Kathy Hochul Becomes Governor + Eviction Protections Weakened
No 233
Monday, August 30, 2021
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Local News
- Federal COVID unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of the week, potentially cutting off crucial support to New Yorkers as the city continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
- NYC public schools issued a full COVID vaccine mandate for all Department of Education staff without an alternative such as weekly testing. The mandate came just as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine.
- More than 1,500 classrooms still require ventilation repairs as NYC schools prepare to reopen.
- Union leaders representing CUNY faculty and staff demanded improved COVID protocols and transparency as the university system resumes in-person instruction for the fall semester..
- Gov Kathy Hochul appointed State Senator Brian Benjamin of Harlem as Lieutenant Governor.
- Before leaving office, Governor Cuomo granted clemency to five incarcerated men including David Gilbert, a former member of the Weather Underground and father of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin.
- Why is East Harlem 31 degrees hotter than Central Park West? A citizen science project is mapping heat inequity in New York City, which is dependent on other patterns of inequity such as race, income, air quality, and access to air-conditioning.
- A wave of violence and staffing shortages have plagued Rikers Island this summer, according to a federal monitor appointed to oversee the City’s jails.
- Barney, the 1,500 pound runaway Long Island bull, is still on the lam.
Elections
- Ranked choice voting likely changed the results of only three (out of 63) elections across the city. In the other 60 elections, the top first-choice vote-getter was victorious.
- Republicans are defending one of the three City Council seats they hold, and the only one in Queens, in what could be a close general election race in District 32 (Breezy Point).
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