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Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a Staten Island bar a day after it was shut down and one of its owners arrested for publicly declaring itself an "autonomous zone" and not adhering to New York's COVID-19 measures. The crowd stopped traffic outside Mac's Public House in Grant City Wednesday night, demanding it be allowed to open for business. Throughout the day and well into the night, sheriff's deputies stood outside the entrance of the bar, which was shut down after it insisted on continuing indoor food and drink service - leading to too many cease and desist orders and fines...

What the L? Gov. Cuomo rocked the regional transportation world this week when he cheered a report suggesting that the existing cross-Hudson tunnels between New Jersey and New York don’t need a full shutdown to rebuild them, potentially throwing yet another wrench into the plan to build a new pair of tunnels to boost interstate rail capacity, a $13-billion piece of the Gateway Project. It’s the latest baffling twist in the decade-plus-long saga. On Sunday, the governor suggested that a report done for the Port Authority by consultants London Bridge Associates showed that the existing century-old tunnels could be fixed...

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — As families across New York City grapple with ensuring their children are getting an education amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, new data shows that enrollment at public schools is dropping across the five boroughs. According to preliminary data obtained by Chalkbeat, school rosters lost about 31,000 students compared to this time last year — or 3.4%. Current enrollment at New York City public schools is just over 901,000, not including charter schools or early childhood programs. The analysis found bigger drops in enrollment at elementary and middle schools, while high schools remain stagnant. Losses in enrollment...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that an Orthodox Brooklyn synagogue would be fined $15,000 for hosting a secret wedding packed with thousands of maskless guests, CBS New York reported. “That was amazingly irresponsible, just unacceptable,” the mayor told NY1, threatening “additional consequences.” Footage of the Nov. 8 nuptials at Yetev Lev temple in Brooklyn, obtained by the New York Post, showed celebrants singing and dancing shoulder to shoulder in a synagogue that reportedly seats 7,000. Most appear to be without masks and ignore social distance guidelines to control the spread of COVID-19. The Post reported the lengths...

It was 2 p.m. on Tuesday, what would normally have been a busy weekday as Thanksgiving neared. Alex Weisman, a stage and television actor, stepped off a train at a subway station on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and was punched twice in the face by a man who then fled. The assault injured Mr. Weisman’s skull in two places and tore one of his retinas. “There was nothing else I could have done to protect myself,” Mr. Weisman, 33, said on Friday. “I am shaken by this.” The day after Mr. Weisman was attacked, a man was shoved onto the...

The head of the NYPD’s largest union issued a stark warning to subway riders Friday amid the recent rash of shoving incidents by unhinged assailants: You’re on your own. PBA President Pat Lynch accused lawmakers of preventing cops from doing their jobs and advised straphangers to “keep both eyes wide open” to avoid being victimized. “The politicians have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want cops enforcing transit system rules, connecting the homeless with services, engaging with seriously mentally ill people or doing any of the things necessary to prevent these terrifying random attacks,” he said. ‘ “That is...

President-elect Joe Biden has promised to raise taxes on America’s richest corporations “on day one” of his presidency. Morris Pearl, a former managing director at BlackRock, writes that the Biden tax plan could be one of the most progressive the country has ever had that “maps out an equitable future for America.” Billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis disagrees. As CEO of Red Apple Group, Catsimatidis owns the largest supermarket chain in New York City, in addition to owning and operating assets in the energy, real estate, finance and insurance industries. “Giving the government more money to spend the government way —...

In two terrifying seconds, a Manhattan subway rider’s worst nightmare became a mass transit miracle. A deranged homeless man with a running start shoved an unsuspecting woman in front of an oncoming subway train Thursday in the Union Square station, with the helpless victim improbably landing in the roadbed between the tracks and emerging intact after two of the 70,000-pound cars passed over her. Video of the attack shows an unhinged Aditya Vemulapati, 24, pacing up and down the platform, sizing up the victim and then violently pushing the woman from behind with both hands in the instant before a...

A Queens parking spot dispute exploded into a wild road rage rampage, with one driver sucker-punching the other before crashing his car through the glass storefront of a newly-opened bakery, police said Tuesday. An enraged Jie Zou jumped from behind the wheel of his white Audi as another vehicle angled for the coveted space, slugging the other driver in the face before ruining the grand opening of the Rainbow Bakery by plowing his vehicle six feet inside the fledgling business, cops said. Terrifying cellphone video captured Zou making a U-turn and slamming his car into his rival, who went bouncing...

Just hit the wires in the past 10 minutes… From the email, which was sent by @DOEChancellor pic.twitter.com/QIxZFVDZEZ — Jillian Jorgensen (@Jill_Jorgensen) November 18, 2020

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on Wednesday revealed the city’s worst kept secret — he is running to replace Bill de Blasio as the next mayor of New York City. The former NYPD officer, who has already raised nearly $2.6 million for a run he has long been teasing, made the announcement via a virtual event to officially toss his hat into the crowded ring for the 2021 mayoral race. His campaign will be focused on appealing to more moderate portions of the party, including predominately black precincts in Central Brooklyn and southeastern Queens, experts say.

