Chris Gelardi
@chrisgelardi
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Exasperated journalist investigating the criminal-legal system for @nysfocus . Also @theintercept , @thenation , many more. He/him. Send tips ⬇️
Queens, NY
Joined March 2013
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🚩 New, alarming
@nysfocus
piece: Some New York nonprofits have launched a fundraising blitz to send combat gear West Bank settlers, who have unleashed a wave of violence on Palestinians in recent weeks.
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In the past few months we've learned of:
- a man starving to death in an Arkansas jail
- a man starving to death in an Indiana jail
- a man being eaten alive by bugs in a Georgia jail
All three were being held pretrial.
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Amazing. No notes.
Actually, two notes:
1. The people who announced that cops found a "Molotov" were: (1) the NYPD chief of department, who was just found guilty of ordering a sergeant to void the arrest of a retired officer who chased kids with a gun, saying it was the kids...
This is a Molotov Cocktail that was found at tonight’s protest. We are committed to ensuring everyone’s right to protest. Violence has no place in civic demonstration. These actions will never be tolerated & anyone bringing weapons or dangerous substances will be arrested.
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...who should've been arrested, and dictating to the sergeant how to write the report; and (2) Eric Adams, who said none of that was a big deal.
2. Remember in 2020 when the NYPD found a bunch of construction material around the city and claimed that rioters had planted it?
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"This is a raid, Commissioner Shea"
#AbolitionPark
protesters, citing the NYPD's 3:40 am razing of their City Hall encampment a week prior, give the police commissioner a 2:30 am wakeup call
🔊🔊🔊
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Of course this is what happened. And I'm sure the premature blowback from new york dems had nothing to do with the current across-the-aisle effort to find any excuse to go full-blown rightwing on immigration.
Solid breaking news work from
@THECITYNY
.
🚨🚨🚨New Videos Contradict NYPD Account of Lead-Up to Times Square Attack on Cops
The surveillance footage shows Brito walking down the sidewalk away from the police officers, pushing a baby carriage that appears to be holding his possessions.
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He did not call the cops, but that's who showed up. He only speaks Spanish, but no Spanish-speaking cops came. They shot his son within 28 seconds.
And now, the NYPD is **not letting this father visit his son, who has a "slim" chance of survival, in the hospital.**
"I didn’t go asking for help just for him to get killed.”
Santo de la Cruz called 311 to get his son mental health treatment in a hospital. But — in a scene that lasted just 28 seconds — NYPD shot Raul, who now has a 10% chance of survival
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City Hall was very crazy tonight. I'm not sure how else to describe it. A ton of arrests. The cops would not let up with the sporadic violence, and protesters refused to take it sitting down.
(1/8)
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This closing scene is something else. The community responders nailed it. But at every step, they were hindered by the state's default: denial of services and threat of arrest.
The NYPD let Brownsville residents respond to 911 calls for 5 days.
One volunteer "persuaded a man going into a bodega with a gun to give him his weapon and go home."
From
@NYTimesCramer
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@emmagf
These counts leave out faculty, as well as students from other CUNY schools. And it includes arrests made outside campus; at CCNY, there were many, many arrests at protests outside the encampment.
You need to mention this, or else you're playing into officials' misdirection.
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Thread: Tonight, as activists with
@abolitionpark
were leaving a meeting at a park in BedStuy, they noticed police conducting a search warrant at a nearby apartment building. One tried to film the event. This is how the cops responded.
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New York's prison agency is cracking down on incarcerated people's journalism and art. New rules ban:
- depicting prisons in a way that could "jeopardize safety or security";
- mentioning their crime;
- getting paid for their work;
- and more.
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This is beautiful but so fucking tragic. A nonprofit is likely going to spend countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to mend a humanitarian disaster caused by the fascist whims of the White House.
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*New: The NYPD is keeping the roster of officers on its new Neighborhood Safety Teams secret. So I compiled a list of the cops who have taken NST training courses. Some have extensive complaint histories of excessive force and abuse of authority.
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@JacobReisberg
Fully agree. That was mostly a reference to a timely and urgent political battle in my state over a proposal to expand pretrial incarceration. Didn't expect this tweet to pop off like it did.
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Kinda awestruck right now. Protesters at
#OccupyCityHall
NYC talked about, voted on, then organized a defense of the encampment, then successfully pushed back a massive horde of NYPD riot cops early this morning.
Here's how these five incredible hours went down:
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🚩More connections between New York nonprofits and Israeli settler violence
In the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, settlers with rifles and dogs came to dig up land and homes they apparently surruptitiously purchased.
