WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. From Governor Kathleen Hochul’s Press Office. August 26, 2021:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the selection of Brian Benjamin for Lieutenant Governor.

 Senator Benjamin and Governor Hochul have previously worked together on several key issues, including fighting the opioid epidemic and boosting addiction recovery programs, supporting MWBE business owners and making it easier for New Yorkers to vote.

Senator Benjamin previously served as the New York State Senator for District 30 – which encompasses Harlem, East Harlem, and the Upper West Side – Chairman of the Senate Committee on Revenue and Budget and Senior Assistant Majority Leader, where he distinguished himself as a leader in criminal justice reform and affordable housing. Senator Benjamin remains heavily involved in his community in Harlem.

“I believe that governing is about working together. Teamwork is the essence of effective leadership, and it is more important than ever as we confront the urgent problems facing the state,” Governor Hochul said. 

“My administration is going to attract the best and the brightest — people who share my values of working hard for the people of this state and who will get the job done – and that includes the newest member Senator Brian Benjamin who has agreed to serve as my Lieutenant Governor. There is so much work to do, and I am grateful to have him by my side as we implement our vision for a safer, healthier and fairer New York.”

“I want to thank Governor Hochul for trusting me with the incredible honor of serving alongside her as Lieutenant Governor,” said Senator Benjamin. “Governor Hochul is a collaborator who makes sure everyone has a seat at the table, and, like me, is laser focused on listening to the needs of New Yorkers and empowering local leaders. We have a strong history of collaboration that will help us to hit the ground running immediately as we help guide New York through this challenging moment in history.”

Senator Benjamin was born in Harlem to a Caribbean mother who came to this country seeking new opportunities. Though they didn’t have a college education, his parents were fortunate enough to find well-paying union jobs, which allowed them to provide Senator Benjamin and his siblings with a middle class upbringing.

After graduating from high school in New York City, Senator Benjamin sought the quality education his parents had dreamed of providing him with, earning his undergraduate degree in Public Policy from Brown University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

After school, Senator Benjamin returned to Harlem to build affordable housing, creating over a thousand units of environmentally sustainable, affordable housing at an MWBE while helping young people develop work skills and secure good construction jobs through community youth programs.

In his community, Senator Benjamin worked to preserve the character of Harlem and help keep the community affordable. He helped countless young people at Harlem’s Wadleigh High School achieve a brighter future since launching a mentoring program in 2013, and he is honored to serve as an alumni-elected trustee of Brown University. Senator Benjamin is also an active member of Harlem’s historic First Corinthian Baptist Church.

During his time in the New York State Senate, Senator Benjamin successfully pushed for the divestment of the state public pension funds from private prisons in 2018, and the following year he introduced a bill to forbid state-chartered banks from such investments as well, which helped pressure Bank of America to end their relationship with Geo Group and Core Civic. Senator Benjamin’s proposal to keep rent controlled apartments affordable was a part of the history-making Tenant Protection Act of 2019, the largest expansion of tenant’s rights in decades.

In his first term, he served as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Civil Service and Pensions, where he looked to defend the public pensions of hard working public servants like his parents while ensuring the pension money was invested in a manner that reflected New York’s values.

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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER From Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. August 25, 2021

 Attorney, single woman, someone disabled by a roadside bomb needs help getting out of Afghanistan

This memo will make you cry!  Professor Sheldon Malev is a Professor at Westchester Community College. One of his favorite former students, Sophia Bator, has a cousin who is desperately trying to get out of Afghanistan. Today HER COUSIN was beaten up by the Taliban on the way to the airport. 

I invited Sophia and Sheldon to appear on my WVOX radio program this Friday from 10 AM to 11 AM (1460 AM or www.wvox.com).  Have also been in contact with Senator Charles Schumer’s office asking their office to help. And, Sophia and Sheldon have been in contact with Congressman Mondaire Jones who is also trying to help.

Some residents of Greenburgh may know people who can help this brave, young, Afghanistan attorney who only wants one thing: a better life for herself. She is disabled from a road bomb.  Read her story.

If she succeeds in coming to the United States I hope to organize a group of people who can “adopt” her –and help her in her efforts to have a good life.  If you know anyone in the state department…anyone in Afghanistan who can help her…have any other ideas please advise.  I can put you in contact with her cousin who lives in Westchester.

PAUL FEINER

Greenburgh Town Supervisor 

My name is Sofia Bator and I am from Afghanistan. I’m desperately trying to help my Cousin from Kabul. She is a young woman who graduated from Law School and became a Women Rights Activist in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.  Four years ago she suffered major injuries when a roadside bomb exploded killing several of her co-workers and severely injuring her. Before the Taliban took over the city of Kabul she was working with the Afghan Government under the local Department of Combating Corruption.

