Free Republic

There will be no miracle on 34th Street this year. Santa Claus won't be visiting any Macy's stores in 2020, ending a 159-year holiday season tradition. The department store's tradition started in 1861, but Santa meet-and-greets won't be happening this year because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, Macy's (M) is creating an interactive virtual experience. "To replicate the magical experience of visiting Macy's Santaland for children and their families, we will shift to a virtual engagement this year," Susan Tercero, Macy's vice president of Branded Entertainment, said in a press release. It will be available online from November 27 to December...

With tensions high between Orthodox Jews and New York officials, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed regret Tuesday for how he handled a large Hasidic funeral in the pandemic’s early days. Back in April, after a large funeral for a local rabbi in Brooklyn drew thousands of Orthodox Jews into the streets of Williamsburg, de Blasio visited the scene himself and called out “the Jewish community.” His tweet was widely criticized and damaged what had been a relatively close relationship between the mayor and the city’s Orthodox community. Now, with Orthodox neighborhoods again among the city’s virus hotspots...

New York’s “red zone” coronavirus restrictions will be adjusted this week to make them more tailored to each area’s needs, Gov. Cuomo announced Monday, as infection rates in the hotspots continued to drop. In a conference call with reporters, Cuomo said the changes will be unveiled Wednesday — roughly two weeks after the color-coded shutdowns of schools and non-essential businesses were first implemented in parts of southern Brooklyn, central Queens, Rockland County, Orange County and some areas of upstate.

Mayor Bill de Blasio spared no expense to burnish the image of his wife, Chirlane McCray — but like many of his big bucks plans it all came to nothing. Hizzoner’s effort to use millions in tax payer money to make McCray a political star came crashing down this week when the city’s First Lady changed course and declared she would not run for Brooklyn Borough President. Throughout his time in office de Blasio set McCray up to follow in the family’s politics biz, including giving her a staff that in recent years grew to a size larger than any...

As protests go, this one was pretty run-of-the-mill: maybe 300 bicycle food-delivery guys crowding loudly into City Hall Park Thursday to demand more police protection. They say their bikes are being stolen, often at gunpoint, and the NYPD isn’t doing much about it. The claim has a familiar ring to it. There’s a worrisome fraying of Gotham’s social fabric underway, and blame lies squarely with Bill de Blasio’s kinder, gentler approach to public safety. Sure, the coronavirus, a deteriorating economy and New York’s steadily worsening gun-violence command a lot of attention. At least nine people were shot, one fatally, between...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that he may close early voting locations in areas of Brooklyn and Queens that are currently under coronavirus lockdown restrictions imposed last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Post reported. The specified zip codes are facing varying degrees of prohibitions that include bans on indoor dining, school closures, and strict caps on numbers allowed in houses of worship

The confusion surrounding New York City's coronavirus rules for schools and nonessential businesses largely boiled down to a feud between New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, according to a report from the New York Times. Cuomo and de Blasio have only had one phone call in the past month, a City Hall official told the New York Times. Cuomo's staff also accused de Blasio of exceeding his authority in calls with the mayor's staff, according to a city official cited by the New York Times. Last week, de Blasio released his own plan...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled a statue honoring Mother Frances Cabrini in Battery Park City Monday to mark Columbus Day. The Columbus Day Parade went virtual this year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and Cuomo served as the parade’s grand marshal. Cuomo announced the state would commission the Mother Cabrini statue after First Lady Chirlane McCray left Mother Cabrini out of the first group of statues being constructed as part of the"She Built NYC" initiative despite Cabrini having the highest number of public nominations. Cabrini was an Italian American Catholic nun who helped Italian American immigrants living in the United States....

That was fast. Last Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio ­informed the United Federation of Teachers that the city couldn’t afford a $900 million bonus for union members. It took 24 hours for the union to knock this threat down — and wring a better deal from out-of-work taxpayers. The state must step in. How did New York City end up on the hook for a near-billion-dollar payment during the worst fiscal crisis ever? You can thank de Blasio. In Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s final term, the global economy melted down — and Bloomberg told teachers that if they wanted raises, they...

(JNS) “I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, ‘If you’re not willing to live with these rules, then I’m going to close the synagogues,’” Governor Andrew Cuomo told religious Jews. His basis for the decree was a photo of mourners who weren’t practicing social distancing at a funeral. But the photo of a crowd of Orthodox Jews on Cuomo’s slide was from 2006. It was a very different message than Cuomo’s condemnation of bigotry when he had insisted, “There is zero evidence that people of Asian descent bear any additional responsibility for the transmission of the coronavirus.” The...

