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Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students. Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be unaffiliated with the university just outside Columbia’s gated campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public because of the protests. Some of those protests took a dark turn on Saturday evening, leading to the harassment of some Jewish students who were targeted with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal attacks left some of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City. “While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.

Persons: Eric Adams, ” Andrew Bates Organizations: Columbia, White, New Locations: Upper Manhattan, New York City, American

An Israeli airstrike on Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, in an attack calculated to deliver a message that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems undetected and paralyze them. The strike damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program, according to two Western officials and two Iranian officials. The attack — and the revelation on Saturday of its target — was in retaliation for Iran’s strike in Israel last week after Israel bombed its embassy compound in Damascus. But it used a fraction of the firepower Tehran deployed in launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. But the relatively limited scope of Israel’s strike and the muted response from Iranian officials seem to have eased tensions.

Organizations: Israel Locations: Iran, Israel, Damascus, Tehran, Syria

☆ New York City to Impose Stricter Limits on Migrant Adults in Shelters
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | More About Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To ease the burden on the city’s shelter system, adult migrants will be allowed to stay in shelters for only 30 days under the agreement, city officials said. After that, they will not be able to reapply for a bed, which they are currently allowed to do. Some would be allowed to stay longer if they meet certain conditions, including having a medical disability or an “extenuating circumstance,” officials said. The changes to the so-called right-to-shelter requirement are a major shift in a policy that had set New York apart from all other big U.S. cities. In no other city must officials guarantee a bed to any homeless person who seeks one, something city officials have alternately taken pride in and fought against for decades.

Persons: Gerald Lebovits Organizations: Legal Aid Society Locations: York

☆ Migrants Face Cold, Perilous Crossing From Canada to New York
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-11 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Increasingly, migrants from Latin America are risking their lives to cross illegally into the United States along the northern border. Migrants Face Cold, Perilous Crossing From Canada to New YorkA migrant family slept overnight in a ramshackle farm shed in Champlain, N.Y., before being detained the next morning by the Border Patrol.

Organizations: Border Patrol Locations: America, United States, Canada, New York, Champlain, N.Y

☆ As Winter Approaches, Fears Grow for Homeless Migrants
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | More About Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The cold-weather scenes have crystallized the alarming strain that the arrival of more than 140,000 asylum seekers since spring last year has placed on the city. In Chicago, migrants have been sleeping in buses and on the floor of police stations, while Massachusetts has warned that its shelter system had reached full capacity. City Hall has said budget constraints mean it will have to cut spending on migrant care soon. Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor leading the city’s response to the crisis, said during a news conference last Tuesday that New York was at capacity. “We’re running out of staff, we’re running of money, we’re running out of space,” she said.

Persons: Eric Adams, Mayor Adams, Anne Williams, Joshua Goldfein Organizations: City, Legal Aid Society Locations: Chicago, Massachusetts, York

☆ Should Your Ex-Boss Get a Say in Your New Job? Wall Street Says Yes.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-12 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | More About Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For high-powered Wall Street and banking executives, one of the hallmarks of the job comes into play only at the end: a signed noncompete agreement. Five months ago, the State Legislature passed a bill that would outlaw noncompete agreements, one of several efforts nationwide in recent years to protect a range of employees. All kinds of workers — from doctors to hairstylists to sandwich makers — are sometimes unknowingly trapped by the restrictive clauses. But as the implications of a ban at New York City’s most powerful industries have come into focus, so has a deep-pocketed lobbying effort to persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to not sign it into law — or at least blunt its impact.

Persons: Kathy Hochul Organizations: New York ., State Legislature, Gov Locations: New York

☆ Republicans Are Hammering Democrats on the Migrant Crisis. Will It Work?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Nicholas Fandos | Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The county executive’s message was unequivocal: Erie County had an obligation to open its arms to the crush of migrants overwhelming New York City about 300 miles away. By August, two asylum seekers sheltered in the area had been arrested on sexual assault charges. And after Republicans blamed the county executive, Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, he abruptly put a migrant relocation program on ice. The episode has been played on repeat this fall in attack ads blanketing the airwaves in Erie County as Republicans try to turn the migrant crisis gripping the state into a political cudgel to flip perhaps the most important elected office in western New York. Part of their strategy: attack ads focused on the busloads of migrants arriving in New York City, miles away from the suburbs.

