It’s been a long time since we dubbed green tea as the new black coffee—nowadays, the majority of the city’s best coffee shops and tea houses regularly pour out Japan’s slightly bitter and deliciously nutty matcha. The drink’s popularity has risen so much stateside that May 2 has been officially dubbed National Matcha Day. And to celebrate the caffeinated festivities, premium tea brand Jade Leaf Matcha—the number-one selling matcha brand in the U.S.—will offer up free drinks this Thursday. Not only that, but they’re also introducing a cool new doughnut collab for the occasion. 

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On Thursday, May 2, Jade Leaf Matcha will be partner with one of New York’s favorite doughnut purveyors, Dough Doughnuts, for not one but two matcha-flavored doughnuts using the tea brand’s matcha blend. Available to purchase at all Dough locations from Thursday through Sunday, May 12, the limited-edition flavors include a fluffy, chocolate-frosted doughnut with a delicate matcha cream filling and a matcha-flavored ring topped with a sweet glaze and crunchy pistachios. Dough has been known to frequently bake up fresh new flavors to celebrate the changing seasons, various holidays and fun calendar events, so it’s not a surprise that the bakery chainlet would want to get in on the tea-tinged fete. 

And you can’t have a sweet treat without a little something to wash it all down, so Jade Leaf will also be give out free matcha lattes with any purchase in-store on Thursday, May 2, at any of Dough’s five NYC locations while supplies last. A matcha doughnut and a free matcha latte? Consider it a match-a made in heaven. 

If you want even more ways to celebrate the beverage-focused holiday, there are plenty of matcha-specific spots throughout New York City, including Cha Cha Matcha, Chalait UWS, Matcha Café Maiko, Matchaful and Setsugekka East Village, the latter at which you can experience an entire traditional matcha ceremony like they do in the tea’s native Japan. Cheers to that!

* This article was originally published here

One of the most anticipated events at the Met is their annual Roof Garden Commission, an art series in which the New York institution chooses one artist to use the coveted space as their canvas. 

This year’s commission, which was just unveiled today, sends a playful yet extremely poignant and timely message about children who find themselves in war zones. The exhibition, titled Abetare, is on view through October 27; it’s included with general admission.

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The artist, Petrit Halilaj, was born in war-torn Kosovo in 1986 and had to flee his home during the Yugoslav Wars in 1998. He lived with his family in a refugee camp in Serbia for a year, where he drew pictures of war scenes that he had witnessed back home. The sculptures on the roof were inspired by doodles Halilaj found at the school he attended in Runk, Kosovo before it was demolished in 2010.

“That school was one of the very few architectural landmarks that stood after the war, and I didn’t understand why they were tearing it down,” Halilaj says. He says when he went to the school just before it was demolished, he snuck in with a bunch of kids and saw desks covered with scribbles and sketches that dated all the way back from the 1970s. “I was really surprised to see (sketches) of the liberation army and NATO next to (sketches) of Messi, Ronaldo, Michael Jackson, Coca Cola and…hearts, trees and birds.” Inspired by those drawings, he visited other schools across former Yugoslavian countries and gathered more sketches he would end up using for his Met installation.  

One of the first sculptures that will likely grab your attention as soon as you arrive at the roof is one of a giant smiling spider, “Abetare.” The other sculpture that commands the space towers overhead in the shape of a house, which has attached to it a star, other tiny houses and the phrase “return to kukes,” a reference to the refugee camp where Halilaj and his family were displaced. 

The sculptures are a feat of engineering: Although they’re made of stainless steel and bronze and have to withstand hurricane-force winds, they look quite fragile and like they were sketched on a whim, exactly as a child’s drawing might appear. 

Although it’s easy to be mesmerized by the large entangled sculptures that take center stage, the serendipity in the exhibit lies in the abundant tiny details scattered throughout the roof. It was both heartbreaking and moving to see the innocence in the children’s perspectives, but what I found most impactful was how it illuminated our deep interconnectedness. Some of the sketches might look familiar to many children across the world, including the Universal ‘S’ sign many of us probably had all over our notebooks in middle school. The exhibit also shows how even in the midst of wars organized by adults, children remain playful and curious beings: There’s one particularly cheeky corner where the word “tiddies” is written in chicken scratch. 