The group behind that: ...
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Another recent case: a person freezing to death in an Alabama jail
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Takeaway from tonight: Folks seem even more fed up with the nypd than before, if that's even possible. And the nypd is ready to respond to that frustration with, of course, violence.
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"If we don't get no justice, then you don't get no sleep"
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NYPD currently blocking hundreds from entering Grand Central to join the demonstration.
ALL OUT TOMORROW. MOURN THE DEAD, AND FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THE LIVING.
In the last two weeks, over 6500 Palestinians and 1400 Israelis have been killed.
This is an emergency of historic proportions.
Ceasefire now to save lives.
RSVP for location at .
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*New in
@nysfocus
: The NYPD recently revealed that it has more than doubled its comms division to 86 staffers — more than most local newsrooms. We know (mostly) who they are.
Meet the Cops Running the NYPD’s 86-Member Public Relations Team
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Oh yeah and the ny attorney general is suing the nypd for its brutal response to protests lol.
New York Attorney General Tish James is suing NYC and the NYPD following an investigation that found widespread civil rights abuses on the part of the department during this summer's racial justice protests.
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Over at least eight years, the New York State Police bought various social media monitoring programs that violated platforms' policies and have been used to surveil BLM.
Hochul has sought to beef up the State Police's internet surveillance capabilities.
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they're beating people, just right there in front of everyone
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This is old info, but worth re-highlighting:
CUNY has signed an up-to $4m contract with a private security firm, which says it will combat Gaza solidarity demonstations' "non-permissive asymmetrical guerrilla warfare tactics" (???). The firm brags about training in Israel.
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As we've all witnessed countless times before, here are lieutenants and the SRG unilaterally perpetrating what much of tomorrow's local press will describe as "clashes."
Outside police are making multiple arrests, activist Dwreck Ingram is pinned down.
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All of this was under the pretext of protesters occupying the street (even though they had just marched across the Brooklyn Bridge road). Ppl would refuse to disperse, then cops would get violent, then ppl would gather again, then cops would tackle more, over and over.
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NYPD took off with some poor person's bike during a protest last night.
I'm not sure why; this was right after a brief scuffle with arrests, but the bike was nowhere near where that was happening.
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The cops would escalate by targeting people seemingly at random. Like here they're backing up, but one cop points to a guy standing in the street, so a bunch of them book after him.
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And that protest was in response to this:
A source from tonight's Brooklyn protest says an NYPD officer brandished a gun at protesters.
Photo credit asked to be identified as French:
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NYC's Palestine march today was massive. No one I spoke with while walking with it had seen the front or back or knew where it was. Red and green and white and black as far as the eye could see.
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In
@theintercept
, new revelations about the DC police gang database. Among others:
-It’s some 88 percent Black people; almost no white entries.
-Cops are adding more children to it.
-Over one third of entries aren’t even accused of being in a gang.
🧵
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As Memphis disbands its "hot spot" SCORPION unit, Kathy Hochul is proposing to double state funding for similar initiatives across New York (after already having doubled it last year).
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Note that all of this took place at the same location at which nyc protesters set up an encampment for several weeks this summer, which was the source of a lot of activist energy here. I heard a lot of ppl talking super sentimentally about the space tn.
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This is (what, 100+? 200+?) cops rushing a few dozen lingering protesters at union square bc they were standing in the bike lane
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This was at a demonstration put on by black lives matter groups in new york city. Apparently I wasn't clear enough about that.
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Several dozen NYPD cops—including the Strategic Response Group—here to clear an encampment of four (4) tents near Tompkins Square. Arrests of residents and allies about to happen. A lot of threatening reporters with arrest as well.
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For weeks before he unexpectedly died in Iraq Tuesday, I had been reporting on
#JimmyAldaoud
. Read the full story of his life; his family; his struggles with homelessness, mental illness, and diabetes; his deportation; and his death, in
@theintercept
.
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*New: A trove of hacked emails provides the most in-depth picture yet of DC police's gang database.
Like other gang databases, the MPD's employs nebulous criteria, is riddled with errors, and is used to justify aggressive policing of Black communities.
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Ateret Cohanim, the beneficiary of a Long Island-based nonprofit
@nysfocus
reported on last week.
The pair of groups aim to overtake occupied East Jerusalem and the Old City. They reject the existence of Palestine and Palestinians' rights to the land.
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Hochul released her latest bail reform rollback proposal today.
Except it's not really a rollback of the 2019 bail reforms -- it's a rollback of a foundational tenet of New York's criminal procedures.