Persons: Mark Poloncarz Organizations: Democrat Locations: Erie County, New York City, New York, Long, Suffolk County

☆ Gov. Hochul Announces $75 Million to Combat Hate Crimes in New York
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | More About Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Kathy Hochul of New York announced on Tuesday up to $75 million in grants for local police departments and houses of worship in response to an uptick in reported antisemitic attacks and hate crimes against Palestinians in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. The New York Police Department unveiled statistics last week that showed a spike in hate crimes in the city, especially against Jews, after the Hamas attacks on Israel earlier this month, despite an overall decrease in hate crimes this year. There were 51 hate crimes in the third week of October, compared with just seven in the same week last year; 30 were antisemitic, the police said. as a potential hate crime and prompted the school and the State Police to increase security at the school’s Jewish center. Ms. Hochul announced $50 million in grants to help local law enforcement agencies prevent and solve hate crimes.

Persons: Kathy Hochul, Ms, Hochul, —, ”, Eric Adams, Jonathan Lippman Organizations: New York, State Police, New York Police Department, Jewish, Cornell University, Israel, New, City University of New Locations: New, Israel, New York, Yorker, Ithaca, N.Y, Gaza, City University of New York

Outside Albany, N.Y., where hundreds of recent migrants have been bused upstate from New York City, David Buicko sees an obvious solution to the labor shortage he and other employers are experiencing. “I’d hire probably 20 people tomorrow,” said Mr. Buicko, the president of the Galesi Group, a Schenectady-based developer, who said prospective workers are still waiting for legal authorization. “It’s crazy that we can’t fill a void, we don’t have population growth, and we’ve got people that we’re just bringing in, sitting around doing nothing.”Mr. Buicko is not alone. Across the state, many large and small employers have expressed an overwhelming willingness to hire recent asylum seekers; migrants are even more eager to work. But bringing the two sides together is far harder than it might seem.

Persons: David Buicko, “, ”, Buicko, we’ve, Mr Organizations: Galesi Locations: Albany, N.Y, New York City, Schenectady, New York, Erie

Kathy Hochul of New York on Thursday forcefully urged President Biden to respond to the influx of migrants arriving in the state, underscoring the urgency of a situation that has vexed Democratic leaders for months. More than 100,000 migrants have traveled to New York City from the southern border over the past year, and more than half of them have taken refuge in the city’s shelters, straining the system. Unlike Mayor Eric Adams, the governor has taken pains to avoid overtly criticizing the president’s response, choosing to communicate with Mr. Biden and his staff behind the scenes instead. But the governor’s 10-minute address, live streamed from Albany, marked her most direct appeal to the federal government since she first called the migrant crisis a state emergency in May. She noted how the White House has failed to respond to her call to expedite work permits for newcomers and turn more federal properties into emergency shelters, saying, “We’ve managed thus far without substantive support from Washington.”

Persons: Kathy Hochul, Biden, Eric Adams, “ We’ve, ” Organizations: Democratic, White Locations: New York, New York City, Albany, Washington

☆ Migrant Crisis, a ‘Time Bomb’ for Democrats, Poses Test for Hochul
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | More About Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An influx of migrants arriving in New York City over the last year has stretched city resources and strained political relationships among Democratic leaders grappling with an emerging humanitarian crisis. Kathy Hochul of New York had stayed largely above the fray. Now, as New York City’s shelter system barrels past a breaking point, Ms. Hochul is confronting an explosive political test that could define her first full term and have ripple effects for national Democrats. Critics from the left and right have called on Ms. Hochul to take a more hands-on approach to a crisis that defies easy solutions, saying that the migrant state of emergency — which she announced last spring — needs the same sense of urgency as the Covid pandemic. Ms. Hochul has argued that she has been an active partner in dealing with the crisis all along, even if much of the state’s help has unfolded behind the scenes.

