Important Takeaways:
- The spectacular snow event fueled by brutally cold air and particularly warm lake water has been going on since Friday, with snowfall rates exceeding 4 inches per hour at times into Saturday. Thunder and lightning accompanied the snowfall, which dumped more than 5 feet on New York’s Tug Hill Plateau. Barnes Corners, just south of Watertown, New York, tallied 65.5 inches. Nearby Montague got 60 inches.
- Elsewhere in New York, Cassadaga — about 10 miles inland from Lake Erie and midway between Buffalo and Erie, Pennsylvania — wound up with 54.1 inches. Downtown Buffalo mostly missed out, logging only 1.2 inches. Orchard Park, just 14 miles to the south, picked up 26.2 inches.
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Important Takeaways:
- A long-duration lake-effect snowstorm is continuing to pummel the Great Lakes region after dumping 3-5 feet of snow in cities from Michigan to New York that paralyzed travel as people tried to get home after the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
- The impacts from the historic lake-effect snowstorm have been far-reaching, not only because of the sheer amount of snow that fell but also because of the intense snowfall rates reaching up to 4 inches per hour, which overwhelmed crews who were relentlessly working around the clock to remove the snow and ice from roads and highways such as the heavily traveled Interstate 90 from New York state to Ohio
- Travel is expected to remain treacherous in areas still impacted by bands of heavy snow coming off the Great Lakes. Drivers are being urged to stay off the roads if possible, significantly slow their speeds, and leave plenty of distance between vehicles to ensure the safety of people out and about on Monday.
- And it wasn’t just the snow that was making headlines over the weekend. The paralyzing lake-effect snowstorm also produced rare thundersnow and even waterspouts off the shores of Lake Erie.
- Winter weather alerts remain in effect across the region, including Lake-Effect Snow Warnings from Cleveland to southwestern New York that will remain in effect until at least Tuesday morning.
- Travel could again become dangerous on major roads and highways across the region, including I-90, I-86 and I-79, which could become nearly impassable. In the heaviest snow bands, visibility could drop to less than a quarter-mile, and strong winds could blow snow that has already fallen.
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Important Takeaways:
- The New Jersey Forest Fire Service says exactly 2,283 acres burned in New Jersey and 5,000 acres scorched across state lines into New York.
- The weather is playing a major role in the fight to contain the wildfire. The Forest Fire Service says they grounded helicopters dumping water because of the wind. The rocky, hilly and forested terrain are adding to the difficulty. But this cold weather they say, actually helps.
- “As the temperatures drop humidity will come up a little bit more thus allowing the fuels to absorb a little bit the ambient moisture in the air thus allowing them to moisten a little bit and slow down fire progression,” said Christopher Franek from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
- This is still a coordinated effort. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says this is the largest wildfire to affect New York state since 2008. She’s deployed the National Guard to help.
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Important Takeaways:
- Former President Trump’s decisive victory Tuesday led to a shock wave that was felt in newsrooms across Washington, D.C., and New York. Everyone knew the polls were close and that a Trump win was a strong possibility, sure, but the scale of Trump’s win left one senior producer at a broadcast network stunned: “We are questioning our relevance right now,” they said Wednesday morning.
- It was a sentiment shared by former Sen. Claire McCaskill, who lamented on MSNBC’s Morning Joe: “I think we have to acknowledge that Donald Trump knows our country better than we do.”
- Ratings for the broadcast and cable news channels saw steep declines in ratings from Nielsen (finals showed an average of 42.3 million people, down from nearly 57 million four years ago), with the lowest ratings in decades. The steepest drop was felt at CNN, which saw its numbers fall below MSNBC for the first election night since that channel launched nearly three decades ago.
- Meanwhile, emergent platforms and programs outside of the traditional media thrived…
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Important Takeaways:
- In the largest planned pro-Palestinian action of the day, protesters are expected to march through Manhattan, from Wall Street to Columbus Circle
- A vigil to remember those killed and missing in last year’s Hamas attack on Oct. 7 will come within blocks of a pro-Palestinian march Monday night.
- NYPD officials are planning to keep both groups separate in what is expected to be the culmination of a tense day of protests and prayers.
- Smashed windows, red paint and graffiti including “divest now” was discovered spray-painted on the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center on the City College of New York campus in Hamilton Heights on Monday morning.
- At Columbia University, access is limited to ID holders in an effort to keep out outside agitators.
- More walkouts are expected in the afternoon, with both students and faculty from CUNY and city public schools gathering at Washington Square Park, to join the larger protest marching north.
- Blocks away in Central Park, a candle lighting ceremony with members of the Jewish community will remember those killed, with music and prayer
- Police officials say they are most concerned about the protest in Times Square, and the pro-Israeli prayer vigil in Central Park.
