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Rangers' Robertson an isolated figure in SPFL row

Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson has been accused of making "baseless, damaging and self-serving attacks" by his fellow Scottish Professional Football League board members.




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A Multi-Risk SIR Model with Optimally Targeted Lockdown -- by Daron Acemoglu, Victor Chernozhukov, Iván Werning, Michael D. Whinston

We develop a multi-risk SIR model (MR-SIR) where infection, hospitalization and fatality rates vary between groups—in particular between the “young”, “the middle-aged” and the “old”. Our MR-SIR model enables a tractable quantitative analysis of optimal policy similar to those already developed in the context of the homogeneous-agent SIR models. For baseline parameter values for the COVID-19 pandemic applied to the US, we find that optimal policies differentially targeting risk/age groups significantly outperform optimal uniform policies and most of the gains can be realized by having stricter lockdown policies on the oldest group. For example, for the same economic cost (24.3% decline in GDP), optimal semi–targeted or fully-targeted policies reduce mortality from 1.83% to 0.71% (thus, saving 2.7 million lives) relative to optimal uniform policies. Intuitively, a strict and long lockdown for the most vulnerable group both reduces infections and enables less strict lockdowns for the lower-risk groups. We also study the impacts of social distancing, the matching technology, the expected arrival time of a vaccine, and testing with or without tracing on optimal policies. Overall, targeted policies that are combined with measures that reduce interactions between groups and increase testing and isolation of the infected can minimize both economic losses and deaths in our model.




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Which Workers Bear the Burden of Social Distancing Policies? -- by Simon Mongey, Laura Pilossoph, Alex Weinberg

What are the characteristics of workers in jobs likely to be initially affected by broad social distancing and later by narrower policy tailored to jobs with low risk of disease transmission? We use O NET to construct a measure of the likelihood that jobs can be conducted from home (a variant of Dingel and Neiman, 2020) and a measure of low physical proximity to others at work. We validate the measures by showing how they relate to similar measures constructed using time use data from ATUS. Our main finding is that workers in low-work-from-home or high-physical- proximity jobs are more economically vulnerable across various measures constructed from the CPS and PSID: they are less educated, of lower income, have fewer liquid assets relative to income, and are more likely renters. We further substantiate the measures with behavior during the epidemic. First, we show that MSAs with less pre-virus employment in work-from-home jobs experienced smaller declines in the incidence of `staying-at-home', as measured using SafeGraph cell phone data. Second, we show that both occupations and types of workers predicted to be employed in low work-from-home jobs experienced greater declines in employment according to the March 2020 CPS. For example, non-college educated workers experienced a 4ppt larger decline in employment relative to those with a college degree.




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Electricity and Firm Productivity: A General-Equilibrium Approach -- by Stephie Fried, David Lagakos

The lack of reliable electricity in the developing world is widely viewed by policymakers as a major constraint on firm productivity. Yet most empirical studies find modest short-run effects of power outages on firm performance. This paper builds a dynamic macroeconomic model to study the long-run general equilibrium effects of power outages on productivity. The model captures the key features of how firms acquire electricity in the developing world, in particular the rationing of grid electricity and the possibility of self-generated electricity at higher cost. Power outages lower productivity in the model by creating idle resources, by depressing the scale of incumbent firms and by reducing entry of new firms. Consistent with the empirical literature, the model predicts that the short-run partial-equilibrium effects of eliminating outages are small. However, the long-run general-equilibrium effects are many times larger, supporting the view that eliminating outages is an important development objective.




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Cops release sketch of suspect in sexual assault of teen inside NYC college bathroom

The 17-year-old victim was entering the bathroom inside the lower level of the library at Kingsborough Community College in Manhattan Beach about 11:35 a.m. Monday when she felt someone coming in behind her, cops said.




