Tag: New York City

NYC Teachers Union Gets Massive Pay Raise as Student Math Scores Plummet

Virginia Star Staff

The New York City teachers union struck a deal Monday guaranteeing a large pay raise in their new contract with the city while students’ math test scores continue to plummet, according to Reuters.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the United Federation of Teachers agreed to a $6.4 billion, five-year contract that includes a 15% pay raise for teachers over the period of the contract, according to Reuters. The new contract comes as just 38% of the city’s third through eighth graders met math grade-level expectations in 2022, an almost eight point decline from 2019, according to the Chalkbeat New York.

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Texas Sends First Bus of Illegal Border Crossers to Los Angeles

The Center Square

A bus of foreign nationals who illegally entered Texas and were apprehended and released by the Biden administration were taken to Los Angeles for the first time, Gov. Greg Abbott said. They were dropped off at the Los Angeles Union Station Wednesday evening.

“Texas’ small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun by the thousands of people illegally crossing into Texas from Mexico because of President Biden’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott said. “Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status. Our border communities are on the frontlines of President Biden’s border crisis, and Texas will continue providing this much-needed relief until he steps up to do his job and secure the border.”

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‘It’s Just Unacceptable’: The Border Crisis Is Overwhelming Schools in Some of America’s Most Populated Cities

Admin

The crisis at the southern border is overwhelming school systems in several metropolitan areas of the country, according to multiple reports.

New York City, Miami-Dade County, Denver and Chicago school systems have all had to adapt to the influx of migrants, according to reports. Border Patrol recorded more than 632,000 encounters of migrant families and unaccompanied children in fiscal year 2022 at the southern border and more than 365,000 in the first seven months of fiscal year 2023, according to federal data.

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NYC Mayor Adams Considers Abandoned Prison, Asks Property Owners to House Influx of Migrants

Just the News

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly considering housing migrants in a shuttered Hudson Valley prison.

He considered the idea in call with county officials Thursday, as New York City struggles to find accommodations for thousands more asylum-seekers expected to arrive following the expiration of the federal border policy Title 42, according to an audio tape obtained by Politico.

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Commentary: Biden’s Open Borders Are Bringing Diseases to Your Neighborhood

Admin

by Betsy McCaughey   Ready for another pandemic? New York City’s health commissioner announced last week that the influx of migrants from the southern border — more than 50,000 to New York City alone in the past year — is delivering contagious diseases, including tuberculosis and polio, to our neighborhoods.…

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Manhattan DA Has No Authority ‘To Enforce Federal Campaign Finance Crimes’: Ex-FEC Commissioner

Just the News

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump is legally “dubious” and motivated by political ambition, alleges legal expert Hans von Spakovsky. 

“It’s an extremely dubious prosecution, and I say that as a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission,” he told Just The News.

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Manhattan DA Bragg Scorched by Victims of Violent Crime During House Field Hearing in New York City

Just the News

Victims of violent crime in Manhattan on Monday cast much of the blame on District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his policies, during a GOP-led House hearing in New York City on the matter.

“Repeat offenders are plaguing New York City,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan. “Our plan this Congress, has been to include field hearings in some of our greatest cities to analyze and highlight how soft on crime policies hurt families, hurt communities, hurt small business owners. … What better place to start than New York City where videos of violent, senseless attacks appear almost daily.”

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Justice Department Announces Criminal Charges on China for Alleged Espionage Activities from New York City Outpost

Just the News

The Justice Department on Monday announced three cases involving China’s threat to national security, based on operations in New York City.

Just two miles from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York’s office, the People’s Republic of China opened an undeclared station for the Chinese National Police, officials said.

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AOC Concealed Thousands in Campaign Spending, Ethics Complaint Alleges

Admin

Democratic New York U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez concealed thousands of dollars in campaign spending, an ethics complaint exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation alleges. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint cites more than $9,600 in reported campaign credit card expenditures that lacked information on the purpose of the charges. Dan Backer filed the complaint on behalf of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a nonprofit organization that’s levied similar complaints.

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Influx of Migrants Bused to NYC Forces City to Cut Costs

Virginia Star Staff

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams has notified the majority of city agencies that they must make additional budget cuts following an unprecedented wave of migration, according to a letter distributed across the administration Tuesday and obtained by Politico.

