New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says serious reform to the budget for the NYPD is coming. The Mayor announced a plan to shift funding to youth initiatives, Sunday.

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“The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead. But I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio also added that law 50-A, which concerns the disciplinary records of law enforcement, will be history: “Let’s make 50-A as we knew it a thing of the past, so we can have transparency in the disciplinary process to give the public confidence.”

“I want it to be abundantly clear to all New Yorkers. These are first steps to what will be 18 months of making intense change in this city. The work of this task force is crucial. This is a transformative moment,” he added.

De Blasio’s announcement comes after ample public pressure to reduce the budget of police departments across the county. NYC City Council Speaker Corey Johnson explained why this needs to be done earlier this week: “Given the scale of the financial crisis we face and the urgent need for the city to transform our criminal justice system, we know the budget will include meaningful cuts to the NYPD budget. I am working with my colleagues to determine how we can reduce the budget and reallocate those dollars to instead invest in our communities. But this is not just about budget cuts. We also need structural change and transformational reform in the police department, while investing in communities as much as possible during this unprecedented budget crunch.”

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New York City will begin the first phase of its reopening process Monday, June 8. Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the date proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this week.

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“[These businesses] were chosen because you can create physical separation,” said Mayor de Blasio. “That’s a lot of employees coming back to work … we want to emphasize safety throughout. We say ‘restart’ — we do not mean rushing back to something we used to think of as normal. We do not mean flicking a switch and suddenly everything is where it was again. We have to make sure this virus is in check. We’ve come a long way, not going to blow it now.”

Gov. Cuomo said he planned to have the city open on June 8th, last week, contradicting de Blasio, who said a date had not been determined at that time.

“It is reopening to a new normal. It’s a safer normal. Reopening doesn’t mean going back to the past,” Cuomo explained. “People will be wearing masks. It’s just a new way of interacting, which we have to do.”

De Blasio says that New York City will be giving out 2 million free masks to employees returning to work during phase 1.

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It’s being widely reported that over 1,000 people were arrested over the weekend across various American cities as protests erupted, but there was one name that caused quite the controversy. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has come forward to speak out about his daughter’s personal information being shared on Twitter by the Sergeants Benevolent Association union. The organization to their Twitter account to report that Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s 25-year-old daughter, was arrested during a protest on Saturday (May 30).

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In an illegal move, The New York Times reports that the police union shared documents related to Chaira de Blasio and her arrest, along with “personal details, including her height, weight, address, date of birth and driver’s license information.” Twitter later removed the post as it violated their rules. Then, the social media network “temporarily locked” the union’s account for “doxxing.”

The union, in their deleted Twitter post, reportedly questioned how the New York Police Department could protect the city from “rioting anarchists” when “the mayor’s object-throwing daughter is one of them.” The mayor stated his daughter was engaging in a peaceful protest and wasn’t involved in any rioting or looting in the area. However, because she was asked to leave the area and refused, she was taken into custody.

Edward D. Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, defended the tweet. “The message was that cops are being pelted with rocks, cars are being set on fire and our police department is being held back,” Mr. Mullins said. “Is that why you’re tying our hands, because your daughter is out there?” Mr. Mullins said. “This needs to be looked at.”

On Monday (June 1), Mayor Bill de Blasio responded by saying, “The S.B.A. did something unconscionable, and it’s not just because it’s my daughter. They do this all the time with people’s privacy.” He continued, “When they leak information on someone, it’s absolutely inappropriate, but I’m not going to tell you that it’s only happening to my child, it’s happening to people every single day.”

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Protests have erupted all across the country in light of the murder of George Floyd and countless other people of color at the hands of the police. These protests have gotten violent although the escalation always seems to be induced by the cops and not the actus protesters themselves. In New York City, this is especially true as the police are constantly being caught on video getting rough with the people who are peacefully protesting.

According to reporter Lisa Evers, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has now revealed that the city will be doing an independent investigation into the way the police are treating protesters, although this review will also go both ways. It seems as though New York also wants to look at how protesters have been treating the police.

