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Will Black Democratic Voters Turn Out for Gov. Hochul?

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Will Black Democratic Voters Turn Out for Gov. Hochul?

From the second she took workplace, Gov. Kathy Hochul got down to shore up her standing with an essential constituency.

She named Brian A. Benjamin, a Black Democratic state senator from Harlem, as her lieutenant governor, and held a celebratory information convention on one hundred and twenty fifth Road in Harlem to announce it. She spoke from the pulpits of Black church buildings across the metropolis, together with Abyssinian Baptist Church.

The technique appeared to work: Ms. Hochul, a white reasonable from Buffalo, picked up early help from a variety of Black leaders.

But practically seven months into her tenure, some New York Democrats are involved that she has not been ready to make use of these endorsements to generate a lot enthusiasm amongst Black voters, a key voting bloc.

Ms. Hochul might win the first even with a muted displaying from Black voters, but when they don’t end up in November to help her, the race for governor could possibly be tighter, and issues might emerge for different Democrats down the poll.

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A Siena Faculty ballot launched Monday discovered that if Ms. Hochul’s predecessor, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, entered the first race, he would lead her amongst Black voters by 50 p.c to 23 p.c, though she leads him total amongst registered Democrats by eight factors, the ballot discovered.

However the ballot discovered that if Mr. Cuomo stayed out, Ms. Hochul led a Black candidate, Jumaane Williams, the New York Metropolis public advocate, amongst Black voters by a margin of 39 p.c to 17 p.c — a reversal from a February Siena ballot by which she trailed Mr. Williams.

Jefrey Pollock, Ms. Hochul’s pollster, mentioned the governor was nonetheless getting accustomed to voters within the metropolis, a hurdle confronted by all statewide candidates not from New York Metropolis.

What you may see from knowledge is that the governor wasn’t recognized earlier than, and he or she’s simply getting recognized to voters now,” Mr. Pollock mentioned.

However Mr. Williams predicted that the governor wouldn’t draw out the Black vote. I feel the Hochul marketing campaign and administration are actually making an attempt to do the fundamentals and wait everybody out,” Mr. Williams mentioned. “That’s not going to excite the bottom.”

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Certainly, Kirsten John Foy, president of the activism group Arc of Justice, mentioned that in latest journeys to Western New York and Lengthy Island, he has seen “no Democratic enthusiasm anyplace,” notably from Black voters.

Mr. Foy, who’s Black, mentioned that the frequent notion was that Ms. Hochul had “but to articulate an agenda for the Black group.”

So as to add to the governor’s difficulties, her lieutenant governor alternative, Mr. Benjamin, is now the main focus of an investigation by federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. into whether or not he performed a job in an effort to funnel fraudulent marketing campaign contributions to his unsuccessful 2021 marketing campaign for New York Metropolis comptroller. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Jerrel Harvey, a marketing campaign spokesman for Ms. Hochul, mentioned that as New Yorkers “meet her and expertise her management, the governor’s help grows quickly, particularly within the Black group.

“The governor received’t take any group without any consideration, and can proceed assembly voters the place they’re, to share her imaginative and prescient for New York to have safer streets, stronger colleges and to be extra inexpensive for everybody,” he mentioned.

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Democrats throughout the nation are anxious about an “enthusiasm hole” and low turnout within the midterm elections, with no Donald J. Trump on the poll and public security rising as a serious difficulty.

Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the New York State chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., mentioned she was notably involved that the 2022 elections in New York is perhaps an extension of final 12 months’s leads to Nassau County, the place Republicans have been in a position to flip three main seats within the Lengthy Island suburbs, partially by utilizing modifications to the state’s bail legal guidelines as a wedge difficulty.

Two Lengthy Island hopefuls for governor, Consultant Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat, and Consultant Lee Zeldin, the main Republican nominee, have targeted on Democratic-supported bail reform as the reason for an uptick in violent crime, although there is no such thing as a statistical proof to help their rivalry.

“I’m anxious in regards to the normal election,” Ms. Dukes mentioned. “If Republicans use false narratives about felony justice, and we don’t end up like we’re purported to, that’s how they win.”

Ms. Hochul lately proposed modifications to the bail legislation that might give judges extra discretion to account for felony historical past and potential dangerousness in deciding bail.