The letter dictated that bureaus only have 10 days to cut their budgets by 4% for the upcoming fiscal year beginning July 1, according to Politico. The administration “has faced an unprecedented influx of asylum seekers into the city’s social service network” as well as numerous other expensive programs.

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Group Names Chicago, New Orleans as U.S. Murder Capitals

The Center Square

Chicago recorded 697 total homicides in 2022, far more than any other city in the United States, but New Orleans had the highest murder rate per capita, according to a new report from a nonprofit research group. 

Chicago had more total homicides in 2022 than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435) and Los Angeles (382), which rounded out the top five, according to a report from Wirepoints, an Illinois-based research and news organization that surveyed 2022 crime data from 75 of the largest U.S. cities.

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NYC Aims to Give 10,000 Free Abortions a Year Through New Program

Admin

New York City began offering free chemical abortions through a Bronx clinic Wednesday as part of a new program, which is slated to expand to several other boroughs this year, Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday. The city already offers abortion pills at some hospitals, but will be expanding the program to clinics in the Bronx, Queens, Harlem and Brooklyn in the coming year, according to Adams. The program will aim to provide 10,000 free abortions by pill each year, according to CNN.

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During Visit to the Southern Border, New York City Mayor Says His City Has ‘No Room’ for Illegal Migrants

Admin

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his city is at capacity and has “no room” for illegal migrants during a visit to El Paso, Texas, over the weekend.

Adams stressed that there’s misinformation going around that New York City is where illegal migrants can obtain housing and jobs, during a news conference Sunday in the border city. The Big Apple mayor has previously complained about the surges of illegal migrants coming to New York City on transports sent by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Democratic El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

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The Country’s Biggest School Districts Are Explicitly Hiding Kids’ Gender Transitions from Parents

Admin

The nation’s largest school districts are implementing policies that require educators to keep students’ gender transitions a secret from their parents.

Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools and New York Public Schools are promoting practices and policies that hide a student’s transgender status from their parents. The policies have become a cultural flashpoint amid a battle over the role parents should play in their child’s education, and the extent to which gender ideology has infiltrated K-12 classrooms.

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NYC to Spend More than Half a Billion Dollars Supporting Illegal Migrants

Admin

New York City is expected to spend nearly $600 million to support illegal migrants over the course of one year, according to a report released Sunday by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).

The city is expected to spend close to $580 million on shelter accommodations, public school, health care, legal assistance and other forms of aid, according to the IBO report. Approximately 23,000 illegal migrants have arrived in the Big Apple since April.

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‘This Is a Disgrace’: Experts, GOP Reps Call On the Biden Admin to Shut Down a Secret Chinese Police Station in NYC

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. government must immediately investigate and shutter the recently discovered overseas Chinese government police station in New York City for potential violation of U.S. laws, several experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established secret police stations in over 100 cities around the world to conduct intimidation and harassment operations against overseas Chinese, human rights organization Safeguard Defenders revealed in a September report. While other countries have announced probes into the alleged police stations, the location within American Changle Association — a Chinatown community organization in New York City — continues to operate outside legal boundaries and should be shut down, experts told the DCNF.

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NYC Abandons De Blasio-Era Admissions Policies as Families Flee Public Schools

Admin

New York City is changing its admission policies implemented by former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, now basing admissions to selective high schools and middle schools on test scores amidst the city’s enrollment drop, according to a press release by New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks.

In an effort to admit “top-performing applicants,” the top 15% of students with a grade point average (GPA) of 90 or above, will be vetted first for the selective schools, according to a press release by Banks. The previous admissions policy was a random lottery that allowed underperforming students to receive admission to the screened schools, introduced during the pandemic.

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Report: NYC Wants to Relocate Migrants Bused in from Texas to Florida

Virginia Star Staff

New York City officials are thinking about flying illegal immigrants out of the Big Apple to Florida after officials in Texas bussed 11,000 border crossers to the sanctuary city, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.

Manuel Castro, NYC’s Commissioner of Immigration Affairs, said that most of the migrants are from Venezuela, and they want to go to the Sunshine State because it has a large community of Venezuelans.

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Left-Wing New York City Elite School Administrator on Paid Leave After Project Veritas Video

Susan Berry, PhD

The school activities director who was heard boasting in a Project Veritas (PV) exposé video how easily she was able to indoctrinate her students in her leftwing political agenda has been placed on paid leave, according to a report at National Review.

