Capital New York

A Yale history professor sees a pattern in the NYPD's surveillance of Muslim student groups

Abbas Amanat, a Yale history professor with a focus on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, says he finds it "difficult to believe that student associations at Yale and elsewhere in the universities are hotbeds of extremism." More

Posted on February 22nd, 2012 3:55pm

Bloomberg's $1 billion in new taxi-medallion revenue is still a glimmer on a very distant horizon

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2013 budget is premised in part on the idea that the city will make $1 billion from the sale of new wheelchair-accessible taxi medallions. But it's going to be a good while before the city is in a position to see a penny of that revenue. More

Posted on February 22nd, 2012 1:39pm

What can Andrew Cuomo actually do about Indian Point?

Andrew Cuomo has been talking about closing the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester for a long time—since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, during his first, unsuccessful run for governor. More

Posted on February 22nd, 2012 9:40am

Bloomberg says he will appeal a judge's decision on a controversial homeless-intake policy

A city court ruled today that single homeless people don't have to prove that they have no other options before becoming eligible for admission to city homeless shelters. The ruling is a rejection of a city proposal that had already prompted the City Council to threaten a lawsuit against the administration.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg reacted strongly to the ruling, defending the city's proposed policy change. More

Posted on February 21st, 2012 4:40pm

Asked whether he's given money to Americans Elect, Bloomberg says he likes the group's founder

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or at the very least his staff, has in the past toyed with the notion of mounting a third-party bid for president, logistical obstacles notwithstanding. Investment banker Peter Ackerman's Americans Elect seeks to overcome those obstacles, and would seem a natural beneficiary of Bloomberg's largesse, given his open distaste for the two-party system. But if Bloomberg's is backing of the organization, which has been criticized for its lack of financial transparency, he's not saying. More

Posted on February 21st, 2012 3:23pm

Bloomberg blasts questions from the Yale president (and reporters) on the NYPD's Muslim-student surveillance

Responding this morning to a question about the NYPD's reported surveillance of Muslim student groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "I don’t know why keeping the country safe is antithetical to the values of Yale." More

Posted on February 21st, 2012 2:21pm

Michael Grimm and Frank Lautenberg make a moon-shot toll gesture

Representative Michael Grimm, embattled Republican of Staten Island, has called his and Senator Frank Lautenberg’s proposal to confer ultimate authority over Port Authority toll hikes to the federal government the “most realistic and viable solution" to rising fares.

It's a resonant issue for Staten Islanders who feel unduly burdened by this summer’s Port Authority toll hikes. More

Posted on February 17th, 2012 3:30pm

On Bloomberg's Alley versus Valley designs, Tumblr's David Karp explains that the flavors are different

Following a press conference this afternoon at which the mayor predicted the city would one day surpass Silicon Valley as the nation's tech capital, Tumblr C.E.O. David Karp qualified things a bit.

New York City was just starting to develop its own distinctive tech "flavor," Karp said, after the event in Tumblr's Flatiron headquarters. More

Posted on February 16th, 2012 1:49pm

The Council tries, and fails, to get the NYPD to talk about its reckless-driver policy

Since 2005, about 72,000 pedestrians, drivers, passengers and cyclists have been injured in car crashes. But thanks to a loophole in New York City law, unless a driver is proven to have been drunk or distracted, or the accident victim dies or is so seriously injured as to be categorized “likely killed,” the police don't usually do much of anything.

In part, that’s because the NYPD’s expert squad of accident investigators, the kind of officers who can derive meaning from the width of skidmarks, numbers only 19. More

Posted on February 15th, 2012 4:58pm

Bloomberg sticks with the difficult position on national tax revenue

Just hours after President Obama unveiled a 2013 budget plan that relies in good part on raising taxes on the rich, Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated the president’s plan does not go far enough in raising revenue.

As he has done many times since late last year, he called for the elimination of all of the Bush-era tax cuts, saying, “It’s the only ways we’re gonna close the budget deficit.” More

Posted on February 13th, 2012 4:05pm