storm. “A lot of people slept in the barber chairs a lot of people put the chairs together,” Elston said.

    “I was just thinking about just keeping people warm. It was really that simple,” he said.

    Vehicles drive down Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo on Wednesday, December 28, 2022.

    After six days of restrictions on traveling while road conditions were unsafe, Buffalo is lifting its winter storm driving ban at midnight Thursday and replacing it with a travel advisory, Poloncarz announced.

    The driving ban had been in place in Buffalo since Friday morning.

    “We still have a ways to go but we have come a long way in just a couple of days. This will allow our residents to get back to work – allow them to get to supermarkets, pharmacies, and to get to medical appointments,” Mayor Brown said.

    Poloncarz was asked Wednesday about the timing of the driving ban, and whether there had been discussion among officials about issuing it earlier.

    Officials started discussing a potential ban Thursday, Poloncarz said, but they initially believed the snow band wouldn’t reach the Erie County until 10 a.m. the next morning.

    On Friday morning, temperatures “dropped dramatically,” but whiteout conditions didn’t hit until about 10 a.m., he noted, after the ban was issued.

    “If anyone is to be blamed, you can blame me. I’m the one who has to make the final call on behalf of the county,” Poloncarz said.

    Poloncarz also criticized how Buffalo’s mayor has handled storm cleanup efforts, saying Brown has not been on daily coordination calls with other municipalities and that the city has been slow to reopen.

    When asked about those remarks, the mayor told CNN, “I’m not concerned about those comments, my concern is for the residents of the city of Buffalo.”

    Hundreds of pieces of equipment were plowing and hauling snow on Wednesday, and most streets were passable in Buffalo by the evening, Brown announced in a Wednesday evening update.

    As temperatures warm up, there have been concerns about a possible “rapid melt” leading to flooding, Erie County officials said.

    The Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Daniel J. Neaverth, Jr. said they feel “very comfortable” in their positioning to be able to handle potential flooding.

    “We have an ample supply ready to go ready to be deployed with personnel in the event that we have some type of flooding,” Neaverth said.

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  • Woman in Buffalo found dead in her car after getting trapped by snow, family says | CNN

    Woman in Buffalo found dead in her car after getting trapped by snow, family says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 22-year-old woman was found dead over the holiday weekend in Buffalo, New York, after being trapped in her car by the blizzard that paralyzed western New York, her family told CNN on Tuesday.

    Anndel Taylor, who had moved to Buffalo from Charlotte, North Carolina, was driving home from work at a senior citizen center and was only six minutes away by car from her house when she became stranded, said relatives who live in Charlotte and who became frantic when they lost touch with her.

    Tomeshia Brown, one of Taylor’s older sisters, told CNN that Taylor sent a video to a group chat with her sisters around 3 p.m. on Friday. In the video, Taylor captured the snow and whiteout conditions. She told her sisters who live in North Carolina that she was stuck and the snow kept falling, Brown said.

    Taylor called 911 and was waiting for first responders, Brown and Wanda Brown Steele – Taylor’s mother – told CNN.

    “Her plan was to wait until the police got there,” her sister said. But if that failed, she planned to “get up and walk once her car ran out of gas.” She also said she planned to go to sleep and then try to walk home once she woke up if help did not arrive.

    Her family said they kept in touch with Taylor as the day dragged on. At one point, Taylor texted one of her other sisters separately to say that she was starting to panic, Brown added.

    In the early hours of Christmas Eve, Taylor would send her last video message to the group chat. In the video, Taylor cracks open the driver’s side window of her car, revealing a road turned into a barren wasteland by the snow. A van down the road, which appears to be stuck, can be seen flashing its hazard lights. Taylor wrote in the group chat that she thought the snow would probably be up to her waist if she got out of her car.

    Later that morning, at around 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve, members of her family in North Carolina called and sent her multiple messages. “We texted her in the group to ask, ‘Are you OK?’” Brown said. The family was alarmed when Taylor was not responding.

    “Maybe two hours later, my sister tracked her phone,” Brown said. “She [Taylor] must’ve shared her location with my sister. And it showed that she was still outside.”

    The family alerted Taylor’s relatives in Buffalo to the address, but once they arrived, they said they saw Brown’s car, but did not see her inside.

    “So I put the info on a private Facebook page called Buffalo Blizzard 2022 and asked for help,” Brown said. She posted the address of the tracked phone and later that evening, she got a phone call from an unnamed man. “He let us know he checked her pulse and there was no pulse,” Brown said.

    “I really didn’t believe it,” she said. “It was like a piercing feeling in my stomach, a pain I’ve never felt before.”

    Taylor’s mother, Brown Steele, told CNN she was in “shock.”

    It would not be until the next day that Taylor’s body was removed from the car, Brown said, after a woman sent a message on Facebook to let Brown know that she had also located the car – and her sister’s body.

    The woman told the family in Charlotte that she would not leave until someone came to pick her up.

    With emergency personnel unable to reach the car, the woman waited until Taylor’s relatives who live in Buffalo arrived. They all helped move Taylor’s body into another vehicle, where she was taken to the hospital, Brown said.

    After leaving multiple voicemail messages through the course of the holiday weekend, the family in Charlotte heard back from authorities on Monday evening. They were calling to let them know they were ready to go to rescue Taylor, Brown said. The Brown family informed them that Taylor’s body had already been transported to the hospital the day before.

    “I want to get to the bottom of why the city was unable to help,” Brown Steele told CNN.

    Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on “CNN This Morning” on Monday that two-thirds of the equipment that was dispatched to help clear snow during the height of the storm got stuck.

    Poloncarz added that a historian with the Buffalo Fire Department said this was the first time in the agency’s history that personnel could not respond to emergency calls because the severity of the conditions wouldn’t allow it.

    Erie County officials said on Tuesday that the county had restored its emergency response service, but they were still begging residents to abide by Buffalo’s travel ban and stay off the roads.

    CNN has contacted the Buffalo Police Department for further details.

    As of Tuesday evening, Taylor’s family in Charlotte has yet to learn the official cause of Taylor’s death, Brown said.

    Taylor was described by her sister as “a caring and nurturing person. She hustled a lot, she cared about a lot of people,” her sister said.

    “If she could help, she would help you,” her mother said. “She had a lot of friends here in Charlotte – a lot of people cared about her.”

    Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles released a statement offering her deepest condolences to Taylor’s family and friends.

    “Anndel was taken from this world far too soon, and words cannot begin to express the heartache and pain her loved ones feel during this difficult time,” Lyles’ statement reads. “This was a devastating storm that brought tremendous tragedy, and our community here in Charlotte mourns with her family.”

    Her family set up a GoFundMe campaign to pay for her funeral services.

    Taylor would have turned 23 next month, Brown said.

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  • Crews work to clear snow-covered roads for emergency responders in Buffalo after storm that left 31 dead in area | CNN

    Crews work to clear snow-covered roads for emergency responders in Buffalo after storm that left 31 dead in area | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Emergency services have been restored in Buffalo, New York, officials said, as crews continue to clear roads and first responders check on people they couldn’t reach days ago when a deadly winter storm swept the nation.

    At least 31 people have died in New York’s Erie County, where Buffalo was buried with nearly 52 inches of snow, trapping residents at home – many without heat as the Christmas weekend blizzard took out power lines. At least 25 others across 11 US states also have been reported dead in the storm.

    A driving ban remains in effect Wednesday in Buffalo amid a two-day effort to clear at least one lane on every street to accommodate emergency responders, according to the city and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. They’re still hampered, though, by hundreds of vehicles abandoned in the snow, hazardous driving conditions and snow-covered lanes, with emergency and recovery vehicles still getting stuck, Poloncarz spokesperson Peter Anderson said Tuesday.

    The county is bringing in 100 military police, plus New York State Police, to manage traffic control “because it has become so evident that too many people are ignoring the (driving) ban,” Poloncarz said. Officials also are working to coordinate deliveries of fuel to emergency crews and grocery supplies to markets, he said.

    “It’s the reason why you need to stay off the road in these impacted areas, because we need to be able to get those resources to where they need to be so that the shelves are in fact stocked and ready to go,” Poloncarz said.

