Edited by: TJV News

A New York State lawmaker said Thursday that the legislature’s impeachment investigation into embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will also examine reports of the governor providing special access to coronavirus tests to family members at the beginning of the pandemic.

New York Assembly Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Lavine made the revelation in a statement to the Associated Press. The impeachment probe will primarily focus on allegations of Cuomo covering up data regarding the numbers of nursing home deaths during the pandemic and sexual harassment accusations brought forth by multiple women, including current and former staffers.

On Wednesday, the Times-Union reported that Cuomo directed state health officials to “prioritize” testing for members of his family, including his mother, Matilda Cuomo, and brother, primetime host CNN Chris Cuomo. Further, the governor and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker requested state Department of Health officials to prioritize testing for influential individuals with ties to the Cuomo administration, said the Albany-based newspaper. In a separate report, the Washington Post noted that the results of prioritized tests were immediately processed at a state lab.

Chris Cuomo announced in March 2020 that he had contracted the virus, later telling the Associated Press in an interview: “I knew it was just a matter of time, to be honest, because of how often I was exposed to people.” The Post reports that a top New York Department of Health doctor visited the CNN host at his Hamptons residence to obtain test samples from him.

Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi downplayed the seriousness of the reports.

WSJ reported: Last year, technicians at the Wadsworth Center—the state Health Department’s public-health laboratory—were given specimens for priority processing for Covid-19, according to people familiar with the matter.

At least some of those specimens were taken by Health Department personnel from members of the Democratic governor’s family, the people said, including CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. The governor’s younger brother announced on March 31 that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and broadcast his nightly show from the basement of his Long Island home

The office of Attorney General Letitia James, Cuomo’s fellow Democrat, issued a statement earlier Thursday urging New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics to investigate the alleged preferential testing after reports were published in the Times Union of Albany, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

“The recent reports alleging there was preferential treatment given for COVID-19 testing are troubling,” the statement read. “While we do not have jurisdiction to investigate this matter, it’s imperative that JCOPE look into it immediately.”

A spokesperson for the ethics commission, Walt McClure, said the commission could not comment “on anything that is or might be an investigative matter.”

Contains reporting from AP, WSJ and Breitbart

By: Jared Evan

NY is about to become the 15th state in the republic to legalize marijuana, after years of attempting to pass a bill.

WSJ reported State Sen. Liz Krueger said lawmakers were finalizing a bill that would create a new state regulator for cannabis products and decriminalize the possession of up to three ounces of marijuana. New Yorkers will be allowed to cultivate marijuana for personal use and the state will study a new system for determining whether drivers are inebriated because of marijuana use, she said.

“I think that will give us a head start on a good program, because we were able to watch what other states went through and hopefully come up with something that addresses the problems,” she said in an interview on Wednesday.

Fourteen states and three territories have legalized recreational marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Nearby, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont have legalized the plant for recreational use, and Connecticut is close to legalizing marijuana soon.

The new bill proposes a heavy tax, which may indeed keep “stoners” away from the legal marijuana and still getting the weed from the black market.

The state estimates could be around $300 million a year when the program matures. Under the legislation, the state would levy a 9% tax on retail sales and localities would levy an additional 4%. Towns, villages, and cities may opt out of retail and delivery marijuana sales, according to the proposal, according to WSJ.

It would also impose an additional tax based on the level of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, ranging from 0.5 cents per milligram for flower to 3 cents per milligram for edibles.

New York would eliminate penalties for possession of less than three ounces of cannabis, and automatically expunge records of people with past convictions for marijuana-related offenses that would no longer be criminalized. That’s a step beyond a 2019 law that expunged many past convictions for marijuana possession and reduced the penalty for possessing small amounts, AP reported

The new bill’s goal is to use the taxes to fund Office of Cannabis Management and law-enforcement officers who are trained to detect impaired driving, according to the WSJ. The rest of the tax revenue is broken down as followed: 20% of the remaining revenue will be dedicated to treatment and public education, 40% will be dedicated to school aid and 40% will be dedicated to a fund that will make grants for social “equity”.

“Social equity” is very vague but sounds like a race-based hand out to certain races within the city, in other words, most likely, a discriminatory program which skin color determines who benefits.

Oakland, California recently enacted a program offering $500/monthly to families below the family line, excluding poor white people.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, a Buffalo Democrat who sponsors the legislation, said “It’s important to use resources to go back and do a deep dive to look at who these people are, what’s the status of their life now and see what they need.”