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Talking to reporters in Albany final week, Ms. Hochul defended her proposals, which she known as “a balanced, cheap method that continues to respect the rights of the accused.”

However contributors in a rally in Harlem on Friday criticized the governor for her proposal to alter the Increase the Age statute to make it simpler for youngsters to be prosecuted in grownup felony court docket for gun possession. They famous that younger Black folks would doubtless be most affected by the shift.

State Senator Cordell Cleare of Harlem mentioned her constituents had thought points like bail reform and Increase the Age have been settled.

“I would like my governor to face up for my group that has lengthy been marginalized victimized, overpoliced and unfairly punished,” Ms. Cleare mentioned in an interview. “We don’t wish to be political ping-pongs on both facet of the web.”

In New York, the Black vote has been essential in serving to prop up Democratic candidates. Invoice de Blasio, the previous mayor, loved overwhelming help from Black voters; exit polls indicated that he received a much bigger portion of the Black vote than David N. Dinkins in 1989, when he was elected New York Metropolis’s first Black mayor.

Mr. Cuomo, who resigned in August, used his ties to Black leaders to assist him unsuccessfully combat a slew of sexual harassment allegations, and used the pulpit of a Black church in Brooklyn to ship his first public speech since resigning.

On the Tilden Senior Middle within the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, Beverley Bishop, 67, a retired actions director, mentioned that Mr. Cuomo “did loads for the folks.”

“In life, you are able to do one million good issues and one thing unhealthy occurs and a few folks will flip in opposition to you,” she mentioned. “However for me, I nonetheless like him.”

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She was much less positive about Governor Hochul. “She appears to be particular person, however we should wait and see,” Ms. Bishop mentioned.

Some influential Black leaders have additionally adopted a wait-and-see perspective.

The Rev. Calvin O. Butts, the pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, mentioned that after the governor visited his church in September, he was sure that he would help Ms. Hochul’s election bid.

That modified when Ms. Hochul was drawn into the fray over the Manhattan district lawyer, Alvin Bragg, who drew important backlash on asserting in January that his workplace would solely search jail time for essentially the most critical crimes. Mr. Bragg has since barely revised his steering to prosecutors, however Ms. Hochul initially responded by indicating that she had the ability to take away him.

“That brought on me to step again and take into account if my vigorous help must be rethought,” Mr. Butts mentioned.

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He wasn’t the one influential Black minister to voice considerations about Ms. Hochul’s posture towards Mr. Bragg. The Rev. Al Sharpton known as Ms. Hochul’s remarks an “overreach.”

The governor has since mentioned that critics ought to give Mr. Bragg “some slack.”

Mr. Williams has criticized Ms. Hochul on her remarks about Mr. Bragg; her inexpensive housing proposal, which he deemed to be too modest; and her help for Jay Jacobs, the chair of the state Democratic Occasion, who drew hearth in October when he in contrast an endorsement for India Walton, the previous Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo, to at least one for David Duke, a neo-Nazi. Ms. Hochul known as Mr. Jacobs’s remarks “very disturbing” however didn’t name for his ouster.

Ms. Hochul remains to be clearly the front-runner within the Democratic main for governor; she is anticipated to attract robust help from ladies and her Western New York base and is prone to see important help in November from Black voters, 55 p.c of whom view her favorably, the Siena ballot launched Monday discovered.

Mr. Harvey, the marketing campaign spokesman for Ms. Hochul, mentioned that she has constructed on her longstanding relationships with the Black group by implementing insurance policies related to it. Ms. Hochul has declared racism a public well being disaster; proposed a $200 million fund to make the marijuana business extra equitable; and boosted the Interborough Categorical, a brand new rail line that might assist deliver service to poor folks of coloration in transit deserts in Brooklyn and Queens.

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The governor has additionally held at the least two information conferences with Mayor Eric Adams to announce measures to assist cut back crime and homelessness within the subways; introduced an enlargement of anti-violence efforts; and proposed permitting these with a marijuana conviction to be the primary to acquire retail licenses to legally promote the drug as a part of a social fairness push.

Mr. Benjamin, the lieutenant governor, mentioned that his relationship with Ms. Hochul demonstrated her curiosity in points confronting the Black group.