    Meantime, Buffalo is bracing for possible flooding as rising temperatures being to melt the massive amount of snow and 2 inches of rain is forecast through the weekend. The flood risk is small, the National Weather Service said.

    For now, authorities are focusing on welfare checks and getting people to hospitals after hundreds of calls for help went unanswered as the storm slammed the area, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia has said.

    Amid the frigid, whiteout conditions, “people … got stranded in their vehicles and passed away in their cars. We have people that were walking during blizzard conditions and passed away on the street, passed away in snowbanks,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. “And we have people that were found that passed away in their homes.”

    At least one reported death in Erie County has been attributed to an EMS delay, Poloncarz told CNN on Tuesday. “Our emergency responders could not get to the person because of the snow,” he said. “They were blocked, and by the time they got there it was too late.”

    This storm marked the first time the Buffalo Fire Department could not respond to emergency calls because of severe conditions, Poloncarz said, citing the agency’s historian. Two-thirds of the equipment dispatched to help clear winter snow during the height of the storm also got stuck, he said.

    The blizzard – which Gov. Kathy Hochul called a “once-in-a-generation storm” – has drawn many comparisons to Buffalo’s infamous blizzard of 1977 – a powerful storm that left 23 people dead.

    “The blizzard of ’77 is considered the worst storm in Buffalo history,” Poloncarz said Monday. “Well, unfortunately, this has already surpassed it for deaths.”

    Anndel Taylor, 22, was found dead in Buffalo over the holiday weekend after getting trapped in her car by the blizzard, her family said.

    After losing contact with her, the family posted her location to a private Facebook page related to the storm to ask for help, and a man called to say he had found her without a pulse, her sister said.

    The winter storm’s grim effects have been widespread, with at least 56 storm-related deaths reported across several states:

    • New York: In addition to the 31 deaths in Erie County, one fatal carbon monoxide poisoning was reported in Niagara County.

    • Colorado: Police in Colorado Springs reported two deaths related to the cold since Thursday, with one man found near a building’s power transformer, possibly seeking warmth, and another in a camp in an alleyway.

    • Kansas: Three people died in weather-related traffic accidents, the Highway Patrol said Friday.

    • Kentucky: Three people died, officials have said, including one involved in a vehicle crash in Montgomery County.

    • Missouri: One person died after a van slid off an icy road and into a frozen creek, Kansas City police said.

    • New Hampshire: A hiker was found dead in Franconia on Christmas morning, said Lt. James Kneeland, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

    • Ohio: Nine people died as a result of weather-related auto crashes, including four in a Saturday morning crash on Interstate 75 when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and collided with an SUV and a pickup, authorities said.

    • South Carolina: Two men – including a 91-year-old who went outside on Christmas Day to fix a broken water pipe – died due to the storm in Anderson County, the coroner’s office there said. The other victim died on Christmas Eve after his home lost power.

    • Tennessee: The Department of Health on Friday confirmed one storm-related fatality.

    • Vermont: One woman in Castleton died after a tree fell on her home, according to the police chief.

    • Wisconsin: The State Patrol on Thursday reported one fatal crash due to winter weather.

    A New York state trooper car blocks the entrance to Route 198 on Tuesday after a winter storm in Buffalo.

    With flooding possible in Buffalo, crews are focused on clearing key snowbanks, officials said. Still, “it should take around an inch of rain from this system before flooding becomes a concern,” the weather service said.

    City leaders are working with the National Weather Service “not only to reflect back on what happened this past week but also what potentially could come,” Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services’ Daniel Neaverth said.

    All major highways across Western New York, including New York State Thruway, had reopened by Tuesday – “a sign that we are finally turning the corner on this once-in-a-generation storm,” Hochul said.

    Buffalo got another 1.6 inches of snow on Tuesday, bringing the total since Friday to 51.9 inches and the December total to 64.7 inches, the weather service said. Overall, Buffalo has gotten 101.6 inches this winter season, CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford said.

    Conditions are improving and the lake-effect snowfall has finally stopped, he noted. Warm temperatures are forecast for at least the next week, with Buffalo due for highs in the upper 30s on Wednesday and the 40s through the weekend.

    Officials also have responded to a few reports of looting. Eight people had been arrested in Buffalo through Tuesday evening in connection with suspected winter storm looting, according to a tweet from the Buffalo Police Department.

    “It is horrible that while residents of our community have died in this storm that people are out looting,” the mayor said, but noted, “This is a minority of individuals.”

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  • George Santos faces growing condemnation as House GOP leadership remains silent | CNN Politics

    George Santos faces growing condemnation as House GOP leadership remains silent | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP Rep.-elect George Santos is facing growing condemnation from House Democrats, some of whom have called on him to step aside, and even from some corners of the GOP, with at least one of his fellow incoming Republicans calling for him to face an ethics investigation. House GOP leadership, however, remains silent over revelations that the New York Republican lied about parts of his biography. 

    Santos has admitted to fabricating sections of his resume – including his past work experience and education – and has apologized but says he intends to serve in Congress.

    Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas and Ted Lieu of California were among those calling on Santos – after the congressman-elect gave interviews acknowledging “embellishing” his resume – to resign and if he refuses, for the House to expel him. 

    Castro called for Santos to be investigated by authorities and argued if the New York Republican is allowed to serve in Congress after lying about his resume, “There will be more who seek office up and down the ballot who will believe that they can completely fabricate credentials, personal features and accomplishments to win office.”

    Democratic Rep.-elect Dan Goldman of New York, a former federal prosecutor, called Santos a “total fraud.” He criticized House Republicans, saying, “Congress also has an obligation to hold George Santos accountable, but it is sadly clear that we cannot trust House Republicans to initiate an investigation in the House Ethics Committee.”

    At least one incoming member of the GOP conference called for Santos to face scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee – an investigative panel that is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats but has limited options for doling out repercussions. 

    “As a Navy man who campaigned on restoring accountability and integrity to our government, I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required,” GOP Rep.-elect Nick LaLota said in a statement that marks the sharpest rebuke yet from a Republican coming to Congress or currently serving.

    “New Yorkers deserve the truth and House Republicans deserve an opportunity to govern without this distraction,” LaLota added.

    Another incoming GOP lawmaker from New York, Rep.-elect Anthony D’Esposito, condemned Santos’ false statements and called on him to “pursue a path of honesty,” although he stopped short of calling for an investigation.

    “Neighbors across Long Island are deeply hurt and rightly offended by the lies and misstatements made by Congressman-Elect George Santos,” he said in a statement. “While Santos has taken a required first step by ‘coming clean’ with respect to his education, work experience and other issues, he must continue to pursue a path of honesty.”

    It is unlikely House Republican leadership will refuse to seat Santos, who is scheduled to be sworn in with the rest of the new members of Congress next Tuesday. The House has the power under the Constitution to expel any member with a two-thirds vote, but doing so is extremely rare and only five lawmakers have been expelled in US history. 

    Besides making a referral to the House Ethics Committee, other potential options for dealing with Santos include not giving him any committee assignments, which would be up to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

    In the past, the California Republican has shown little appetite for punishing his own members for bad behavior – particularly when it comes to actions from before they were a member of Congress. McCarthy has also declined to weigh in when members are under investigation, arguing he will let the probes play out before determining how to proceed. 

    “This will not deter me from being an effective member of the United States Congress in the 118th session,” Santos told City & State in an interview posted Monday night.

    McCarthy’s office and the National Republican Congressional Committee did not respond to CNN’s request for comment Monday evening.  

    Republican condemnation has, however, come from outside Congress.

    Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph G. Cairo, Jr., said Tuesday that Santos “has broken the public trust” and “has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters.”

    “I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Santos, and I expected more than just a blanket apology,” Cairo said in a statement. “The damage that his lies have caused to many people, especially those who have been impacted by the Holocaust, are profound.”

    CNN’s KFile reported that claims by Santos that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium who changed their surname are contradicted by sources including family trees compiled by genealogy websites, records on Jewish refugees and interviews with multiple genealogists.

