February 7, 2025

Partnering with labor, city looks to attract anchor tenants and jobs

Former FDNY chief pleads guilty to bribery count

2nd Bureau of Fire Prevention official to admit federal charge

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN

dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

The former head of the FDNY’s Bureau of Fire Prevention pleaded guilty last week to federal charges of soliciting and accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for expediting building inspections, prosecutors said.

Anthony Saccavino admitted to pocketing about $57,000 in illicit payments from building owners and property developers between 2021 and 2023. He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to a single charge of conspiracy to solicit and receive a bribe. He faces up to five years in prison.

Saccavino’s sentencing is scheduled for May 14 before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman. The

former FDNY chief will also forfeit $57,000, according to the plea agreement’s terms.

“Anthony Saccavino betrayed the City agency he was chosen to lead by repeatedly selling access to the Bureau of Fire Prevention’s services in a pay-to-play bribery scheme,” the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle R. Sassoon, said in a statement. “This Office will continue to ensure that City officials who place their own interests above those of the public will be held accountable.”

The prosecution was spearheaded by the office of Sassoon’s predecessor, Damian Williams, whose prosecutors worked alongside the FBI and the city’s Department of Investigation.

Saccavino’s lawyer, Joseph Caldarera, cited the former chief’s “honorable service” in the FDNY

See SACCAVINO, page 3

NYC salaries lag behind those of other cities

BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com

To address a shortage of paraprofessionals in the city’s public school system, the United Federation of Teachers joined several members of the City Council last Thursday to push for the passage of legislation that would provide paras with annual payments of at least $10,000.

During a lengthy hearing held by the Council’s Committee on Education on the school system’s failure to provide legally required special-education services to every student with disabilities, Department of Education officials acknowledged that there are 1,639 paraprofessional vacancies. The DOE officials said they have ramped up their efforts to hire paras, reducing the shortage from about 3,100.

Enticing national, international companies

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

The Adams administration is betting that it can reconfigure the city’s commercial office sector to entice the best of the best of the business world to New York and generate thousands of jobs for residents.

Kicking off what the administration has come to call “Jobs Week,” Mayor Eric Adams on Monday announced a “Race for Space” — a multi-pronged effort to lease some 50 million square feet of office space by the end of the year and correspondingly create good paying jobs, many of them union.

The goal “is to make New York City the best place to raise families, and that means we need the best jobs on the globe, and it’s about employment,” the mayor said in restating portions of his State of the City address last month.

Jobs, he said at the programs’ unveilings at City Hall, are “the precursor” to what gives life to the American dream and allows people to have “the independence and dignity” they deserve.

Among the inducements are income-tax credits for out-of-state

companies that relocate to the city and sign leases for office space leases of at least 20,000-square-feet in certain older buildings. The administration wants to attract 15 anchor tenants by the end of the year, which it hopes will lease a total of some 800,000-square-feet and bring with them 3,000 jobs.

That incentive, the Relocation Assistance Credit for Employees, or RACE, is expected to ultimately generate about $400 million in tax revenue over 10 years, according to First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer.

An existing program, the Relocation and Employment Assistance Program, or REAP, provides business income tax credits for relocating jobs to the city.

A new program, the International Landing Pad Network, facilitated by the New York City Economic Development Corp., will support growthstage — and revenue-generating — international companies in the tech sector, green economy and life sciences ecosystems that are looking for a footprint in the city.  Adams said unions would play key roles in driving the investments, given that the goal is the continued fostering of working-class people

Nearly 197,000 city public-school students — more than 21 percent of the student population — have a disability, according to data from the state. During the hearing, parents voiced their frustration at their child being unable to receive critical services such as speech therapy and physical therapy.

Although there were vacancies for other titles working with students with disabilities, such as occupational therapists, the largest number of openings are among paraprofessionals. The shortage has largely been attributed to low pay. Full-time paraprofessionals earn $31,787 annually.

“Let me be clear: our school system cannot function without our paraprofessionals,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said during a press conference at the steps of City Hall held right before the Council hearing. “The last two rounds of bargaining with the City of New York, they recognized that our para-

professionals are not being paid enough. [Yet] they hide behind the rules of pattern bargaining.”

Council Member Rita Joseph, a former teacher and the chair of the Education Committee, is the main sponsor of legislation that would provide annual payments worth at least $10,000 to every public-school paraprofessional. “I know firsthand how critical special-education services are to our children. For years our city has struggled to provide the proper special-education services mandated by federal law,” she said. If the legislation passes, paras are expected to receive a $10,755 payment this year, with substitute paras receiving prorated payments. Because the payments would not be collectively bargained, they would be separate from the paras regular salary and therefore would not be

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Mayor Adams, Melissa Román Burch, the executive vice president of the NYC Economic Development Corp., and First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer at the City Hall announcement Monday morning of “Race for Space,” the

pronged effort to revitalize the city’s vacant office space and correspondingly create

Tisch unveils ‘game-changing’ effort to combat ‘crime and disorder’

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

A series of department-led efforts to crack down on crime and disorder, particularly in the subway, is being launched to combat so-called “quality of life” offenses, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced.

Saying that officers have “too long” been tasked with quelling misconduct such as aggressive panhandling and public drinking without adequate direction, Tisch said a new chief of citywide quality of life would head a newly created division explicitly tasked with addressing the lower-level offenses.

“Our work must not only make people safe, but it must make them feel safe too,” the commissioner said during her 2025 State of the NYPD address at the New York City Police Foundation last week. Tisch said the initiative, which will be implemented in the coming months, will entail the centralization of department-wide units under the new command, with officers specifically tasked with addressing conduct that runs afoul of city ordinances.

Tisch said the department is developing “Q Stat,” a database that tracks quality of life complaints and trends similar to the department’s Compstat tool, which charts crime complaints and according to which the department deploys cops.

The department has periodically publicized renewed efforts to confront quality of life offenses, including within the subway system. But civil liberties advocates have long argued that policing low-level offenses often ends up targeting the misfortunate and people of color and do little to ensure residents’ safety.

“The NYPD’s latest crackdown on so-called ‘quality of life’ offenses is the latest example of this administration’s unwillingness to think beyond the Giuliani playbook. Quality of life enforcement is a euphemism for broken windows policing, which we know will mean more police

harassment and profiling of poor people and people of color,” the New York Civil Liberties Union’s assistant policy director, Michael Sisitzky, said following Tisch’s announcement.

“This will result in even more time and resources being spent processing low-level arrests and summonses when those resources could have been better spent investing in the types of services that actually make New Yorkers’ lives better,”

Sisitzky added.

Tisch, though, said Q Stat data and subsequent enforcement would “recenter our approach to public

safety.”

She went on to note the year-overyear decline in violent crime, which dropped nearly 3 percent overall in 2024 compared with 2023. Even steeper declines were evident in December and January, with major crime ebbing 16 percent compared to a year earlier.

‘Scalpel approach’

As of early on Jan. 29, the month was on pace to have the fewest shootings since the start of the Compstat era in the mid-1990s, Tisch said, adding that the city recently went

five straight days without a single recorded shooting victim for the first time since the 1990s.

She credited a “game-changing” strategy for the declines, notably the use of Compstat tools to identify crime trends at the neighborhood level and even across blocks rather than at the much larger precinct level. What Tisch termed “zonebased” policing, “a location-based scalpel approach to crime,” details where best to deploy cops and also the types of crime that are being committed there.

“We certainly can dig so much deeper into the numbers and be

so much more precise,” she said, adding that police presence is a deterrent. “In a world with limited resources you can’t flood the zone across a four-square-mile precinct, and you don’t need to. But you can do that across 10 problematic blocks.”

And quelling that disorder, whether perceived or actual, has been a major effort in the subway, where a series of violent incidents in recent months has compromised people’s sense of safety.

In addition to the recent redeployment of hundreds of cops from turnstiles and entrances to subway platforms and trains — which the commissioner said resulted in a 36-percent year-over-year decrease in subway crime through the end of January — Tisch said the department has assigned two cops onto every overnight train.

“The idea behind this initiative, frankly, is not only to make our riders safer, but also to make them feel safer,” she said.

A third step in the effort to reduce crime and straphangers’ unease underground will involve the enforcement of transit rules, such as prohibitions of feet on seats, alcohol and smoking, which Tisch suggested correlated with “random acts of violence” in the subway. “Our officers will not simply walk by someone who is violating the law and disrupting passengers. We are going to correct the condition,” she said.

But she also noted that the police had “a moral duty” to help people clearly in need, adding that cops respond to some 180,000 calls involving people in mental distress. To that end, Tisch said officers will receive enhanced training in crisis intervention, starting with the NYPD’s newest class, a cohort of 1,000 recruits — the largest in a decade — that have just begun their six months of academy training.

The goal, Tisch said, “is to teach our officers to better understand, identify and de-escalate these highstakes situations. Our first priority is to protect life.”