“This isn’t a governor who has handled Black folks as an adjunct,” Mr. Benjamin mentioned in an interview. “I feel she goes to be very compelling when folks begin paying consideration.”

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How Much Do You Know About New York City and Climate Change?

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How Much Do You Know About New York City and Climate Change?

Since fall this year has felt like summer and the lack of rain in October has set records, it’s a good time to brush up on how New Yorkers are experiencing and preparing for climate change. Hint: It’s a bit different from what people are doing in other parts of the country.

What are the factors that make global warming in New York City a unique challenge? Test your knowledge by taking this quiz.

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Video: Timothée Chalamet Crashes Look-alike Contest

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Video: Timothée Chalamet Crashes Look-alike Contest

new video loaded: Timothée Chalamet Crashes Look-alike Contest

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Timothée Chalamet Crashes Look-alike Contest

The Oscar-nominated actor showed up unannounced to a look-alike contest for himself in New York City.

“Oh my God!” [crowd screaming] “We love you, Tim. We love you, Tim. “Guys, we’re going to make a little bit of a pilgrimage across the street because the park enforcement is yelling at us, which is totally understandable.” “Yeah!”

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Why Does This Building by the Subway Need 193 Parking Spots? (Yes, Exactly 193.)

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Why Does This Building by the Subway Need 193 Parking Spots? (Yes, Exactly 193.)

A rendering of the new apartment building at 975 Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn. Underground parking spaces not shown.

Lemons Bucket

The apartment building under construction at 975 Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn is the kind of project that city officials and economists say New York needs to solve the city’s severe housing shortage.

It will have 328 new homes at rents targeting young professionals, from studios up to three-bedrooms, with a grocery store on the ground floor.

But the ability to construct these homes, at this location, turns on a peculiar problem: How do you also find a place to park 193 cars on this lot?

The site is about one block from the subway.

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To fit ample parking here, the builders had to excavate 14 feet underground. And some of this cellar space is needed for utilities and storage.

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The remaining space is irregular. These are the structural columns supporting the apartments above.

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And here’s where you fit the cars.

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Actually, that’s only 146 of them. To accommodate the remaining cars, each spot here holds a two-car mechanical stacker.

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(This is the actual diagram submitted to the New York Department of Buildings for review.)

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This Brooklyn building is subject to a powerful but obscure force operating in communities all over the country: the parking minimum. Every one of its 193 parking spaces is prescribed by the city’s zoning code, in dizzying detail.

The project must provide, at minimum, half a parking spot for each housing unit; one parking spot for every 400 square feet of retail and art gallery inside; and one spot for every 300 square feet of space in part of the planned grocery store (the other part of the grocery store is exempt from parking, and we’re sorry but only a land use lawyer can explain this).

New York is now proposing to radically simplify requirements like this by ending parking mandates on all new housing citywide. The move could make it cheaper and faster to construct new homes amid a housing affordability crisis, and it would make New York the latest American city to toss out decades-old parking rules. But as a movement to end parking minimums gains traction across the country, what happens in New York will be revealing: In the least car-dependent big city in America, the instinct to accommodate cars may still prove stronger than fears about the shortage of homes.

“These rules were written at a time when cars defined everything,” said Dan Garodnick, the head of New York’s Planning Commission.

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It was a moment when cities were first racing to adapt to cars and compete with suburbs full of plentiful parking. “We are in a different era today,” he said.

That assessment will be put to the test in the coming weeks, as the City Council is set to vote on the change as part of a broader package of housing measures.

Mr. Garodnick is quick to clarify that the administration is not proposing to end parking in residential buildings — just the required minimums. Developers will still build parking, he reasons, where there’s demand for it (and in fact, today some build more than the minimum). But they’ll also have the option to build none.

Those opposed to the change are skeptical of its benefits: “I don’t see where less parking means there’s greater affordability,” said Fred Baptiste, the chair of Community Board 9, where 975 Nostrand sits. “It just means there’s less parking.”

Six Parking Spots Per Bowling Lane

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Cities and towns nationwide have had parking minimums sitting unquestioned in their zoning codes for half a century. But in recent years, dozens of cities have removed them. Buffalo was among the first in 2017. Austin, Texas, last year became the largest U.S. city to do so.