    “I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the New York Post on Monday. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”

    But Santos described himself as a “proud American Jew” in a document shared with Jewish groups during the campaign, which was first reported by the Forward and confirmed by CNN.

    The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday said the incoming congressman had “misrepresented his heritage” and “will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

    “We are very disappointed in Congressman-elect Santos,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement. “He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally he previously claimed to be Jewish. He has begun his tenure in Congress on a very wrong note.”

    Santos admitted Monday he didn’t graduate from any college or university, despite previously claiming he had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.

    He also admitted that he never worked directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he has previously suggested, but claimed that he did do work for them through his company, telling the New York Post it was a “poor choice of words” to say he worked for them.

    The New York Times first revealed last week that Santos’ biography appeared to be partly fictional. CNN confirmed details of that reporting, including about his college education and employment history.

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  • Brooklyn hospital network reverts to paper charts for weeks after cyberattack | CNN Business

    Brooklyn hospital network reverts to paper charts for weeks after cyberattack | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A network of three hospitals in Brooklyn, New York, has had to work off paper charts for weeks following a cyberattack on its computer systems in late November, the hospital group’s chief executive told CNN Monday.

    The hack affected “clinical applications,” including “those used for imaging and other critical services,” but many of those applications have been restored, One Brooklyn Health CEO LaRay Brown said in an email.

    It’s an example of how hacking incidents have continued to hamper hospitals as the coronavirus pandemic drags on — and of how recovering from the hacks can be painstaking and disruptive for hospital staff.

    One Brooklyn Health operates Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, Interfaith Medical Center and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.

    One staff member at Brookdale told the New York Times that, because of the hack, diagnostic imaging at the medical center had to be sent out to a third party provider rather than done in-house.

    “No patients were adversely effected,” Brown told CNN in an email Monday, adding that the hospitals remain open to patients. “We continue to provide care for our patients using downtime procedures for which our clinicians and administrators have been trained.”

    More than 80% of the computer workstations that One Brooklyn Health doctors and staff use to support hospital operations have been restored, Brown said. Hospital administrators have begun putting some clinical data into patients’ electronic medical records, she added.

    Brown did not answer questions about whether One Brooklyn Health was dealing with a ransomware attack, which locks up computer systems until a ransom is paid. But plenty of other hospitals across the country have had to deal with such extortion attempts.

    One IT administrator at a 100-bed hospital in Florida recounted to CNN how he shut down the facility’s computer systems in January to prevent a ransomware attack from spreading throughout the hospital.

    Many hospitals in rural or poor areas do not have the resources to defend their networks from hackers.

    “Cyber safety and resilience cannot be allowed to break across socioeconomic lines,” said Joshua Corman, who helped lead a taskforce at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to protect coronavirus research from hacking. “The majority of US hospitals are target-rich, but cyber poor.”

    The cybersecurity of computer networks that can affect human safety “needs to become a national priority,” said Corman, now a vice president at cybersecurity firm Claroty.

    Brookdale Hospital is located in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, one of the poorest areas in New York City. It was so overwhelmed and desperate for resources at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in New York that one doctor told CNN at the time that his hospital had become “a war zone.”

    – CNN’s Sarah Boxer contributed to this report

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  • A Buffalo family who became stranded in blizzard conditions got to spend Christmas at firefighters’ firehouse | CNN

    A Buffalo family who became stranded in blizzard conditions got to spend Christmas at firefighters’ firehouse | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    When the blizzard first hit Buffalo, New York, a family of six packed up their bags and headed to a local hotel after they lost power at their home – but they ended up celebrating Christmas somewhere a little more surprising.

    Demetrice and Danielle, along with their children Aayden, 8, Aubree, 4, Jordynn, 2, and 9-month-old Judah became one of the many motorists who got stuck in impassable road conditions in Buffalo on Friday, according to a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority statement.

    The family was rescued by Buffalo Airport Fire Fighters, along with 36 other people who were also caught in blizzard conditions, according to the transportation authority statement.

    As the only rescued motorists with young children, the family got to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day somewhere special: at the firehouse with the firefighters.

    Their oldest, Aayden, asked the firefighters if he could wear a firefighter uniform with them and was given a uniform and department T-shirt and learned about how the first responders dispatch, according to the transportation authority.

    The 8-year-old was also thrilled that Santa Claus would be delivering presents to them at the firehouse.

    “Christmas became a big concern because Aayden was so excited that Santa would know he was here and he would get to celebrate at a real firehouse and we didn’t want to disappoint,” said Assistant Chief Buffalo Airport Fire Department Joel Eberth. “We were able to find several items in the firehouse to wrap for the family and with the amazing help from the field office delivering some items from the terminal, we were able to make sure Santa paid a visit.”

    “It was an amazing experience for our firefighters and it definitely made us better people,” Eberth said.

    Buffalo has been hard hit by the winter storm sweeping the country. As of Sunday morning, 43 inches of snow had fallen there, according to the National Weather Service.

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  • A prolonged winter storm delivers power outages, snarled travel and frigid temperatures on Christmas Day | CNN

    A prolonged winter storm delivers power outages, snarled travel and frigid temperatures on Christmas Day | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A nearly weeklong winter storm blasting much of the US has plunged temperatures to life-threatening lows, brought blizzards and floods, and left more than a quarter million people without power on Christmas Day.

    Blizzard conditions continue across the Great Lakes, while frigid cold temperatures grip the eastern two-thirds of the US, with some major cities in the Southeast, Midwest and East Coast recording their coldest Christmas in decades.

    Large areas of the central and eastern US remain under wind chill warnings and advisories, as freeze warnings are in effect across the South.

    New York City saw record cold temperatures on Christmas Eve at several locations, including its JFK and LaGuardia airports. The high at Central Park was 15 degrees, marking its second-coldest December 24 in at least 150 years, according to the National Weather Service.

    At least 22 deaths have been attributed to dangerous weather conditions since Wednesday, and some residents in the Northeast are spending the holiday without sufficient heat or hot water as extremely cold temperatures persist.

    Across the US, 275,856 homes and businesses in the US had no electricity service as of 1 a.m. ET, many of them in Maine and New York, according to PowerOutage.us. Since the start of the storm the number of outages has at times exceeded a million customers.

    A power grid operator for at least 13 states in the country’s eastern half asked customers to conserve power and set thermostats lower than usual from early Saturday to 10 a.m. on Sunday because usage was straining capacity.

    The operator, PJM Interconnection, serves about 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and warned rolling blackouts could happen if the strain becomes too much.

    In New York, utility companies Con Edison and Natural Grid US also urged customers to conserve energy, citing extreme weather conditions and increased energy demand on interstate pipelines carrying natural gas into the city.

    Meanwhile, a shortage of electricity in Texas prompted the US Department of Energy to declare an emergency Friday, allowing the state’s energy provider to exceed environmental emissions standards until energy usage drops.

    In Jackson, Mississippi, frigid temperatures are hampering efforts to repair a large water main break late Saturday, which has caused a loss in water pressure for residents, city officials said.

    “We are grateful to the crews who are braving these frigid temperatures on this Christmas Eve night, while working to restore pressure to residents. Their sacrifice does not go unnoticed and is appreciated not only by this administration, but also by every resident who is affected,” the release stated.

    The brutal weather conditions have also snarled travel during the busy holiday weekend, with more than 5,000 flights canceled Friday, more than 3,400 flights canceled Saturday, and more than 1,000 canceled for Christmas Day.

    Conditions on the road weren’t any better in parts of the country amid whiteout conditions and icy and snow-covered roadways.

    In New York’s Erie County – which is seeing blistering blizzard conditions – about 500 motorists found themselves stranded in their vehicles Friday night into Saturday morning, despite a county driving ban put in place during the storm, according to County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

    National Guard troops were called in to help “rescue people that are stuck in vehicles,” and to give rides to medical workers so they could relieve colleagues who had been working at hospitals for more than a day, Poloncarz said.

    In Seattle, Washington, online videos have documented cars sliding on the icy roads and bumping into each and residents slipping as they walked on sidewalks, CNN affiliate KOMO reported.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she will ask the federal government for a declaration of emergency after a blistering winter storm.

