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Mamdani-appointed NYC professor who wrote book on ending policing now tasked with shaping community safety

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Mamdani-appointed NYC professor who wrote book on ending policing now tasked with shaping community safety

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A sociology professor at Brooklyn College appointed to New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team wrote a book about ending policing.

“I’m excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A New Era for NYC,” Alex Vitale said on X.

Vitale is the author of “The End of Policing,” published in 2017. The book, which opens by explaining that police don’t exist to help citizens, argues for an end to traditional policing for certain criminal activity, including narcotics use, prostitution, patrolling borders and “misbehaving adolescents.” The book also argues that police shouldn’t combat street gangs.

Alex Vitale, author of “The End of Policing,” speaks during a discussion on school policing at the University of Southern Maine on Thursday, March 5, 2020. Other speakers were, left to right, Portland Police Chief Frank Clark, South Portland School Resource Officer Al Giusto, Portland School Board Chair Roberto Rodriguez and Al Cleveland of Maine Youth Justice. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

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On ending gang units, Vitale argues that they are racist.

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“In most cities, gang units function as a mechanism for racialized social control,” the book says in chapter five. “Black and Latino youth are labeled as gang members for hanging out together, while white youth groups are dismissed as harmless.”

Policing borders is also racist, according to the author. 

“The expansion of Border Patrol powers has been justified through fear and racism. It legitimizes xenophobic narratives that define immigrants as threats rather than as fellow workers or neighbors,” the book says in chapter six.

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Vitale also describes border policing as “inhumane.” 

Chapter nine of the book argues against training police officers on implicit bias, claiming that police officers’ views on race do not matter because the whole system of policing is racist. 

Zohran Mamdani delivers a victory speech at a mayoral election night watch party, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

“Racism in policing is structural, not simply a product of bad attitudes,” the book says. “Training officers to recognize implicit bias without changing what they are tasked with enforcing is like teaching a soldier to be sensitive while sending him to occupy a foreign country.”

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The professor’s faculty profile on Brooklyn College’s website says Vitale has spent 30 years writing about policing and that he consults with law enforcement entities and international human rights organizations.

He teaches courses about African Americans in the criminal justice system, according to his university profile.

Vitale has often called to abolish police on his X account, including bicycle police, police helicopters and police in schools. He has also called to abolish joint terrorism task forces, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Border Patrol and even the presidency of the United States.

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NYPD officers respond to a shooting. (John Nacion/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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He has also called for the NYPD to abolish its gang database.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is also the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state, called on incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul to denounce Mamdani for the appointment. 

“Kathy Hochul must condemn Zohran Mamdani’s appointment of Alex Vitale to his transition advisory committee,” she told Fox News Digital. “Vitale is a radical police abolitionist who will destroy New York if he gets his way,” 

Neither Vitale nor Brooklyn College returned requests for comment.

Mamdani has hired others who harbor anti-police sentiments.

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Earlier this month, he announced that campaign advisor Elle Bisgaard-Church would join his staff. She has been dubbed the “chief architect” of Mamdani’s campaign proposal to have social workers respond to certain non-violent 911 calls and is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Mamdani officials did not return a request for comment.

Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

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Northeast

Brown University shooter confessed in videos to planning attack for long time, showed no remorse: DOJ

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Brown University shooter confessed in videos to planning attack for long time, showed no remorse: DOJ

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Federal prosecutors on Tuesday released transcripts of short videos they say were recorded by the gunman responsible for a mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor in Massachusetts.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said investigators recovered an electronic device containing the videos when they executed a federal search warrant on Dec. 18, 2025, at a storage facility used by Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, whom authorities described as “the Portuguese national responsible for the senseless murders.”

The videos were recorded in Portuguese and later translated into English, prosecutors said. In the recordings, Neves Valente described the attack as the culmination of long planning.

“It’s done. It was, it was six months, man. Not six months, six semesters. Uh. I had already planned this for a little more,” he said in one video, according to the transcripts.

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Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts released this image showing the man identified in deadly shootings of Brown University students in Rhode Island and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in Massachusetts. (Justice Department)

Authorities said Neves Valente identified Brown University as his intended target but did not provide a motive for shooting students at Brown or for killing the MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, 47. Prosecutors said the investigation into a motive will continue.

Two Brown students, Ella Cook, 19, and Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed in the Dec. 13 shooting on the Providence, Rhode Island, campus, and nine other people were wounded, authorities said. Just two days later, Loureiro, a professor at MIT, was killed in Brookline.

In the transcript, Neves Valente repeatedly refused to express remorse.

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“So, what has been done now… I’m in a storage space in Salem, I’ve had this here for three years, I think. I still have money. … I am not going to apologize, because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me.” He also rejected that mental illness was to blame, saying: “that’s all bull—- excuses.”

