News (09.29.20): NYC Reports Uptick in Virus, NYC Elementary Schools Reopen in Person, NYC Region Sees 40% Bankruptcy Surge, NTSB Blames Limo Owner’s ‘Egregious Disregard for Safety’ in Crash
Select news headlines for Tuesday, September 29th 2020.
NYC Fighting Back Against Troubling Increase In COVID-19 Cases (CBS / CBS NY)
NYC is seeing a troubling increase in coronavirus cases. Daily infections have hit 3.25% citywide, a rate not seen since early June.
Although NYC has kept its infection rate under 1% for more than a month, six neighborhoods in Brooklyn and two in Queens have seen their rates spike, surpassing 5% to 6% in Midwood and Gravesend.
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Elementary Schools Reopen in Person, in Milestone for N.Y.C. (NY Times)
About 300,000 children returned to classrooms for the first time since March.
Mayor de Blasio has said he will shut down in-person instruction if the average infection rate is more than 3% for 7 days. The current 7 day average is 1.38%.
Nearly half of NYC public school system students have opted to continue taking all their classes remotely through at least November.
Outside Public School 161 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Laurie Kanoute, 30, said she was “terrified” about dropping off her son, Teejay, who is in first grade, and daughter A.J., who is in kindergarten.
“I have to go to work, and they can’t stay home,” Ms. Kanoute, who works as a security guard, said. “If it was up to me, I’d stay home and let them do 100 percent remote learning.”
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New York Region Sees 40% Bankruptcy Surge, Braces for More (Bloomberg)
Almost 6,000 NYC businesses closed from March 1 to Sept. 11, according to Yelp. Over 4,000 of those closed permanently.
The pandemic could permanently close as many as a third of New York’s 230,000 businesses, according to the Partnership for New York City, a business group.
The owner of Jimmy’s Steak and Grill, a food cart on the corner of Madison and 60th, said that with nearby office buildings empty, sales of hot dogs and lamb-on-rice platters are down 60%.
“Right now, I’m supposed to have a line,” Jimmy Gonzalez said through a black mask, motioning mournfully to the empty sidewalk. Over half the food-cart owners he knows gave up. “They sell the cart, they sell the permit, they sell everything.”
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NTSB blames N.Y. state agencies, limo owner’s ‘egregious disregard for safety’ (NY Daily News)
A limo company owner’s “egregious disregard for safety” — and state regulators' failure to rein him in — were the main causes for a 2018 limo crash in upstate New York that killed 20 people, an NTSB probe concluded.
Prestige Limousine owner Nauman Hussain is charged with 20 counts of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide by Schoharie County.
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NYC Weather from The Weather Channel
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