Jennifer “Ginn” Norris was placed on paid administrator leave while Trinity School, a private school in New York City’s Upper West Side, has “hired outside counsel to conduct an investigation” into the PV undercover video, the report said.

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The Biden Admin Is Paying to Bus Illegal Migrants to New York City

Virginia Star Staff

The federal government is paying to bus illegal migrants from one border town to New York City, a Texas official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The city government of El Paso, Texas, is busing illegal migrants to the Big Apple on the dime of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino told the DCNF Monday. The federal agency covers the travel costs of illegal migrants through a grant program.

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Gov. Abbott Accelerates Busing of Foreign Nationals from Southern Border to New York City

The Center Square

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is accelerating the state’s busing to New York City of foreign nationals who’ve entered the U.S. through the southern border.

The majority coming in are believed to not have valid asylum claims, are bypassing federal immigration law, and instead of being deported are being released into the U.S. under new Biden administration policies, attorneys general who’ve sued the administration argue.

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‘Make My Day,’ Abbott Says to Adams in Response to Threats

The Center Square

The war of words between New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott escalated this week as buses of foreign nationals who’ve entered the U.S. illegally arrive in Adams’ city. The buses arriving at the Port Authority generally carry between 50 and 100 people. Abbott says that’s compared to the more than 5,000 apprehended a day in the five Border Patrol sectors in Texas at the southern border.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams: ‘We Have a Massive Hemorrhaging of Students’ from Public Schools

Susan Berry, PhD

New York City public schools are expected to lose nearly 30,000 students by this coming academic year says the city’s Department of Education Office of Student Enrollment, reports the New York Post.

Data from the department show 28,100 fewer students are expected to enroll in city public schools this fall, with another 2,300 fewer students by the end of the academic year, the Post noted, adding, “By the end of next school year, the largest school district in the nation expects to serve a student population of just 760,439 children, the data show.”

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Parents Flee the Public School System as Charter Schools See Surge in Enrollment

Virginia Star Staff

Enrollment in New York City schools is dropping while charter schools are seeing a growth in the number of students, according to a report published Wednesday by the Manhattan Institute.

Throughout all New York City schools enrollment declined with 80,707 fewer students enrolled in grades K-12 in the most recent academic year than in the 2019–20 academic year, the report said. The drop has been most pronounced in schools operated by the New York City Department of Education (NYDOE), where enrollment is down by 83,656 students, the largest drop the NYDOE has seen.

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‘Brazen Crime of Hate’: Catholic Church’s 19th-Century Tabernacle Stolen, Eucharist Strewn on Altar, Statues Beheaded

Susan Berry, PhD

A Roman Catholic Church in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York, was desecrated over the weekend when its antique tabernacle was cut out of its metal casing, its consecrated hosts scattered indiscriminately about the altar, and the angel statues that flanked it beheaded.

The Diocese of Brooklyn called the desecration of St. Augustine Church “a brazen crime of disrespect and hate.”

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Dem-Appointed New York Judge Unravels Liberal Plot to Racialize School Admissions

Admin

A New York judge tossed out a lawsuit Wednesday that alleged New York City schools’ Gifted and Talented programs created a racial caste system.

Integrate NYC along with 13 high school students brought the lawsuit against New York City in March 2021, seeking to eliminate the city’s Gifted and Talented programs as well as current middle high school admission screens, according to court documents. The lawsuit argued that the city’s Gifted and Talented programs were ” discriminatory gatekeeping mechanisms” and contributed to an “educational caste system.”

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Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Vacations to Florida, Escapes NYC Lockdowns

Virginia Star Staff

While COVID-19 cases surged in New York City, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was pictured vacationing in Florida, National Review reported.

Ocasio-Cortez was spotted drinking cocktails outside of a restaurant in Miami Beach on Thursday while New York City reported a record high number of COVID-19 cases, National Review reported. Ocasio-Cortez represents New York’s 14th congressional district, which includes parts of the Bronx and Queens.