PSC passes Israel divestment resolution

3rd city union to do so

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

The union representing CUNY faculty and staff  last month became the third public-sector union to pass a resolution calling on members’ pensions to be divested from Israeli companies, bonds and securities.

The 30,000-member Professional Staff Congress is the largest city union to call for divestment, and follows in the footsteps of the Association of Legislative Employees and Local 3005 of District Council 37, whose members passed similar divestment resolutions last year.   The divestment resolution emerged from the union’s graduate center chapter late last year, but members held off on bringing it to the union-wide delegate assembly until after their latest contract with the city was finalized last month. It passed the delegate assembly in a close 73-70 vote Jan. 23.

“We recognized that the organizing we were doing was having an impact, but it was a pleasant surprise that a majority of the delegates agreed how important this was,” Evan Rothman, the co-chair

of the graduate chapter who proposed the resolution, said in a Jan. 31 interview.

The resolution calls for PSC leadership to send a letter to the board of the Teachers Retirement System of New York City “expressing its support for complete disinvestment

from Israel.” It also compels the PSC to “divest its own funds from any investment vehicle that includes in its portfolio stocks and bonds of Israeli companies and Israeli government bonds no later than the end of January 2026.”  According to the resolution, TRS

and the wider New York City Retirement System holds $100 million in direct investments in Israeli companies and $115 million in government bonds. The resolution also says that the PSC itself holds investments in the Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund and the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, which have holdings in Israeli bonds.

Around 25 percent of the PSC pension plan participants contribute to the TRS, according to the union.

The PSC’s president, James Davis, said in a statement that the union unequivocally deplores all forms of hate including antisemitism and that the union’s members have sincere disagreements on the issue, which was reflected by the close vote.

“We were elected to protect PSC members’ rights, to improve their pay and working conditions, and to strengthen their union,” Davis said. “Keeping focus on these primary responsibilities while engaging in wider struggles for justice and peace is important, especially in this politically tumultuous moment. The PSC recently ratified a new contract and is intent on enforcing that contract and improving the working conditions of all members.”

When the divestment resolution was first submitted, the union’s executive council, which is headed by Davis, voted unanimously against it.

Davis explained to members in an email sent after the executive council’s down vote that while he appreciated the “care and thought” that went into the resolution, “the benefits of passing this particular resolution to the people of Palestine whom it seeks to support are far outweighed by the costs to the PSC of approving a new divestment policy that targets only one country engaged in gross violations of human rights.”

“Further,” Davis argued, “the resolution yokes together two very different divestment propositions for the PSC, one a recommendation to TRS about pension investments in Israeli corporations and bonds, the other a change in the PSC’s own investment policy.”

The union president said that he would work with members to alter the resolution so that the internal PSC divestment and TRS divestment were separated. But a motion to divide those questions was shot down at January’s delegate assembly meeting and the resolution was eventually passed as written later in the meeting.

A spokesperson for Comptroller Brad Lander, the steward of the

city’s five pension funds, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the divestment resolution. Officials in Lander’s office have said previously that none of the five funds have holdings in Israeli bonds or any other sovereign bonds.

Politics commonplace

Sofya Aptekar, an associate professor and co-chair of the PSC graduate chapter, said that union members were inspired by the other city workers who have taken action on divestment.

“A really important part of this process has been working with other unions,” she said, noting that a push for divestment has been brewing in the UFT as well. “This is part of a much larger campaign amongst unions in New York city.”

Meghan Peterson, a Local 3005 member who helped pass a divestment resolution in her union said it was “great news that the PSC has passed a similar resolution.”   “It shows that people are continuing to organize around this issue and that it’s not going away,” she said.

The PSC has not shied away from having political discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past. In 2021, the union’s delegate assembly passed a resolution condemning the “massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state” and called on the union to consider supporting the boycott, divest and sanction movement against Israel.

Then, in December 2023, the union became the first representing city workers to endorse a call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Rothman credited the union’s embrace of rank-and-file activism and democracy, as well as the political education that occurs at the chapter level.

“One of the things that is special about the PSC is the extent to which there is space for these democratic debates for us to do this kind of outreach out in the open,” Rothman explained. “There were many people who had been hesitant earlier about supporting something like [a divestment resolution] and it was through a process of one-on-one conversations, political conversations we held within union chapter and across chapters sessions,” that members changed their minds.

A PSC spokesperson did not say when the letter, as outlined in the resolution, would be sent to TRS or when the divestment process for PSC’s holdings will begin.

Richard Khavkine/The Chief

redeployed

Courtesy Paul Frangipane for PSC

The membership of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York passed a resolution calling for their pensions to be divested from Israeli bonds, securities and companies.

Violent crime dropped noticeably last month

NYPD data shows declines in all major categories

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

All seven categories of major crime dipped last month compared with January 2024, contributing to a 16.8-percent year-over-year decline citywide, NYPD officials said. Police recorded double-digit decreases in murders, shootings, grand larcenies, auto thefts and robberies, the department said Tuesday.

“January’s crime declines are an extraordinary testament to the work of our cops,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement accompanying the department’s data. “Every day, we are analyzing crime numbers and optimizing our deployments to put cops in zones that need them. That’s starting to deliver real results. And New Yorkers can expect more of that data-driven policing to come.”

The number of killings last month dropped 24 percent, to 25 from 33 a year ago, while the 51 shooting incidents recorded were 21.5 percent fewer than the 65 recorded last January and the lowest number for the month in more than 30 years, the department said.

Tisch attributed the drops to

officer deployments in neighborhoods experiencing crime spikes, part of a zone-based policing effort that zeroes in on problematic areas through data-driven models.

The tactic gives the department the ability to be “quite nimble,” Tisch said at during her State of the NYPD address last week. The “mobile field forces,” or groups of officers, can be readily redeployed, she said. “Right now, about 650 additional officers per day who had previously been working desk jobs are assigned to high crime zones across the five boroughs, driving a big part of the crime reductions that we are seeing right now,” she said.

The crime drop otherwise also included a 36.4 decrease in subway crime, a welcome development following a series of brutal incidents underground and the consequent redeployment of officers throughout the system.

The NYPD credited its three-point plan for the dip in crime underground, which has sent hundreds of cops, also formerly on desk duty, into the subway system, including onto platforms and trains rather just at entrances and mezzanines. Two officers are now on board every train running between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

The department said nearly four out of five subway crimes occur on trains and platforms.

Citywide, robberies declined

SACCAVINO: Admits bribe count

Continued from Page 1 the indictment of the two FDNY officials was announced, and he cooperated with prosecutors.

since 1995, including his role as a 9/11 first responder, and said that his client’s dedication to the community has been “unwavering.”

“Today, Mr. Saccavino made a difficult decision to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, prioritizing his family’s well-being,” Caldarera said in an emailed statement. “He respects the judicial process and believes this course of action is in the best interest of his loved ones.”  Saccavino is the second former BFP official to enter a guilty plea in connection with the bribery scheme. His former deputy, Brian Cordasco, pleaded guilty to the same charge in October and forfeited $57,000. His sentencing is set for Feb. 19.

The duo, prosecutors say, worked with a retired FDNY firefighter, Henry Santiago Jr., to expedite FDNY plan reviews and inspections in exchange for cash at a time when there was a pandemic-induced backlog of inspections. The trio then moved certain projects to the front of the inspection line.

Each member of the conspiracy took a cut of the roughly $190,000 in payments they received for doing so. They swapped cash in FDNY headquarters and over steak dinners, prosecutors said. Santiago pleaded guilty to conspiracy counts in September, before

An FDNY spokesperson said in a statement that FDNY commissioner Robert Tucker has appointed a senior executive chief to conduct a “top to bottom” review of the BFP.

“While these events did not occur during the Fire Commissioner’s tenure, Commissioner Tucker is a former prosecutor himself, and has made clear that this behavior is unacceptable,” the spokesperson said.

The pay-to-play scheme was discovered in early 2023 by FDNY officials who reported them to federal investigators. The investigation burst into the public eye a year later when federal agents raided Saccavino’s and Cordasco’s homes and FDNY offices in February 2024. The pair were indicted in September.

“This former Chief of the Bureau of Fire Prevention provided preferential treatment to clients of a former FDNY colleague, expediting the clients’ plan reviews and inspections in return for over $50,000 in bribes,” the DOI commissioner, Jocelyn E. Strauber, said in a statement. “As today’s guilty plea demonstrates, public officials who compromise City processes with pay-to-play schemes undercut government’s ability to serve the public equitably, and will be held accountable.

Anthony Saccavino, formerly chief of the FDNY’s Bureau of Fire Prevention, pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge. Saccavino, his deputy and a retired FDNY firefighter accepted noticeably $190,000 in bribes from 2021 to 2023 in exchange for expediting inspections of certain buildings. FDNY

Former NYCHA super gets 2 years for pay-to-play contract hustle

BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com

A former superintendent at the city Housing Authority has been sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution following his guilty plea to accepting hundreds of thousands in bribes in exchange for approving contracts worth nearly $2 million.