Persons: Kathy Hochul, Hochul, Eric Adams, Her, Andrew M, Cuomo Organizations: Democratic, Gov, Democrats Locations: New York City, New York

A new front opened on Wednesday in an escalating battle among Democrats over how to handle large numbers of immigrants crossing the southern border and moving into major cities. The leaders of New York City and New York State, where officials say the arrival of migrants has set off a humanitarian crisis, seemed to turn on each other this week, after the state sent a scathing letter accusing the city of resisting its help and being slow to act. Kathy Hochul faulted Mayor Eric Adams’s management of New York’s migrant crisis in sharp terms, puncturing the appearance of city-state harmony that the two leaders have spent much of their tenures cultivating. New York City is struggling to accommodate more than 100,000 migrants who have arrived after crossing the border, more than 57,000 of whom remain in city shelters. Mr. Adams has said that the city is running out of space and funds to support them, and has criticized President Biden, saying “the president and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.” His posture has infuriated top Biden aides.

Persons: Kathy Hochul, Eric Adams’s, Adams, Biden Organizations: New Locations: New York City, New York State

☆ N.Y. Lawmakers Confront Hot-Button Issues in Rare Return to Albany
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

One of the more consequential matters hanging in balance concerns the development of offshore wind farms along the coast of Long Island. Ms. Hochul has called offshore wind, which tends to be more productive and less disruptive than land turbines, a key component of her climate plan. Democrats in the State Senate approved the bill earlier this month, but it is unclear how the Assembly will proceed. The measure has found opposition among citizens and Republican representatives on Long Island, who say the developer has not adequately allayed safety concerns. The district attorneys group argued that the state already had laws to protect people from wrongful convictions and that the bill would serve to eliminate finality in criminal convictions or plea deals.

Persons: Hochul, “, ” Mr, Heastie Organizations: Senate, Republican Locations: New York, Albany, Long

☆ What N.Y. Lawmakers Have, and Haven’t, Accomplished This Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After a grueling year marked by Democratic infighting, New York State lawmakers are expected to conclude the 2023 legislative session this weekend with few marquee policy wins and a notable failure to address the state’s critical housing needs. Despite last-ditch efforts, Democrats in control of the State Capitol failed to introduce or pass legislation to tackle the state’s affordable housing crisis, perhaps the most pressing issue on their policy agenda, leading to a public round of backbiting between lawmakers and Gov. Even so, Democrats were claiming victories on other fronts, weary as they were from drawn-out state budget negotiations that shortened their time to legislate. Lawmakers are expected to pass a long-stalled initiative to seal old criminal records to help people convicted of certain crimes re-enter society. They also passed a bill to create a commission to study reparations for Black people, making New York the second state after California to undertake such an initiative, and were pushing to expand health care services for undocumented immigrants.

Persons: Kathy Hochul Organizations: Democratic, New York, State Capitol, Gov Locations: New, New York, California

☆ Did N.Y. Leaders Leave Residents Unprepared for the Air Quality Crisis?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Emma G. Fitzsimmons | Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Tuesday afternoon, the governor’s office issued a news release announcing that the wildfires were creating hazy conditions in New York City and elsewhere, urging residents to limit exposure and saying state experts were monitoring the situation. On Wednesday morning, as many New Yorkers woke up to a thick blanket of haze, the governor spoke to reporters in Albany about the situation, saying it was “an emergency crisis” and warning it could last several days. Asked about the wisdom of declaring a state of emergency, Ms. Hochul said that it was unnecessary. “A state of emergency is a mechanism you use when there’s something you can do about it,” she said. “We don’t have a lot we can do about the circumstances for contaminated toxic air coming into our airspace, so there’s not a need for deploying resources or bringing money to the table.”

Persons: ”, Jay Varma, Bill de Blasio, Hochul, there’s Organizations: Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention, Mexico City, state’s Department of Environmental Conservation Locations: Beijing, Mexico, New York City, Albany

☆ N.Y. Democrats, at Odds Over Tenant Protections, Fail to Reach Housing Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Democratic lawmakers in New York had scrambled this week to assemble a plan to tackle the state’s housing crisis: They said it included measures to protect tenants from eviction and cap rent increases, incentives to remodel empty offices into apartments and an extension of a tax break for developers to build affordable housing. But it all unraveled on Thursday, when Democrats who control the State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul failed to reach a deal, leading to a new round of finger pointing among Democrats in Albany. Lawmakers blamed Ms. Hochul for opposing their housing measures, particularly those to protect tenants, while the governor said lawmakers never presented her with any housing bills to approve. The one unarguable point was that Democrats were bound to finish the 2023 legislative session this week without addressing the state’s housing crisis for the second time this year, despite proclaiming the issue a top priority.

