Some New Yorkers Eligible for Booster Shots + Cuomo Not Leaving Quietly

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Local News

• Immunocompromised New Yorkers are now eligible for COVID-19 booster shots. The booster shots are only authorized for people who originally took the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, not Johnson & Johnson, and must be the same brand as the first two shots.
• Assembly Members Marcela Mitaynes and Zohran Mamdani were arrested along with prospective Council Members Alexa Avilés and Sandy Nurse while protesting against the Supreme Court’s repeal of New York’s eviction moratorium.
• The housing movement in New York is organizing to pressure incoming Governor Hochul to act immediately to fix the State’s rent relief program and address the Supreme Court’s eviction moratorium repeal.
• Over two years after congestion pricing was first passed by the State in 2019, the MTA reached an agreement with the federal government to move forward with a plan.
• The Mayor’s order that City employees must either be vaccinated or submit to weekly Covid tests has had limited success in boosting vaccination rates in its first month.
• Over half of NYPD officers remain unvaccinated, so the department has insisted that unvaccinated officers must wear masks, even as their compliance with mask mandates has been lackluster.
• The City Council will hold an oversight hearing on the Department of Education’s plan for school reopenings on September 1st, two weeks before the first day of school.
• The Department of Education will change how it responds to sexual misconduct allegations after settling a lawsuit with four students who claim the schools failed to protect them.
• Many community boards plan to defy the State’s open meetings law and continue convening over Zoom. The law, which requires public meetings to advertise their addresses and be open to all, was suspended during the state of emergency, which ended on June 24 of this year.

Andrew Cuomo News

• On Governor Cuomo’s last day in office on Friday, his personal attorney attacked the Attorney General’s report over “fairness issues” and demanded corrections.
• New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie promised to share the results of the Assembly’s impeachment inquiry for Governor Cuomo.

Elections

• India Walton’s upset victory in Buffalo mayoral primary in June was overwhelmingly powered by renters, according to an analysis by NYS Focus.
• Tiffany Cabán discussed “budget justice” with Ben Max of the Gotham Gazette.