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    In Reversal, Trump Officials Will Allow Huge Offshore N.Y. Wind Farm to Proceed

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    The Trump administration had issued a highly unusual stop-work order on the Empire Wind project last month, leading to intense pushback from officials in New York.The Trump administration on Monday allowed construction to restart on a huge wind farm off the coast of Long Island, a month after federal officials had issued a highly unusual stop-work order that had pushed the $5 billion project to the brink of collapse.In a statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Democrat of New York, said she had spent weeks pressing President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to lift the government’s hold on the wind farm.The project, known as Empire Wind, is being built by the Norwegian energy giant Equinor and when finished is expected to deliver enough electricity to power 500,000 New York homes.“After countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials, bringing labor and business to the table to emphasize the importance of this project, I’m pleased that President Trump and Secretary Burgum have agreed to lift the stop work order and allow this project to move forward,” Ms. Hochul said on Monday evening.When the Trump administration halted work on Empire Wind last month, it stunned observers and sent shock waves through the wind industry.Equinor had obtained all necessary permits for the project after a four-year federal environmental review, and the company had already begun laying foundations for the project’s turbines on the ocean floor. Another 1,500 workers had begun constructing a marine terminal in Brooklyn.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Jersey Can Show How to Take On Public Sector Strikes

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      Democrats have long blanched when public-sector unions threaten to strike and hold the economy for ransom. But with New Jersey Transit train engineers walking off the job on Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy can show the nation how blue states can resist that threat. Don’t panic, just say, “Let them strike,” and demonstrate resilience.With New York’s help, New Jersey can reduce the impact of the strike.New Jersey starts with an advantage: As of 2024, nearly three-quarters of New Jersey Transit’s weekday trips were on buses and light rail, which continue to operate. Most commuters who travel into Manhattan from New Jersey arrive on a bus and New Jersey is adding bus service to mitigate the strike’s impact. A private bus company, Boxcar, is also giving customers more options.Governor Murphy should also push car-pooling, with the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, who could implement a two- or three-passenger minimum for vehicles entering Lower and Midtown Manhattan from New Jersey if traffic grows too heavy. New York’s four-and-a-half-month-old congestion-pricing program is already a good reason for workers to car pool and save money.Governor Hochul should resist calls to suspend the congestion charge during the strike.Transit worker walkouts can have devastating consequences for the area economy. In 1966, the Transport Workers Union’s 12-day strike against subways cost New York more than half a billion dollars ($5 billion in today’s dollars) in lost wages and business.The strike transformed the brand-new administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay from fresh to exhausted.The political terror of transit strikes levies long-term costs. For decades, elected officials have allowed various unions to use the threat of a strike to protect pay and work practices that perennially push up the cost of providing transit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Fraught With Abuse’: Lawmakers Denounce Brutality in N.Y. Prisons

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      During a daylong hearing in Albany, state lawmakers heard from family members of men who died in New York State prisons in recent years.Family members and friends of men who died in New York State prisons in recent years denounced a system in turmoil and longstanding tolerance of brutality by guards on Wednesday at a joint legislative committee hearing.One who testified was a mentor of a 22-year-old man who the authorities said was beaten to death by corrections officers at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Central New York in March.Another was the father of a man who officials said was fatally beaten by guards at the prison across the street, Marcy Correctional Facility. He demanded to know why officers who had repeatedly been accused of abuse were allowed to remain on the job.A third was the daughter of man who died in late 2023 after he was beaten by corrections officers at Green Haven Correctional Facility and then denied medical care, she said.Their stories were aired during the public hearing held by State Senator Julia Salazar and Assemblyman Erik M. Dilan, both Brooklyn Democrats, during a period of particular strife across New York’s 42 prisons.Earlier this year, thousands of prison guards walked off their assigned posts in a series of unsanctioned strikes that they said were in protest of hazardous working conditions. The wildcat strikes prompted deployment of 7,000 National Guard members and, eventually, mass firings of guards.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When Taxpayers Fund Shows Like ‘Blue Bloods’ and ‘S.N.L.,’ Does It Pay Off?

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has proposed an increase in the film tax credit to stay competitive with New Jersey and other states.New Yorkers — and residents of many other states — have paid more for entertainment in recent years than just their Netflix or Hulu subscriptions.Each New York household has also contributed about $16 in taxes, on average, toward producing the drama series “Billions” since 2017. Over that period, each household has also paid roughly $14.50 in production incentives for “Saturday Night Live” and $4.60 for “The Irishman,” among many other shows and movies.Add it all up, and New York has spent more than $5.5 billion in incentives since 2017, the earliest year for which data is readily available. Now, as a new state budget agreement nears, Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she wants to add $100 million in credits for independent productions that would bring total film subsidies to $800 million a year, almost double the amount from 2022.Other states also pay out tens or hundreds of millions each year in a bidding war for Hollywood productions, under the theory that these tax credits spur the economy. One question for voters and lawmakers is whether a state recoups more than its investment in these movies and shows — or gets back only pennies on the dollar.New York has one of the largest tax credit programs and makes most of its data public, so we totaled its spending to see which productions benefited the most. More