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Important Takeaways:
- New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been hit with five federal charges – including wire fraud, bribery and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national – according to a sprawling 57-page federal indictment unsealed Thursday.
- Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York accuse Adams of seeking and accepting luxury international travel from a wealthy businessman and at least one Turkish government official for nearly a decade.
- “As Adams’ prominence and power grew, his foreign-national benefactors sought to cash in on their corrupt relationships with him, particularly when, in 2021, it became clear that Adams would become New York City’s mayor,” the indictment says. “Adams agreed, providing favorable treatment in exchange for the illicit benefits he received.”
- The details of the criminal case come at a time of extraordinary turmoil for the Adams administration. In the past two weeks alone, the city’s police commissioner, top lawyer and schools chancellor have announced their resignations.
- The Adams administration has also been facing a public corruption investigation and another federal probe that resulted in a search of homes belonging to Adams’ former director of Asian affairs.
- In a videotaped statement he released late Wednesday, Adams remained defiant, saying any charges against him would be “entirely false, based on lies.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo, 18, was arrested Sunday after Nassau County police responded to reports of a “suspicious male” wearing a mask.
- Ramirez Castillo allegedly “continued to display suspicious behavior while attempting to conceal a large bulge in his waistband” that ended up being a 14-inch knife, officials said.
- Police said that officers stopped him and patted him down under the mask law and found the knife. Ramirez Castillo allegedly refused to comply with officer commands and was placed under arrest.
- He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, obstructing governmental administration and charged with violating the Mask Transparency Act.
- The controversial ban on wearing face coverings in public was signed into law Aug. 15 in Nassau County, which covers part of Long Island, just east of New York City.
- Those who violate the law face a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
- County legislator Howard Kopel had said the mask ban bill was introduced in response to “antisemitic incidents, often perpetrated by those in masks” since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.
- Critics say the ban poses a risk for those who want to peacefully protest while concealing their identities.
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Important Takeaways:
- Only way to know strength would be through storm surveys by the National Weather Service offices in Binghamton and Albany
- NBC5 meteorologists were able to use long-established radar technology to identify where tornado debris signatures occurred.
- One tornado was in Rome, Oneida County, where significant damage was reported. Pictures show a church destroyed and a B-52 bomber literally moved from its position.
- After that, there was a brief tornado between Old Forge and Inlet, just south of New York Route 28.
- Then, another tornado hit Hamilton County in a remote area near Morehouse.
- Two more hit in the vicinity of Wells, in both Hamilton and Warren counties.
- There may have been a sixth tornado near Edinburg, but the radar data was not beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Separate from these five radar-confirmed tornadoes, the National Weather Service in Albany found evidence of two other tornadoes that did not produce debris on radar.
- Most tornadoes locally are not strong enough, or located near enough to a radar, to produce a debris signature, which makes the five listed above special cases.
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Important Takeaways:
- At least 28 heat-related deaths have occurred in the West this month.
- At least 19 cities have broken their all-time high temperature records in the past week, including Las Vegas, which hit 120 degrees on Sunday for the first time in its history.
- In Houston, Texas, a million electrical customers remain without power for the fourth straight day since Hurricane Beryl barreled into the city.
- Remnants of Beryl brought up to six inches of rain on Wednesday evening from northern New York state to Vermont and New Hampshire, flooding neighborhoods and prompting evacuations.
- At least three tornadoes were reported in New York state on Wednesday, including an EF-1 twister near Buffalo that packed 110 mph winds, according to the NWS.
- In Vermont, heavy rain from the remnants of Beryl caused flash flooding in several cities, including Barre and Lyndonville, where multiple roads were closed due to flooding, officials said.
- By Sunday, the heat will return to the East Coast with temperatures in the 90s from Boston to Washington, D.C. Combined with the heat index, temperatures on the East Coast will feel above 100 degrees into next week, according to the National Weather Service.
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Important Takeaways:
- Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, federal prosecutor and legal adviser to Donald Trump, was disbarred in the state on Tuesday after a court found he repeatedly made false statements about Trump’s 2020 election loss.
- A New York appeals court in Manhattan ruled that Giuliani, who had already had his New York law license suspended in 2021 for false statements he made after the election, is now “disbarred from the practice of law, effective immediately, and until the further order of this Court, and his name stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law in the State of New York.”
- Before pleading Trump’s case in November 2020, Giuliani had not appeared in court as an attorney since 1992, according to court records.
- Giuliani built his public persona by practicing law, as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan in the 1980s, when he went after mobsters, powerbrokers and others. The law-and-order reputation helped catapult him into politics, governing the United States’ most popular city when it was beset by high crime.
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