New York

Allowed to go maskless, some New York City students choose not to.

Published

2 years ago

March 8, 2022

For the primary time in two years, college students in New York Metropolis had been allowed to attend public college with out masks on Monday, however a few of them stated they might maintain them on.

At elementary faculties and excessive faculties, college students and oldsters alike expressed concern that it was too quickly, regardless of the declarations by Mayor Eric Adams that the town has overwhelmed again the Omicron variant of the virus.

“We did our jobs as New Yorkers, and now we’re successful,” Mr. Adams stated in a tv interview on Monday on NY1. “Covid is now not in command of our lives. We’re in command of our lives.”

However solely 52 p.c of Ok-12 public college college students citywide are totally vaccinated, in response to metropolis information, and 59 p.c of scholars have acquired no less than one dose. The town’s rely additionally reveals that the doses haven’t been distributed equally.

At Stuyvesant Excessive Faculty in Decrease Manhattan, the place 93 p.c of scholars are vaccinated, one of many highest charges within the metropolis, greater than half a dozen college students stated earlier than the varsity day began that they might maintain their face coverings in place. A number of stated they deliberate to put on masks indefinitely.

“There actually isn’t any treatment for Covid at this level,” Ella Chan, 17, a junior at Stuyvesant, stated earlier than the 8 a.m. bell. “There’s simply an excessive amount of uncertainty for me.”

Eden Di Lella, 15, a sophomore, stated: “I’ve additionally simply been asking round, simply being interested by who’s actually maintaining the masks on, and it simply has been an awesome variety of yeses, in comparison with taking it off.” She famous, although, that others had talked about exceptions for refrain or health club class.

Max Shimbo, 14, was one of many few not carrying a masks. “I belief the folks within the mayor’s workplace,” he stated of how he made his resolution. “They know what number of circumstances we’re getting and the way many individuals are vaccinated, so I belief they made the suitable selection.”

On Staten Island, Richard Kreie, 5, a kindergartner, was so relieved in regards to the finish of the masks mandate that on Friday after college he stomped on his and threw it away. On Monday morning earlier than heading into college at P.S. 1 within the Tottenville neighborhood, the place 10 p.c of the scholars are vaccinated, he pulled down his decrease lip to point out why. One among his backside enamel simply had dropped out, and he couldn’t wait to mug with the brand new hole in his smile. “I find it irresistible,” he stated. “It’s enjoyable.”

His mom, Danielle Imparato, stated she was glad in regards to the finish of the mandate. “It was good at first,” she stated. “However it’s long gone time now.”

Emma Billera, 7, a second grader at P.S. 1, stated taking her masks off made her really feel “glad, so you possibly can breathe.”

Her mom, Gabby Billera, stated she was weary of the masks mandate. “We’ve been following the foundations, however no one knew it will be this lengthy,” she stated.

However some older college students stated they fearful that the mandate had been lifted too early.

“I feel that it’s dumb, as a result of Covid remains to be round, and simply two months in the past the circumstances flared up out of nowhere,” stated Alana Rivers, a 15-year-old freshman at Boys and Women Excessive Faculty within the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the place 46 p.c of the scholars are vaccinated. “So I feel that should you take off the masks, it’s going to make issues worse.”

She stated she nonetheless deliberate to put on a masks. “I really feel nervous as a result of lots of people are going to be uncovered to Covid exterior of faculty and now in class,” she stated.

Adeel Hassan contributed reporting.

New York

We Counted 22,252 Cars to See How Much Congestion Pricing Might Have Made This Morning

Published

5 hours ago

July 1, 2024

Press Room

We Counted 22,252 Cars to See How Much Congestion Pricing Might Have Made This Morning

By Ana Ley, Larry Buchanan and Francesca Paris

Ana Ley spent more than 12 hours at M.T.A. board meetings last week. Larry Buchanan, Francesca Paris and 25 of their colleagues spent the morning counting more than 22,000 cars.

July 1, 2024

Today would have been the first Monday of New York City’s congestion pricing plan. Before it was halted by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the plan was designed to rein in some of the nation’s worst traffic while raising a billion dollars for the subway every year, one toll at a time.

A year’s worth of tolls is hard to picture. But what about a day’s worth? What about an hour’s?

To understand how the plan could have worked, we went to the edges of the tolling zone during the first rush hour that the fees would have kicked in.

Here’s what we saw:

Video by Noah Throop/The New York Times; animation by Ruru Kuo/The New York Times

You probably wouldn’t have seen every one of those cars if the program had been allowed to proceed. That’s because officials said the fees would have discouraged some drivers from crossing into the tolled zone, leading to an estimated 17 percent reduction in traffic. (It’s also Monday on a holiday week.)

The above video was just at one crossing point, on Lexington Avenue. We sent 27 people to count vehicles manually at four bridges, four tunnels and nine streets where cars entered the business district. In total, we counted 22,252 cars, trucks, motorcycles and buses between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Monday.

We wanted to see how the dense flow of traffic into the central business district would have generated money in real time.

Though we can’t know that dollar amount precisely, we can hazard a guess. Congestion pricing was commonly referred to as a $15-per-car toll, but it wasn’t so simple. There were going to be smaller fees for taxi trips, credits for the tunnels, heftier charges for trucks and buses, and a number of exemptions.

To try to account for all that fee variance, we used estimates from the firm Replica, which models traffic data, on who enters the business district, as well as records from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and city agencies. We also made a few assumptions where data wasn’t available. We then came up with a ballpark figure for how much the city might have generated in an hour at those toll points.

The total? About $200,000 in tolls for that hour.

Note: The Trinity Place exit from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which would have been tolled, is closed at this hour.