Juan Mercado, 50, who worked as a superintendent at three NYCHA developments in Queens, was sentenced Monday for demanding and receiving $329,300 in bribes from contractors seeking no-bid contracts.

He is among 70 current and former NYCHA superintendents and assistant superintendents charged with bribery and extortion offenses in February 2024 as part of a massive federal takedown. Mercado, who started working at the authority in 1994, is among the 60 who have pleaded guilty. Three others have been convicted after trial. The cases of the remaining seven accused employees are pending.

demanding and accepting more than $300,000 in bribes in connection with repair work at NYCHA developments — money that should have gone to improving the lives of NYCHA residents,” U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said following the sentencing. “As today’s sentence shows, corruption will not be tolerated at any level of government.”

Mercado was suspended following his February 2024 arrest and resigned in April, according to prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in May to receipt of solicitation of a bribe by an agent of an organization receiving federal funds.

In addition to his prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni of the Southern District of New York ordered Mercado to three years of supervised release. He has also agreed to pay $329,300 in restitution to NYCHA and to forfeit $329,300 in illegal proceeds.

The city Department of Investigation also cooperated with the probe.

26 percent, to 1,063 incidents, in January from a year earlier while grand larcenies decreased nearly 22 percent, to 3,256, police said. Auto thefts dropped 23 percent, to 898, while felony assaults fell nearly 7 percent, to 1,983.

Rapes, though, climbed significantly, with 149 incidents reported to the department last month. Of those, 88 happened in 2025, and 61 in prior years. The total, though, is 40 percent more than was reported in January 2024.

The spike is at least partly attributable to a broadened definition of rape as of early last year that now includes non-consentual anal, oral and vaginal contact. Rape, though, remains notoriously underreported by victims.

The nearly 17-percent dip in major crimes last month followed a December decrease of 15.5 percent.

Mercado, of West Babylon, worked at three NYCHA developments in Queens — Ravenswood, South Jamaica, and Hammel-Carleton Manor — where he accepted bribes for nine years, from 2014 until July 2023, according to the office of U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The value of the contracts totaled $1,886,000.

Although he initially required that contractors pay him 10 percent of the value of the contract, Mercado eventually started demanding 20 percent, with vendors typically paying him $500 to $2,000 for each contract he awarded.

“As a public housing superintendent, Juan Mercado held a position of public trust.  For years, Mercado abused his position by

“For nearly ten years, this defendant received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from NYCHA vendors in exchange for awarding micro-purchase contracts and other contract work, driving up the cost of services and depriving NYCHA residents of resources intended to improve their homes,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber said in a statement.  NYCHA has implemented several of DOI’s recommendations to improve its micro-purchasing process, which allows vendors to be hired without going through the bidding process as long as the contracts are under $10,000. NYCHA has increased its use of nobid contracts in recent years. The agency had a backlog of 611,000 open work orders as of December.

Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams inspect a collection of illegal guns seized by police. Speaking at the 25th Precinct in East Harlem last month, they noted that NYPD officers had confiscated more 20,000 illegal firearms since the start of Adams’ tenure three years ago.

COMMENTARY COMMENTARY COMMENTARY

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Fabricators and hypocrites

To The ediTor:

Hypocritical politicians are so commonplace that we can become inured to them. Recent days had two instances — nationally and locally — so shameful that they need recounting.

President Trump blamed the fatal aircraft collision on his predecessors’ policies, referring to a “diversity and inclusion hiring initiative” without any evidence. Actually, a program recruiting Federal Aviation Administration employees with targeted disabilities began during his Administration in 2019.

The New York Times found that “more than 90 percent of the country’s 313 air traffic control facilities operate below the Federal Aviation Administration’s recommended staffing levels.”

One day after the collision, air traffic controllers were sent emails basically urging them to quit their jobs and take buyouts.

Days earlier, a purge of the most experienced employees responsible for airline safety began with this resignation program, offered to two million federal workers, including first responders at the crash site.

Locally, false virtue was shown by two members of the City Council — Speaker Adrienne Adams and Justin Brannon, the chair of the Finance Committee. Both have refused to endorse legislation preserving retiree health benefits. Ironically, they found their voices in a joint statement to criticize a federal freeze on earmarked funding “for vital programs that has disrupted Medicaid … is irresponsible and creating chaos…” and shows “abusive overreach” that endangers “the health and safety of all New

Yorkers.”

It is astonishing that they can’t muster anger when retirees are placed in the same position. Marianne Pizzitola, the president of the New York City Association of Public Service Retirees, called this “fake outrage” that City Council members “cannot say that there’s outrage because the federal government was going to rescind federal funding for public health care from Medicaid, but yet they don’t have the same anger that the Mayor for the last four years has been doing the same damn thing.”

Harry Weiner

Tale of the tape

To The ediTor:

My letter detailing how the last four Republican presidents (Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 and Trump 45) have failed the American people, with few consequences at the ballot box due to GOP political skills. Nat Weiner writes “Blame ‘bad’ Republicans — some long deceased — from decades past, style, social media, the Curse of the Bambino” to blunt my arguments (“Postmortem,” Letters, The Chief, Jan. 31).

Well, I wasn’t around when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth, but I was here when 12 years of Reaganomics cratered the economy and Clinton repaired the damage. I also recall Bush 43 causing even more economic damage, leaving Obama to clean up the mess. And today’s voters should still remember the state of the American economy in 2020, when Trump became only the second president to leave office with fewer jobs than when he entered. Weiner cites three “core voter concerns per opinion polls: the

Democracy lost

BY MARC BULLARO

The vulnerability of democracy is that man and woman have the free will to fall.

That is the price of freedom and when an individual or group does fall there are built-in guardrails we depend on to prevent autocracy. But in this existential saga the guardrails also fell.

Tyranny is the forbidden fruit of the tree of autocracy that ominously lingers in America’s democratic garden.

The U.S. Constitution delineates three separate and equal branches of government, namely the legislative, executive and judicial. They were each deliberately designed and created separate and equal to ensure a system of checks and balances to prevent an imbalance of control and ultimately to prevent the abuse of power that threatens and challenges democracy.

Usurping the authority of another branch is forbidden.

But when the legislative and judicial shed their power and became fearful, complicit and under the spell of the rhetoric of the executive, President Donald Trump, it created an imbalance of control. Both the legislative and judicial branches appear servilely grafted to the tree of autocracy and susceptible to exploitation and usurpation by the executive, which has amalgamated additional power, leaving the legislative branch impotent, the judicial beholden and the executive wielding the most weight.

Like an unbalanced seesaw, the weight of power landed on Trump’s side and remains, while the legislative and judicial branches are latently stranded. There is a border that separates democracy and autocracy. And that border, like the Rubicon of antiquity, has been crossed. The die is cast. There is defiance toward democracy by Trump and an acquiescence toward autocracy by the legislative branch, even as the judicial branch shields the executive.

border, inflation, Gaza” that sank Harris’ run. So what were Trump’s substantive policy proposals? The border — deportation. Yet, the Biden/Harris Administration deported over twice as many undocumented immigrants as did Trump 45 (4,677,540 vs 2,001,290). Inflation — “drill baby, drill.” Again, Biden/ Harris out-drilled Trump 45 by 1.2 million barrels per day, every day. Gaza — Trump offered no policy, only saying Israel must “finish the problem.” Zero policy, plenty of political spin. What is beyond my understanding is how any Republican has won after Nixon (whom I also remember). Forty-four years of unchallenged supply-side, Republican economic policy has decimated the middle class, stagnated wages, deepened wealth inequality and ballooned U.S. debt from $998 billion to $36 trillion. That is the substance Republicans have delivered.

But, they did it in style; telling workers it’s the “takers,” “welfare queens” and “illegals” causing your problems.

Joseph Cannisi Kinship

To The ediTor:

President Trump’s ending of affirmative action in favor of “merit-based hiring” is nothing more than an act to strengthen the already unofficial affirmative action program that favors white men (“Federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff being put on leave this week,” The Chief, Jan. 24). Though considering his past and present nominations, it also includes white women.

Affirmative action was created to counter a society where most employers “coincidentally” always found the most qualified job applicants to be white and male. The white male employees who wanted an unfair advantage had no problem with not having to compete with women and those with darker skin for the better jobs. Those whites who were fair-minded supported the Civil Rights Movement. Discrimination actually favors the rich more than anyone else. Cheaper salaries for those discrimi-

nated against actually makes it easier for them to keep the salaries of white men down as well. Many who claimed to believe in white supremacy knew that they were lying. They did not want to clean their own homes or pick their own cotton. The movie “12 Years A Slave” is a true story. A talented Black musician was not kidnapped and forced into slavery because they felt his violin playing was inferior.