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Wow.
@nysfocus
predicted that Adams would contract with this company -- which overpromises and whose tech has, historically, been a mess -- two years ago.
Experts foresee false alerts, commuting delays, more contact with police.
.
@NYCMayor
is announcing that weapon detection system Evolv will be piloted in the subway, as reported by ABC7 earlier today.
But first – the city will publish an impact and use policy on the tech, triggering 90 day wait period, as required by POST Act.
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#NYPD
arresting a legal observer from
@NLGnews
in the
#Bronx
. Woman in the red hat is holding paperwork saying they are essential workers. It's barely past 8:00.
#FTP4
#nycprotests
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I'm here on Guam, with its:
-massive military logistical capacity,
-two huge bases,
-vacant hotels,
-visitor vaccination program,
-history of refugee processing, and
-gracious residents, whose offers to house Afghans were met with months of silence.
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Eric Adams is building a Cop City for NYC.
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New York banned facial recognition and other biometric tech in schools in 2020. But it seems like the entire state government has forgotten about it? And schools are still buying "face analytics" tools.
Solid accountability work in
@nysfocus
today:
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🚨Opportunity for early-career / freelance investigative reporters!
@nysfocus
is seeking a reporting assistant for a document-based investigation into county jails.
🧵 of details:
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At the debrief, there's widespread acknowledgment that everybody is learning -- very quickly getting better at communicating and organizing, to keep the movement and momentum going. And today was a testament to that.
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As journalists, "we are appalled at the slaughter of our colleagues and their families by the Israeli military and government."
It is not nearly enough, but proud to have signed this. And to have colleagues who did the same.
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.
@AlmondMilkHotel
has video of the nypd's attack. Looks like a cop grabs one person by the shirt from across the barricade, then they swarm.
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The groups' efforts in the Armenian quarter involve purchasing a tract via a front corporation without the community's knowledge. Armenian quarter officials want to cancel the deal, but Ateret Cohanim is trying to enforce it by intimidation.
1/5 URGENT COMMUNIQUE
ATTENTION ALL: The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem is under possibly the greatest existential threat of its 16-century history. This existential-territorial threat fully extends to all the Christian communities of Jerusalem.
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This groups are unabashed in their goals of Zionist expansion and violent in their rhetoric. Here is how the executive director talked about Gaza in a recent video to supporters.
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A group of Guam activists has sued the Air Force over its proposal to "treat hazardous waste munitions ... by blowing up waste munitions directly on the sand and burning waste munitions in the open air" near/over Guam's sole-source aquifer.
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"Excited delirium" is a debunked syndrome often used to justify police killings, including of Floyd, McClain, Prude.
In December, we found that the NYPD trains recruits to violently subdue people supposedly experiencing it. Now, there's a bill to ban it.
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Feels like every week I learn of yet another seemingly arbitrary rule that makes prisons unliveable.
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*New: A pro-Israel PAC has quietly channeled hundreds of thousands into New York Assembly Dem primaries.
We've identified at least $300,000 in hedge fund, real estate, and Republican money given to opponents of progressive candidates.
w/
@jul1arock
:
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Extremely alarming. The org supporting this battalion — accused of ergregious human rights violations — is based in New York.
This week,
@ZohranKMamdani
and other state legislators, with support from
@AOC
, re-intro'd a bill to strip similar groups of their nonprofit status.
NEW: The U.S. backed off sanctioning an IDF battalion w documented human rights violations including actions that led to the death of an American citizen. The leader of the battalion’s U.S. nonprofit arm (yes) has given almost $100k to AIPAC’s super PAC
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*New in
@nysfocus
*: You've heard of pretrial detention. New York has pretrial imprisonment.
County jails send unconvicted people with mental illnesses to state prisons.
They say it's to get them care. The reality is something different.
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In the recently relaunched, worker-led
@theappeal
, one of the crazier stories I've written.
Internal DC police documents offer damning detail after damning detail about an aggressive robbery unit that operated in 2012 and 2013.
Read 👇🏼. Scroll for 🧵.
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(First video was apparently taken by a neighbor, and shared with me by an activist. Second video is me frantically recording Instagram Live playing on my laptop.)
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Wow. New York City enacted a local version of this freelancer protection bill — which establishes rights to a written contract, timely payment, etc — in 2017. Hochul just vetoed a statewide version.
My statement on Governor Hochul's veto of my Freelance Isn't Free Bill:
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"We're the collateral damage of empire, and empire is betting on us being exhausted."