When you’re there, make sure to cover every corner of the roof and don’t forget to look up as well. You might find some more playful characters dangling overhead. 

Even if the art is inspired by hardship, the overarching feeling of the exhibit is hope, something that kids seem to have even in the most bleak of circumstances. “We are going through very dark times but one of the things I was excited to see here is to bring scribbles and drawings from kids from different countries together,” Halilaj says. “I dedicate this to all those kids and the brighter future they always know how to bring out.”

* This article was originally published here

Welcome to the first entry in Cinco to Celebrate, a series highlighting five Mexican businesses in New York City that are worth your time and money this Cinco de Mayo—and beyond. Here’s more about the importance of the series and where you can read every article this week. 

If you bring up Mexican American culture, most people’s minds will drift towards California or Texas on a map. Often forgotten in conversations about the diaspora are New York Mexicans, who have a distinct subculture imbued with attitude and a fashion-forward sensibility that is worthy of as much adoration as their Western counterparts. 

The issue isn’t a numeric lack of New York Mexicans as much as it is a dearth of concentrated neighborhoods where New York Mexicans can actually get together and push their culture forward. There’s no true equivalent to L.A.’s Boyle Heights or Chicago’s Pilsen here. The lack of physical spaces to hold the culture together is exactly what a new collective in New York, Migo Events, is trying to address by throwing monthly parties where young creative Mexicans gather, exchange ideas, and most of all, dance.

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Migo Events was created by Paulina Montiel and Noe Zepeda, two artsy friends who met at a New York Fashion Week party. Growing up in New York, Zepeda says that he mostly listened to hip hop and felt pretty disconnected from his Mexican heritage, but he also didn’t feel like he could take creative ownership over a genre like hip-hop, which is rooted in Black culture. It wasn’t until the pandemic that he decided he wanted to combine his heritage with his love for fashion to create something fresh. “Going to high school here, you had to be fly just to be cool with people,” Zepeda tells Time Out. That fly New York sensibility is what inspired his Mexican-centered streetwear brand, Ghetto Friends. 

In contrast, Montiel, who is from Washington, had experience moving through different Mexican diasporas in the U.S.: She’s gone from New York to L.A. and back again. Like Zepeda, she’s always been into fashion and has her own brand, Pau Chains. Zepeda and Montiel kept finding themselves in similar spaces and realized they both dreamed of fostering a community of Mexican American creatives. They began by producing Peso Pluma nights and other Mexican-centered parties for different venues. “Then I thought, why don’t we just do this ourselves?” Montiel tells Time Out. 

“Migo” is short for “amigo” and it’s how some New York Mexicans greet each other; the name of the event is itself a reflection of the friends’ attempt to articulate something unique about New York Mexicans. Their first Migo party was last October and they packed out an art show at a Mexican restaurant in the Lower East Side. Since then, they’ve thrown more than a dozen events. When choosing venues, Montiel and Zepeda say it’s important to them that every event space they work with is Latinx-owned, like Limosneros, the restaurant in Williamsburg where they recently had a corridos-themed party. 

“It’s just a space for everyone to come together—Mexicans who love fashion, Mexicans who love lowriders, Mexicans who just want to come out and dance rancheras,” Montiel says.  

When you go to a Migo event, you can expect a theme, and the best dressed gets $50 in cash. Because Mexican fashion is not always visible or encouraged in the East Coast, Montiel and Zepeda hope that the cash prize pushes people to wear their boots or hats or bring out their best chola/cholo looks, too. Migo Events are spaces where you can be unapologetically Mexican, which seems like a great starting point for a collective hoping to reclaim a sense of pride in their heritage.

Sonically, you can expect to hear rancheras, corridos, and banda. You can often find DJ Amores, known for spinning cumbias at the club, behind the decks. Montiel and Zepeda’s favorite thing about throwing Migo Events is seeing people become friends at the parties and then see them come back with those friends to future events. At a recent function, someone brought a guitar and played mariachi music, and the crowd lived for it. 

Migo Events is a space for young Mexicans to see other young Mexicans who are models, designers, photographers, and exist in all sorts of creative fields so that they can begin to expand their ideas of what Mexicans are capable of. “A big thing we learned was that investing in a community and investing in someone really pays off in the long run because it helps them develop their career and go do whatever they need,” Montiel tells Time Out. She imagines a reality in which agencies and brands hit up Migo Events whenever they need dope Mexican talent. “I want to create a little economy with us so we can hire each other.” 