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Brooklyn father who stabbed 2-year-old son in temple with comb charged with attempted murder

Jahvier Perez, 26, faces attempted murder, assault and child endangerment charges in the grisly Saturday morning attack, which may have left the two-year-old brain-damaged, police sources said.




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Gambino capo, 10 cohorts picked up on federal racketeering conspiracy, loansharking, bribery charges

Veteran captain Andrew Campos, 50, was arrested only months after a search warrant uncovered multiple photos of the mobster and co-defendant Richard Martino making prison visits to imprisoned Mafioso Frank LoCascio, once the underboss to the infamous “Dapper Don” Gotti.




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Off-duty NYPD cop charged in fatal two-car Brooklyn crash; second driver flees scene

A driver abandoned his wrecked vehicle and left one of his passengers to die after a drunken off-duty cop in a muscle car t-boned his vehicle in Brooklyn early Sunday, police said. NYPD Officer Rohan Shaw was driving a white 2019 Nissan GT-R, zooming east on Foster Ave. just before 5 a.m., when a black 2016 Mazda 6 rolled through a stop sign on E. 55th St. and right into the cop’s path, police said.




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Shocking claims of racism, other misonduct by high-ranking NYPD cops emerge in ‘collar quotas’ case

The city withheld explosive allegations of racism against two high-ranking NYPD cops accused of demanding arrests of black and Hispanic people, an attorney charged Friday.




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Ex-Brooklyn Poly Prep student alleges tennis coach sexually abused her in the 1980s

The victim, identified in court papers as “Jane Roe” and now middle-aged, alleges tennis coach William Martire verbally assaulted, groped and forced her give him oral sex.




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Brooklyn assault suspects get welcome reprieve under new reforms: No bail despite alleged violent offenses in separate cases

Two men accused of violent crimes were freed without bail from Brooklyn Criminal Court on Thursday amid growing concern about the state's new bail reform laws.




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Former Mexican security chief linked to Sinaloa Cartel held without bail by Brooklyn federal judge on multi-million dollar bribery charge

Garcia Luna, accused of turning a blind eye toward murderous drug overlord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman while serving as Mexico’s secretary of public security from 2006-12, arrived in Brooklyn Federal Court with his attorney for a Friday afternoon hearing.




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SEE IT: Boy violently struck by car in Brooklyn, then gets up and walks away

The frightening incident happened Wednesday around 8 a.m., on 55th St. between 14th Ave. and New Utrecht Ave. in Borough Park, according to Ezra Friedlander, who shared the video on Twitter.




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Trinitarios takedown nabs seven reputed high-ranking gang-bangers

The defendants were linked in a 15-page Manhattan court filing with a cornucopia of crimes committed between 2010-19, from murder to robbery, wire fraud to kidnapping, and drug dealing to identity theft.




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Brooklyn gynecologist accused of sex with a second underage boy

Aaron Weinreb, a 48-year-old OB-GYN, has been in home detention on $1.5 million bail since his arrest in October on charges he used the gay dating app Grindr to connect with an underage boy for sex.Because they’ve found a second victim, prosecutors wantED Weinreb jailed while he awaits trial.




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Knife-wielding straphanger slashes face of woman whose child vomited on Brooklyn bus

A Brooklyn woman was slashed in the face with a knife by an enraged passenger after her child threw up on a city bus.




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Staten Island man, 72, files Child Victims Act suit over alleged 1960s abuse by Poly Prep teachers

Rubin, now a genteel 72-year-old Staten Island resident, alleges in a newly-filed Child Victims Act lawsuit that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis between 1960-65 by a cabal of five predatory teachers at the prestigious school.




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After legendary 53-year career, Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein hangs up his robe at age 98

Judge Jack Weinstein on Monday moved to inactive status, closing out a 53-year career. A highlight of his law career was working with Thurgood Marshall on the legal arguments that led the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was illegal. He was named a federal judge in 1967, and on his retirement was the last appointee of President Lyndon Johnson still on the bench.