Diversity should also be a matter of preference. Good relationships, both platonic and romantic, are hard to find. I wouldn’t want to limit myself to “my own kind.” Actually, I consider “my own kind” to be good people of all colors, nationalities and sexes. Just because I’m white and Jewish does not mean I consider Benjamin Netanyahu to be “my own kind.”

Richard Warren

Divide and conquer

To The ediTor:

President Donald Trump couldn’t help himself, and after asking for prayer for the families of all those who died in the D.C. plane crash over the Potomac River, he segued into a diatribe against DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) efforts. Trump clearly implied the diversity efforts lowered standards and were to blame for the deadly crash. When challenged, Trump said it was common sense. There is no evidence that lower standards in the Federal Aviation Administration exist, or had anything to do with the cause of this crash, but Trump, the liar in chief, couldn’t care less that what he says is racist poppycock. When Trump gets an opportunity to spew racist and conspiratorial rhetoric, he goes for it. Trump’s lack of respect for the truth, and his political success in using lies to create a cult of supporters who raised him to his second presidency, is reminiscent of the 1930s traitorous German-American bunds, summer camps for youth, and bookstore propaganda (all based on anti-American lies). These strategies were used in the late 1930s to support the Nazi goals and buttress Hitler and fascism and make America a mixed drink of

white supremacy, fascist ideology and American nationalism.

With Trump as president, it will be a long, extremely divisive four years, and a peaceful democracy may not be in our future.

Michael J. Gorman

To your health

To The ediTor:

A significant — and overlooked — contributor to greenhouse gases is factory farming of meat. Factory farming consumes gallons and gallons of water and produces tons of gases.

If you visit the website of People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, you will see the brutal conditions under which the animals used for meat are raised, kept and slaughtered.

I have personally witnessed other brutality. Two live animal stores are within a mile of my home. Chickens and turkeys delivered to the stores are stored in cramped, filthy cages. The smell is horrible and they cannot move. On a freezing December day several years ago, I witnessed a crate of live chickens fall off a truck. Their horror and trauma is unimaginable. I wonder how healthy it is to eat birds under these conditions.

The majority of the lunches my father (RIP) ate were greasy strips of bacon and eggs. He lived to 89. He’d be 92 if he’d lived and probably would have with healthier lunches. I am not perfect but I am trying. I love bacon and sausage but try to eat oatmeal and blueberries for breakfast and salads for lunch and dinner.

This is a civil service issue for two reasons. First, civil servants who work outdoors (and indoors) are affected by global warming. Second, healthier eating can cut down on health care costs, which many letters to the Chief recently have dealt with.

I urge my union brothers and sisters/neighbors to gravitate toward vegetables, fruits, and nuts if possible. Consult your physician first, of course.

Nat Weiner

The loss of democracy is insidious. Trump, the wannabe king, has consolidated power and a monarchy ensconced under the protection of an oligarchy is burgeoning.

On Jan. 20, Trump took the oath of office as president for the second time and solemnly swore to uphold the Constitution. Within just hours, Trump once again betrayed that oath by issuing an executive order ending birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by and enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

A federal District Court Judge temporarily blocked Trump’s order calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Will the partisan Supreme Court follow suit or fold?

Then, on Jan. 23, U.S. Representative Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican, introduced a resolution

to amend the Constitution to allow only Trump to seek a third presidential term, excluding Clinton, Bush and Obama. Trump mused, “I think I’m not allowed to run again, I’m not sure, am I allowed to run again,” and even “joked” of a fourth term.

Constitutional law is clear — he’s prohibited from running again. At least for now.

Is this willful recalcitrance by the executive branch toward the Constitution and America’s institutions righteous indignation or a display of vanity, exaggerated amour propre and conceit that comes from being consumed with false pride and the envious desire to covet unconditional rule?

During the last decade some Americans were corrupted through the art of persuasion. Trump induced

his followers to think solely of themselves and how great they can be isolated from the world and they fell susceptible to the guile and dissimulation spewed by the political serpent who concocted lies mixed with a touch of truth in order to strengthen the deception and enticed them to disobey the Constitution.

“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n,” Milton wrote in “Paradise Lost.”

The lies have created a lust for that pseudo greatness and contrived patriotism that has perverted, warped and overwhelmed democracy. The Orwellian strategy to control the thought of the masses with propaganda, slogans and confusion has succeeded in manipulating many to forgo democratic principles and prefer a strongman over a statesman.

Trump zealots were tempted and seduced to eat the forbidden fruit in hopes of attaining that intoxicating promise of greatness and although they liked the taste of autocracy they have yet to suffer the consequences, experience the shame or regret their fall.

America the beautiful has fallen from grace.

The free press is the first line of defense against a tyrannical government but some media outlets have capitulated in return for access and survival. Those that have not succumbed have been threatened with license revocation or otherwise frivolous multi-million dollar lawsuits, and dauntless journalists who assert freedom of the press risk repercussions. Corporations, billionaires and social media companies also fell in line, with fear the motivation, oligarchy the prize. America is sojourning, nihilism has won. The paradox of a divided United States has manifested and an anti-democratic nature is now evident with pandemonium as its mentor, envy its conscience and retribution its goal.

After Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk, who has endorsed the far-right nationalist party in Germany, was accused of gesturing the Nazi salute while standing behind a podium that displayed the seal of the president of the United States. During World War II, 400,000 Americans died to defeat the Nazis in the battle against tyranny. The future is waiting for America to once again reject tyranny, uphold its Constitution and reassert itself as the leader of the free world. America is the beacon of hope, “that without hope we live on in desire.” We await a savior to redeem America from the disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit of autocracy and falling from the Constitution because of one man’s fantasy and messianic desire to be the “chosen one.” Democracy is a sprinkling of paradise in a fallen world. But America will see democracy regained.

Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via AP Images

Protestors gathered outside of the United States Office of Personnel Management Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Elon Musk, tech billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), sent a memo to government workers entitled “fork in the road” that offered workers eight months of pay to incentivize their resignation.

COMMENTARY COMMENTARY COMMENTARY

and Jobs Act (TCJA) passed in 2017.

Standard deductions amounts

The standard deduction amounts will increase to $14,600 for individuals, $21,900 for heads of households, and $29,200 for married couples filing jointly and for surviving spouses. Also, the additional standard deduction amount for the aged (over 65) or the blind is $1,550. The additional standard deduction amount increases to $1950 for unmarried taxpayers.

Itemized deductions amounts

• Medical expenses deduction: Under TCJA, you can only claim a deduction for the portion of your medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (AGI).

file married filing separately you are allowed only $5,000. Additionally, foreign real-estate taxes cannot be deducted anymore.

• Deduction for mortgage interest: Under TCJA, this deduction is now more restrictive and those who can afford sizable mortgages will be affected. Through 2017, you could deduct interest on mortgage loans up to $1 million if one used the proceeds to acquire a first or second residence. The TCJA cuts this deduction to $750,000.

• Charitable contributions deduction: The TJCA enhanced the deduction for contributions by raising the limit that can be contributed in any one year. The limit is now 60 percent of AGI.

• Casualty-and-theft losses deduction: This deduction has been pared way back. You can only claim this deduction if you suffered a loss due to a federally declared disaster.

BY RON ISAAC

Reagan, Bush Picks

Hypocrisy On Supreme-Court Choice

years of been Justices the more have women is 4 over decision to African-Amerhe we qualified comical if ignoJobs the and What an President for selectblue-ribbon apconfirm or politicontext is Ronto woman immedifrom find obvious1991,

Will someone please step forward and explain the logic and fairness of members of Congress being allowed to massively enrich themselves and their families by indulging in insider trading when it is strictly forbidden for the rest of us? They get paid roughly what a school principal gets, and most of them, when first elected, are not particularly wealthy. Yet within a few years they can afford palatial estates on both coasts and multiple continents.

They do it naturally and with disturbing seamlessness.

but they are fluid. There’s nothing to stop perspicacious elected leaders of the free world taking a cue from mob-run nightclubs by having two sets of books, one of them with notations in disappearing ink.

• State and Local Taxes Deduction (SALT): Under TCJA, there is an overall limit to how much you can deduct. It caps out at $10,000. If you pay $6,000 in property taxes and $5,000 in state income taxes for a total of $11,000, you will lose $1,000 of that deduction. This is a real blow to those who live in states with higher state income taxes and property taxes. If you

• Miscellaneous deductions: The TCJA eliminates the deduction used to pay for job-related expenses. Additionally, investment fees and tax preparation costs are gone. These were deductions subject to 2 percent of AGI threshold. In conclusion, for taxpayers who used to itemize, it may no longer make sense if a new, higher standard deduction exceeds what the itemized deductions would have been.

Barry Lisak is an IRS enrolled agent specializing in personal and small business taxes for 30 years. Any questions can be directed to him at 516-829-7283, or mrbarrytax@aol.com.

and by deducunder Act mar(MFJ), separately household spouse 2021 the dollar and and 65 and blind in-

Everybody else would be forced into bankruptcy and imprisoned on the first offense for what members of Congress do with greater care and perseverance, for the most part, than they attend the peoples’ business.