By: Jared Evan

Governor Cuomo’s 2021 keeps getting worse. Not only does he have a nursing home scandal brewing, but women also accusing him of sexual harassment every other day, an ethics scandal regarding COVID tests being directed to his family, and an impeachment investigation on the horizon. To add on to his troubles, hundreds of businesses are pressuring him to go against the Democratic state Legislature’s proposed tax hikes while Democrat Socialists, progressives and labor unions are calling for the taxes to be signed into law.

Wall Street Journal reported that a letter delivered Monday to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Democratic leaders of the state Legislature, 250 business executives said a package of tax increases proposed by the Assembly and Senate would “jeopardize New York’s recovery from the economic crisis inflicted by Covid-19” and were unnecessary because of the $1.9 trillion federal relief bill passed earlier this month. Democratic.

“Many members of our workforce have resettled their families in other locations, generally with far lower taxes than New York, and the proposed tax increases will make it harder to get them to return,” the executives wrote. “This is not about companies threatening to leave the state; this is simply about our people voting with their feet.”

Budget Director Robert Mujica said during a conference call with reporters that budget negotiations were proceeding between executive and legislative aides.

WSJ reported that Mujica pointed to better-than-expected revenue payments and the Federal COVID program netting NY state $12.5 billion in unrestricted payments under the bill, and billions more dedicated for health and education programs, which would prevent further cuts to services.

Mujica was not specific as to whether the improved economic conditions could change the current tax proposals.

WSJ reported:

Kathryn Wylde, president of the business group Partnership for New York City and one of the letter’s signatories, said the Democratic governor has been a force of fiscal moderation during his time in office.

“It’s obvious that there’s great concern among business leadership that the governor is in a weakened state because of the super-majorities that Democrats have in both houses of the Legislature,” Ms. Wylde said in an interview.

The progressive heavy Assembly and Senate passed budget proposals last week that each raised more than $6.5 billion by increasing corporate franchise and income-tax rates and enacting a new surcharge on income derived from capital gains.

With powerful leftists joining Republicans and calling for an impeachment, WSJ pointed out:

Democratic Socialists of America and labor backed Invest in Our New York Coalition organized a march in New York City this weekend that simultaneously called for Mr. Cuomo to be impeached and for lawmakers to pass higher taxes that he has resisted.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people marched to the state Capitol to demand higher taxes on the wealthy.

Will Cuomo cave to their demands and stick with giant tax hikes to gain some favor with the leftists who are joining the chorus for impeachment?

By: AP

State officials have launched a digital pass New Yorkers can download to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.

The Excelsior Pass will be accepted at major entertainment venues like Madison Square Garden and Albany’s Times Union Center.

The app is similar to a mobile airline boarding pass and uses a secure QR code that can be stored in a smartphone or printed out. Officials said the technology doesn’t store or track private health data within the app.

“New Yorkers have proven they can follow public health guidance to beat back COVID, and the innovative Excelsior Pass is another tool in our new toolbox to fight the virus while allowing more sectors of the economy to reopen safely and keeping personal information secure,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement.

Cuomo announced Saturday that more than 8.5 million total vaccine doses have been administered across the state, including more than 1 million doses over the past week.

In another unrelated development, AP also reported on Tuesday that an Asian American woman was attacked in New York City by a man who repeatedly kicked her as two people nearby who appeared to be security guards did not intervene, according to surveillance footage released by police.

The 65-year-old woman was walking in midtown Manhattan a few blocks from Times Square on Monday afternoon when a man approached her and kicked her in the stomach, knocking her to the ground, police said. The man then stomped on the woman’s face several times while shouting anti-Asian insults at her, police said. He later casually walked away, the footage shows.

The attack comes amid a national spike in anti-Asian hate crimes, and happened just weeks after a mass shooting in Atlanta that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent. The NYPD says there have been 33 hate crimes with an Asian victim so far this year, news outlets reported.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called the video “absolutely disgusting and outrageous” and said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that witnesses did not intervene.

“I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you do, you’ve got to help your fellow New Yorker,” de Blasio said Tuesday at his daily news briefing.

“If you see someone being attacked, do whatever you can,” he said. “Make noise. Call out what’s happening. Go and try and help. Immediately call for help. Call 911. This is something where we all have to be part of the solution. We can’t just stand back and watch a heinous act happening.”

