Summer 2023 has kept New Yorkers on our toes with its unpredictable weather.
For the last two weeks, August brought some unseasonably cool temperatures that had locals wondering if Summer is over for the year. Last Thursday, the high was 73 degrees, and this week’s high was only 82 degrees.
But have no fear. We are not headed into Fall just yet!
If you want to get your summer fix in before breaking out the sweaters and pumpkin spice, put those PTO requests in for next week!
Labor Day Weekend is usually known to be a bit rainy, but lucky us, it’s looking to be the opposite! Starting Sunday, temperatures will be well over this week’s high of 83 degrees.
Whether your weekend consists of EZoo or festivities celebrating the West Indian Day Parade, it is safe to say that you can leave the hoodie at home!
On Sunday, you can expect temperatures to peak at 88 degrees before lowering to 66 degrees later that evening.
The Weather Channel
As for Labor Day Monday, we’ll see temperatures reach91 degrees!
Currently, Monday is panning out to be the last 90-degree day of the year, but as we all know, the weather in NYC truly decides what to be the day of. We’ve seen predictions of rain, where it chose to be a scorcher with sunshine instead.
If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, you know we’ve got you covered!
After next week, it’s looking like the weather will be taking a dip once again as the Summer begins to wrap up. There may be an 80-degree day here and there, but for the most part, New Yorkers can expect high to mid-70s for the foreseeable future.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump defended his real estate empire and his presidency in a face-to-face clash with the New York attorney general suing him for fraud, testifying at a closed-door grilling in April that his company is flush with cash — and claiming he saved “millions of lives” by deterring nuclear war when he was president.
Trump, in testimony made public Wednesday, said it was a “terrible thing” that Attorney General Letitia James was suing him over claims he made on annual financial statements about his net worth and the value of his skyscrapers, golf courses and other assets.
Trump’s lawyers released Trump’s 479-page deposition transcript in a flurry of court filings ahead of a Sept. 22 hearing where a judge could resolve part or all of the lawsuit before it goes to trial in October. James said evidence shows Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth by up to 39%, or more than $2 billion, in some years.
Sitting across from James at her Manhattan office on April 13, Trump said, “you don’t have a case and you should drop this case.” Noting his contributions to the city’s skyline, Trump said “it’s a shame” that “now I have to come and justify myself to you.”
Interrogated about the truthfulness of financial statements he gave to banks, Trump repeatedly insisted that, legally speaking, it didn’t matter whether they were accurate or not.
“I have a clause in there that says, ‘Don’t believe the statement. Go out and do your own work.’ This statement is ‘worthless.’ It means nothing,” Trump testified. Given the disclaimer, he said, “you’re supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever.”
In a legal filing Wednesday, James urged Judge Arthur Engoron to grant summary judgment on one of seven claims in her lawsuit — that Trump and his company defrauded lenders, insurers and others by lying about his wealth and the value of his assets.
To rule, Engoron needs only to answer two questions, James’ office argued: whether Trump’s annual financial statements were false or misleading, and whether he and the Trump Organization used those statements while conducting business transactions.
“The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes’ based on the mountain of undisputed evidence” in the case, James’ special litigation counsel Andrew Amer said in a 100-page summary judgment motion.
Even if Engoron rules on the fraud claim, he would still preside over a non-jury trial on six other remaining claims in the lawsuit if it is not settled.
Trump’s lawyers are asking Engoron to dismiss the case entirely.
They argue that many of its allegations are barred by a statute of limitations and that James has no standing to sue because the entities Trump supposedly defrauded “have never complained, and indeed have profited from their business dealings” with him.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in next year’s presidential election, has been indicted four times in the last five months — accused in Georgia and Washington, D.C., of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss, in Florida of hoarding classified documents, and in Manhattan of falsifying business records related to hush money paid on his behalf. Some of Trump’s criminal trials are scheduled to overlap with the presidential primary season.
James sued Trump last September, alleging he inflated the value of assets like his Mar-a-Lago estate for at least a decade. Her lawsuit seeks $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
Trump testified that he only had the financial statements made so he could see a list of his many properties and said he “never felt that these statements would be taken very seriously,” but that financial institutions would occasionally ask for them. Some of the values listed were based on “guesstimates,” he conceded.
Trump answered questions with such verbosity at the April deposition — veering from evasiveness to bluster to filibuster at times — that one lawyer worried his seven hours of sworn testimony could go until midnight.
It was a reversal from a deposition last year, before James filed her lawsuit, in which Trump refused to answer all but a few procedural questions. At that earlier deposition, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.