For
@thenation
, I spent three weeks on Guam documenting the indigenous resistance to a US military buildup.
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This cop informed the group that the person arrested for filming the search is being charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. The 79th is keeping her overnight, and transferring her to criminal court in the morning.
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In the state budget due Friday, New York is slated to quietly expand police surveillance with an entire new network of intelligence hubs, new phone hacking tech, and more funding to intel networks and a fusion center.
Today in
@nysfocus
and
@theintercept
:
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.
@nhannahjones
gets standing ovation at IRE for demanding diverse newsrooms. 15 minutes later, award after award goes to all-white teams.
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***Rikers staff repeatedly altered records, hiding violations of a 24-hour time limit for holding people in notoriously squalid intake cells, documents show.
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Activists then retreated back to the park. They're now working on jail support. This cop informed a group that two of the arrestees were taken to the hospital.
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Another recent case: a Georgia jail denying a person medical attention for so long that he died of testicular cancer
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This is actually fucking wild.
1. NY's top court has a rigid center-right majority.
2. Chief judge leaves.
3. Gov calls for new direction and the protection of repro rights.
4. She nominates a **conservative with a bad repro rights record**.
🧵of
@sammellins
/
@nysfocus
coverage:
new: NY Gov. Kathy Hochul has nominated Hector D. LaSalle, the presiding justice of the state supreme court’s second department, as chief judge of the state court of appeals, NY’s highest court. if appointed, LaSalle would be the first Latino chief judge on the court, says Hochul
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Putting these out there (again) because reporters are going to get them so wrong over the next week.
1. Hochul's bail proposal would undo a foundational tenet of NY law, not a facet of the 2019 bail reforms.
2. Judges can already set bail for felonies categorized as violent.
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More from last night from Copwatch (copwatchpatrolunit on Instagram).
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"We have seen a number of crimes -- and again, not statistically significant, but psychologically significant."
"It is safe. But I'm going to make sure people feel safe."
Does the National Guard rummaging through your bag make you feel more safe?
Gov. Hochul on Morning Joe calls the deployment of National Guard and State Police is part of a “psychological” reinforcement for New Yorkers to feel safer
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Celebration 🎉 "You about to lose yo job." The protesters keep one line in place just to be safe, while the rest of the group retreats to the middle of the encampment -- time for food, water, guided meditation, debriefing, cleaning, resting, and waiting for replacements.
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For
@nysfocus
and
@FastCompany
, I went realllll deep on the weapons detectors Eric Adams wants in the subway. Long story short: There are issues.
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another angle of the nypd smashing in a car's windows at the protest in Brooklyn last night.
"I'm trying to go home"
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absolutely fucking obscene
A mother of two students raced to Robb elementary school in Uvalde once she heard reports of a shooter. She was forty miles away.
Once she got there, the police still hadn't entered. And they swiftly put her in handcuffs.
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Detroit activists sued and won temporary court orders over cops' brutal response to BLM protests. So the city took the novel step of suing them back, and is waging a... curious legal battle. My latest in
@theintercept
.
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Per the
@NYCLU
: a huge uptick in NYPD stops in early 2024.
Stop-and-frisks: At their highest point since 2015, and over 40% higher than any quarter last year.
59% of those stopped were black, 32% latino, 6% white. Over two-thirds didn't result in a summons or arrest.
...
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Extremely excited to announce that New York Focus is unionized!! With 100 percent support from non-managerial staff ✊🏼 and voluntary recognition from
@nysfocus
managememt.
So proud of my colleagues, and eager for productive collective bargaining.
News from the workers of
@nysfocus
. We’ve unionized with 100 percent support. Below is our mission statement.
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Some personal news: I got a cat.
Also, I'm the newest staff reporter at
@nysfocus
! Starting this week, I'll be investigating various facets of the criminal-legal system in new york state.
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"New York is home to three of the top ten cities for child poverty in the country. More than two in five kids in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo live in poverty."
New York has the fifth-highest rate of child poverty in the country.
After the federal government failed to expand the child tax credit, will Albany finish the job?
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Protesters hold the line. Eventually the cops back into the middle of the road. There's a verrrrry long standoff while the riot cops wait for crews to load the debris from the barricades onto trucks. Cops eventually start to leave. The last of the cops don't walk away until 7:34.
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**Big late-night
@jul1arock
scoop: Pro-Israel PACs have gone local.
The Republican treasurer and Democratic director of a pro-Israel political group have launched a PAC to challenge progressive Dems in the New York state legislature.
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