    (AP)

By: Jennifer Peltz

Coronavirus contact tracing programs across the U.S. scaled back their ambitions as cases surged in winter, but New York City has leaned into its $600 million tracing initiative.

The city hired more tracers during the holiday season surge and in early March hit its goal of reaching at least 90% of people who test positive, a mark it hadn’t reached since around Thanksgiving. Last week, the number hit 96%.

Overwhelmed tracing programs elsewhere confronted the wave by switching to automated calls, limiting the types of cases they trace or telling infected people simply to reach out to their contacts themselves.

But New York remains committed, saying tracing helped curb the city’s second surge and is all the more necessary now as vaccination campaigns race to outpace the spread of worrisome viral variants.

“This is the danger zone, where we can’t let our guard down,” contact tracing chief Dr. Ted Long says.

Still, considerable challenges remain. Less than half of people who test positive name anyone they might have exposed to the virus. Some stop answering a blizzard of follow-ups meant to ensure they’re staying isolated.

There’s some debate among public health experts over whether local governments should cut back on contact tracing and focus more on vaccination.

After enduring the country’s deadliest coronavirus surge last spring, New York City set up what appears to be the biggest contact tracing effort in any U.S. city, now counting about 4,000 tracers and a $582 million budget for this fiscal year and next. Another $184 million is budgeted for services such as voluntary hotel stays for people who can’t isolate at home.

Tracing infected people was easier in mid-August, when the city had about 200 new cases daily. It became a monumental effort by mid-January, when new cases topped 6,000 per day.

Since then, the daily caseload has fallen by about half. Still, the city’s five boroughs have infection rates in the top 2% of counties nationwide. Long argues the city’s tracing program helped limit the surge to considerably fewer new deaths per person than in the U.S. as a whole.

Tracer Jessica Morris said “it was very intense for two-and-a-half straight months” during the wave.

Slammed with calls to make and callbacks to answer, tracers strove to compress their conversations without skipping important information. “I’ve mastered the art of breaking the ice really efficiently,” she said.

Though responses vary, Morris said she’s “usually able to get through to some degree — maybe not full-blown contact sharing, but at least a willingness to stay home” and respond to monitoring.

Some infected people report they were already quarantining so didn’t have any contacts. Others simply don’t name names, saying they personally called their contacts and felt they didn’t need the city’s involvement.

(AP)

By: Jared Evan

It does not quite feel like there is a major race to determine who will lead NYC on the road to recovery after the pandemic wrecked the economy and Mayor de Blasio’s maligned leadership has plunged the city into a never-ending crime wave, however, there have been some developments brewing as we head to June’s primary.

Strangely there has been an astonishing lack of public polling, the few polls published indicate former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang and Eric Adams are the 2 front runners for the Democrat Party. There have been no polls published on the GOP side, with Curtis Sliwa being the only household name in their race.

The NY Times reported that Yang and Adams are going at it in a war of words:

In recent days, Mr. Adams inaccurately said “people like Andrew Yang,” the former presidential hopeful, have never held a job. Mr. Yang’s campaign responded by accusing Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, of making “false and reprehensible attacks.”

The Adams campaign shot back with a statement claiming the Yang campaign was “attempting to mislead people of color.”

It is important to note, Adams is indeed lying. Mr. Yang, has held many jobs including being an attorney, working for many internet companies during the .com bubble and worked developing exams for Manhattan Prep. It would appear Adams is misleading “people of color”.

Eric Adams’ background is one of public service compared to Yang’s. As a former Transit & NYPD officer and Brooklyn Borough president Adams has NYC credibility but to state his rival “never held a job” and to whip out the race card on his opponent, gives off the impression that he is scared of being defeated by Yang in the primary.

The NY Times believes that the race has been narrowed down already between Yang and Adams. Yang has major name recognition, and Adams has a strong Brooklyn base and backing of major labor and civil service unions, as the “Gray Lady” noted.

Meanwhile the NY Post reported Adams is facing stiff competition in Queens, fending off challenges from former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley, who have both received endorsements in southeast Queens — one of the city’s largest black population centers.

With more than 40 hopefuls running for mayor, many will vanish after the Democrat and Republican primaries determine the major party’s candidates, while several independents and a libertarian are guaranteed to be on the ballot come November. Regardless of who is grabbing the headlines, this is an unpredictable race.

