The Bronx District Attorney’s Office will investigate a New York City Police officer who fatally shot a mentally ill Bronx woman, after the state’s Attorney General’s office said Thursday they lacked jurisdiction to prosecute the case. “Our Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit has determined that this incident falls beyond my office’s jurisdiction under the Governor’s Executive Order,” AG Eric Schneiderman told reporters. The law, which gave the state the power to investigate local police shootings, was created in July to oversee deaths of an unarmed civilians. Police say the 66-year-old woman, Deborah Danner, first threatened officers with scissors and then charged at them with a bat when they responded to her apartment following a report of a resident screaming. “I believe there is no question this case must be investigated,”Schneiderman said. (New York Post)
The top elected official in Nassau County and a Republican power player in Long Island politics, Edward P. Mangano, was arrested Thursday on charges he exchanged lucrative government contracts in exchange for favors, including all-expenses-paid vacations. Long dogged by reports of impropriety, federal prosecutors outlined a scheme dating back to 2010 where he traded official, government favors to a local restaurateur — including providing food to officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy — in exchange for a luxury chair, a desk and a $7,500 watch. Mangano’s wife Linda, who was also arrested, was paid $450,000 for a no-show job as a food taster over four years. (New York Times)
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to reconstruct homes damaged in Hurricane Sandy will fall short of its goal due to a “tangle of bureaucracy,” according to a report released Thursday. Last October the mayor pledged that homes accepted into Build It Back, a controversial rebuilding program, would be completed by the third-anniversary of the storm. Instead, the report outlined, many rebuilding projects have not begun. The report, which was released by City Hall, stresses most homes will either be constructed or under construction by the end of year. “We will fall short of that goal, for which my team and I take personal responsibility,” de Blasio wrote. (DNAinfo)
There are more homeless people in the city’s shelters than ever before. That, according to new figures published Wednesday, pegs the city’s homeless population north of 60,000 — up more than 10,000 since 2014. The surge is putting stress on shelters, which local officials complain are being built in their neighborhoods without notification from City Hall. The numbers are down from official estimates, but critics say women and children comprise more than 70 percent of the homeless population. (NY1)
“I don’t like to see them dirty. No matter how poor we were, my mom would say, ‘Wash your hands.’ So, for me, it’s human dignity to be clean. So basic,” artist and activist Ai Weiwei said in an interview with the New York Times, published today. Ai, whose work documenting the plight of refugees has won him international praise, has a new exhibit in New York next month. Over the past year 59-year-old has visited refugee camps in North Africa, Europe and the Middle East. At one on the Greek-Macedonian border, he collected the garments refugees left behind when they were forced to flee. After washing and ironing them, he brought them to New York, where he lived during the 1980s. “The migrants have to go through mountains, they have to jump into boats — there is no time to wash. They have to throw away dirty stuff. There’s nothing artistic about it. It’s daily life. It’s human struggle.” (New York Times)