There’s a sense that the sleeping giant that was New York’s Mexican community is beginning to wake up. “New York is Puebla York,” Zepeda says, referring to the nickname many Mexicans give New York (there’s a huge presence of Mexicans from Puebla in the city and the surrounding area). This generation of New York Mexicans are getting organized and are eager to push a larger cultural movement. If their parents’ job was to figure out how to survive in America, the job of young Mexican Americans is to tell the world they’re here to stay, so you better pay attention.

“Overall,” Zepeda says, “We just want to push confidence to our people.”

Catch Migo’s next party on May 4 in Williamsburg. You can follow their Instagram for updates.  

* This article was originally published here

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Traveling within city limits on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North is about to get cheaper.

The MTA on Tuesday announced that trips that start and end within the five boroughs on these two lines will get discounted tickets as part of the rollout of congestion pricing in Manhattan, according to Gothamist.

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The MTA board will approve a 10% discount for these fare zones, reducing the cost of a monthly LIRR pass between Jamaica and Penn Station from $220 to $198 and monthly Metro-North passes between Grand Central Terminal and the northern Bronx from $199.75 to $180, the publication says.

The hope is that some commuters will start taking public transit once congestion pricing goes into effect on June 30. The discounts hit on July 1. 

“Getting on board the rails, getting on board subways, getting on buses, getting on express buses is the way to travel. Nobody likes to sit in traffic,” Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, told Gothamist. “New York City has the best transit in the United States. It will save time, it will save money and it will help to save the environment and climate.”

Aside from this discount, NYC Transit has been running an additional 1,200 subway trains every week over the last several months and six more lines—the B, D, M, J, 3 and 5 trains—will get increases in service in June. “Subway service continues to deliver the best on-time performance in the last 10 years,” the MTA says.

It also says that The Staten Island Express Bus Network and the Bronx Local Bus Network redesign have brought service increases during off-peak periods and other service improvements, for an increase of 6% ridership since they launched. With added busways and Select Bus Service, there’s been a 60% increase in bus speed.

By opening Grand Central Madison, service increased by 41%, adding more than 77,000 trains a year, including a 35% increase at eastern Queens stations, 30% increase in Brooklyn trains (55% increase in weekend service), and 50% increase in reverse peak service, the MTA says. It also added a $7 peak City Ticket for travel on the LIRR and Metro-North Railroad between commuter railroad stations within city limits, and an LIRR Far Rockaway ticket.

Metro-North Railroad has also increased service in the Bronx with its own $7 peak CityTicket. According to the MTA, already this year, the railroad averaged an on-time performance of 98.9%.

All this to say, the city has been working to ensure its public transit can handle an influx of riders who won’t want to pay the congestion pricing fees.

Additionally, the MTA opened its application portal for discount and exemption plans for households earning less than $50,000 a year, disabled individuals, emergency vehicles, buses and commuter vans and specialized government vehicles.

For more information about NYC’s congestion pricing plan, read our explainer here.

* This article was originally published here

In a startling revelation, U.S. immigration judges issued a staggering 136,623 deportation orders during the initial six months of Fiscal Year 2024, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center affiliated with the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. 

This figure marks a significant surge compared to the peak removals observed in FY 2019 under the Donald Trump administration, with today’s pace of new removal orders soaring by 50 percent. This surge coincides with the expansion of immigration judges during the current administration.

The findings shed light on the geographic distribution of these removal orders, providing a detailed portrait of the areas most affected across the country. New York City emerged as the epicenter of deportation activity, with just under 11,000 removal orders issued to immigrants residing there. Following closely behind was Harris County, Te., which witnessed more than 8,000 removal orders, while Los Angeles County, Calif., faced nearly 6,000 removals.

Despite the prominence of those three top regions, Dallas County, Tex., and Miami-Dade County, Fla., also witnessed substantial deportation figures. The disparity is evident in Miami-Dade County, with only one-fourth of the removal orders compared to New York City and less than half compared to Los Angeles.