As far as the GOP primary, Curtis Sliwa, the famous anti-crime activist, animal rights warrior and talk show host, would appear to be the shoe in, however several of his opponents including former NYPD officer Bill Pepitone and well known Dominican American taxi cab activist and business owner Fernando Mateo, could pull off an upset.

By: Joseph Pisani

The second Jennifer Bates walks away from her post at the Amazon warehouse where she works, the clock starts ticking.

She has precisely 30 minutes to get to the cafeteria and back for her lunch break. That means traversing a warehouse the size of 14 football fields, which eats up precious time. She avoids bringing food from home because warming it up in the microwave would cost her even more minutes. Instead she opts for $4 cold sandwiches from the vending machine and hurries back to her post.

If she makes it, she’s lucky. If she doesn’t, Amazon could cut her pay, or worse, fire her.

It’s that kind of pressure that has led some Amazon workers to organize the biggest unionization push at the company since it was founded in 1995. And it’s happening in the unlikeliest of places: Bessemer, Alabama, a state with laws that don’t favor unions.

The stakes are high. If organizers succeed in Bessemer, where nearly 6,000 people work, it could set off a chain reaction across Amazon’s operations nationwide, with thousands more workers rising up and demanding better working conditions. But they face an uphill battle against the second-largest employer in the country with a history of crushing unionizing efforts at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores.

Attempts by Amazon to delay the vote in Bessemer have failed. So too have the company’s efforts to require in-person voting, which organizers argue would be unsafe during the pandemic. Mail-in voting started this week and will go on until the end of March. A majority of the valid votes received have to vote “yes” in order to unionize.

Amazon, whose profits and revenues have skyrocketed during the pandemic, has campaigned hard to convince workers that a union will only suck money from their paycheck with little benefit. Spokeswoman Rachael Lighty says the company already offers them what unions want: benefits, career growth and pay that starts at $15 an hour. She adds that the organizers don’t represent the majority of Amazon employees’ views.

Bates makes $15.30 an hour unpacking boxes of deodorant, clothing and countless other items that are eventually shipped to Amazon shoppers. The job, which the 48-year-old started in May, has her on her feet for most of her 10-hour shifts. Besides lunch, Bates says trips to the bathroom are also closely monitored, as is getting a drink of water or fetching a fresh pair of work gloves. Amazon denies that, saying it offers two 30-minute breaks during each shift and extra time to use the bathroom or get water.

Fed up, Bates and a group of workers reached out to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union last summer. She hopes the union, which also represents poultry plant workers in Alabama, will mandate more breaks, prevent Amazon from firing workers for mundane reasons and push for higher pay.

“They will be a voice when we don’t have one,” Bates says.

But according to Sylvia Allegretto, an economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, “history tells us not to be optimistic.”

The last time Amazon workers voted on whether they wanted to unionize was in 2014, and it was a much smaller group: 30 employees at a Amazon warehouse in Delaware who ultimately turned it down. Amazon currently employs nearly 1.3 million people worldwide.

Also working against the unionizing effort is that it’s happening in Republican-controlled Alabama, which generally isn’t friendly to organized labor. Alabama is one of 27 “right-to-work states” where workers don’t have to pay dues to unions that represent them. In fact, the state is home to the only Mercedes-Benz plant in the world that isn’t unionized.

That the union push at the Bessemer warehouse has even gotten this far is likely due to who the organizers are, says Michael Innis-Jiménez, an associate professor at the University of Alabama. Companies typically villainize union organizers as out-of-staters who don’t know what workers want. But the retail union has an office in nearby Birmingham and many of the organizers are Black, like the workers in the Bessemer warehouse.

“I think that really helps a lot,” Innis-Jiménez said. “They’re not seen as outsiders.”

More than 70% of the population of Bessemer is Black. The retail union estimates that as many as 85% of the workers are Black, much higher than the 22% for overall warehouse workers nationwide, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data.

Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, says the union’s success in Bessemer is partly due to the pandemic, with workers feeling betrayed by employers that didn’t do enough to protect them from the virus. And the Black Lives Matter movement, which has inspired people to demand to be treated with respect and dignity. Appelbaum says the union has heard from Amazon warehouse workers all over the country.

“They want a voice in their workplace, too,” he says.