> Now my cousin is hiding in a small room unprotected trying to escape from the Taliban. She fears that she will be torture, sexually abused or killed by the Taliban if she gets capture. She is desperately asking for help as her time is running out.

> 

> I’m currently here in New York contacting all the Senators and Congressmen to help save my cousin. My college professor Dr. Sheldon Malev

> Thank You

> Sofia Bator

(I deleted her name  for security reasons but Sofia is available to speak…)

        I was born in the village of Dawlat Abad in the north of Afghanistan. I’m the only child from my parents and the first woman from my family to attend school and higher education. We are from a small village that has no running water, no electricity, no hospital, no teachers and far away even from a main road. Due to our poverty situation my parents have always work hard in farms, cleaning houses and caring for life livestock. They put all of their money and send me to Kabul for me to have the opportunity to go to school.

Seeking for a better future I study very hard and worked at the same time to help with my expenses and send little money back to my parents. I was grateful that the presence of the United States army kept Kabul safe for women. Many young girls like me we had the chance to have a higher education and for the time our dreams were slowly becoming a reality.

After graduating from Kabul University, I joined a group of Women’s Rights Activists in Mazar-i-Sharif. Our mission was to provide books and school supplies to small villages in the north. We focused on all the children but especially young girls who were marginalized from education. Our focus was also to teach the mothers about safety, feminine hygiene and giving them access to any resources available for them. One day I was traveling in a vehicle to a small village and all of the sudden I heard an extreme loud noise and the vehicle I was in started rolling. In seconds I could not hear or see anything and the extreme pain on my body blackout my mind. When I became conscious, I could not move my legs, my hip was in extreme pain and I had blood all over my body. I was paralyzed.

For one year I was paralyzed as the doctors informed me that my hip and legs were almost shattered. I also learned that the cause of the vehicle rolling and burning was due to a roadside bomb that the Taliban had placed killing and injuring many of my coworker. Now after several surgeries and with the help of my parents who sold all of their animals to pay the medical bills I’m slowly recovering.

I did not give up and I continue my work as an Afghan woman rights activist. I work at the same time with Department of Combating Corruption in Afghanistan. I was in my office and everyone started running around burning all documents in small flower pots. Everyone scared, terrified screaming

“Taliban has surrounded Kabul, run for your life”. Few minutes later I was informed that president Ashraf Ghani had run away and left the country to Taliban invasion. As I get out of the office suddenly, I saw an army of Taliban with machine guns approaching towards me and everyone in the street run away.   

I got myself to safety, and enter my little room that I rent in Kabul. Immediately locked my door and block it with a table. I have been unable to get out as I’m alone with no protection as young woman. From a small window I see Taliban with their machine guns walking the streets and often I hear gunshots. Several times my door has been knocked with force but I have made no noise to make them believe no one is living here. My food and water are running out as I eat little pieces of bread once a day. At night every few hours the silence is broken by several gunshots. To my tragedy the landlord of the building has asked me to leave the room ASAP as the Taliban had order him that no single women without men companion is allow to live by herself. At this time, I’m without food, money or shelter and I fear for my life.

I desperately ask everyone for help to save my life. I’m a young woman without any protection and in grave danger to be taken by Taliban. My time is running out please help me. If Taliban captures me, I will be torture, beaten, sexually abuses or killed. I will appreciate any help possible to please get me out of here. I have tried to call all the embassies but no one has able to help me. And this is not how I see my future as I prefer to end my life before being capture by this evil regime.

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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. Transcript of Governor Kathleen Hochul comments on National Public Radio this morning on Covid and schools. August 25, 2021:

Governor Hochul: Well my task right now is very immediate. I have to get COVID under control, protect the safety of New Yorkers, and I started with a mask mandate in schools effective immediately. Also, get more vaccinations out there and particularly if we’re looking at the booster shots there’s a lot of older people who feel very insecure and invulnerable because they would have had their first shots just about eight months ago, and that’s when I spoke with Dr. Fauci and the time he said people should be getting their next booster shot. So, I’ll be having a very aggressive program to get the boosters out. But there’s still a lot of people who never got their first dose, and that’s going to be a barrier to getting people feeling secure about going to schools and to work. So I’m laser focused on those two big initiatives.

 
Steve Inskeep: Do you feel that you’re taking office in a crisis that has nothing to do with Andrew Cuomo’s crisis? You were at 300 new cases per day in New York not long ago, and I think you’re now up to 5,000 new cases a day.