Expect a Top Candidate

THE CHIEF-LEADER, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2022

Letters to the Editor

Audacity to Criticize Molina

on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, which imposed some transparency, cut down on insider trading somewhat, a 2022 analysis by The New York Times, quoted in the Federal Times, stated that “nearly one in five members of Congress traded stocks in businesses to which they are privy to inside information and for which they can affect the value of those stocks through official actions.”

That is the tip of the iceberg or, more to the point, the trip switch for an exploding landmine. It’s the Military-Congressional Complex.

It’s inevitable that the position of some legislators on proposed laws will be affected by how their enactment may affect their own “bottom line.” They should be mandated to divest any investments that might be impacted by their votes on pending bills.

YOUR

George Herbert Walker Bush had to replace the first African American, Thurgood Marshall. He looked all over the country and the “most-qualified” was Clarence Thomas, also an African-American? Of course not. Clarence Thomas is an African-American conservative and he got the gig.

To the Editor: On Feb 19, the NY Daily News published an article entitled, “As NYC Correction Commissioner Molina cleans house, critics worry he’s coddling jail unions.”

Which legislators are the worst advantage-takers?

What are their names and details of their miraculously rigged profitable investments? Are they preponderantly Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Libertarians, Socialists or Independents, or are they all players in the game, regardless of ideological fealty?

Members on national security committees, especially on the Senate and House Armed Services committees, can, without restriction, trade in stocks of such major defense contractors as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, at the same time that they oversee defense contracts and budgets. The Federal Times observes that “reaping the benefits of the military-industrial-complex is thoroughly bipartisan.”

Whether it’s a newly elected Mayor, Governor or President, every new administration replaces personnel, notwithstanding their work performance. No reason is needed to remove someone in an appointed position within NYC government with the exception of the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, even though there is more than enough justification to fire all the top managers in DOC.

I think there’s plenty of guilt to go around. Among the most flagrant beneficiaries of this corrupt “insider trading” perk have been Nancy Pelosi and Dan Goldman, both Democrats, and Michael McCaul and the late James Inhofe, both Republicans. The problem is not with mutual funds, index funds, retirement funds or college savings accounts, but rather individual stocks.

Let’s please stop the nonsense in this country. We have never had an African-American woman on the court. Biden will not be selecting a cashier from Stop-and-Shop or a pilates instructor from the local sports club. He will select a highly educated, highly credentialed woman who attended a top college, top law school, clerked for a Justice, served on the Federal appellate court and all the other “credentials” deemed necessary in this day and age for a Justice. The attacks on this decision should be seen for what they are. They are idiotic political theater from a cohort that sees even a tiny effort at progress as threatening the white male position in society.

Vincent Scala is a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney. He is currently a criminal-defense attorney in New York City and its suburbs.

Interviewed in February 2023 by Yahoo Finance,  U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, said, “ it’s “not a mystery to me” why a stock trading ban is “difficult to pass” in Congress, given that “an enormous amount” of members hold stock, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the majority of members of Congress holding and trading an individual stock.”

BARRY LISAK

Why doesn’t a single reporter from any wing of any media source grill these legal grifters?  Interviewers should be like mongooses to those snakes. But instead, they’ll ask them whether they prefer pepperoni or mushrooms on their pizza. American folklore is loaded with tales furthering the premise that all Americans are equal under the law, though even a somewhat maladroit historian can rattle off tons of evidence to the contrary.

Although the Stop Trading

Of course, they all insist that they have never parlayed non-public information that is available only to them into personal adventures in prosperity, and I do not make any specific allegations. But with regard to the astonishing skyrocketing of assets among a large multiple of patriotic federal legislators, it’s a conceivability worth not dismissing.

Top managers likely get their jobs through political connections and serve entirely at the pleasure of the Mayor. Moreover, the personnel that Louis Molina removed were in charge of critical units which they failed to lead effectively.

DOC was on the brink of an implosion as a result of the feckless leadership of Vincent Schiraldi and his coterie. Now Schiraldi, who was the worst DOC commissioner in its 127-year history, is questioning Molina’s personnel decisions.

The STOCK Act should be updated and made more abuse-proof. And the spouses, children and family of the legislators should be governed by it as well. That includes potential criminal prosecution for violations.

To date, there have been no such legal proceedings, though members of Congress can be “disciplined” by their Capitol playmates.

How is it that Schiraldi, a so-called juvenile-justice reformer and expert, failed so miserably in managing DOC?

In an interview with VICE a few years ago, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat, referencing the “flurry of trades” immediately before the pandemic, said “ I was really shocked because the trades seemed so blatant…. Frankly, it’s going to undermine people’s faith in our country.”

How is it that Oren Varnai, the head of DOC’s Intelligence Bureau and a “former covert officer in the CIA,” could not stop the scourge of gang violence from dominating and ravaging Rikers? Varnai, at least, must be commended for wishing Molina success, and I must say he has impressive credentials.

VICE noted the “outrage over members of Congress selling millions worth of shares before the stock market tanked over fears of the contagion. In some cases, those sales came after closed-door briefings about the virus.”

It’s been argued that the insider trading issue is complicated. It’s not. Let there be a level playing field, one way or the other.

The Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act was introduced in 2023. Mandated divestments would have been recorded in a searchable public database. Needless to say, it died a natural death, killed by a Congress that goes into anaphylactic shock when faced with transparency.

THE CHIEF-LEADER welcomes letters from its readers for publication. Correspondents must include their names, addresses and phone numbers. Letters should be submitted with the understanding that all correspondence is subject to the editorial judgment of this newspaper. To submit a letter to the editor online, visit thechiefleader.com and click on Letters to the Editor.

SOCIAL SECURITY 5 benefits to apply for online at ssa.gov

BY RAVI GOPAUL

WE AT SOCIAL SECURITY continue to make it easier for you to access our programs and benefits. Via our website — www.SSA.gov — you can apply for a multitude of benefits, including the following:

may complete the application process online. To learn more, visit www.ssa.gov/ssi, or call 1-800-7721213 to schedule an appointment. (TTY/TDD number: 1-800-3250778.)

According to Law.com, an app, called Autopilot, has been “designed to track and disclose congressional stock trading activity in real-time” and “publicly launching lawmakers’ trading portfolios to the public.” There may be other tools for monitoring this information. I assume, but do not know, that they are a legitimate and lawful tool, but at the very least, their advertised function sounds like a good idea.

criminals and probably require arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment? If the homeless who are removed from the subways refuse to cooperate with programs designed to help them turn their lives around, what are the penalties? Will they be arrested or placed in secure mental facilities where they will be less likely to do harm to others?

• Retirement or spouse’s benefits. You must be at least 61 years and 9 months and want your benefits to start in no more than 4 months. Apply at www.ssa.gov/retirement.

• Medicare. The federal health insurance program is for people age 65 or older, younger workers who have received disability benefits for 24 months, and people with end-stage renal disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The latter do not have a two-year waiting period.

House and Senate members should be forced to place their investments in blind trusts. The blinder the better.

We should quash the self-deceiving fantasy that all Americans have equal standing and that we have a “classless society” of unstratified rights and privileges. It is foolish to contemplate, and futile to covet a reality that is proscribed by human nature.

Those homeless people who are mentally or emotionally incapable of living safely with others have to be “imprisoned,” either in prisons (if convicted of crimes) or in secure mental institutions. Those who refuse to cooperate with reasonable and necessary treatment from qualified and competent authorities have to be treated the same way—prison or secure mental facilities.

Only those homeless who cooperate with those who provide necessary treatment, and can live peacefully with others, should be placed in housing in the neighborhoods in all five boroughs of the city.

MICHAEL

J. GORMAN

• Disability benefits. You can use our online application at www. ssa.gov/disability to apply for disability benefits if you are age 18 or older, are unable to work because of a medical condition that is expected to last at least 12 months or result in death and have not been denied disability benefits in the last 60 days. If your application was recently denied, you can appeal our decision online and request a review of the determination we made. Please visit www.ssa.gov/apply/appeal-decision-we-made.

• Supplemental Security Income.

If you are not already receiving Social Security benefits, you should apply for Medicare up to three months before turning age 65 at www.ssa.gov/medicare. Consider your Medicare options even if you are still working and covered under an employer group health plan (or your spouse’s employer health plan through their active employment).