Representatives of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union spend most days outside the entrance of the Bessemer warehouse holding signs and wearing neon vests, although a lot of the unionization effort is being conducted online or by phone because of the pandemic. At the end of a recent workday, some Amazon employees leaving the plant rolled down their car windows and chatted with organizers; others hurried past without acknowledgement.

Some workers from poultry plants have helped. Among them is Michael Foster, a union representative who works at a north Alabama poultry plant but has been in town for more than a month helping with the organizing push.

He says an Amazon employee tried to shoo them away, saying they better make sure they’re not on Amazon property.

“I let them know that this is not my first rodeo,” says Foster, who has helped get two other poultry plants to unionize.

(AP)

By: Jared Evan

The Mets and Francisco Lindor remain tens of millions of dollars apart in negotiations on a contract extension with less than 72 hours until the deadline, according to MLB.com.

Met’s Owner Steve Cohen does not seem confident, Lindor will take his final offer.

MLB reported: The Mets have made Lindor an offer of 10 years and $325 million, which would more than double the largest previous commitment in franchise history. Lindor’s camp is seeking a 12-year deal worth $385 million, which would be the largest contract extension in Major League history, topping the 12-year, $365 million deal that Mookie Betts signed with the Dodgers last year

Francisco Miguel Lindor (born November 14, 1993), nicknamed “Paquito” and “Mr. Smile”, is a Puerto Rican professional baseball shortstop for the New York Mets. He previously played for the Cleveland Indians.

Lindor’s stats are excellent. Lindor batted over .300 in both his first two major league seasons and provided outstanding defense. In 2016, he earned each of his first All-Star selection & Gold Glove Award, becoming the first Puerto Rican shortstop to win the Gold Glove Award. He won his first Silver Slugger Award in 2017. He placed second in the American League Rookie of the Year voting in 2015 and was a selection to the 2017 All-WBC Team. He is a 4 time all star and a 2-time Gold Glove winner. He also won the Silver Slugger award twice. He played on the Indians in 2016, when they made it to the World Series for the first time since 1997. MLB mavens consider him on the same level as Derek Jeter.

MLB reported: a source said the Mets’ offer is their best and final attempt to sign Lindor, who has made it clear that he won’t negotiate past Opening Day. The source said the Mets have put their own Opening Day deadline on their offer and stepped away from the negotiating table.

In other words, Lindor can take it or leave it.

If Lindor does not sign, he can become a free agent next winter, joining a class that includes star shortstops Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, Trevor Story and Javier Báez. A source said the Mets’ offer is their best and final attempt to sign Lindor, who has made it clear that he won’t negotiate past Opening Day. The source said the Mets have put their own Opening Day deadline on their offer and stepped away from the negotiating table.

Met’s owner has been engaging with upset Mets fans on Twitter, and based on the conversations he does not seem confident he will win Lindor over to take the offer.

By: AP

U.S. home prices increased at the fastest pace in seven years in January as the pandemic has fueled demand for single-family houses even as the supply for such homes shrinks.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, rose 11.1% in January from a year earlier. That’s the biggest gain since March 2014. Prices rose in all 20 cities, and the 12-month increase was larger for all cities in January than in the previous month.

“January’s data remain consistent with the view that COVID has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes,” said Craig Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI. It’s not yet clear whether that trend will fade as the pandemic is brought under control, Lazzara said, or if there will be a permanent shift higher in demand.

The biggest price gain was in Phoenix, where home prices jumped 15.8%, followed by Seattle, with a 14.3% gain, and San Diego, at 14.2%.

Home sales have jumped in the past year, driven by a desire for more space among those Americans fortunate enough to keep their jobs. With roughly one-quarter of workers doing their jobs from home, along with children going to school online, families have sought out houses rather than apartments, or moved to larger homes.

Yet that trend has run into a reluctance among many Americans to sell their homes — and have legions of potential buyers parade through their living rooms — during the pandemic.

The number of available homes collapsed nearly one-third by February compared with a year earlier, to just over 1 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s the sharpest yearly drop on records dating back to 1982.

Higher mortgage rates may slow sales a bit in the coming months, but borrowing costs remain near historic lows. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to nearly 3.2% last week, the highest since June, up from 3.1% the week before. That’s still below the pre-pandemic rate of 3.5%.

Sales of new and existing homes fell sharply in February, mostly because of unseasonably cold winter weather and ice storms in Texas and other southern states. Yet existing home sales were still 9% higher in February compared with a year ago.

Photo Credit: AP