 
Governor Hochul: Yes, so it’s very concerning. There’s no doubt about it. I was in the trenches during the first months of last year’s pandemic. I was literally embedded with the local health officials and county executives in upstate New York, so I know how scary this is and what people went through and I have a different approach. We were successful last year, but also as we see this resurgence I’m going to be doing more to empower local government officials who spend all their days training for this, the local health departments, the emergency management individuals who know how to get vaccines out. So, in my opinion it does not have to be so top heavy, but we also need to engage our local partners. That’s something I’ve done all my life from my career in local office to county office to Congress and on up, so that’s natural for me but it’s going to be a different approach, but we’ll get to the same place where we eventually drive this down and protect people the process.

 
Steve Inskeep: Do you have some people who think that you are being top heavy by imposing a statewide mask mandate?

Governor Hochul: This is actually the results of an effort of outreach I did to school superintendents, school boards, teachers, all kinds of groups I assembled on a Zoom call a couple days before I took office. They told me they want this to happen, they just want to cover. They want to be able to go back to their parents at a school board meeting and say this is a state mandate, we had to follow it. So, because they did have that they were the ones that were that front of all the criticism and I have no trouble, problem at all, assuming that responsibly. I’m going do that. The vast majority of my conversations have been this is in the no brainer category as much as politically divisive in some other states. In the state of New York, yes, people criticize, I’ve already heard from them, but the vast majority of New Yorkers want to get through this as soon as possible.

And, number one, keep kids safe in schools. I mean, I’m a parent. This is a time of high anxiety for every mom and dad or anyone who sends kids to school, and I want to alleviate that by saying you know what, your child is going to be protected. We know masks work and then we’ll work on getting the vaccinations are and we’ll have done everything we possibly can to ensure that that environment is safe so kids can start learning again.

Steve Inskeep: Did you literally have school superintendent saying that to you? Force me to do this, twist my arm?

Governor Hochul: Oh yes. We had a conversation with leadership on a call and the leadership, I can’t say they speak for every single member, and I’ve represented the most conservative parts of New York as a member of congress, I know that there will be individuals who disagree with that. I’m balanced, we have to make a decision that affects New York State as a whole for now but also my flexibility is that I’m willing to release the restrictions based on what’s happening in different geographic areas. We’ll have a statewide mandate to start, however I’m going to monitor closely. I’m watching the data like a hawk all day long to see what’s happening. And if there’s an area that’s not really that affected, they’re coming out of it, they have good vaccination rates that we can allow them to lift them.

So, I’m not going to be a dictator about this. I’m going to be flexible.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. From Governor Kathleen Hochul’s Press Office. August 25, 2021:

On her first day in office, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new, comprehensive plan to help ensure a safe, productive return to schools this fall in the midst of rising COVID-19 numbers fueled by the Delta variant. 

As part of this plan, Governor Hochul has directed the New York State Department of Health to institute a universal mask requirement in all schools, public and private, as determined necessary at the discretion of the Commissioner. The Department of Health will issue the requirement through regulatory action established by the Public Health and Health Planning Council.

Governor Hochul will also pursue options to mandate vaccines for school employees or require weekly testing in the absence of vaccines, and will continue to work with the Department of Health, education stakeholders and the Legislature on establishing the mandate.

“As Governor, my priorities are now the priorities of the people of New York – and right now that means fighting the Delta variant,” Governor Hochul said. “My number one priority is getting children back to school and protecting the environment so they can learn safely. I am immediately directing the Department of Health to institute universal masking for anyone entering our schools, and we are launching a Back to School COVID-19 testing program to make testing for students and staff widely available and convenient. We are also working to require vaccinations for all school personnel with an option to test out weekly, and we are going to accomplish all of this by working in partnership with all levels of government.”

To help ensure testing is available to students as they return to school, Governor Hochul is using $335 million in federal funds to launch a new COVID-19 Testing in Schools Program in partnership with local health departments and BOCES in New York State outside of New York City. In addition, New York City has received $225 million directly to initiate a COVID-19 Testing in Schools Program there, for a total of $585 million in federal funding in New York State to support these programs.

Governor Hochul also launched an additional back-to-school COVID-19 testing program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Rite Aid and BioReference to make testing more widely available for New York State public school students before the start of the 2021-2022 school year.

TESTING FOR STUDENTS PRIOR TO SCHOOL

Testing appointments will be available to New York students in grades K-12 at the 115 Rite Aid drive-through locations. Students are required to pre-register online and schedule a time slot for testing. Students aged 17 and under must have parental or legal guardian consent and be accompanied by a guardian at time of testing in the drive- through. Digital results will be delivered to parents for students to bring to school. COVID-19 testing is voluntary and will be provided at no cost to the student’s family nor to the school district.