“I am – I am sane,” he said. “I’ve always been, more or less [sane].”

Neves Valente also said President Donald Trump was right to “have called me an animal, which is true.”

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“I am an animal, and he is also, but uhm, I have no love–I have no hatred towards America, I also have no hatred at all. This was an issue of… of opportunity.”

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Despite its role as Brown University’s highest governing authority with direct power over presidential oversight and long-term strategy, the board of trustees has declined to comment in the wake of the murders that exposed serious lapses in campus security. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

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Prosecutors said Neves Valente “showed no remorse” during the recordings and blamed victims for their deaths.

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In the transcript, he criticized people’s responses during the shooting, saying, “Because they were kind of stupid.”

He also dismissed how the world would view him after he carried out the mass shooting on the college campus.

 “I don’t give a d— about how you judge me or what you think of me,” he said, while also saying, “I also have no interest in being famous.”

Images of Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente displayed on a projector screen at a news briefing in Providence, Rhode Island. The 48-year-old former student and Portuguese national has been identified as the gunman behind a mass shooting that killed two students and wounded nine. (Andrea Margolis/Fox News Digital)

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Throughout the transcript, he focused on the injury he sustained, saying: “As you can see, my eye is kind of f—– up.”

Neves Valente said that he was injured in what he called a “shell round” that “bounced” into his eye.

A split image showing multiple still frames from the surveillance video taken near Brown University of a person of interest before and after a school shooting. (FBI Boston)

An autopsy previously found Neves Valente died by suicide two days before his body was discovered in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.

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Authorities said Tuesday they do not believe there is any ongoing public safety threat associated with the shootings and that additional updates will be provided.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.

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Boston, MA

Florida-based breakfast chain makes Boston debut with newest location

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Florida-based breakfast chain makes Boston debut with newest location


Boston just got a new breakfast spot that’s serving up freshly made juices and dishes from morning until the afternoon.

Florida-based chain First Watch opened its first Boston location at 777 Boylston St. on Wednesday, Jan. 7.

The opening marks the second First Watch location in Massachusetts, joining its Hanover restaurant that opened in January 2025.

The inside of First Watch’s first Boston location, located at 777 Boylston St.David Cifarelli

First Watch was founded in Pacific Grove, California in 1983. The company later moved its headquarters to Bradenton, Florida in 1986 and is now headquartered in Sarasota.

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Before breaking into New England, First Watch was recognized in other markets for its modern take on breakfast, brunch and lunch food. All dishes are made to order using fresh ingredients in a kitchen without heat lamps, microwaves or deep fryers.

Staples include the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes — a mid-stack of whipped ricotta pancakes topped with lemon curd, strawberries and powdered cinnamon sugar — and Million Dollar Bacon — four slices of hardwood smoked bacon baked with brown sugar, black pepper, cayenne and a maple syrup drizzle.

First Watch
First Watch’s popular Million Dollar Bacon served at the chain’s Boston location.David Cifarelli

First Watch also offers seasonal items that rotate roughly five times a year. Sample offerings during the winter include the fan-favorite B.E.C. Sandwich — a bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich served on griddled artisan sourdough bread — and the Strawberry Tres Leches French Toast that’s made with challah bread and topped with strawberries, dulce de leche, whipped cream and spiced gingerbread cookie crumbles.

First Watch’s fresh juice program is a company staple as well. The juices are made in-house every morning and change based on the season. Examples include the “Morning Meditation,” “Kale Tonic,” and “Purple Haze.”

First Watch also serves Project Sunrise coffee, which is made from coffee beans sourced by women coffee farmers in South America.

First Watch Boston is open 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily.

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First Watch Boston
The outside of First Watch in Boston, located at 777 Boylston St.David Cifarelli





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Pittsburg, PA

Commanders sign athletic former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback

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Commanders sign athletic former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback


The Washington Commanders have signed former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Darius Rush to a reserve/future contract, the team announced.

Rush joined Washington in August after he was released by the Cleveland Browns, and spent the entire season with the team. Now, he will get a chance to showcase what he can do in the offseason and make a roster push.

Rush was also previously with the Kansas City Chiefs, but was waived/injured at the beginning of training camp.

The Steelers released Rush in last October, freeing him up to become a member of the Chiefs. He initially made the active roster, but after a rough preseason, the team went in another direction to locate some help, which they found in James Pierre.

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Rush, a 2023 fourth-round pick out of South Carolina by the Indianapolis Colts, was cut by the Colts out of training camp. The Chiefs proceeded to claim Rush off waivers following his release, before the Steelers then signed him weeks later in 2023.

With Pittsburgh, Rush took on the role of dimebacker against the Tennessee Titans a season ago, playing 21 snaps in his NFL regular-season debut. He would win a starting gunner role to start the year in Pittsburgh, but not hold onto it after pressure from Pierre.



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