As of right now, it remains to be seen how these protests will continue to play out. Yesterday was the fifth night of protesting and the government doesn’t seem all that interested in restoring people’s faith. Simply put, people are angry and until some tangible change is created, these protests could go on for quite some time.

Stay tuned for all of the updates as we will be sure to bring them to you.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is extending the state’s stay-at-home order until May 15, as announced in a press conference, earlier this week.

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“What happens after then? I don’t know,” Cuomo said of the new end date. “We will see depending on what the data shows.”

In addition, Cuomo is requiring anyone outdoors and not social distancing to wear face masks. If you enter public transportation, they are required.

New York City is preparing to use 11,000 empty hotel rooms for COVID-19 quarantines. “Our projections told us we might have to use a vast number of hotels, dozens and dozens, to be able to accommodate all the medical needs,” Mayor Bill De Blasio said. “So far, thank God, that has not been the case.”

“If there is a threat that someone might get infected in the home and it might spread amongst the members of that family, we have to guard against that,” he said.

New York City is expected to see a $7.4 billion loss in tax revenue from the COVID-19 pandemic over the next 15 months.

Thursday, the day of the press conference, New York recorded 606 deaths, the fewest in 10 days. The total is over 12,000.

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As New York City becomes the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that New Yorkers who ignore social distancing guidelines could face fines from $250 to $500.

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“You’ve been warned and warned and warned again … When we say you can go out for some exercise, we’re not saying you can linger,” de Blasio said during a press conference, Sunday. “We’re not saying you can make a day of it. We’re saying go out, get a minimum amount of exercise and go back indoors. We will be enforcing this but with understanding for the challenges that people are facing, for how new this is.”

New York Police Department officers will now warn people to disperse, and if they ignore officers pleas, they will face penalties. 

He continued: “We’re not going to be Draconian. We’re going to give people a chance to get used to this, but I guarantee you: we will enforce this new reality.”

New York currently has over 32,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 678 deaths related to the Coronavirus. There is also a shortage of masks, as de Blasio told CNN that the city will be out of supplies after one week.

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Former New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury is negotiating a deal to send a surplus of 10 million N95 masks to New York City from China but is running into issues with the deal.

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“At the end of the day, I am from Brooklyn,” Marbury told the NY Post. “This is something that is close and dear to my heart as far as being able to help New York.

“I have family there in Coney Island, a lot of family … who are affected by this, so I know how important it is for people to have masks during this time.”

Marbury has been in contact with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “We’ve been communicating back and forth with the city and state, and for some reason they are saying they don’t need any more masks, but the hospitals are saying they do,” Adams said Thursday.

Marbury currently coaches the Chinese Basketball Association’s Royal Fighters.

Marbury played 13 seasons in the NBA, before leaving to play in the CBA from 2010 to 2018.

As of Sunday, there are 59,513 confirmed cases in the state of New York, 33,768 of which are in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city is down to a week’s worth of medical supplies: “We have enough supplies to get to a week from today, with the exception of ventilators, we’re going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly. We are going to need a reinforcement.’’

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We’re living in strange, unprecedented times right now. Entire countries are on lockdown, public events have been canceled, and sports seasons are being thrown to the side. We have never seen anything like this. Some areas of the world have been hit harder than others, like Italy and China. Another spot that is likely to continue seeing huge numbers in regards to the confirmed coronavirus cases is in New York City.

Over the last seven days, things have gotten pretty crazy in New York City, with a shelter-at-home warning being placed and thousands of new cases being reported. According to Mayor Bill de Blasio, the situation will only get worse if we aren’t careful.

“It’s a fair bet to say that half of all New Yorkers and maybe more than half will end up contracting this disease,” said de Blasio during a press briefing this week. 

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The Mayor says that many of the cases will be minimal and require very little treatment at all. However, he stresses that lives will be lost and those that are at-risk deserve to be protected. 

According to the New York Post, the city’s hospital system is already nearing its breaking point after 18,000 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the Big Apple, with nearly 200 people dying from it.

The Mayor estimates that approximately half of the city’s population will have the disease by September.

If you are not an essential worker, please stay home, y’all. This is serious.

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