Persons: Kathy Hochul, Hochul Organizations: State Legislature, Gov Locations: New York, Albany

☆ Wine at Wegmans? Not in New York, if Liquor Stores Can Help It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The two main alcohol distributors in the state, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits and Empire Merchants, have collectively spent at least $120,000 since the year began on lobbying state officials, disclosure records show. The families that own Southern Glazer’s, which is the largest liquor distributor in the United States and based in Florida, also contributed at least $25,000 to Ms. Hochul’s campaign last year. The commission failed to reach consensus on some of the most contentious issues, such as allowing grocery stores to sell wine. It is now up to lawmakers to decide whether to turn the proposed changes into legislation. law, introduced a bill that incorporated the commission’s recommendations.

Persons: Hochul’s, ”, Harry Bronson, “, James Skoufis Organizations: Empire Merchants, Rochester Democrat, Anheuser, Busch, State Senate, Hudson Valley Democrat Locations: Southern, United States, Florida, logjam, Albany, State, Hudson Valley

“It is a crisis situation,” Ms. Hochul acknowledged on Tuesday. “There’ll be literally thousands more individuals coming across the border and ultimately find their way up to the State of New York.”Counties near the city are now bracing for overflow, some more willingly than others. The executive of the Democratic stronghold of Westchester County, just to New York City’s north, is open to welcoming some undocumented migrants from the city’s overflowing shelter system. “We are not a sanctuary county,” Mr. Blakeman said. Deputies with the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department sat a few yards away in cream-colored cruisers, ready to block the entrance of any approaching bus.

☆ How New Yorkers’ Lives Will Be Altered by the $229 Billion State Budget
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — Minimum wage workers in New York City will get a pay bump for the first time in five years. Out-of-state students at city and state universities will face a tuition hike. And cigarette smokers will need to pay an extra dollar in taxes per pack. New York State lawmakers approved a $229 billion state budget on Tuesday night that will touch on New Yorkers’ everyday life, after completing protracted negotiations with Gov. This being Albany, of course, the closed-door negotiations centered much less on the state’s finances than they did on contentious policy changes that were stuffed into the final budget legislation.

☆ New York State Budget Deal Would Raise Minimum Wage and Change Bail Laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced that she and state lawmakers had reached an agreement on a roughly $229 billion state budget that would change the state’s bail laws, increase the minimum wage and provide urgently needed funding for New York City’s transit system. The deal capped weeks of contentious negotiations that divided the governor and the Democrat-led State Legislature, delaying its expected passage by almost a month — the latest budget in over a decade. The broad strokes of the “conceptual agreement” were revealed by the governor at an impromptu news conference at the State Capitol on Thursday evening; some of the details, Ms. Hochul said, were still being “fine tuned.”Representatives for Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, confirmed the deal. Lawmakers, who had already left Albany for the week because they had not anticipated an agreement, are expected to vote to approve the budget as early as next week.

☆ New York Officials Failed to Address the Housing Crisis. Now What?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Mihir Zaveri | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — It seemed like 2023 would be the year that New York would finally take the most consequential steps in decades to address the state’s dire housing shortage. Rising rents and homelessness had made housing a top issue for voters. Kathy Hochul had unveiled a grand plan, focused on cajoling communities to build more homes through new mandates, that was met with praise from housing experts and pro-development groups. And her fellow Democrats in control of the State Capitol had pledged to make housing a priority. The disintegration underscored Albany’s often dysfunctional policymaking process and marked a significant setback for a new governor who had made housing a top focus.

☆ Black Smokers at Center of New York Fight to Ban Menthol Cigarettes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — A push by Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes in New York has become the focal point of a fierce and expensive lobbying fight, pitting Big Tobacco against the medical community. Caught in the middle are Black smokers, who smoke menthol cigarettes at higher rates than white smokers, and are the main group the ban is meant to help. Decades of aggressive marketing by tobacco companies have caused Black smokers to consume menthol cigarettes, whose cooling sensation on the throat makes them more appealing and addictive. The companies have also funneled at least $135,000 since 2020 to a convenience-store trade group that is fighting the ban.

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