As housing has grown more expensive across the country, cities have increasingly realized that parking can make the problem worse, raising the cost and complexity of development, even discouraging the construction of homes.

Construction costs run from $10,000 per parking space in a surface lot to $70,000 per space in an underground garage. That gets baked into what developers must recoup from tenants and buyers, whether they own a car or not. The rules drive up the per-unit cost to build affordable housing (in New York, affordable units near transit are exempt from parking minimums, but the rules still apply elsewhere). And they often require more parking than people actually use.

The mandates began in the 1950s and ’60s as mass car ownership expanded beyond the capacity of on-street parking. Minimums in New York were introduced in 1950 for new residential buildings. The city’s 1961 zoning code (the one still in place today) raised the requirements and added them for offices, retail and other building types. In New York and elsewhere, the rules typically take the form of ratios that have been copied from one city to another, handed from one generation of engineers to the next without much study or skepticism.

A Sample of Minimum Parking Rules

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0.5 parking spots per unit plus 1 parking spot per employee

Senior Housing in Vallejo, Calif.

2 parking spots per dwelling unit

Manufactured Home in Knoxville, Tenn.

1 parking spot per 2 beds

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Monastery/Convent in Savannah, Ga.

1.25 parking spots per dwelling unit

Efficiency Apartment in Fargo, N.D.

1 parking spot per 4 rooms

Rooming House in New Orleans

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1 parking spot per 2 beds

Fraternity/Sorority in Baltimore

2 parking spots per dwelling unit plus garage

Single-Family Home in Oklahoma City

1 parking spot per million gallons of capacity

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Sewage Treatment Plant in Dallas

1 parking spot per 100 sq. ft.

Haunted House in Gilbert, Ariz.

1 parking spot per 8 occupants plus 1 spot per 2 employees

Cemetery in Carver, Mass.

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1 parking spot per 10 migrants at max capacity

Migrant Labor Camp in Queen Anne’s County, Md.

10 parking spots per 1 mile of trail

Nature/Bike Trail in Jefferson Hills, Pa.

1 parking spot per 250 sq. ft. of office/retail area

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Butterfly/Moth Breeding in SeaTac, Wash.

6 parking spots per lane

Bowling Center in Folsom, Calif.

1 parking spot per 50 sq. ft. of floor area

Night Club in Port Angeles, Wash.

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8 parking spots per green

1 parking spot per 10 children plus 1 per employee

Child Care Center in Charlotte, N.C.

1.2 parking spots per bed

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3 parking spots per court

Tennis Club in Rochester, N.Y.

1 parking spot per 100 sq. ft. of sanctuary seating area

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1 parking spot per 60 sq. ft. of batting area

1 parking spot per 50 sq. ft. water surface plus 1 spot per 2 employees

Swimming Pool in Allentown, Pa.

“People just assume these numbers are right because they’re in the zoning code,” said Tony Jordan, who runs the Parking Reform Network, which advocates ending minimums. “No, they’re just made up.”

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Beyond increasing construction costs, the rules have squeezed out of existence many common prewar urban housing forms, like four-unit apartment buildings on lots too small for parking. Mandates have meanwhile produced their own specific kinds of places: stores surrounded by surface lots, strip malls wrapped around parking, apartment complexes that have no ground-floor retail because the ground floor is full of cars.

And because the rules apply broadly, they can require parking in subsidized housing for low-income households least likely to own a car. They can force builders to construct 350 square feet of garage space for a 400-square-foot studio.

Given that cities have only recently begun to change these rules, there’s limited evidence of what happens after they’re gone. In the first years after Buffalo ended parking minimums, about half of new developments built fewer parking spaces than they were previously required to, supporting the idea that the standards are too high for some properties, too low for others.

Proponents also hope that by ditching parking mandates, cities communicate another message: “If you require a place to park a car, you’re automatically saying a car is welcome,” said Felicity Maxwell, a planning commissioner in Austin who voted to end minimums there last year. And many of the prewar buildings and neighborhoods cherished today are places that have long thrived without welcoming cars.

Compared with Austin and Buffalo, New York is proposing a half-measure: to end mandates only for housing (at 975 Nostrand, for example, the retail space would still require some parking). Mr. Garodnick demurred on whether ending all minimums would be a logical future step for the city.