Trump testified in April that his company, the Trump Organization, has over $400 million in cash. He claimed Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.5 billion and a golf course he owns near Miami is worth $2 billion or $2.5 billion. He said he believes he could sell another golf course he owns in Scotland to the Saudi-backed LIV golf league “for a fortune.”
“Do you know the banks were fully paid? Do you know the banks made a lot of money?” Trump testified. “Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”
Trump is not expected to testify in court if the case goes to trial, but video recordings of his depositions could be played.
In his deposition, Trump testified that once he became president, he stopped paying much attention to his business because he needed to focus on world affairs.
“I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” Trump testified. “I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”
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This story has been corrected to show that Donald Trump’s lawyers, not Attorney General Letitia James’ office, made the deposition transcript public.
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Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz and David B. Caruso contributed to this report.
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Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams face intense pressure to pay for the cost of housing, feeding and caring for thousands of asylum-seekers newly moving into New York City. The crisis has created a series of tough choices for state and city leaders, with no simple solutions. Many of these immigrants have entered the country lawfully, but may lose this status due to immigration processing delays while others may not have any status at all.
Immigrants are an essential part of New York’s heritage and tradition. Ultimately, our communities in the five boroughs and the surrounding area are interconnected. We influence each other’s health and families. For everyone’s well-being, migrants deserve the ability to visit a doctor’s office just like other New Yorkers.
New York has an opportunity to provide more than 200,000 undocumented people with health coverage at no cost to the state. There is a pot of as much as $2 billion in surplus federal money to cover the cost. The governor need only amend her Section 1332 Affordable Care waiver submission in order to cover the cost of providing health insurance to immigrant adults, ages 19 to 64 years old.
However, instead of amending the waiver request to cover immigrants, the state amended its waiver request to direct $59 million in surplus funds to insurance companies so that they can be “made whole.” But the insurance companies are already being paid a reasonable premium for the coverage, while immigrant New Yorkers go without access to health care. The state should make our communities whole by offering immigrant community members quality affordable coverage.
This is an easy solution to part of a multifaceted crisis, which has tensions running high. Homeless shelters and food kitchens are bursting at the seams, and advocates for the poor are struggling to keep pace. Protesters are gathering outside migrant housing. With schools poised to reopen, NYC Department of Education officials expect a huge influx of migrant children. Further complicating matters is the threat of a school bus strike that would affect 150,000 kids in the Big Apple.
Why is NY Turning Down Free Federal Funding?
Federally funded health care is low-hanging fruit for the Hochul administration, which is beseeching President Joe Biden to expedite work authorization permits for migrants and offer New York more financial help in response to the crisis. But her 2024 budget excluded immigrants from her request seeking ACA waiver authority, which means migrant adults cannot go to the doctor. The budget simply gave authority to expand insurance coverage to about 20,000 individuals who earn 200 percent to 250 percent of the federal poverty line — just a fraction of the 1 million New Yorkers without coverage.
It is unclear why the governor took this “skinny coverage” approach to a moral and humanitarian problem. Politics could well be a factor here, with the governor concerned about attacks from the right that she’s too soft on migrants. But free federal money is still free. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already granted permission to other states to redirect federal funds to provide coverage for undocumented people. New York should follow suit.
Mayor Adams supports New York joining California, Colorado, Illinois and Washington in using 1332 waivers or Medicaid programs to cover immigrants. To not seek the waiver, the mayor said in a March letter to Gov. Hochul, “deepens longstanding inequities based on immigration status by relegating the health needs of undocumented people – the single largest population of remaining uninsured New Yorkers.”
By not authorizing a broad-based waiver, the state is passing up an opportunity to save more than a half billion dollars annually in emergency Medicaid funds spent on immigrant emergency care. New York City and its critical safety net hospitals would also save an estimated $100 million on the NYC Cares program because the target population would be covered by the 1332 ACA waiver.
Opting to fund immigrant coverage through a federal waiver would support our distressed hospital system by yielding relatively rich Essential Plan reimbursement rates and defraying their uncompensated care costs ($1,174 per person covered each year) since more New Yorkers would have insurance.
Federal health care would certainly help ease the crisis, fomented by busloads of migrants mostly from Texas, Florida and Arizona. Since spring, more than 93,000 migrants have entered New York City, according to the mayor’s office.
New York should be a leader on progressive health-care initiatives. Indeed, when Gov. Hochul signed legislation last year protecting New Yorkers from medical debt, which disproportionately impacts low-income Black and brown people in the state, her action perfectly exemplified that vision.
This is another leadership moment. It’s time for the governor to show her mettle and amend her 1332 Waiver. It’s the right thing to do. It’s economically sound. But moreover, it’s morally correct.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years. The views in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s Web site: www.cssny.org.