    “I’ll be asking the federal government for a declaration of emergency that’ll allow us to seek reimbursements for the extraordinary expenses of all the overtime and the fact that we brought in mutual aid from other parts of the state,” Hochul said to reporters Saturday. “We’ve deployed individuals – the utility crews have come but also making sure that we have all the vehicles we need.”

    New York’s three storm-related deaths were reported in Erie County. Two died in separate incidents Friday night when emergency medical personnel could not get to their homes in time for medical emergencies, Poloncarz said Saturday morning. Details about the third death, confirmed by a county spokesperson Saturday afternoon, weren’t immediately available.

    “The loss of two lives in Buffalo – storm related – because people were not able to get to medical attention, is again a crisis situation that unfolds before your eyes and you realize that lifesaving ambulances and emergency medical personnel cannot get to people during a blizzard situation,” Hochul added.

    Other storm-related deaths have been reported in the country. They include:

    • Colorado: Police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, reported two deaths related to the cold since Thursday, with one man found near a power transformer of a building possibly looking for warmth, and another in a camp in an alleyway.

    • Kansas: Three people have died in weather-related traffic accidents, the Kansas Highway Patrol said Friday.

    • Kentucky: Three people have died in the state, officials have said, including one involving a vehicle accident in Montgomery County.

    • Missouri: One person died after a caravan slid off an icy road and into a frozen creek, Kansas City police said.

    • Ohio: Eight people have died as a result of weather-related auto accidents, including four in a Saturday morning crash on Interstate 75, when a semi tractor-trailer crossed the median and collided with an SUV and a pickup, authorities said.

    • Tennessee: The Tennessee Department of Health on Friday confirmed one storm-related fatality.

    • Wisconsin: Wisconsin State Patrol on Thursday reported one fatal crash due to winter weather.

    In pictures: Winter storm impacts the US


    The storm system is forecast to gradually weaken as it lifts into southeastern Canada, moving slowly during the next couple of days and pulling arctic air from Canada down into much of the eastern side of the country.

    The Arctic blast being felt across the eastern two-thirds of the nation will slowly moderate into Monday, but dangerous conditions will persist Christmas Day.

    The cold temperatures combined with dangerous wind chills will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers who become stranded, people who work outside, livestock and pets, according to the National Weather Service.

    “In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes,” the Weather Service warned.

    As the frigid air continues to blast the warm waters of the Great Lakes, lake-effect snows and blizzard conditions are expected to continue, but slowly become less intense.

    Still, strong gusty winds initially up to 60 mph accompanying the snow downwind from the Great Lakes will continue to make for extremely dangerous conditions on the road.

    By Christmas night into Monday, another low pressure system coming from the Pacific will deliver the next surge of moisture toward the Pacific Northwest and then into northern California, according to the Weather Service.

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  • Fire on board a JetBlue plane forces the evacuation of more than 160 passengers at New York’s JFK airport | CNN

    Fire on board a JetBlue plane forces the evacuation of more than 160 passengers at New York’s JFK airport | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A fire on board a JetBlue Airways plane forced more than 160 passengers to evacuate using emergency slides at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, fire department officials said.

    The incident – which happened shortly after the flight from Barbados landed at the airport – may have started due to an electronic device and is under investigation, according to JetBlue.

    “On Saturday, JetBlue flight 662 with service from Bridgetown, Barbados (BGI) was evacuated shortly after landing at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) due to reports of a customer’s malfunctioning electronic device or battery,” company spokesperson Derek Dombrowski said in a statement to CNN.

    The New York City Fire Department reported a plane fire around 9 p.m. at the airport’s Terminal 5, saying the regional Port Authority agency evacuated the JetBlue plane.

    A total of 167 people were evacuated using emergency slides, the FDNY said. Five passengers had minor injuries.

    “Safety is always our number one priority,” Dombrowski said, adding JetBlue is coordinating with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

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  • A least 9 dead as massive winter storm leaves more than a million without power and bitter cold across much of US | CNN

    A least 9 dead as massive winter storm leaves more than a million without power and bitter cold across much of US | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A massive winter storm battered the US on Friday with frigid temperatures, high winds and heavy snow, leaving at least nine people dead, knocking out power to over a million customers and wrecking holiday plans from coast to coast.

    The storm – expected to intensify throughout Friday as it barrels through the Midwest and East – is making for grim road conditions with poor visibility and ice-covered streets. Coastal flooding is also an issue, particularly along the shorelines of the Northeast.

    All modes of travel – planes, trains and automobiles – were being disrupted: There were hundreds of miles of road closures and flight cancellations were growing rapidly. In New York, flooding along the Long Island Rail Road forced part of the Long Beach branch to temporarily shut down.

    Related: Follow live updates

    “Christmas is canceled,” said Mick Saunders, a Buffalo, New York, resident who was two hours into blizzard conditions that are expected to last through Sunday morning. “All family and friends agreed it’s safer this way.”

    At least 9 deaths have been reported since Wednesday.

    In north-central Kansas, three people were killed in separate car crashes on Wednesday evening; one death was confirmed to be weather-related, and two were believed to be weather-related but need more investigation, according to Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Candice Breshears.

    In Kansas City, one person died after losing control of their Dodge Caravan on icy roads Thursday afternoon, according to the Kansas City Police Department. “The Dodge went down the embankment, over the cement retaining wall and landed upside down, submerged in Brush Creek,” police said in a statement.

    In Kentucky, three people died due to the storm, including two in vehicle crashes and the other a “housing insecure” person in Louisville, Gov. Andy Beshear said. The man’s body was found outside with no obvious signs of trauma and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, police said.

    And in Ohio, four people have died “as a result of weather-related auto accidents” and several others have been injured, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.

    Life threatening cold has pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border, with below zero wind chills reported as far south as Austin and Atlanta. Many locations in the eastern US are in for their coldest Christmas Eve in decades as the Arctic blast reaches its peak.

    About 1.2 million customers in the US are experiencing power outages amid the winter weather and frigid temperatures, according to the website PowerOutage.US. Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania have the most outages.

    In pictures: Winter storm impacts the US


    In all, more than 200 million people in the US were under wind chill alerts from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and from Washington state to Florida, with below-zero wind chills expected in the Southeast by Friday. Other winter weather alerts are in effect for blizzard conditions, ice, snow as well as flooding.

    “The National Weather Service’s Watch Warning graphic depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” the agency said Thursday.

    Notably, parts of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming have already seen wind chills below minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the past two days.

    The entire state of Texas was seeing temperatures below freezing by early Friday afternoon, according to weather observations from around the state.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned residents about the “epic, statewide hazard” of winter weather.

    “I called it a kitchen sink storm because it is throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink,” Hochul said at a press conference Friday afternoon. “We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that mother nature could wallop at us this weekend.”

    For Brian Trzeciak, the storm was “living up to the warnings” at his home in Hamburg, New York. Buffalo’s airport, just to the north, reported zero visibility shortly after noon on Friday.

    “Whiteout conditions, frigid temperatures, and the waves are like what you would see during a hurricane,” he told CNN.

    He and his family decided to cancel their Christmas plans because of the dangers from the storm.

    “My mother lives about 30 minutes away and so does my sister and her family, in the other direction,” he said. “We always get together for Christmas Eve and Christmas, but we’re all hunkering down in our houses until it all stops on Monday.”

    Driving bans are in place in Erie, Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties in Western New York because of whiteout conditions.

    As many as 250 people could be stranded in their cars in Erie County in a situation that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said put first responders at unnecessary risk. Brown told CNN Friday night that forecasts call for 36 to 48 inches of snow. The area has had wind gusts of 79 mph.

    Many will experience a cold holiday unlike any other: Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tallahassee, Florida, are all forecast to have their coldest high temperature ever recorded on December 24, according to the National Weather Service.

    Washington DC is forecast to see its second coldest Christmas Eve, only behind 1989. In New York, it will be the coldest Christmas Eve since 1906. Chicago is expecting temperatures to rebound above zero, but will still experience its coldest Christmas Eve since 1983.