Several Orthodox Jewish groups and the Brooklyn Roman Catholic Diocese filed separate lawsuits against Gov. Cuomo on Thursday for shutting down businesses in COVID-19 hotspots in the city, and limiting entrances to houses of worship. The suits were filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, one by the Catholic Church and the other by Agudath Israel of America, Agudath Israel of Kew Garden Hills and other Jewish groups, including a few rabbis.

Business owners in COVID-wracked city neighborhoods targeted for a new lockdown ripped Mayor Bill de Blasio over the move Sunday. “My plan?! What’s my plan?! Start drinking?!” said Queens restaurant owner Syed Hossain when told of the mayor’s proposal to shut down indoor and outdoor dining again, as well as public and private schools and all non-essential businesses, in his and eight other neighborhoods starting Wednesday. Hossain, 24, is the owner of Tikka Indian Grill at 119-30 Metropolitan Ave., Kew Gardens — in zip code 11415, which had an average positive-test rate of 3.81 percent for the coronavirus for the...

New York City on Wednesday will close public schools and nonessential businesses in parts of Brooklyn and Queens that have registered a week-long spike in coronavirus cases, as the city works to stop an increase in the virus after keeping cases down all summer. Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a news conference Sunday that all schools and nonessential business in neighborhoods within nine ZIP Codes would close beginning Wednesday. The neighborhoods are Far Rockaway, Edgemere, Kew Gardens, Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok in Queens, and Borough Park, Gravesend, Homecrest, Midwood, Bensonhurst, Mapleton, Flatlands, Midwood, Gerritsen Beach, Homecrest and Sheepshead...

More than 70 bandits have been arrested three or more times in the last six months for muggings and armed robberies, and many are on the streets as judges give them multiple shots at freedom. Among them is teenager Anderson Ortiz, who was sprung three times this spring following arrests in Queens and Brooklyn — only to go on and violently mug an elderly Asian couple in May, according to police and court records. Cops say Ortiz, 19, grabbed the 63-year-old male victim from behind as he walked along 60th Street near Bay Parkway, Brooklyn, punched him several times in...

“Ghostbusters” star Rick Moranis, 67, got clocked by a passerby in an I [Heart] NY sweatshirt who punched him in the head without warning. Moranis, stunned, found himself picking himself up off the pavement on Central Park West with pain in his head, back and hip. Isolated incident, or the latest in a worrying trend? Aug. 23: A 66-year-old man was walking west on West 129th Street when a man came up and smashed him on the back of the head several times with a bottle. July 27: A 68-year-old woman standing on the L train platform at Sixth Avenue...

What is wrong with New York City? Their streets are lined with garbage from Wall Street to Midtown Manhattan. Lafayette Street near the New York Stock Exchange Garbage everywhere even though businesses remain closed and half the people normally working there haven’t stepped foot in the city for months.  It’s sort of a trick question, the answer is obvious. If these clowns don’t do something about their city pretty soon they’ll have a bigger health problem to worry about than COVID. Dead rats, flies – what could go wrong? But don’t worry, Mayor de Blasio has imposed a $1000 fine...

“Two weeks to flatten curve.” Remember that? It was several months ago now. The deal elected officials struck with the American people was to trade lockdowns for hospital capacity. The fear in the early days of the COVID pandemic was that hospital capacity would be overwhelmed if we didn’t lock down, curb activity, and so forth. So we got “two weeks to flatten the curve.” New York City built a hospital into its Javits Convention Center. President Trump sent a Navy hospital ship to handle the expected caseload. None of that capacity was needed. Way back in June, CNN declared...

by Joe Callen Federal agents say they finally have caught an illegal alien they’ve been after for several years but who was released 10 times by New York City authorities under Mayor Bill DeBlasio's radical sanctuary city policies. Jhonny Soto-Ubaldo was arrested on federal gun charges this month, giving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement a new chance to place a detainer on him requesting he be turned over for deportation after his time in the federal prison system is over. And this time it will be honored, since New York is out of the picture, thanks to the President. Federal agents were emboldened...

New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is urging Empire State lawmakers to raise taxes, despite opposition from Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Ocasio-Cortez called on Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to increase rates as the state battles a massive coronavirus-induced multi-billion-dollar budget hole. “I’m calling on Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo to raise revenue to fund universal child-care programs, significantly increase staffing at schools and fund the infrastructure improvements, including ventilation, that our school buildings need to be safe,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement obtained by The New York Post on Wednesday.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that early retirement incentives should be considered for city employees who are facing potential layoffs amid an ongoing budget crisis. De Blasio stressed during a press briefing that early retirement incentives, if offered, would only be a piece of the solution. "I think early retirement as a policy is something we have to put into play," he said. "So definitely a piece of the solution, it’s not the whole solution, but early retirement will definitely be a piece of the solution.