Biaggi Moves to Repeal Governor’s Nursing Home Immunity Provision

By Síle Moloney

State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi and Assemblymember Ron Kim have introduced a new State bill that would repeal an amendment in the state budget that gives blanket corporate immunity to nursing home owners, shareholders, and trustees during the COVID-19 pandemic. If passed, repealing the amendment would enable families to pursue a legal pathway that could uncover evidence of poor care by nursing homes. To date, over 5,600 families have lost a loved one living in a nursing home due to COVID-19. On Friday, Jun. 12 at 12.30 p.m., Kim and Biaggi will hold a virtual press event and vigil

By Síle Moloney

In response to the uprisings across the globe demanding justice for Black lives, New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has created a Black liberation reading list. The 95 titles on the list represent books that the Center and the public regularly turn to as activists, students, archivists, and curators, with a particular focus on books by Black authors and those whose papers the center stewards. For 95 years, the Schomburg Center has preserved, protected, and fostered a greater understanding of the Black experience through its collections, exhibitions, programs, and scholarship. Most of the #Schomburg95 books

By David Greene

Two people have died as a result of an early morning crash on the Northbound Bronx River Parkway at East Gun Hill Road in Norwood. The incident was reported at 1:38 a.m. on Thursday, Jun. 11, when police were informed that a car was on fire at the location. Soon afterwards officers from the 47th precinct and the NYPD’s Highway Patrol quickly shutdown the roadway and attempted to remove one victim from the burning vehicle. One police official reported a male driver was pulled from a burning 2019 Dodge Challenger, “unconscious and unresponsive”. The man whose identity has

By Síle Moloney

A peaceful Black Lives Matter protest took place in Riverdale on Saturday, Jun. 6, 2020 as part of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the country following the death of George Floyd on March 25, 2020. Approximately 200 protesters, made up of different races, and including members of Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition started the day in Ewen Park and later proceeded through the Riverdale neighborhood to Van Cortlandt Park, gathering by the tortoise and hare statue where they sat, stood, and knelt down at various moments during the event. Opec Vistle captured the protestors marching

By Síle Moloney

On Friday, June 5, 2020, Montefiore University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine stood in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the call for a more equitable and just society, when staff held a nine-minute silent tribute to George Floyd, the unarmed African-American man who was murdered at the hands of police in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. Floyd died of asphyxiation after a White police officer, who has since been charged, pinned him face down on the ground and knelt on his back and neck for nine minutes, even as he pleaded for air and

By Síle Moloney

New Important legislation has been introduced to ensure that contact tracing in relation to COVID-19 achieves its public health goals and is not weaponized against communities of color. State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, chairs of the Senate and Assembly Health Committees, introduced the bill to ensure confidentiality of contact tracing data and prohibit access by law enforcement and immigration enforcement. Rivera said he was honored to have worked with Neighborhood Defender Services, Center for Community Alternatives, The Bronx Defenders, and the New York Civil Liberties Union in drafting the new bill, based on powerful testimony he

By Síle Moloney

When much of the world was still coping with the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a worrisome, new pediatric condition potentially linked to the coronavirus started to manifest in some children in Europe in April. When the first suspected cases started to present at New York hospitals, swift action was taken by both City and State officials in early May to warn parents of the symptoms, as reported by Norwood News. In a matter of days, by May 9, three children had died, and New York case numbers had quickly risen. The Empire State now accounts for about

By Síle Moloney

On May 19, as reported by Norwood News, The Center for an Urban Future published a study that showed that Norwood was one of the City’s worst-hit areas economically by the pandemic and related shutdown. About a week earlier, on May 11, Jonnel Doris was appointed as the Commissioner for the City’s Small Business Services (SBS) department. Previously, he served as the City’s first Senior Advisor and Director of the Mayor’s Office for Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE). The commissioner gave an interview to Norwood News in which he discussed his agency’s plan to get small businesses

By David Greene

A estimated crowd of 200 people gathered and marched peacefully through the streets of the Bronx on Saturday, May 30 to protest the mistreatment of Black citizens by police, as other weekend protests in Manhattan and Brooklyn took a different turn and resulted in injuries to both protestors and police officers. The Bronx protest was one of many which took place in more than twenty major cities across the nation this week after a viral video, recorded by a bystander on May 25 in Minneapolis, captured African-American, George Floyd, apparently suffocating during an arrest by police. The