    Much of Florida will experience the peak of their cold on Christmas Day. It will be coldest Christmas Day since 1983 for Miami, Tampa, Orlando and West Palm Beach.

    On Friday, the storm unleashed more heavy snow and blizzard conditions, particularly in the Midwest.

    As it treks east across the country, the storm is expected to become a “bomb cyclone,” a rapidly strengthening storm which drops 24 millibars of pressure within 24 hours. The storm’s pressure was forecast to match that of a Category 2 hurricane as it moved into the Great Lakes on Friday morning.

    Governors in at least 13 states, including Georgia and North Carolina in the South, have implemented emergency measures to respond to the storm. Declarations of a state of emergency in several states have included the activation of National Guard units.

    More than 5,400 Friday flights have already been canceled as of 7:30 p.m. ET, after nearly 2,700 cancellations on Thursday, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

    • It will remain very cold: Friday will bring record-low temperatures in large swaths of the US, including from the Lower Mississippi Valley, northeastward into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and stretching across large sections of the east from the Southeast, through the Southern to Central Appalachians and into the mid-Atlantic, according to the National Weather Service.

    • Dangerous wind chills: The plummeting temperatures will be accompanied by high winds, which will create dangerous wind chills across nearly all the central to eastern US.

    • Blizzard warnings: The Upper Midwest will see frigid temperatures, heavy snow and high winds. The warning applies to parts of Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Michigan. Buffalo, New York, will go under a blizzard warning Friday morning. Such warnings go in effect when snow and wind of 35 mph will reduce visibility to less than a quarter of a mile for at least three hours.

    • Whiteout conditions: Blizzard conditions may exist even if snowfall stops, because high winds can pick up snow already on the ground and cause low visibility.

    A separate storm system is bringing heavy mixed precipitation to the Pacific Northwest on Friday.

    A winter storm warning is in effect for western Washington, including Seattle, until 7 p.m. PST Friday. Additional snowfall of up to 2 inches is possible and ice accumulations could reach a quarter of an inch. Precipitation will begin as snow and transition to sleet/freezing rain and then finally to rain. More power outages are likely and travel will be made very difficult.

    The ice caused the closure of runways at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where nearly half of flights going into and out of the airport were canceled, according to FlightAware. Further, all express services for Sound Transit, a regional transportation network in the Seattle metro area, were suspended Friday due to the icy conditions.

    A winter storm warning is also in effect for northeastern Oregon, including Portland, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. PST. Total snow and sleet accumulations of up to one inch and ice accumulations of .2 to .4 inches is likely as well as winds gusting to 55 mph. Wind chills as low as zero are possible, and frostbite is possible on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes.

    One of the biggest dangers of the massive winter storm besides heavy snow and blizzard conditions is the rapid drop in temperatures over a short period of time. The air will continue to get and feel colder, especially during night hours.

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  • Brooklyn pastor who was robbed while preaching charged with wire fraud and lying to FBI in unrelated case | CNN

    Brooklyn pastor who was robbed while preaching charged with wire fraud and lying to FBI in unrelated case | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The flashy, jewelry-flaunting Brooklyn pastor who reported being robbed while preaching at his church this past summer was arrested on federal charges Monday – unrelated to the July incident – for allegedly defrauding a parishioner, trying to extort a businessman and lying to the FBI, according to a federal indictment.

    Lamor Whitehead, the 45-year-old pastor who goes by “Bishop,” was charged with wire fraud, attempted wire fraud, attempted extortion and making a material false statement, the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York announced. He faces up to 65 years in prison for his alleged crimes.

    As the pastor of Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministry, Whitehead allegedly defrauded one of his parishioners out of about $90,000 from her retirement savings over the course of at least 14 months beginning around April 2020, according to the indictment. The document said Whitehead told the parishioner he would use her money to help her buy a home and invest the rest of the money, but instead used it “to purchase thousands of dollars of luxury goods and clothing” and “for his own purposes.”

    Whitehead never helped her buy a home, the court document says, and never returned her money despite her request.

    This spring, Whitehead allegedly attempted to convince a businessman to loan him about $500,000 and grant him a stake in real estate transactions in exchange for obtaining “favorable actions by the New York City government” that would make them “millions” – something the pastor knew he could not obtain, the indictment says. Earlier this year, he also allegedly used “threats of force” against that same businessman to extort $5,000 from him.

    Further, Whitehead allegedly told FBI agents who were executing a search warrant that he had only one phone. But the indictment states he had a second phone that he used – including to text a message in which he described it as “my other phone,” the indictment states.

    Whitehead appeared in court Monday and was released on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond, according to Attorney’s Office spokesman Nicholas Biase.

    “As we allege today, Lamor Whitehead abused the trust placed in him by a parishioner, bullied a businessman for $5,000, then tried to defraud him of far more than that, and lied to federal agents,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “His campaign of fraud and deceit stops now.”

    Whitehead’s attorney, Dawn Florio, denied the accusations against Whitehead.

    “Bishop Lamor Whitehead is not guilty of these charges,” Florio told CNN. “We are vigorously defending these accusations and we feel he is being targeted and being turned into a villain from a victim.”

    Back in July, Whitehead said he was the victim of a robbery in which at least one masked and armed man entered Whitehead’s church and took jewelry from him and his wife, according to a separate federal indictment. Part of the incident was captured on a livestream video from inside the church that showed Whitehead put his hands up and complied with the gunmen’s demands.

    He reported that the stolen jewelry was worth more than $1 million, raising questions as to how and why the pastor obtained and flaunted such displays of wealth.

    In September, two men were indicted on federal charges for their alleged roles in the armed robbery, while a third defendant remains at large, according to the Department of Justice. Juwan Anderson, 23, and Say-Quan Pollack, 24, pleaded not guilty to the charges, and a trial date is set for July, according to federal court records.

    Whitehead’s verified Instagram account details his extravagant shows of wealth, including Louis Vuitton-emblazoned suits, large jewelry and brightly colored sports cars. In a video posted shortly after the robbery, he pushed back against the media headlines referring to him as “flashy.”

    “It’s not about me being flashy. It’s about me purchasing what I want to purchase,” he said. “It’s my prerogative to purchase what I want to purchase. If I worked hard for it, I can purchase what I want to purchase.”

    According to his bio on the Leaders of Tomorrow website, Whitehead attended the New York Theological Seminary and completed his studies with a certificate in Ministry in Human Services from the Theological Institution of Rising Hope Inc. It touts him as a licensed New York state chaplain and a certified marriage and funeral officiant. In 2013, he founded Leaders of Tomorrow Ministry in Brooklyn, his bio states.

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  • Woman arrested after breaking into Robert De Niro’s home in New York City, source says | CNN

    Woman arrested after breaking into Robert De Niro’s home in New York City, source says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Police in New York City arrested a woman who broke into Robert De Niro’s home early Monday, according to a law enforcement source.

    The woman did not interact with the actor, who was on another floor, the source said. The suspect is known to the New York Police Department from previous arrests and is one of the top five burglars in the precinct, the source said.

    Two law enforcement sources affirmed Shanice Aviles, 30, was arrested Monday in connection with the burglary. She had already been arrested twice this month before Monday on various burglary charges in New York, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    Officers from the 19th Precinct saw the woman walking down a street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side early Monday, trying different doors to commercial buildings before she allegedly broke in through a door of a residential building.

    They followed her and arrested her on the first floor, the source said.

    At around 2:45 a.m. officers arrested the 30-year-old woman inside a residence while she was attempting to remove property, a spokesperson for the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information told CNN. The property included Christmas presents and an iPad.

    The basement door of the residence showed signs of forced entry, the spokesperson said. The woman was taken into custody with charges pending.

    The spokesperson would not confirm who owned the home.

    The law enforcement source told CNN the suspect in the case is “the poster child” for the problems with New York state’s scrutinized and controversial bail reform changes.

    Under New York state’s bail reform laws that were implemented in 2020, burglary was a non-bailable offense.