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New York City Allows Illegal Aliens to Vote in Local Elections

Virginia Star Staff
Acting Executive Officer of the RGV U.S. Border Patrol Sector Oscar Escamilla, left, fields questions from tour participants as Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, right, leads a delegation of Congressional representatives on a tour of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Donna Processing Facility in Donna, Texas, May 7, 2021. Secretary Mayorkas updated the delegation on unaccompanied children arriving at our Southern Border as they viewed conditions at the facility. CBP Photo by Michael Battise

On Thursday, New York City took the unprecedented step of allowing all illegal aliens within the city to cast votes in local elections, becoming the largest locality in the United States to do so, CNN reports.

The Democrat-majority City Council passed a measure approving the new change to local election laws, formally titled “Our City, Our Vote,” by a margin of 33 to 14.

The new legislation declares that any illegals who have lived in the city for at least 30 days, such as green card holders, DACA recipients, and illegals with workers’ permits, are allowed to vote in elections for mayor, city council, public advocate, and borough president.

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Black Lives Matter Activists Promise ‘Bloodshed’ If NYC Brings Back Anti-Crime Units

Virginia Star Staff

Prominent leaders of a Black Lives Matter group in New York City promised violence if Mayor-elect Eric Adams brought back the city’s anti-crime units.

“If he thinks that they’re going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again,” Hawk Newsome, who co-founded Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, told the New York Daily News.

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New York City to Remove 200-Year-Old Thomas Jefferson Statue from City Hall

Virginia Star Staff

The New York City Public Design Commission voted to remove a historic statue of one of America’s leading Founding Fathers from City Hall, according to The Hill.

On Monday, the commission unanimously voted to relocate the statue from the City Council chambers. The vote comes after State Assemblyman Charles Barron (D-N.Y.) and his wife, City Councilwoman Inez Barron, first began the movement to remove the statue. Assemblyman Barron claimed, without evidence, that Jefferson was a rapist, while Councilwoman Barron insisted that removal of his statue was “not being revisionist.”

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NYC Teachers Make Last-Minute Appeal for Supreme Court to Block Vaccine Mandate

Virginia Star Staff

In a last-ditch effort to delay the Friday deadline for unvaccinated New York City teachers to receive the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, some teachers filed a petition for an emergency injunction, the New York Post reported.

Four plaintiffs appealed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor to stop the city from removing unvaccinated teachers from their posts by the deadline, according to the New York Post.

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Andrew Yang Leaves Democratic Party to Form His Own Third Party

Virginia Star Staff

Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang will soon be announcing the launch of his very own political party, after he has officially left the Democratic Party, the New York Post reports.

The former entrepreneur is set to announce his new party alongside the release of his new book, “Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy,” which comes out on October 5th. The book’s publisher, Penguin Random House subsidiary Crown, promotes the book as “a powerful and urgent warning that we must step back from the brink and plot a new way forward for our democracy.”

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Authorities to Shut Down New York Prison Where Jeffrey Epstein Died

Virginia Star Staff

Authorities on Thursday announced they plan to shut down a federal jail in New York City where alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, apparently due to suicide, The New York Times reported. The prison guards were later accused of sleeping and surfing the internet while on duty.

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University’s Redesigned Mascot is a Gender-Neutral, Climate-Change-Protesting, Social Justice Warrior

Virginia Star Staff

The New School’s mascot, a Narwhal named Gnarls, got a gender-neutral redesign for the Fall 2021 semester, the university reports.

Gnarls backstory includes an “unconventional” upbringing due to “distressing levels of ice loss” that forced the Narwhal’s family out of its Antarctica home.

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Public May Not See Net Benefit of Infrastructure Bill That Could Expand Rail in Northeastern Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Much fanfare surrounding infrastructure legislation in Congress focuses on road and bridge improvements, but the bill’s implications for relatively costly rail transit in northeastern Pennsylvania and elsewhere have gotten far less attention.

The current proposal to spend $66 billion on Amtrak would be the largest federal expenditure on passenger rail since the creation of the transit agency.

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Commentary: I’m Unvaccinated – and I Plan to Stay That Way

Virginia Star Staff

The word “confusing” is being used (even by the New York Times) to describe the CDC’s reasoning behind its announcement that masks must again be worn indoors, even by the fully vaccinated.