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Legendary mobster Sonny Franzese dead at 103

The renowned tough guy did his prison time without ever turning on his mob associates following a 1967 conviction that was widely considered both inside and outside organized crime as a set-up.




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Brooklyn judge, three others test positive for coronavirus in borough’s courts: officials

The judge, whose name was not released, was last in the courthouse on Mar. 12, officials said.




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Transgender woman housed with men repeatedly raped in Brooklyn federal lockup: lawsuit

A transgender woman awaiting trial on charges that she swindled elderly women out of their savings was raped repeatedly in jail after she was housed against her will with rowdy male inmates, according to a new lawsuit.




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Beloved Brooklyn pastor dies from coronavirus at age 49 — first Catholic priest killed by disease in the U.S., officials say

The beloved 49-year-old priest, born in Mexico City, passed away Friday evening at the Wyckoff Medical Center in Brooklyn, the diocese said. Father Jorge, as he was known to worshippers, served as the diocesan coordinator of the ministry for Mexican-Americans among his other duties.




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Charges tossed against Brooklyn nail salon workers in broomstick beatdown

Two Brooklyn nail salon workers who pummeled a customer with brooms in a viral video had assault charges against them dismissed at trial – and a defense attorney says they were victims of a mob mentality fueled by elected officials.




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Outraged staff, local residents say Brooklyn nursing home kept dead coronavirus patients in room cooled only by air conditioning

Outraged community leaders joined staffers Tuesday outside the Linden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, where demonstrators complained as many as 10 bodies were stored in an unrefrigerated fourth floor dementia unit where the dead reside among the living — and ailing residents are reportedly free to wander.




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Coronavirus pandemic rages at NYC’s federal jails — and numbers back lawyers’ and staffers’ claims that management has a poor grip on the problem

Staff at New York City’s two federal jails, defense attorneys and inmates interviewed by the Daily News say the official numbers of COVID-19 cases obscure the magnitude of the crisis behind bars.




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Feds move to drop car theft charges against slain rapper Pop Smoke

Federal prosecutors filed the motion in Brooklyn Federal Court in the case against the “Welcome to the Party” rapper, Bashar Jackson, 20, who was shot dead in Los Angeles in a Hollywood Hills home invasion in February.




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Caring New Yorkers increasingly lend a helping hand to neighbors in need as war against coronavirus gets local

While the COVID-19 pandemic keeps New Yorkers separated by face masks and social distancing and self-quarantine, a growing number of city residents are connecting through local mutual aid groups now sprouting across the shuttered boroughs.




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New Jersey mom-to-be gets coronavirus, delivers baby daughter in a coma, lives to tell the tale: ‘I’m extremely grateful that my baby and I are alive’

“I’m still going through the motions. The wounds are still really fresh,” said Johana Rocio Mendoza Chancay. “But I’m extremely grateful that my baby and I are alive,” she said, breaking down in tears.




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Pair of armed NYC muggers in medical masks use coronavirus pandemic to launch violent crime spree: cops

The heartless bandits with hidden faces are wanted for a violent robbery spree across Brooklyn and the Bronx over the past five weeks that includes beating an 83-year-old man, pistol-whipping a woman and shooting a bread deliveryman who survived a bullet to the pancreas.




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Resilient New Yorkers share messages of hope and support across the city as the war against coronavirus stretches on

New Yorkers leave messages of hope through the coronavirus pandemic.




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SEE IT: Deranged man on rampage stabs two men in Brooklyn, leaving both in critical condition

The mayhem began when the assailant went berzerk inside an apartment building on Dorchester Road and East 21 St. in Flatbush about 10:50 p.m. Saturday, punching and kicking two men before stabbing one multiple times, police said.




