Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll discover out a couple of program to give donated bicycles to asylum seekers who’re new to New York. We’ll additionally have a look at the sentencing of Allen Weisselberg, the previous chief monetary officer of the Trump Organization.
Bike New York, a nonprofit group that promotes happenings just like the annual Five Boro Bike Tour, is planning a giveaway. This one gained’t precisely imitate the time Oprah Winfrey said “You get a car! You get a car!” and gave everybody in her studio viewers a brand-new Pontiac.
Bike New York will give away bicycles. Not new ones, however donated used bikes which have been refurbished by its Recycle-a-Bicycle store. They will go to asylum seekers and different immigrants who’ve just lately arrived in New York.
The aim is to present a reasonable, handy and car-free approach for them to entry jobs and providers across the metropolis as they struggle to settle in. “They can’t go on subways and buses — it’s too expensive” in the event that they arrived with little cash, stated Kenneth Podziba, the president and chief govt of Bike New York. “A bicycle will give them the freedom to see the whole entire city.”
Bike New York is aware of that bicycles will be stolen in New York, so with assist from the lock manufacturer Kryptonite, Bike New York will inform the recipients of the bicycles: You get a lock! You get a lock!
Safety can be a priority in a metropolis the place 17 cyclists were killed last year (down from a 20-year excessive of 28 in 2019), so Bike New York will say: You get a helmet! You get a helmet! The metropolis’s Department of Transportation has promised a helmet for everybody who’s given a bicycle.
Bike New York will educate the recipients how to journey if wanted, with directions of their native languages, Podziba stated. It will even educate the principles of the street and supply free upkeep at Recycle-a-Bicycle “until they get back on their feet,” he stated.
“We believe that there is this transformational power of cycling that will not only support their resettlement and integration but will help them thrive,” Podziba stated. “Once they can look for employment, bikes will help them get to their employment and get to job interviews. Maybe they have family who’ve also come but don’t live in the same area where they are. They could visit them. Right now it’s an uphill battle for them. We just want to make things easier.”
Podziba stated the dimensions of the giveaway would rely upon what number of bicycles Bike New York collects within the subsequent few weeks. He is in search of donations of bikes whose house owners can do with out them. He additionally needs constructing managers to empty out storage rooms the place bicycles typically languish lengthy after their house owners have moved away.
Bikes will be donated from Thursday by way of Feb. 2 at three Manhattan areas of the bicycle-rental firm Unlimited Biking; at Recycle-a-Bicycle at 858 Fulton Street in Brooklyn; and at a metropolis warehouse at 66-26 Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village, Queens.
Once refurbished, the bicycles will likely be distributed by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, working with neighborhood organizations.
Manuel Castro, the commissioner of immigrant affairs, stated on Tuesday that 38,700 asylum seekers had arrived since final spring and that 26,100 remained in emergency shelters. Many new arrivals have been despatched on buses, a political stratagem by Republican governors in Texas and Arizona to capitalize on outrage over record crossings at the southern border and what they noticed as a necessity for tighter safety there.
“So many people have arrived that any effort — in this case, collection of bikes — helps,” Castro stated. “Yes, there’s compassion fatigue because this is an ongoing crisis. But you’re seeing new efforts this come up because people in New York want to be helpful in a difficult situation. We’re not going to stand by and see people suffer. That’s the big picture here.”
Weather
Expect growing clouds, with temperatures close to the low 40s. At evening, it’s principally cloudy, with temps within the higher 30s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In impact till Monday (Martin Luther King’s Birthday).
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For a long time, Allen Weisselberg was a loyal lieutenant to Donald Trump and his household’s firm. The perks included leased Mercedes-Benzes and an house on the Upper West Side.
Weisselberg will spend up to 5 months about 5 miles from there, on the Rikers Island jail complicated. He was sentenced on Tuesday for his role in the tax fraud scheme that led to the conviction of Trump Organization final 12 months. The firm, which was convicted on the 17 counts it was charged with, will likely be sentenced on Friday. It faces penalties of up to $1.6 million.
Weisselberg, who was the chief monetary officer of the Trump Organization, had confronted years in jail till he agreed to a plea deal and testified because the prosecution’s star witness. On Tuesday, Justice Juan Merchan stated that if he had not promised the five-month sentence when he accepted the plea deal, he would have imposed a considerably longer sentence. “The entire case was driven by greed,” Merchan stated.
The sentencing was the most recent step in a precipitous fall for Weisselberg, whose ties to the Trumps have change into tenuous. The Trump Organization parted methods with him as of Tuesday, in accordance to individuals with data of the matter. He had been on paid go away and obtained an annual bonus for 2022, and is predicted to be given a severance package deal.
The Trump Organization has good purpose not to alienate him. His testimony helped prosecutors win the conviction of the corporate, however Weisselberg has refused to flip towards Trump himself within the Manhattan district legal professional’s investigation of the previous president. Weisselberg’s perspective may assist as investigators look into Trump’s role in hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
But his time in Rikers might not ease the strain Weisselberg faces from the district legal professional’s workplace. Last 12 months individuals with data of the matter stated that prosecutors were considering a new round of charges against him.
Dear Diary:
One Saturday this previous summer time, three associates and I made a decision to make our first-ever pilgrimage to Barney Greengrass.
We had simply begun to talk about our ordering technique excitedly once I felt a faucet on my shoulder.
It was the lady on the desk subsequent to us, and she or he was visibly irritated.
“Will you girls please quiet down?” she grumbled. “Your voices are so loud I can hardly hear myself think.”
She turned again round and started to poke angrily at her tuna salad.
My associates and I exchanged glances and continued our dialog at stage-whisper stage.
Toward the tip of our meal, one in every of us remembered that the restaurant didn’t take bank cards. I volunteered to run throughout the road to an A.T.M., however earlier than I may rise up from my seat, I felt one other faucet on my shoulder.
It was the shusher once more. She reached into her purse, pulled out a crisp $100 invoice and pressed it into my arms.
“For quieting down,” she stated.
— Sarah Gruen
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