    But because of pressure from police officials and NYC Mayor Eric Adams due to recidivism in burglary and theft offenses, the law was tweaked to allow judges to set bail in cases where a person was arrested again for certain crimes harming people or property after being released for a similar crime.

    Judges do not appear to be applying that exception, a law enforcement source claims, based on what police are seeing on the ground.

    The woman had 27 arrests and two active bench warrants for failure to appear in court at the time of her arrest, the source said.

    “This individual is literally the poster child for everything that is wrong with the system,” the law enforcement source said.

    According to NYPD statistics, the rate of felony recidivism for burglary within 60 days in 2021 was 24%. Statistics from 2017, before bail reform, show the recidivism rate was 7%.

    Current NYPD statistics from 2022 so far show the rate is holding steady at 24%.

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  • A Central Park entrance named for the exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ is unveiled | CNN

    A Central Park entrance named for the exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ is unveiled | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    New York City unveiled the “Gate of the Exonerated” in Central Park Monday to honor the group of Black and Hispanic teens known as the “Central Park Five” who were wrongfully convicted of beating and raping a White female jogger in the park more than 30 years ago.

    Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Yusef Salaam – individuals from the group, also known as the “Exonerated Five” – each served several years in prison before being exonerated in 2002.

    Robert M. Morgenthau was the Manhattan district attorney when Matias Reyes, a serial rapist and murderer confessed to the crime and said he had acted alone.

    DNA analysis later determined that Reyes did rape the jogger and that hair evidence used in the boys’ trials did not match.

    Morgenthau ordered a new investigation and, on his recommendation, a judge vacated the convictions.

    The city settled a lawsuit in 2014 with the five men, who were youths at the time of the crime and coerced amid a public uproar over race into confessing to the attack.

    The identity of the jogger, Trish Meili, was kept hidden for more than a decade until she wrote a book about her experience.

    Three of the wrongfully accused who were at the unveiling spoke of their collective struggle through injustices, the breaking of “generational curses” and continuing the fight for social justice.

    “We are here because we persevered … because what was written for us was hidden from the enemies that looked at the color of our skin and not the content of our character,” Salaam said.

    “They didn’t know who they had,” he added. “The system is alive and sick, and we are to ensure that the future is alive and well.”

    Santana said Monday’s unveiling was the first time he had returned to the park, bringing with him – also for the first time – his 18-year-old daughter. He said the men had been mere teens at the time.

    “We’re babies, that had no dealing with the law, never knew what Miranda was, but we’re here now,” he said. “Over 300 articles written about us in the first three weeks of this case, dissecting the lives of 14- and 15-year-old kids. The labels: ‘urban terrorist,’ ‘wolfpack,’” he recalled.

    New York Mayor Eric Adam’s reflected on the historic moment and presented a key to the city to the exonerated five.

    “History has an opportunity to rewrite the lines,” he said.

    Adams, a police officer at the time, said it “was a challenging time to be in that department with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, and standing up and fighting on behalf of these brothers.”

    “We knew what had happened to them was wrong and we refuse to remain silent,” he added.

    “The exonerated five is the American black boy-man story,” he said, adding, “They stood firm, they stood tall.”

    Another of the five, Richardson, said he recalled the public information campaign of hate against the accused, saying there had been “ads that said four of us should be horse whipped, while the elder, Korey Wise should be hung from a tree.”

    “That’s slave talk right there,” he said.

    Mayor Adams said the DOE should implement school trips to talk about what happened.

    “I think all of our young men and boys, the Board of Education. Chancellor Banks, we should be having school trips to talk about this story because as time moves forward, we believe that there were not real struggles to get us where we are right now and we lose the historical moments that took place,” the mayor said. “That’s why this is so significant.”

    The gate was unveiled near Central Park North, between 5th Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard.

    The entrance, at 110th Street, now has “Gate of the Exonerated” inscribed on the perimeter wall. It features a historical sign with background information about the entrance’s name and a QR code linking to online resources.

    Earlier this year, the New York City Public Design Commission unanimously approved the project .

    The unanimous vote was the fruit of years of work “with the Harlem community and Manhattan Community Board 10 to commemorate the Exonerated Five and all those wrongfully convicted of crimes,” a spokesperson for the Central Park Conservancy said in a statement earlier this year.

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  • Two migrant buses arrived in New York City on Sunday and up to 15 more are expected in the next few days | CNN

    Two migrant buses arrived in New York City on Sunday and up to 15 more are expected in the next few days | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    As New York continues to grapple with a growing influx of asylum-seekers, two buses carrying migrants arrived in the city Sunday, with at least 10 to 15 more buses expected over the next few days, according to an email from Mayor Eric Adam’s office obtained by CNN.

    The email sent Sunday to New York City Council members and staff warned the city’s shelter system is already at capacity as an increase in migrant arrivals is expected over the next few days.

    The surge is expected as a Trump-era public health border policy known as Title 42 is set to end Wednesday. Invoked at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Title 42 allowed officials to turn away migrants encountered at the southern border.

    “Please be advised that due to the lifting of Title 42 later this week, the City is expecting a higher amount of asylum-seekers buses beginning today, with 2 buses today and 10-15 more expected in the next few days,” the email reads.

    Fabien Levy, Adams’ press secretary, confirmed buses arrived in the city Sunday, but declined to say how many migrants were on board or what was specifically expected this week. He did say, “We’ve been told it’s going to ramp up this week.”

    A district court struck down Title 42 last month and a federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid by several Republican-led states to keep it in place.

    New York should expect more than 1,000 additional asylum-seekers to arrive every week, the mayor said Sunday.

    Since spring, thousands of asylum-seekers have been bused to the city from the southern border, often at the direction of officials – including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – who have been critical of federal border policies.

    More than 31,000 migrants have gone through the city’s migrant intake center as of December 14, and at least 21,400 are currently in the city’s homeless shelters or at four hotels operating as humanitarian emergency relief centers. The city has also opened 60 emergency shelter sites.

    New York has been dealing with the crush of asylum-seekers for months, and the increase since the last budget adoption has driven a “historic surge” in the number of people living in city shelters, according to the city Comptroller’s Annual State of the City’s Economy and Finances report, released Thursday.

    In October, Adams declared a state of emergency to what he called a “man-made humanitarian crisis,” saying the crowds seeking asylum were arriving faster than the city could accommodate them.

    Adams has urged state and federal officials to help pay for the costs the city is facing as more migrants continue to arrive. Already, the city has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, he said.

    New York is hoping to receive $3 billion from the federal government through 2026 to help handle the flood of migrants, according to the comptroller’s report.

    The report adds the federal government has not confirmed it will support New York with the annual $1 billion, but the money is needed for services to support arriving migrants and those already in shelters who need permanent housing.

    Denver, Colorado, is also struggling to provide shelter for a growing number of migrant arrivals.

    Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock declared a state of emergency Thursday in response to the surge of migrants arriving from the southern border.

    “With hundreds of new migrants now in Denver, and several hundred arriving in just the past few days alone, the city’s efforts to shelter them is under severe pressure due to limited space and staffing,” the mayor’s office said in a written statement.

    On Sunday, 90 migrants arrived in Denver overnight, according to data released by the City and County of Denver.

    Denver city services have served around 984 migrants since Dec. 9, the data shows, with 358 people sheltered in city emergency migrant shelters and another 157 people at partner emergency shelters.

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  • New York City’s ban on foie gras violates law, New York state says | CNN

    New York City’s ban on foie gras violates law, New York state says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The State of New York has determined that New York City’s ban on foie gras, stuffed goose or duck liver, violates state law, according to documents filed in New York City Superior Court.

    The state Department of Agriculture and Markets informed city officials Wednesday that the ban “unreasonably restricts” the operations of two farms that sued the city over the ban, La Belle Farm and Hudson Valley Foie Gras.

    New York City had originally passed a bill in 2019 to ban restaurants and retailers from selling the fatty duck or goose liver, considered a delicacy by some.

    In a letter to New York Mayor Eric Adams and Division of Legal Counsel Chief Stephen Louis, the department requested that the “City confirm that it will not enforce its ban on the sale of force-fed products” marketed by Hudson Valley Foie Gras and La Belle Farm.