• Extra Help with Medicare prescription drug costs. The Extra Help program helps Medicare beneficiaries with prescription drug costs, like deductibles and copays. People on Medicare who need assistance with the cost of their medications can apply for Extra Help at www.ssa.gov/medicare/ part-d-extra-help.

additional deduction because she is 70 years old. Her standard deduction for 2021 is $14,250 ($12,550, the standard deduction for 2021, plus $1,700, the 2021 additional standard deduction for the singles who are over 65 or blind). Example 2 In 2021, Nicole and her spouse are joint filers. Both qualify for an additional standard deduction because they are both over 65. Their Form 1040 standard deduction is $27,800 ($25,100, the 2021 standard deduction for joint filers, plus 2 x $1,350, the 2021 additional standard deduction for married persons who are over 65 or blind). The above examples reflect the benefit of the new standard deduction. Millions of taxpayers won’t be itemizing this year to reduce their Federal income-tax bill. They’ll claim the standard

How does Sarena Townsend, the Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and a former prosecutor who preferred departmental charges on thousands of uniformed staff—resulting in scores if not hundreds of correction officers being fired or forced to resign—now cries foul when she gets fired ?

The STOCK Act may not be toothless, but the mouth of the law is essentially wired shut. Violations, no matter how bold and glaring, are difficult to prove. Penalties for failure to report are laughably low.  Ethics are not written in water,

Yet there needs to be some equalization between the “haves and have nots” in areas, wherever possible. That requires we stop being a nation of royalists, which we are more than the old European monarchies. There is no groundswell of indignation that members of Congress may endow themselves by insider trading that is foreclosed to us. We treat them as lords and ladies of the manor, and we venerate the office of the presidency, rather than let these folks fade into obscurity and be reabsorbed into the general population when they leave their magisterial gig.

SSI provides monthly payments to adults and children with a disability or blindness who have limited income and few resources. People age 65 and older without disabilities who have limited income and resources may also be eligible for SSI. Some adults with disabilities who meet certain requirements

Ravi Gopaul is a Social Security public affairs specialist in New York City.

Schiraldi praises his managers who created a “war room” to redeploy staff on an emergency basis. That “war room” should have also been utilized to generate and implement new policy to stop the devastating inmate violence that inflicted pain and suffering on officers and inmates alike. Further, the now-garrulous Schiraldi was speechless when the unions continuously sounded the alarm regarding chaos, bedlam, lawlessness and gross mismanagement by top bosses. Commissioner Molina is addressing all those issues. Neither Schiraldi, nor any of his senior managers, have the credibility or standing to criticize Molina.

We should quash the self-deceiving fantasy that all Americans have equal standing and that we have a “classless society” of unstratified rights and privileges.

They should then travel by commercial aircrafts, at their own expense, without an entourage, as do many world leaders. But we confer upon our presidents an otherworldly aura. Colleges are still offering electives on President William Henry Harrison, who died almost 150 years ago after 30 days in office.

Perhaps artificial intelligence will one day do the work of our members of Congress. It’ll do us no less proud. It will not flinch, and at least as regards insider trading, it will likewise proceed without a blush of modesty.

To the Editor: The proposed New York Health Act would provide on a statewide level what Medicare-for-All would provide nationwide. Yet in recent issues, it has been claimed that the reason some unions oppose this is because the medical plans they already have provide benefits that this proposal would not include. Now as a retired transit worker, I have always had good health coverage since I started working for the system in 1979. But one friend who was an excellent Transport Workers Union Local 100 rep had serious health issues before he recently passed away. He had a stroke while he was still working, and had to fight numerous large bills for medical care that was supposed to be covered. I remember him saying, “I have great coverage as long as I don’t get sick.” Under the New York Health Act, patients would not have to worry about fighting bills. They would not even have to worry if they

VINCENT SCALA

John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx

The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street just ahead of Election Day in November 2020.

70 unionized Alamo Drafthouse Cinema workers laid off, strike threatened

Year-long bargaining fails to yield a contract

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

As part of a nationwide wave of cuts at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 70 unionized workers at two locations in New York City were laid off Monday, the workers’ union, Local 2179 of the United Auto Workers, said.  In response to the layoffs at the dine-in theater chain, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge and voted with 98 percent support to authorize a strike, union members said.

Employees were given several weeks’ notice of the planned layoffs and met with Alamo management four times to try and reach an agreement that could reduce staff hours across the board in a bid to avoid the firings of dozens of union members, workers and Local 2179 officials said. But at the conclusion of negotiations last Friday, management declared an impasse, and the chain signaled it would be moving forward with laying off 30 union workers at a Manhattan location and 40 at a Brooklyn location.

In response, union members quickly voted to authorize a strike and filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB alleging that Alamo management bargained in bad faith over the layoffs and wasn’t properly providing the union with information, according to the filing,

On Monday evening, after the layoffs were announced, union members formed informational picket lines outside of the two Alamo locations while movies played inside. The workers have not yet gone on strike and are not asking their supporters to boycott Alamo, but a walkout could be imminent, they said.

A spokesperson for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema did not respond to a request for comment. The chain, purchased by Sony Pictures Entertainment last June, also laid off 15 corporate staffers as part of the widespread cuts.    Ariana Mottaghian, a bartender who’s worked for six months at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Brooklyn, found out that she was

losing her job in a Monday morning phone call. She said her firing came as a shock even though she knew some workers would be let go.

“It’s just such an unfortunate situation that no matter when I got the news it was going to devastate me,”

Mottaghian told The Chief while on the picket line.

“I actually loved working here,”

she said while battling back tears.

“It was one of the first places that felt like family to me.”

Movie theaters typically see reduced traffic in the first quarter as the holiday releases ebb and award season attention recedes, but the workers insisted that their theater was still doing well in the new year.

“I work in the box office and can tell you that people are buying tickets,” Jordan Baruch, a concierge and member of the union’s bargaining committee, said Monday

evening. “We are improving every quarter one, year over year. “

‘Outraged’

Staff at Alamo Brooklyn were often overworked and understaffed even before the layoffs, he argued. “Yesterday was a very busy day and we were incredibly understaffed,” Baruch added. “It’s going to be a lot harder to fill shifts now when we have 40 less people at this theater.”

Theater management, however, insisted at the bargaining table that the theater had too much staff for the foot traffic and revenue expected to be generated from the slate of movies offered in next few months, said Will Bobrowski, a vice president of Local 2179. Bobrowski explained that entertainment businesses are still feeling the effects of the monthslong SAG-AFTRA and

writers guild strike in 2023 that delayed production on many movies and led to a decrease in content output.

To try and support the workers while keeping the business func-

tioning, union negotiators told their Alamo counterparts that they would be open to reducing workers’ hours to 16 a week on average to ward off layoffs of dozens of workers. Following that proposal, management unilaterally declared an impasse and ended bargaining, according to Bobrowski.

“The entire bargaining unit is outraged,” he said. “The 80 percent who are left behind, all of the work is going to fall on them. They’re already understaffed.”

When bargaining over layoffs, management provided data to try and explain their decision to enact layoffs but Baruch said that the projections and financial statistics that management’s lawyers shared “did not prove the necessity for this layoff.”

The workers are without a union contract, having failed to reach an agreement with management a year after bargaining began. The two sides have yet to discuss economic topics for that contract, Baruch said.

Adding to workers’ confusion is that five new theaters were opened at Alamo’s Brooklyn location in the last year and several others were renovated. With fewer staff members, fewer of those theaters will be able to show movies at any given time, which Baruch argued will lead to business “suffering immensely.”  Workers wouldn’t say when they’ll go on strike, but they said they plan to do whatever it takes to support their coworkers who lost their jobs. “To see their support just validates how real these people are and how much this job has been impacting us,” Mottaghian said.

Bill would ban toxic firefighter gear

PFAS associated with higher rates of cancer BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com

Firefighters are more likely to be diagnosed with and die from cancer than the general public, studies have shown. To combat that, Governor Kathy Hochul has introduced legislation that would prohibit the sale of firefighter gear containing harmful chemicals known as PFAS.

Fire responders’ personal protective equipment, including their boots and jackets, is frequently treated with per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS chemicals, to make the equipment water-resistant. But in recent years, concerns have emerged about the health risks of PFAS exposure, including its potential link to cancer and negative impacts on the immune system.

As part of Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month, the governor highlighted a bill introduced during the State of the State that would ban manufacturers from producing or selling firefighter gear containing intentionally added PFAS chemicals.

“Keeping our state’s firefighters safe while they put their lives on the line to protect the people and communities across New York is absolutely critical, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect them from the harmful toxins they come into contact with on the job,” Hochul said. “I’ll continue making sure our firefighters and first responders have all the equipment and resources they need to protect themselves while they work to protect their communities.”

If passed, the law would take effect starting Jan. 1, 2028. Last year, two states — Massachusetts and Connecticut — passed laws banning the use of PFAS in firefighter gear, becoming the first states in the nation to do so.

Firefighters receive cancer diag-

noses at a nearly 10-percent higher rate than that of the general population, according to studies from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. They also die from cancer at a rate that is 15 percent higher. Occupational cancer is the leading cause of line-of-duty death among those in the fire service, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters.

“New York’s firefighters put their lives on the line to keep our communities and loved ones safe every day,” said Jackie Bray, commissioner of the division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. “Helping them reduce their exposure to the carcinogens that they confront while doing their jobs is critical. Our commitment to assisting them mitigate their risk of exposure and ensuring that they have the knowledge and resources they need to protect themselves, will always be a top priority.”