In fact, the CDC’s reasoning is clear, and talk about “confusion” is an attempt to conceal a straightforward assessment: As CDC head bureaucrat Rochelle Walensky said on Fox News on Friday, vaccinated people can still get the “delta” variant and can transmit it. Top medical mafioso Anthony Fauci said essentially the same thing last week—that for the delta variant there was no difference in the observed level of “virality” between people who were vaccinated and those who were not.

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Eric Adams Wins Democratic Primary in Race to Be New York City’s Next Mayor

Virginia Star Staff
Eric Adams

Former NYPD officer Eric Adams will be the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City after updated vote tallies gave him a narrow lead over former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia.

Adams led Garcia 50.5% to 49.5% when the Associated Press called the race, a full point closer than last Wednesday’s results. The city’s Board of Elections the day before had mistakenly counted approximately 135,000 invalid ballots, though the original incorrect results mirrored those released Wednesday.

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New York Mayor Race in Chaos, Thousands of Test Ballots Counted, Candidate Questions ‘Irregularities’

Virginia Star Staff

The election for the next mayor of New York City is in a state of confusion after the city’s board of elections released a new tally late Tuesday in the Democratic primary, then abruptly removed the tabulations citing a “discrepancy” due to counting thousands of test ballots.

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New York City Drops Majority of Rioting and Looting Cases from 2020

Virginia Star Staff
People looting Walgreens at night

Several borough District Attorneys in the city of New York have controversially decided to drop the majority of cases against rioters and looters who were arrested over the course of the last year, as reported by Breitbart.

The report first came from NBC New York, which says that “data reviewed by the NBC New York I-Team shows 118 arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting in early June.” Of those 118 cases, the Bronx DA has dismissed 73 cases, leaving only 45. There are still 18 cases open, and there have been just 19 convictions so far.

“In Manhattan,” the report continues, “the NYPD data shows there were 485 arrests. Of those cases, 222 were later dropped and 73 seeing convictions…another 40 cases involved juveniles and were sent to family court; 128 cases remain open.”

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New York City Has Lost 70K Residents, $34B in Personal Income

Virginia Star Staff

A net 70,000 New York City residents left the metropolitan region since COVID-19, resulting in roughly $34 billion in lost income, according to estimates released Tuesday from Unacast, a location analytics company.

Around 3.57 million people fled New York City between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7 this year — and they were replaced by some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes, the findings from Unacast said.

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300,000+ People Have Fled New York City Due to Coronavirus, Crime

Virginia Star Staff

More than 300,000 residents have fled New York City over the past eight months because of rising crime rates, school stress and the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from the New York Post.

Data obtained by The Post from the U.S. Postal Service under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, revealed residents filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through Oct. 31.

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Trio of Cities Take Trump to Court Over ‘Anarchist Jurisdictions’ Designation

The Center Square

Seattle, Portland, and New York City are suing President Donald Trump and his administration over legal actions that have put future federal funds on the line.

The joint lawsuit is in response to a memo issued by the Trump administration last month requesting U.S. Attorney General William Barr review a list of cities that could be considered hotbeds for civil unrest.

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New York City Could Lose Half of All Bars, Restaurants

Virginia Star Staff

The Daily Caller reports, New York City could see up to half its restaurants and bars close permanently in the next six months because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new audit released Thursday from the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

“New York City’s bars and restaurants are the lifeblood of our neighborhoods. The industry is challenging under the best of circumstances and many eateries operate on tight margins. Now they face an unprecedented upheaval that may cause many establishments to close forever,” DiNapoli said, according to an official statement.

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New York City Says Outdoor Dining Will Become ‘Permanent and Year-Round’

Virginia Star Staff

New York City plans to make its flourishing outdoor dining economy a permanent fixture of the city’s landscape going forward, municipal officials said in a press release on Friday. 

The city’s “Open Restaurants” program, which has enrolled thousands of establishments since it debuted in June, “will be extended year-round and made permanent,” the city announced in the press release.

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New York City Has Worst Unemployment Rate as One in Three Workers Worry About Job Security

Virginia Star Staff

As Americans approach Labor Day, with roughly 10.2 percent unemployed, a new survey conducted by WalletHub found that one in three Americans worry about job security.

In its nationally representative Coronavirus & Labor Day Survey, WalletHub found that Americans want extended COVID-19 relief. Of those surveyed, 74 percent said Congress should continue to extend additional federal unemployment benefits until their respective states fully reopen.

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