It’s far from a perfect guess. Our vehicle total is definitely an undercount: We counted only the major entrances — bridges, tunnels and 60th Street — which means we missed all the cars that entered the zone by exiting the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive or the West Side Highway.

And our translation into a dollar number is rough. Among many other choices we had to make, we assumed all drivers had E-ZPass — saving them a big surcharge — and we couldn’t distinguish between transit buses and charter buses, so we gave all buses an exemption.

But it does give you a rough sense of scale: It’s a lot of cars, and a lot of money. Over the course of a typical day, hundreds of thousands of vehicles stream into the Manhattan central business district through various crossings.

Trips into tolling district, per Replica estimates

Queens-Midtown Tunnel	50,600
Lincoln Tunnel	49,200
Williamsburg Bridge	27,900
Manhattan Bridge	24,000
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel	23,100
Queensboro Bridge	21,700
Brooklyn Bridge	17,100
Holland Tunnel	15,400
All other entrances	118,000
Total	347,000

Note: Data counts estimated entrances on a weekday in spring 2023. Source: Replica.

The tolling infrastructure that was installed for the program cost roughly half a billion dollars.

The M.T.A. had planned to use the congestion pricing revenue estimates to secure $15 billion in financing for subway upgrades. Many of those improvement plans have now been suspended.

Methodology

We stationed as many as five counters at some bridges and tunnels to ensure that we counted only cars that directly entered the tolling zone, not those that would have continued onto non-tolled routes.

Our count also excluded certain exempt vehicles like emergency vehicles.

We used estimates of the traffic into the district to make a best guess at how many of each kind of vehicle entered the zone. Most of our estimates came from the traffic data firm Replica, which uses a variety of data sources, including phone location, credit card and census data, to model transportation patterns. Replica estimated that around 58 percent of trips into the central business district on a weekday in spring 2023 were made by private vehicles, 35 percent by taxis or other for-hire vehicles (Uber and Lyft) and the remainder by commercial vehicles.

We also used data on trucks, buses, for-hire vehicles and motorcycles from the M.T.A., the Taxi and Limousine Commission and the Department of Transportation.

For simplicity, we assumed all vehicles would be equally likely to enter the zone from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. as they would be in any other hour. We could not account for the other trips that a for-hire vehicle might make once within the tolled zone, only the initial crossing. And we did not include the discount to drivers who make under $50,000, because it would kick in only after 10 trips in a calendar month.

New York

Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 30, 2024

Published

4 weeks ago

June 3, 2024

Press Room

Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 30, 2024

-
Jury Deliberation Re-charge
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF NEW YORK CRIMINAL TERM
-
-
PART: 59
Χ
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
-against-
DONALD J. TRUMP,
DEFENDANT.
BEFORE:
Indict. No.
71543-2023
CHARGE
4909
FALSIFYING BUSINESS
RECORDS 1ST DEGREE
JURY TRIAL
100 Centre Street
New York, New York 10013
May 30, 2024
HONORABLE JUAN M. MERCHAN
JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT
APPEARANCES:
FOR THE PEOPLE:
ALVIN BRAGG, JR., ESQ.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY, NEW YORK COUNTY
One Hogan Place
New York, New York 10013
BY:
JOSHUA STEINGLASS, ESQ.
MATTHEW COLANGELO,
ESQ.
SUSAN HOFFINGER, ESQ.
CHRISTOPHER CONROY, ESQ.
BECKY MANGOLD, ESQ.
KATHERINE ELLIS, ESQ.
Assistant District Attorneys
BLANCHE LAW
BY:
TODD BLANCHE, ESQ.
EMIL BOVE, ESQ.
KENDRA WHARTON, ESQ.
NECHELES LAW, LLP
BY: SUSAN NECHELES, ESQ.
GEDALIA STERN, ESQ.
Attorneys for the Defendant
SUSAN PEARCE-BATES, RPR, CSR, RSA
Principal Court Reporter
LAURIE EISENBERG, RPR, CSR
LISA KRAMSKY
THERESA MAGNICCARI
Senior Court Reporters
Susan Pearce-Bates, RPR, CCR, RSA
Principal Court Reporter

New York

Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 29, 2024

Published

1 month ago

May 31, 2024

Press Room

Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 29, 2024

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF NEW YORK CRIMINAL TERM
-
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
PART: 59
Indict. No.
71543-2023
CHARGE
-against-
DONALD J. TRUMP,
DEFENDANT.
BEFORE:
4815
FALSIFYING BUSINESS
RECORDS 1ST DEGREE
JURY TRIAL
X
100 Centre Street
New York, New York 10013
May 29, 2024
HONORABLE JUAN M. MERCHAN
JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT
APPEARANCES:
FOR THE
PEOPLE:
ALVIN BRAGG, JR.,
ESQ.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY, NEW YORK COUNTY
One Hogan Place
New York, New York 10013
BY:
JOSHUA STEINGLASS, ESQ.
MATTHEW COLANGELO,
ESQ.
SUSAN HOFFINGER, ESQ.
CHRISTOPHER CONROY, ESQ.
BECKY MANGOLD, ESQ.
KATHERINE ELLIS, ESQ.
Assistant District Attorneys
BLANCHE LAW
BY:
TODD BLANCHE, ESQ.
EMIL BOVE, ESQ.
KENDRA WHARTON, ESQ.
NECHELES LAW, LLP
BY: SUSAN NECHELES, ESQ.
Attorneys for the Defendant
SUSAN PEARCE-BATES, RPR, CSR, RSA
Principal Court Reporter
LAURIE EISENBERG, RPR, CSR
LISA KRAMSKY
THERESA MAGNICCARI
Senior Court Reporters
Susan Pearce-Bates,
RPR, CCR, RSA
Principal Court Reporter