    The city ban on foie gras was to go into effect November 25. However, a state Supreme Court judge in September put the ban on hold as the lawsuit by the two Upstate New York Farms proceeded through the courts.

    The original bill to ban foie gras called the luxury good a “force-fed product” and, in a statement to CNN in 2019, city Councilwoman Carlina Rivera – the prime sponsor of the bill – called force-feeding an “inhumane practice.”

    What makes foie gras so contentious is the method of preparation. Foie gras is made of fattened duck or goose liver, and it has long been considered a French delicacy – so much that France has protected it as part of its cultural heritage.

    But the product is made by force-feeding ducks or geese, a practice that many people, like Rivera, have found troubling.

    “As a lifelong advocate for animal rights, I am excited that the Council has voted to pass this historic legislation to ban the sale of these specific force-fed animal products,” Rivera said in 2019.

    Foie gras has long been a point of contention.

    In 2012, California’s foie gras ban went into effect, only to have the ban overturned in 2015. Then, in 2017, the ban was upheld by a circuit court judge – a decision that was backed by the US Supreme Court in January 2019.

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  • New York City says it needs $3 billion from federal government in coming years to respond to asylum seekers | CNN

    New York City says it needs $3 billion from federal government in coming years to respond to asylum seekers | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    New York is hoping to receive $3 billion from the federal government through 2026 to handle the influx of migrants that city leaders have been grappling with for months, according to a new government report.

    The city Comptroller’s Annual State of the City’s Economy and Finances report, released on Thursday, said the federal government has not confirmed it will support New York with the annual $1 billion, but that the money is needed for services to support arriving migrants and those already in shelters who need permanent housing.

    The $1 billion includes $600 million for homeless and social services for asylum seekers and another $310 million for health and hospitals, “with the expectation that the Federal government will provide the resources to fully support these programs,” the report said.

    Since spring, thousands of asylum seekers have been bused to the city from the southern border, often at the direction of officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who have been critical of federal border policies. In October, New York Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency to what he called a “man-made humanitarian crisis,” saying the crowds seeking asylum were arriving faster than the city could accommodate them.

    The city has seen an estimated influx of more than 30,000 asylum seekers since the last budget adoption, which has driven a “historic surge” in the number of people living in city shelters, according to the comptroller’s report.

    More than 20,000 asylum seekers remained in the city’s care as of this week.

    While the number of people arriving has slowed in recent weeks, the report added, that could soon change, as the country braces for an expected increase in migrant arrivals when a Trump-era border policy is lifted next week.

    That policy, dubbed Title 42, is a public health rule invoked at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed officials to turn away migrants encountered at the southern border. A district court struck down the program last month and a federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid by several Republican-led states to keep it in place.

    The program is now set to end on Wednesday.

    The comptroller’s report said that “much is unknown” about the kinds of trends the city will see in the next months and years after that program is lifted.

    The mayor’s office told CNN that since the beginning of the crisis, the city has taken urgent action to assist the asylum seekers “largely on its own and at great cost.”

    “We are actively working with the federal government to secure reimbursement for all of this spending,” Fabien Levy, the mayor’s press secretary, said in a statement. “We’ll continue to monitor the level of need and take the appropriate steps to meet our legal obligations while ensuring the city’s fiscal stability.”

    Earlier this week, the mayor echoed that point and said he planned to ask for more money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the city prepares for a possible increase in arrivals.

    “We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars. No one has helped us. No one. We have not gotten a dime from anyone. That has to stop. We need help,” Adams said. “This is an obligation on the national level. It is an obligation on the state level.”

    Adams, who said he has spoken with the White House, said he was hopeful the federal government would come up with a strategy before Title 42 is lifted.

    ‘We should not be paying for this,” the mayor added. “We’re all in this together.”

    Among the migrant needs that the city has grappled to respond to are issues of permanent housing, a high demand for legal services and requests for winter clothes as the winter months press on, one official briefed on the city’s response to the migrant arrivals said earlier this week.

    There has been huge demand for legal services and there have also been requests for basic information and orientation about documents in the asylum process, the person said. City officials have also been getting calls from various schools asking for winter clothes for migrant families who are not used to colder weather, the person added.

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  • Heavy snow to bombard millions in Northeast this weekend as South recovers from deadly tornadoes | CNN

    Heavy snow to bombard millions in Northeast this weekend as South recovers from deadly tornadoes | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The monstrous storm that walloped much of the US this week has now brought nor’easter conditions as it moves across New York and New England ahead of the weekend.

    After many in the South were left grappling with power outages and smashed homes and businesses from a spate of tornadoes earlier this week, officials and forecasters across several Northeastern states are warning of heavy snow, which could pile up to a foot Friday.

    In response to the massive storm system, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned residents of the hazardous road conditions the storm is threatening to bring as millions across in the Northeast are under winter weather alerts Friday.

    “We urge everyone in the impacted regions to avoid unnecessary travel tonight and tomorrow,” Hochul said in a Thursday statement. “Work from home if possible, stay off the roads, and make sure you and your loved ones remain vigilant.”

    In neighboring Pennsylvania, state transportation officials implored drivers to avoid unnecessary travel due to the low visibility caused by wind and heavy snow.

    “Heavy snowfall rates of 1-2 inches/hour are likely across interior New York and central New England with storm totals reaching 1 to 2 feet by Saturday across portions of the Adirondacks, Mohawk Valley, and the Green and White Mountains,” the Weather Prediction Center said Friday in its forecast discussion. “Dangerous travel conditions and scattered power outages are expected.”

    Parts of eastern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine can also see between 18 and 24 inches of snow accumulate in local areas, according to the weather service. Already, parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York have seen snow, with one area in New York getting 14 inches. Several area in Vermont has more than a foot.

    The unrelenting storm system has cut a dangerous cross-country path since the beginning of the week, bringing varying combinations of severe weather to different parts of the United States.

    Tornadoes in the South killed three people in Louisiana while also flattening many homes and other structures. Blizzard conditions in the Upper Midwest brought piles of snow and fierce winds that tore down power lines, leaving tens of thousands in the dark in freezing temperatures the week before Christmas.

    Dozens of tornadoes were reported across Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma since Tuesday.

    States from the Rockies to the Upper Midwest – including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin – saw more than a foot of snow this week.

    And in parts of the mid-Atlantic, the storm brought a quarter inch of ice Thursday morning to the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and Maryland, and about a tenth of an inch had built up in parts of Virginia.

    A man clears a driveway with a snowblower on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, in Duluth, Minnesota.

    More than 5.2 million people across portions of Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire are under winter storm warnings Friday.

    Wet snow is expected to bombard the region, making travel miserable this weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

    “Heavy snow to impact portions of the Interior Northeast through Saturday,” the weather service said.

    Snow totals between 6 and 12 inches are forecast from central Pennsylvania north into interior upstate New York, with up to 2 feet at areas with higher elevations, through Saturday.

    Major cities, including New York and Boston, can expect 1 to 2 inches of heavy rain from the nor’easter into the weekend before the storm system pulls away from the region Sunday.

    Some communities along the coasts of New Jersey, New York and Virginia, are under flood alerts, though major flooding is not expected.

    The storm inflicted a slew of tornadoes in the South and blizzard conditions in the Upper Midwest and as of Friday afternoon had left about 48,000 homes and businesses in the dark across Minnesota, Wisconsin and West Virginia as of Friday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.

    A tornado caused widespread damage in Union Parish, Louisiana.

    Meanwhile, in Louisiana, Yoshiko A. Smith, 30, and her 8-year-old son, Nikolus Little, were killed Tuesday when a tornado struck Caddo Parish and destroyed their home, officials said.

    Their bodies were found far from where their house once stood, officials said. Autopsies have been ordered for both, the county coroner said.

    A 56-year-old woman died after a tornado hit her home in St. Charles Parish, the Louisiana Department of Health said Wednesday.

    Another tornado in northern Louisiana traveled through the town of Farmerville was rated an EF-3, with 140 mph winds, according to the National Weather Service. At least 20 people were injured, and the tornado demolished parts of an apartment complex and a mobile home park, Farmerville Police Detective Cade Nolan said.