The governor highlighted other measures the state has taken to mitigate firefighters’ health risks. The state has developed training protocols educating firefighters on how to decontaminate their gear following a fire response, which 3,200 students have taken since 2022. Research has shown that undergoing the decontamination process can reduce firefighters exposure to toxins by 85 percent.

State Fire officials have scheduled firefighter contamination reduction and cancer prevention classes, and since 2023, more than 1,100 fire stations across the state have received decontamination kits that include items such as a five-gallon bucket, post-fire wipes, a hose and detergent.

“This training is intended to raise awareness of the cancer risks faced by firefighters and provide simple steps firefighters can take to reduce those risks to themselves and their families. Our goal is to provide a decontamination kit for every fire station in the state,” State Fire Administrator James Cable said.

Duncan Freman / The Chief

The unionized workers of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn walked on an informational picket line Monday, just hours after 40 theater workers were laid off. The workers plan to strike in response.

DCAS HIRING LIST

Traffic Enforcement Agent

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services established a 250-name list for Traffic Enforcement Agent on November 13, 2024. The list is based on Exam 4319, which was recently held. Readers should note that eligible lists change over their four-year life as candidates are added, removed, reinstated, or rescored. The list shown below is accurate as of the date of establishment but list standings can change as a result of appeals.

Some scores are prefixed by the letters v, d, p, s and r. The letter “v” designates a credit given to an honorably discharged veteran who has served during time of war. The letter “d” designates a credit given to an honorably discharged veteran who was disabled in combat. The letter “p” designates a “legacy credit” for a candidate whose parent died while engaged in the discharge of duties as a NYC Police Officer or Firefighter. The letter “s” designates a “legacy credit” for being the sibling of a Police Officer or Firefighter who was killed in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. Finally, the letter “r” designates a resident of New York City.

Some

JOB HIGHLIGHT

The current minimum salary is $39,486 per year, increasing to $45,409 after two years of satisfactory work. The application fee is $54.

THE JOB Call center representatives, under supervision in the city’s Office of Information Technology and Innovation’s 24-hour 3-1-1 Call Center, provide a single point of contact for all non-emergency city services using state-of-the-art telephone and interactive computer systems, respond to phone inquiries from the public, provide customer service and information to callers, take complaints and service requests and forward them for further action.

They also enter inquiries, complaints and requests into appropriate computer systems, and perform related clerical and computer support work.

They are required to work various shifts including nights, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. This is an on-site position with shifts performed at the call center. Call center reps sit for extended periods of time with a headset on while monitoring two computer screens; type information into the computer using a keyboard; coordinate eye/hand movements while handling calls for the efficient use of console and computer; speak calmly and clearly in order to elicit information and give instructions to a continuous flow of callers under stress; listen carefully to clearly understand information; make responsible judgments where timing is critical; and sit within hearing distance of other call takers working under similar conditions. The representatives are required to pass a four-week training course. Appointments to the position are subject to a one-year probationary period.

REQUIREMENTS

Successful applicants will have either 1) A baccalaureate degree from

an accredited college or university; or 2) An associate degree or 60 college credits from an accredited college or university and one year of satisfactory, full-time experience utilizing a computer to provide information or customer services to the public; or 3) A four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a State’s Department of Education or a recognizing accrediting organization and two years of satisfactory, full-time experience utilizing a computer to provide information or customer services to the public; or 4) A satisfactory combination of education and experience. Satisfactory, full-time experience working for a New York City government agency using a computer to provide information or customer services to the public may be substituted on the basis of one year of NYC government work experience for the two years of experience described in “2” above. College credit may be substituted for the experience utilizing a computer to provide information or customer services to the public on the basis of 60 semes-

ter credits for each year of the experience described in “2” above.

All candidates must possess a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent. Proficiency in navigating multiple computer systems using a computer keyboard and mouse is required.

Incumbents might need to be city residents within 90 days of appointment to this position. Since residency requirements vary by title, appointing agency and length of service, consult the appointing agency’s personnel office at the time of the appointment interview to find out if City residency is required.

THE EXAM

Exam scores are determined by an education and experience test. Applicants will receive a score of 70 points for meeting the education and experience requirements listed above.

After these requirements are met, they will receive additional credit up to a maximum of 100 points depending on the satisfactory, fulltime experience working in a U.S.

UPCOMING EXAMS LEADING TO JOBS

Below is a roundup of New York City and State exams leading to public-service positions. Most of the jobs listed are located in the New York Metropolitan area and upstate.

There are residency requirements for many New York City jobs and for state law-enforcement positions.

Prospective applicants are advised to write or call the appropriate office to make sure they meet the qualifications needed to apply for an exam. For jobs for which no written tests are given, candidates will be rated on education and experience, or by oral tests or performance exams.

DCAS Computer-based Testing and Application Centers (CTACs) have re-opened to the public. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, walk-ins are no longer accepted and appointments must be scheduled online through OASys for eligible list or examination related inquiries.

All examination and eligible list related notifications will be sent by email only, you will no longer receive notifications via the US mail.

All new hires must be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation for religion or disability. If you are offered city employment, this requirement must be met by your date of hire, unless a reasonable accommodation for exemption is received and approved by the hiring agency.

For further information about where to apply to civil service exams and jobs, visit the thechief.org/exams.

The Federal Government has decentralized its personnel operations and holds few exams on a national or regional basis. Most Federal vacancies are filled by individual agencies based on education-and-experience evaluations. For information, contact the U.S. Office of Personnel Management or individual agencies, or see www.usajobs.gov.

governmental agency (city, state, or federal) using a computer to provide information or customer services to the public.

They also will get credit for satisfactory, full-time experience working for a U.S. non-governmental employer utilizing a computer to provide information or customer services to the public.

SELECTIVE CERTIFICATION

Applicants with at least two years of municipal government experience in a city with over 1 million residents may be considered for appointment to positions requiring this experience through a process called selective certification. Those who qualify for selective certification may be given preferred consideration for positions requiring this experience. That experience will be checked by the appointing agency at the time of appointment.

For complete details on the positions, including the experience credits, visit https://www.nyc.gov/ site/dcas/employment/exam-schedules-open-competitive-exams.page

of Youth and Community Development. COMPUTER SPECIALIST (SOFTWARE)–33 eligibles between Nos. 27 and 1327 on List 1139 for 3 jobs in Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. ELECTRICIAN–105 eligibles between

Nos. 76.5 and 231 on List 3029 for 3 jobs in DHS.

INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST–18 eligibles between Nos. 19 and 133 on List 2029 for 2 jobs in Department of Transportation.

MASON’S HELPER–22 eligibles between Nos. 188 and 264 on List 1116 at Housing Authority.

PARALEGAL AIDE–3 eligibles (Nos. 258, 264 and 338) on List 1140 for 1 job in Department of Buildings.

PUBLIC RECORDS AIDE–205 eligibles between Nos. 5 and 215 on List 2019 for 1 job in Fire Department.

RUBBER TIRE REPAIRER–50 eligibles (Nos. 1-50) on List 4088 for 1 job in DSNY.

STOCK WORKER–9 eligibles between Nos. 26 and 249 on List 2100 for 1 job in DOT.

PROMOTION

ADMINISTRATIVE CONSTRUCTION

PROJECT MANAGER–2 eligibles (Nos. 5 and 6) on List 3523 for any of 4 jobs at HA.

ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER–16 eligibles between Nos. 1 and 37 on List 1552 for 1 job in DOB.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCUREMENT

ANALYST–25 eligibles (Nos. 2-27) on List 3572 for 15 jobs in DEP.

ASSOCIATE INSPECTOR (CONSUMER AND WORKER PROTECTION)–17

eligibles between Nos. 0.5 and 15 on List 4511 for 10 jobs in Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. HOUSING MANAGER–3 eligibles (34, 48 and 55) on List 3519 for 1 job at HA.

SUPERVISOR III (SOCIAL SERVICES)–7

Human Resources Analyst Trainee, NHCC $48,027-$66,600 ➤ OPEN CONTINUOUSLY

7078 CR(D) Cytotechnologist I $43,863$91,243

7094 CR(D) Cytotechnologist II $52,099$108,383 7095 CR(D) Cytotechnologist III $66,357$132,168 61-639 CR Librarian I $43,000-$61,333 60-180 CR Librarian I, Bilingual (Spanish Speaking)

5263 CR(D) Medical Technologist I $31,963-$74,978

5002 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Acute Care) $59,507-$108,383

5003 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Adult Health) $59,507-$108,383

5004 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Community Health) $59,507$108,383

5005 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Family Health) $59,507-$108,383

5006 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Gerontology) $59,507-$108,383

5007 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Neonatology) $59,507-$108,383

5008 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Obstetrics/Gynecology) $59,507$108,383 5009 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Oncology)

LABOR AROUND THE WORLD LABOR AROUND THE WORLD LABOR AROUND THE WORLD

Air traffic controllers were sent offer to resign

Told to consider leaving government

BY THOMAS BEAUMONT, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and NICHOLAS RICCARDI Associated Press

Just a day before a deadly midair collision at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., employees at the Federal Aviation Administration were sent an offer to resign with eight months’ pay.