The trend persists with the next four counties having the highest deportation numbers being primarily located in Texas and California. Montgomery County, Tex., stood out as the residence for just under 2,000 immigrants ordered removed, with San Bernardino County, Calif., and Travis County, Tex., closely trailing behind.

Orange County, Calif., registered the ninth-highest deportation figures, showcasing the contiguous counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Orange as significant deportation hotspots, accounting collectively for more than 9,000 removal orders in the past six months.

In contrast, Cook County, Ill., represented by Chicago, ranked tenth in deportation numbers, reflecting relatively fewer completed court cases despite its status as a major metropolitan area and recipient of new asylum seekers.

These findings underscore the widespread impact of deportation orders in various regions, highlighting the complex dynamics in the U.S. immigration system and the need for comprehensive reform to address the challenges faced by immigrant communities nationwide.

Alarming lack of representation

Meanwhile, analysts also found that as immigration judges accelerate the issuance of removal orders, fewer immigrants ordered for removal manage to secure legal representation to advocate their cases. ATRAC examination of year-by-year trends over the past decade reveals a nuanced trajectory.

Between 2016 and 2019, the total number of removal decisions saw a modest increase, but there were notable improvements in representation rates. However, the onset of partial government COVID-19 shutdowns precipitated a sharp decline in decisions, coinciding with a surprising uptick in the likelihood of finding legal representation. This anomaly probably stemmed from the decreased demand for immigration attorneys due to the reduced number of court hearings, subsequently alleviating supply constraints, TRAC found. 

Since Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, representation rates have plummeted as removal hearings surged. Last year, representation rates dwindled to a mere 20 percent. Data for FY 2024 illustrates a further decline, with only 15 percent of immigrants ordered for removal managing to secure legal representation. This decrease is in stark contrast with the current representation rate of 30 percent for all immigrants in the court’s backlog.

The implications are profound: Immigrants without legal representation face significantly higher odds of being ordered for removal. This disparity underscores the urgency of addressing the challenges encountered by immigrants navigating the legal intricacies of deportation proceedings in the Democratic Biden administration.

Felicia J. Persaud is the publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, a daily news outlet focusing on Black immigrant issues.

The post Immigration judges order record number of deportations in first half of FY 2024, TRAC finds appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Yes, we love a toasty mug of hot chocolate when it’s cold outside but who says we can’t indulge in the sweet bev even in the summer months? Thankfully for us, the folks over at Glace—the Upper East Side ice cream and dessert shop from Sasha Zabar (yes, that Zabar)—is kicking off the warm-weather season by partnering with viral hot spot Bad Roman on a frozen hot chocolate-inspired treat. 

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Available from Thursday, May 2, through Sunday, May 5, Glace will reimagine their famed hot chocolate as a creamy frozen dessert inspired by an Italian classic: the Glace x Bad Roman Tiramisu Frozen Hot Chocolate will feature frozen layers of hot chocolate and coffee in a crunchy chocolate shell with mascarpone whipped cream, black cacao powder, and Glace’s signature toasted marshmallow rim.   

Along with the new collaborative dessert, Glace is launching an entire series of new menu items, ranging from frozen hot chocolates to ice cream cakes and sundaes and more. There will be a frozen version of the shop’s viral S’mores Hot Chocolate, made with “frozen” chocolate, a chocolate hard shell and a toasted marshmallow “halo,” and a Frozen Chocolate Brûlée topped with frozen custard, caramelized sugar and marshmallow sauce. 

Other cooling treats include a range of ice cream sundaes, including a Cosmic Brownie Sundae with your choice of ice cream, flourless brownie, whipped cream, fudge and chocolate “meteors,” and several featuring brand-new soft serve flavors: Meyer Lemon soft serve (house cultured yogurt with house-grown Meyer lemons) gussied up with honeycomb and honey drizzle, and a Brown Sugar Vanilla soft serve finished with flake bar and chocolate stracciatella. There will also be new cakes like a Classic Glace S’mores Cake, a Caramel Honeycomb Cake, a Cookies and Cream Cake and an old-school Birthday Cake. 

Check out the yummy-looking, cacao-dusted Glace x Bad Roman Tiramisu Frozen Hot Chocolate below, and keep the hot chocolate vibes going all summer long:

* This article was originally published here