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She paid $15,000 for mom’s final arrangements — and now worries Brooklyn funeral home stored remains on unrefrigerated U-Haul truck

NYC Mayor de Blasio denounced storing bodies in unrefrigerated and unmanned U-Haul trucks outside of Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home on Utica Ave. and Ave. M in Flatlands




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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged. Discuss




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DEA investigator busted in sting for trying to arrange sex with 14-year-old: officials

Frederick Scheinin, 29, of Sunnyside, Queens, allegedly chatted for months with a federal agent posing as a minor, and now faces charges in Manhattan federal court of attempting to entice a minor and attempting to produce child pornography.




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Drivers, attendants of NYC’s biggest school bus contractor vote to authorize strike amid contract impasse

Two thousand workers from the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 1181 voted overwhelmingly to authorize the strike against their employer, which operates about 900 of the city’s more than 8,000 school bus routes.




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NYC Education Dept. due for shortage of more than 1,000 seats for preschoolers with disabilities: analysis

Advocates have long protested the lack of special education pre-K classes for 3- and 4-year-olds, which is federally mandated, even as the city invests millions in universal pre-K.




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CUNY names first Asian-American college president to lead Baruch College

Wu, a former Vice President at George Mason University in Virginia, was voted in unanimously, 17-0, by the city university system’s Board of Trustees Monday night and will take office on July 1.




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Holocaust studies center at Yeshiva University gets new leader

Shay Pilnik, the new president of the Yeshiva center and himself the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the recent spate of anti-semitic attacks in New York shows the urgency of coordinated, deep study of the Holocaust.




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NYC lawyers push back on state proposal to lower qualifications for special education judges amid shortage

New York City currently has fewer than 70 special education judges — called impartial hearing officers — to handle the thousands of complaints that special education students lodge every year against the city school system, resulting in more than 10,000 still-open cases.




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Agencies urge Gov. Cuomo to boost funding for special education preschool amid shortage

Advocates predict up to 2,000 city youngsters with disabilities may be unable to find an appropriate preschool this spring because of financial constraints that make it harder to hire and maintain teachers for special needs programs.




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Staten Island politician urges NYC Education Dept. to sit out St. Patrick’s Day parade after LGBTQ exclusion

City Council Member Debi Rose (D - Staten Island) said city students shouldn’t feel obligated to march with their schools or bands in the parade while event organizers refuse to let the Staten Island Pride Center march.




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Lawsuit challenges Trump administration toughening of student loan cancellation rules

New rules from federal Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would severely limit students' ability to clear debt by burying them in bureaucratic red tape, according to a new federal lawsuit.




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NY Board of Regents proposes letting non-lawyers be special ed judges

The New York Board of Regents said the move will allow the state to hire more judges and ease the growing backlog of cases.




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NYC foster care groups plead for school bus guarantee for kids who can’t get to class

Nearly 20 groups representing New York City foster kids pleaded with officials to finally guarantee school buses to students in foster care so they no longer have to switch schools because they can’t get to class.




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Advocates, public health experts urge NYC officials to begin ‘social distancing’ measures in response to coronavirus

In a letter, the group noted that past pandemics show large-scale social restrictions that keep people physically separated can make the most difference if done before the illness becomes widespread.




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The biggest questions facing NYC’s new remote learning system

A look at some of the challenges the city school system will be tackling in the days ahead.




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NYC Education Dept. releases new details on contingency plans for food and childcare amid coronavirus school shutdown

The sites, which Mayor de Blasio first announced Sunday, will be staffed by a combination of city teachers and community-based organizations, according to a plan the city Education Department submitted to state officials Monday night.




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Advocacy groups urge NYC Education Dept. to include homeless students in childcare at ‘resource centers’

But the centers, slated to open Monday, are currently limited to children of healthcare and transit workers and first-responders - and advocates worry homeless students will be left behind.




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NYU students ask for refund, get video of dean dancing instead

NYU students ask for refund. Dean sends video of herself dancing




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CUNY names three new college presidents

The Board of Trustees voted Monday night to approve the three new college chiefs for Queens College, Hostos Community College and The CUNY Graduate Center, officials announced.