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An Expensive Hole in the Ground

New York is also a particularly tough place to create parking. Land is so scarce and valuable that it seldom makes sense to use it just to park cars. 975 Nostrand was originally a single-story grocery store with a large parking lot. Now it will become home to 500 to 600 people, with a grocery store on the ground floor.

But making the best use of that limited space means developers frequently turn to the hardest possible parking solution: putting it underground.

“When you go below grade in New York City, you are talking about the most expensive and the most risky part of a project,” said Sam Charney, principal of the developer Charney Companies. His worst construction horror story involved a mixed-use building that required two levels of underground parking in a corner of bustling Williamsburg in Brooklyn. He thought the parking actually necessary was none.

Before Charney Companies built The Dime in Williamsburg, it first dug this 30-foot-deep hole (while propping up the neighboring properties) for a two-story underground garage.

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Charney Companies LLC

Excavation is costly and onerous. Neighboring buildings must be underpinned. Buried oil tanks and boulders get in the way. Below the water table, everything must be waterproofed. And all of this adds months to construction, during which time developers are carrying large loans.

Parking stackers help save space by lifting cars up so others can park underneath. But then garages require parking attendants to operate them — and that’s another cost someone has to pay.

All of this is further complicated by the fact that the exact quantity of parking required depends on how the land at a given site is zoned.

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Here are just the few blocks around 975 Nostrand:

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Buildings across the street from each other are often zoned differently.

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And each zone has its own minimum parking ratios for housing.

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Source: New York City Zoning & Land Use Map

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Certain zones also exempt parking on the first five or 15 housing units, incentivizing builders to stay below that cutoff — or to carve lots up into several smaller buildings with fewer total housing units.

“You really don’t want to build a bigger building than you can provide parking for,” said David West, an architect.

These trade-offs for developers don’t garner a lot of sympathy with New Yorkers who have a more prosaic concern: where to park after a long work day or when there’s a hungry child in the back seat. The community board that encompasses the Nostrand development opposes getting rid of the minimums, as do politicians representing parts of the city that don’t have good transit access.

“For Staten Islanders, it’s almost impossible to not have at least one car per household,” said Joseph Borelli, who represents southern Staten Island as minority leader of the City Council.

Source: New York Times survey; New York City Zoning Application Portal

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The City Planning Commission expects that the greatest change to come from ending parking mandates would be in the “inner outer” boroughs — not in the lowest-density neighborhoods that have opposed it the most, but in places like Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights. That’s where the gap is widest today between the quantity of parking required and the demand for it around public transit. In the densest parts of the city — much of Manhattan, and Long Island City in Queens — parking minimums are already waived (Manhattan, in fact, has had parking maximums since 1982, in a bid to reduce car travel and improve air quality).

Some suggest the city should more narrowly tailor its proposal rather than sweep away requirements citywide. But that would be an extension of what New York has done for years — carving out piecemeal exemptions for certain geographies, lot sizes, affordability levels and building amenities, until it has arrived at an intricate web of parking rules.

To proponents of ending minimums, the citywide simplicity is part of the point: The requirements aren’t just arbitrary near the subway; they are arbitrary everywhere because a prescribed ratio can never be just right for every lot. And even on Staten Island, lifting the minimums might allow someone to build an accessory dwelling unit — without extra parking — in the backyard. That would serve the city’s housing goals too.

At 975 Nostrand, where the developer Hudson Companies is about a year away from completing the building, the managing director of development, Marlee Busching-Truscott, struggled to estimate exactly how much parking would have been built if that number weren’t dictated by a zoning table. This is one of the other distortions of parking mandates. Developers typically try to study the market for nearly every facet of a project — the mix of apartment sizes, the targeted rents, the building amenities, the outdoor spaces, the kitchen finishes. But they don’t do that basic exercise for something as costly and sizable as a parking garage, because they have little choice in the matter.

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Though Ms. Busching-Truscott couldn’t say exactly how the building would have taken shape without parking minimums, “I don’t think we would have gotten to 193 spaces that would have required having a fully excavated cellar and a chaotic layout.”

That result speaks to the building’s essential paradox: “This is transit-oriented development,” she said, “that you’re still building around the car.”

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