The union for air traffic controllers recommended to its members that they not accept offer, because the FAA had not decided which positions would be included in the resignation plan. An official for the Office for Personnel Management, the U.S. government’s human resources arm, said last Friday that controllers weren’t eligible for the resignation plan or subject to the hiring freeze across much of the rest of federal government.

The Jan. 29 crash that killed all 67 people on board an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter has renewed focus on the real-world implications of President Donald Trump’s push to slash the federal bureaucracy.

There’s no evidence that the White House effort to downsize government played any role in the collision, with shortages of air traffic controllers long predating Trump taking office. But those who’ve worked in air safety say that those who try to dramatically shake up the federal workforce need to remember that lives are on the line.

“It concerns me that there are people who don’t want to reform or restructure institutions, they want to destroy institutions,” said James Hall, who was head of the National Transportation Safety Board under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

“The American people enjoy the safest aviation system in the world. I don’t doubt there should be changes in government, but someone should remember the old adage

to look before you leap.”

Last Thursday, as the investigation into the crash was well underway, FAA employees were among the federal workers who received an email telling them to quit and find more useful work.

“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,”

read the memo from OPM.

An official with OPM, which made the resignation offers, said air traffic controllers are exempt from a hiring freeze that Trump announced on taking office on Jan. 20 and they are not eligible for a buyout even though they were sent the offer. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal government operations.

It was unclear if the controllers themselves have been notified by OPM whether they are exempt.

After the initial offer went out, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association recommended in an email to its union members not to submit a request for the resignation until more information was available. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the union email.

NATCA President Nick Daniels said officials had not explained to the union the details of how its employees would be affected by the retirement program.

“NATCA has not received a briefing on how or whether the deferred resignation program will be implemented in the FAA,” Daniels said in a statement provided to the AP.

“It is not yet clear how this program will affect aviation safety workers represented by our Union,” he added. “However, we are concerned about the potential effect to public safety and the efficiency and capacity of the air traffic control system if FAA were to lose experienced aviation safety personnel during a universally recognized air traffic controller staffing shortage.”

Musk’s influence Though the new administration insists its cost-cutting will exempt public safety workers and keep citi-

‘The fiber of government is woven throughout our lives. If you downgrade the capacity, you downgrade what you get.’

NHL Players’ Association joins the AFL-CIO

Professional Hockey Players’ Association also aligns with union

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The National Hockey League Players’ Association and Professional Hockey Players’ Association are affiliating with the AFL-CIO and joining the labor organization’s sports council, they announced Monday.

Their membership brings the number of unions involved in the AFL-CIO, the biggest labor federation in the U.S., to 63, representing more than 15 million workers. It comes as collective bargaining talks are ongoing at multiple levels of the sport.

“Whether our work is on the rink, in the classroom or on the factory floor, every worker deserves a voice on the job and the power that comes with union membership,” AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said. “We are thrilled to welcome the NHLPA and the PHPA into the federation and our Sports Council, and we look forward to supporting their work to ensure strong union contracts, fair wages, safe working conditions and professional development opportunities for professional hockey play-

ers.”

The NHLPA represents roughly 750 players across 32 teams, while the PHPA has 1,800 members in the American Hockey League and ECHL.

“The NHLPA’s membership is proud to join the AFL-CIO and its sports council during this important moment in the labor movement,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said. “We look forward to working together with other players’ associations and unions from across North America to ensure that workers in all industries have a collective voice in fighting for fair wages and safe and equitable workplaces.”

The AFL-CIO formed a sports council in 2022 and already included unions representing players in the NFL, WNBA, Major League Soccer and National Women’s Soccer League.

“Our members are excited about taking an active role in working towards better outcomes for working people in every sector of the economy,” PHPA executive director Brian Ramsay said. “As we begin collective bargaining negotiations, our members will now enjoy the full support of the AFL-CIO at the bargaining table. This is what solidarity is all about.”

zens safe, its rhetoric and approach have been more sweeping than surgical.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the technology mogul Trump tapped to lead the effort, has said “bureaucracy is killing America” and repeatedly called for massive, across-the-board reductions in the federal workforce. Trump and his supporters have made personal loyalty to the president a top priority in hiring new workers or keeping existing ones.

During the campaign, Musk demanded the resignation of FAA administrator Michael Whitaker, who clashed with Musk over regulating SpaceX and stepped down the day before Trump took office. That left the FAA leaderless until Trump, at a press conference the day after the crash, named an acting head of the agency.

Trump blamed diversity hiring after the crash — despite no evidence about the qualifications of anyone involved in the collision — and alleged that former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama lowered standards to meet racial or

other quotas. He decried an FAA diversity policy that existed during his first administration.

Though the Trump administration talks about the need to shed federal workers, the government has been desperate to hire air traffic controllers for nearly a decade.

The FAA has struggled to keep up with the rapidly increasing number of commercial flights, even as there had been no fatal air accidents since 2009. Last year, Biden pushed for funding to hire 2,000 more controllers and announced the hiring of 1,800 controllers in September.

An FAA report obtained by the AP said that air traffic control staffing at the airport on the day of the crash “was not normal,” with one person doing the work normally assigned to two people at the time of the collision. A person familiar with the matter noted that the positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.

Don Kettl, an emeritus professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, warned that it is likely to become even harder to recruit those sorely needed air traffic controllers now.

“The fact that there’s so much uncertainty in such a short time period and the fact that the president personally seems to have blamed them,” Kettl said, “is bound to make it more difficult to hire more controllers.”

Kettl warned that there are many critical, demanding and highskilled government jobs that are already tough to fill — from food safety inspectors to surgeons at Veterans Administration hospitals — and that may get even tougher now.

“The fiber of government is woven throughout our lives,” Kettl said. “If you downgrade the capacity, you downgrade what you get.”

Dozens of Education Dep’t workers put on leave over Trump’s anti-DEI order

BY COLLIN BINKLEY Associated Press

Dozens of employees at the U.S. Education Department were put on paid administrative leave in response to President Donald Trump’s order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, according to a labor union that represents hundreds of workers in the agency.

It’s unclear how many workers were put on leave or for what reasons, said Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. The majority of employees placed on leave do not work in DEI initiatives and span all branches of the agency, she said, from an office that sends billions of dollars to K-12 schools to an office that enforces civil rights laws.

The shakeup comes as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, pushes to cut programs and federal workers at departments across the government, including the U.S. Agency for International Development. A DOGE team was working at the Education Department on Monday to implement Trump’s executive orders and agenda, said Madison Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson.

The department did not immediately comment on the personnel changes and would not say how many employees were placed on leave.

At least 55 Education Department workers received an email last Friday saying they were being put on paid leave effective immediately pursuant to Trump’s executive order. It wasn’t being done for “any disciplinary purpose,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Associated Press.

Those placed on leave lost access to their government email accounts and were told not to report to the office. They include a range of staff members and managers across the department, which employs more than 4,000 workers in Washington and regional offices across the country.

Most of those on leave appear to have taken a voluntary diversity training seminar offered by the department, Smith said. The Diversity Change Agent program has been promoted by the agency for years, including during Trump’s first term in office.

Graduates of the two-day program were expected to serve as role models and help improve the department’s “capacity to attract and retain a diverse workforce,” according to an internal email from 2019 obtained by the AP.

‘Won’t help our kids learn’

Smith said hundreds of employees have taken the training, but it was unclear if all of them were placed on leave. She said many people were under the impression the training was strongly encouraged or required.

“It seems unfair to encourage or require people to take a training and then four or five years later place them on administrative leave,” Smith said.

Some current employees who are on leave said the action could disrupt the agency’s core work, in-

cluding the management of federal student loans and the FAFSA form for student financial aid. The workers spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a former teacher and member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Trump is “purging” employees for taking a training course that his administration encouraged them to take.

“This won’t help our kids learn or even save us money,” Murray said on the social media site X.

“He’s just breaking services people rely on.”

Trump’s order called for all DEI staff in the federal government to be put on paid leave and eventually laid off. It’s part of a broader crackdown on diversity programs that the Republican president says are racist.

Trump campaigned on a promise to shut down the Education Department, which he says has been infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.” He said the agency’s power should be turned over to states and schools.

Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USAvia AP Images

An American Airlines flight prepares to land at Washington Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday.

Alex Brandon/AP Photo

Then-Republican nominee Donald Trump and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa.

Seth Wenig/AP Photo

New York Rangers’ Urho Vaakanainen, left, and Carolina Hurricanes’ Andrei Svechnikov battled for the puck during the third period of their NHL hockey game Jan. 28 in New York. Both are now members of the AFL-CIO.