Independent journalist Megyn Kelly is pulling her children out of school and leaving New York City after her boys’ school promoted a call to “reform white children” and accused white people of “reveling in their state-sanctioned depravity” and slaughtering black people. Kelly, who founded Devil May Care Media, revealed a letter that her boys’ school administrators circulated among parents and faculty during an episode of her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” on Monday. Kelly said that she and her husband were pulling their children out of school and leaving New York City over the “out of control” racial social justice...

A prominent Brooklyn couple was sued by the city on Tuesday for allegedly trying to kick tenants out of their building in spite of a pause on evictions during the pandemic. The landlords, so-called “eco-builder” Gennaro Brooks-Church and his ex-wife Loretta Gendville, the former owner of a hipster kids’ boutique empire, are accused of harassing the inhabitants of their Crown Heights home in July to get them to move out. The incident made headlines over the summer when a group of protesters managed to stop what officials had blasted as a heartless and illegal eviction of tenants from the three-story...

One video appeared to show a bottom portion of the tree falling off as a crane lifted it into place. Could the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree look any worse? 2020on brand... pic.twitter.com/6K2n4bX9u7 - Rex Chapman (@RexChapman) November 17, 2020 Let the holiday season begin! The 2020 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has officially arrived at the Plaza. pic.twitter.com/RapXlMt1Fb - Rockefeller Center (@rockcenternyc) November 14, 2020 Many Twitter users joked that it looked like the sparse, small tree in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." 2020 Rockefeller Center christmas Tree be looking like Charlie Brown! LMFAOpic.twitter.com/wOIMdUFc1u - KEEM (@KEEMSTAR) November 17, 2020 pic.twitter.com/4NFqMNROKa -...

Coronavirus tests in New York City are coming back positive at the highest rate since the first wave of the pandemic receded in June, Big Apple officials revealed Wednesday as they again sounded the alarm about a COVID-19 second wave. “This is our LAST chance to stop a second wave,” tweeted Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We can do it, but we have to act NOW.” Figures from the city Health Department show that the average positivity rate for coronavirus tests taken over the last seven days has climbed to 2.52 percent — the highest rate since the Big Apple recorded...

Just two days after he broke social distancing guidelines, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is warning residents that the increase in positive coronavirus cases could result in more closures and restrictions. “God forbid this continued and we had a full-blown second wave. It means a lot more restrictions,” de Blasio said, as the positivity rate continued to exceed two percent in New York City. “It could mean, unfortunately, having to shut down parts of our economy again, which would be horrible for this city, horrible for the livelihoods of people. It could mean having to shut down...

Election Update Court Ordered Hearing on McCabe Emails and Texts U.S. Loses $19 Billion in Afghanistan to Fraud, Waste, Abuse Mayor Blames Virus for New York’s Crisis of Crime & Disorder Election Update I take no comfort in saying that we saw this coming. Back in June, for example, I told Lou Dobbs: “It’s been a state by state battle to protect the integrity of our elections. There will be a severe temptation to cheat, and now that’s going to be a lot easier to do because our system is going to be overwhelmed with ballots and applications for...

NEW YORK — Two hours before polls closed on Election Night and Rep. Max Rose was dancing in the street. That celebration was short-lived. Shortly before 11 p.m., Rose took the stage. He was behind. “I believe every vote should be counted,” the freshman congressman said. His Republican challenger, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, has a large lead, according to preliminary election results. She already claimed victory. NY1 spoke with her Wednesday afternoon. “I am sure he will concede on his own timeline,” Malliotakis said of Rose. "Look at the lead we have. 35,000 votes is pretty significant." While more than 41,000...

Republican challenger Nicole Malliotakis declared victory Tuesday night over Rep. Max Rose in the city’s only high-stakes congressional race — but the Democratic incumbent said thousands of mail-in ballots still need to be counted. Malliotakis, a state Assemblywoman who previous ran for mayor, was leading with over 57% of the votes Wednesday morning with 95% of the district reporting, polls show. But the Associated Press has not yet called a winner. “I need to thank President Trump for his strong support and endorsement,” Malliotakis said in a victory speech late Tuesday. “Today, Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn sent a loud...

A two-time murderer who’d been released on lifetime parole is back behind bars — after she was arrested on Friday for allegedly shooting a man in the neck during an argument at a Manhattan subway station earlier this month, police said. Before being released just last year, Rona Love, 59, had spent 25 years in prison for two murders she committed in the 1990s. She is now charged with attempted murder in an Oct. 18 shooting inside the 1/2/3 station at 14th Street and Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Twitter. The victim in that...