Earlier this week, Gov. Kathy Hochul recalled experiencing a mix of confusion and dread after seeing President Trump discuss his plans to close the Department of Education. She wondered: Would that endanger her expansion of free school lunches in New York? What would it mean for the state’s Pell Grant allocations? “We don’t have a … Read more
A federal appeals court in Washington on Wednesday kept in place, for now, a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of a violent street gang. By a 2-to-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District … Read more
Groups representing university professors sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, alleging that its practice of arresting and threatening noncitizen students and faculty members for protesting on campus deprives U.S. citizens of their right to engage with foreign-born peers and to hear their perspectives. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, takes a broader … Read more
Patsy Ferran will not judge a book by its cover. But covers are important to her. “See?” she said, palming a copy of a Barbara Kingsolver novel at a Brooklyn branch of McNally Jackson bookstore. “Such a good cover. Aesthetics do matter.” Ferran, a London-based actress, is currently starring in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named … Read more
When William Leggatt was at work as a renewal energy developer a couple of summers ago, he received a bizarre email from a superfan of “Operation Mincemeat,” a British musical about a wacky World War II intelligence plot. As the show outlines, the operation involved British spies dressing a corpse as a military officer, stuffing … Read more
Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at proposed changes in rules governing a seemingly permanent part of the streetscape in New York City: sidewalk sheds around construction sites and buildings undergoing repairs. We’ll also get details on a letter that raised questions about a Justice Department official’s testimony on the corruption case against Mayor … Read more
While federal officials are clashing with New York over congestion pricing, the tolling program that President Trump has vowed to kill, there is another transit fight underway between Albany and Washington. The $68 billion capital plan, a five-year budget proposal that includes a slew of critical upgrades for the subway, buses and commuter railroads, is … Read more
A lawyer for Columbia University said Tuesday that a demand from the Trump administration for dramatic changes in student discipline had merely sped up policies the university had already been planning to enforce. In a March 13 letter, the Trump administration said the university had failed to stop “antisemitic violence and harassment,” adding that policy … Read more
Lou Nasti was known as the Geppetto of Brooklyn for his glasses, his bushy gray mustache and, above all, his preternatural ability to grant sentience to toys. Using his robotics expertise, he animated legions of puppets and dolls for holiday displays around the world. His animatronics have been famous in the Dyker Heights neighborhood of … Read more
A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her. The student, Yunseo Chung, is a legal permanent resident and junior who has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the … Read more