In addition to these new testing programs, New York State has available more than 4.3 million child-sized clothed face masks, about 10 million adult-sized clothed face masks and almost 55 million non-surgical face masks to provide to students and teachers in schools across the state.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, “Our highest priority is helping to ensure the health and safety of our students and educators as we work together to combat COVID-19. Since early July, COVID-19 cases in New York have risen 10-fold and 95 percent of sequenced positive cases were confirmed to be Delta variant. Based on incidence and prevalence, our findings demonstrate the necessity of layered prevention strategies, including this mask requirement. While a simple measure of prevention, requiring masks now is crucial for protecting the health of our children and ensuring we can get our students back in their schools this fall.”

Commissioner of Education Dr. Betty A. Rosa said, “Since the onset of the pandemic, the health and safety of our students, teachers, and school personnel has been our top priority. With the increase in COVID variant cases around the state, Governor Hochul’s action, taken after consultation with educators, demonstrates her commitment to the health and wellbeing of our students and the importance of keeping our schools open. The State Education Department supports a consistent application of masking requirements in schools, easing the return to school with a common line of defense against the spread of the COVID variant. I look forward to continuing our collaboration with Governor Hochul in support of our shared focus on expanded educational opportunity for all New Yorkers.”

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WPCNR GOVERNOR’S CORONA VIRUS REPORT. From Governor Kathy Hochul press office. August 25, 2021:

Governor Kathy Hochul Tuesday evening updated New Yorkers on the state’s progress combating COVID-19.

“Fighting COVID-19 and the Delta variant is a top priority for this administration, and although we’re implementing new masking requirements to keep everyone safe, vaccination is the key to our future,” Governor Hochul said. “Millions of New Yorkers have taken the vaccine, but far too many remain unvaccinated and that’s why we continue to operate convenient sites across the state. Getting vaccinated helps your family, friends and community, so get your shot today.”

Today’s data is summarized briefly below:

• Test Results Reported – 88,918
• Total Positive – 3,199
• Percent Positive – 3.60%
• 7-Day Average Percent Positive – 3.13%
• Patient Hospitalization – 2,103 (+86)
• Patients Newly Admitted – 265
• Patients in ICU – 416 (+9)
• Patients in ICU with Intubation – 204 (+16)
• Total Discharges – 191,027 (+181)
• New deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS – 11
• Total deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS – 43,415
  • The Health Electronic Response Data System is a NYS DOH data source that collects confirmed daily death data as reported by hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities only.

• Total deaths reported to and compiled by the CDC – 55,395
  • This daily COVID-19 provisional death certificate data reported by NYS DOH and NYC to the CDC includes those who died in any location, including hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, at home, in hospice and other settings.

• Total vaccine doses administered – 23,298,566
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 24 hours – 35,937
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 7 days – 329,805
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose – 75.8%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series – 69.0%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 78.7%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 70.7%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose – 63.9%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series – 57.7%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) – 66.3%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series (CDC) – 59.2%

Each region’s 7-day average percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

Each New York City borough’s 7-day average percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

Yesterday, 3,199 New Yorkers tested positive for COVID-19 in New York State, bringing the total to 2,226,955. A geographic breakdown is as follows:
  

Yesterday, 11 New Yorkers died due to COVID-19. A geographic breakdown by county of residence of new deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS is as follows:

All New York State mass vaccination sites are open to eligible New Yorkers for walk-in vaccination on a first-come, first-serve basis. People who would prefer to schedule an appointment at a state-run mass vaccination site can do so on the Am I Eligible App or by calling 1-833-NYS-4-VAX. People may also contact their local health department, pharmacy, doctor or hospital to schedule appointments where vaccines are available, or visit vaccines.gov to find information on vaccine appointments near them.

Yesterday, 20,657 New Yorkers received their first vaccine dose, and 16,499 completed their vaccine series. A geographic breakdown of New Yorkers who have been vaccinated by region is as follows:

The COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker Dashboard is available to update New Yorkers on the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. The New York State Department of Health requires vaccinating facilities to report all COVID-19 vaccine administration data within 24 hours; the vaccine administration data on the dashboard is updated daily to reflect the most up-to-date metrics in the state’s vaccination effort. New York State Department of Health-reported data from NYSIIS and CIR differs slightly from federally-reported data, which is inclusive of federally-administered doses and other minor differences. Both numbers are included in the release above.