    The tornado, which moved through Union Parish on Tuesday evening, was 500 yards across at its widest point and was on the ground for more than 9 miles.

    Mississippi officials said Friday four people were hurt, and 75 homes were damaged across the state. The hardest hit counties appeared to be Clarke, Sharkey, and Madison, with a combined 54 homes damaged, according to a preliminary assessment, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.

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  • Julius’ Bar, the site of an essential 1960s LGBT protest, is officially a historic landmark | CNN

    Julius’ Bar, the site of an essential 1960s LGBT protest, is officially a historic landmark | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Julius’ Bar, one of New York City’s oldest LGBT bars and the location of a crucial 1960s protest, has been officially recognized as a city landmark.

    The bar was officially recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 6th, according to a news release from the New York City government.

    The city called the bar “one of the city’s most significant sites of LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) history” in the news release.

    Julius’ was the site of the 1966 “Sip-in,” a protest against homophobic discrimination – although at the time, the bar wasn’t an explicitly LGBT space. Four men named Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and Randy Wicker staged the event to protest the persecution of gay men for drinking in public, according to the National Park Service. Bars and restaurants could be raided for “disorderly” conduct, which included men flirting and kissing, says the service. So bars often refused to serve clients who they knew were gay.

    At Julius’, the men announced they were gay – and the bartender refused to serve them, saying it was illegal. The men successfully brought a court case challenging that interpretation of the law. And in 1967, “the courts ruled that indecent behavior had to be more than same-sex ‘cruising’” kissing or touching,” says the National Park Service. “Gays could legally drink in a bar.”

    Julius’, located in New York City’s West Village, is a crucial piece of the city’s history: The bar has been open since the 1860s, according to the National Park Service. And today, it openly describes itself as a gay bar on its social media.

    “The ‘Sip-In’ at Julius’ was a pivotal moment in our city and our nation’s LGBTQ+ history, and this designation today marks not only that moment but also Julius’ half-century as a home for New York City’s LGBTQ+ community,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams in the city news release. “Honoring a location where New Yorkers were once denied service solely on account of their sexuality reinforces something that should already be clear: LGBTQ+ New Yorkers are welcome anywhere in our city.”

    Council member Erik Botcher thanked the activists who pushed for the landmark designation in the release.

    “As a gay man who enjoys countless freedoms that were unimaginable in their time, I owe enormous debt to the activists who made Julius’ Bar the site of their protest.” Bottcher said in the release. “Landmarks should tell the history of all New Yorkers, including those from marginalized communities.”

    And the landmark status will help ensure the historical site is preserved for decades.

    “The Commission’s designation of the Julius’ Bar Building today recognizes and protects the site of the 1966 ‘Sip-In,’ an important early protest against the persecution of LGBTQ+ people that drew vital attention to unjust laws and practices and paved the way for future milestones in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” said Sarah Carroll, the landmarks preservation commission chair, in the release.

    “This building represents that history and has remained an important place to commemorate it,” she went on.

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  • Vocal rat opponent NYC Mayor Adams gets rat infestation ticket dismissed | CNN

    Vocal rat opponent NYC Mayor Adams gets rat infestation ticket dismissed | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    New York Mayor Eric Adams, a vocal rat opponent who made fighting rodents in the city a priority, got his fine dismissed after he was issued a health code violation for an infestation at his Brooklyn property, his spokesman told CNN Friday.

    Adams was issued a summons dated May 10 for a health code violation stemming from a rodent infestation at the property in Bedford-Stuyvesant, noting the minimum penalty was a $300 fine, and the maximum penalty a $600 fine.

    The hearing before the New York Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings was eventually scheduled for Tuesday, at which time the mayor attended the hearing, his spokesperson Fabien Levy confirmed in a statement to CNN. Online records from the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearing indicate the mayor owed a balance of $330.

    “Mayor Adams has made no secret of the fact that he hates rats — whether scurrying around on the streets or terrorizing building tenants. He spent thousands of dollars to remediate an infestation at his residence in Brooklyn earlier this year, and was happy to appear before OATH today to state as much,” Levy said.

    The dismissal of his fine came after headlines splashed this week mocking the irony of the violation from the mayor who has repeatedly reiterated his personal vendetta against the vermin, most recently a “director of rodent mitigation” to rid the streets of its most notorious furry inhabitants.

    When asked about the infestation at a press conference Thursday, Mayor Adams said he is “fixated on killing rats.”

    “When I see one, I think about it all day,” said Adams. “So, on my block, whenever I go over to visit the brownstone, I see one scurrying down the block. It’s a problem,” adding that he spent thousands of dollars to exterminate them.

    In an interview with NY1 on Wednesday, Adams said he spent $6,800 on rat mitigation at his property, adding he “did a good job.”

    “And I want other New Yorkers, if you believe you were fined unfairly, utilize your right to go in front of a person to state, ‘Here’s my case. My receipts are clear,’” he said on NY1.

    At an October news conference, Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced they were limiting the number of hours residential and commercial trash can sit on the curb before being picked up in hopes of addressing what they depicted as an “all-night, all-you-can-eat rat buffet.”

    “The rats don’t run this city,” the commissioner said at the time. “We do.”

    More recently, City Hall announced it was recruiting a new “director of rodent mitigation” to tackle the issue. The job listing indicates the city is looking for a so-called “rat czar” who is “highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty” with a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery.”

    The director would be the public face of the city’s fight against the rat population and report to the deputy mayor for operations, per the listing. The gig’s salary ranges from $120,000 to $170,000.

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  • Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

    Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The gunman who killed 10 people and wounded three in a racist attack at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, would be willing to plead guilty to federal charges – including hate crimes – if prosecutors agree to take the death penalty off the table, his attorneys said Friday.

    Attorneys representing Payton Gendron made their statements during a court hearing on Friday, seven months after Gendron used an illegally modified semiautomatic rifle to carry out the mass shooting.

    Gendron, a 19-year-old White man, had faced multiple federal hate crime charges, which carry the potential for the death penalty, in addition to several firearms charges. He had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

    He pleaded guilty in a state court last month to one count of a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge in the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14. Those charges come with a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole.

    “Just as Payton Gendron entered a plea of guilty to the indictment in county court, he is prepared to enter a plea of guilty in federal court in exchange of the same sentence, which is the sentence of life in prison, without parole,” said his defense attorney Sonya Zoghlin.

    Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder in court on Friday balked at giving attorneys more time to review the voluminous evidence connected with the case since Gendron has already pleaded guilty to state charges.

    Gendron’s defense team said in court they plan to take the first steps to meet with the US Attorney in Buffalo and the Assistant Attorney General from Washington so that they can make a formal presentation to as to why Gendron should not get the death penalty.

    The first meetings are scheduled after the new year, attorneys said in court on Friday.

    “There’s a lot to go through and I think that mitigation presentation, obviously, is highly important for them, in addition to the facts of the case, so that’s why we consented this time,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi.

    Judge Schroeder scheduled the next hearing for March 10, during which attorneys will give an update on how much of the evidence they’ve been able to review and if they can work out a deal with prosecutors.

    Meanwhile, Gendron will be sentenced on his state conviction on similar charges in February.

    The victims, including customers, employees and an armed security guard, ranged in age from 20 to 86. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black and two were White, officials said.

    Social media posts and a lengthy document written by the gunman reveal he had been planning his attack for months and had visited the Tops supermarket several times previously. He posted that he chose Tops because it was in a particular ZIP code in Buffalo that had the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lived in Conklin, New York.

    The document outlined his goals for the attack, according to Flynn: “To kill as many African Americans as possible, avoid dying and spread ideals.”

    Gendron shot four people outside the grocery store and nine more inside before surrendering to Buffalo Police officers who responded to the scene, according to an indictment.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said following the attack that the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting was legally purchased in New York State, but was modified with a high-capacity magazine, which is not legal in the state.

    The earlier guilty plea ensured there will be no state trial and Gendron will not appeal, defense attorney Brian Parker said.

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