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      Trump Administration Halts Building of Giant Wind Farm Off N.Y. Coast

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul quickly responded that she would “fight this decision every step of the way.”Just as construction was starting on a massive wind farm off the coast of Long Island, the Trump administration ordered an immediate halt on Wednesday that could spell a serious setback for hopes of powering New York City with offshore wind.Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, called for the cessation of “all construction activities” on the Empire Wind project, which was designed to provide enough electricity to power about 500,000 homes in New York.On the first day of his new term in office, President Trump signed an executive order that limited the approval of offshore wind farms. But Empire Wind had already received all of the permits it needed to get underway.In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Burgum said the halt would allow for “further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, quickly responded that she would “fight this decision every step of the way.” She called the secretary’s move a “federal overreach” that she would not allow to stand.The order came two weeks after Representative Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, asked Mr. Burgum in a letter to “do everything in your power” to stop what he called an “underhanded rush” to build the wind farm. Another Republican representative from New Jersey, Jeff Van Drew, has pressed Mr. Trump to put a stop to other wind farms that were planned in the Atlantic Ocean to provide renewable power to New Jersey.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mother and 3 Children Detained by ICE at Upstate N.Y. Farm Are Released

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      The family was returned to New York after being taken into custody last month and held at a detention center in Texas, officials and advocates said.Three children and their mother have been released from federal custody after being detained by immigration enforcement agents last month at an upstate New York dairy farm, officials said on Monday.The case sent shock waves through tiny Sackets Harbor, N.Y., a village of about 1,400 people on Lake Ontario where the children were enrolled, and well liked, at the town’s school.The family’s detention was another move amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown to touch off protests. About 1,000 people rallied on the family’s behalf on Saturday, according to North Country Public Radio.The release of the woman and her children — a third grader and two high school students — was announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and the local state assemblyman, Scott Gray, a Republican“We are open to working with federal immigration enforcement to crack down on gang members or violent criminals,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement. “But I will never support cruel actions that rip kids out of school or tear families apart.”Mr. Gray said in a separate statement that “we are all profoundly grateful” that the family had been returned to New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Upper West Side Theater Is Sold After Governor Allocates $3.5 Million

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      A nonprofit bought the landmark Metro Theater after receiving financial support from Gov. Kathy Hochul, the State Senate and Steven Spielberg’s foundation.A landmark Art Deco movie theater that closed 20 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York.The nonprofit, the Upper West Side Cinema Center, used those funds and $500,000 in grants from the State Senate to complete its $6.9 million purchase of the Metro Theater on Friday. It plans to revitalize the building, on Broadway near West 99th Street, with a five-screen theater, a lobby lounge and a public cafe.Additional fund-raising of $15 million to $25 million is required to construct a new interior, replace the marquee and clean graffiti from the facade, the nonprofit says.“The Upper West Side community deserves another world-class venue for cinema and art, and that’s why I was proud to step in,” Hochul said in a news release.Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat who took office in January, grew up going to the Metro Theater and fondly remembers seeing “Ali” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” there with his family.“Its loss for the last 20 years has been not just an eyesore, but a deeply felt scar for the neighborhood,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rejected by Washington, Federal Workers Find Open Arms in State Governments

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      Where the federal government sees waste, states see opportunity — both to serve as a counterweight to the Trump administration and to recruit some much-needed talent.In the weeks since the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, began eliminating jobs, state and local governments have been actively recruiting federal workers impacted by the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically reduce the federal work force.Hawaii is fast-tracking job applications. Virginia started a website advertising its job market. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania signed an executive order aimed at attracting federal employees to the state’s 5,600 “critical vacancies” in the state government. Both New Mexico and Maryland announced expanded resources and agencies to help federal workers shift into new careers in the state, and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is encouraging people to “come work in the greatest state in the nation.”There has been interest. The New York governor’s office said roughly 150 people have signed up to attend information sessions hosted by the state’s Department of Labor.But it’s too soon to say how many federal employees are applying for state-level roles and how exactly demographics could shift as a result, according to William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.There were about 2.3 million civilians employed by the federal government’s executive branch when President Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20. Thousands of government jobs have been cut as part of DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts across a range of agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Yorkers Protest as White House Defends Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia

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      Hundreds of demonstrators marched downtown while a spokeswoman for President Trump said the president had the authority to detain Mahmoud Khalil.As hundreds of demonstrators made their way through Lower Manhattan on Tuesday to protest the detention of a prominent pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University, the White House defended the arrest and rebuked the school for what it called lack of cooperation.The activist, Mahmoud Khalil, was a leader of student protests on Columbia’s campus and often served as a negotiator and spokesman. Mr. Khalil, 30, who is Palestinian and was born and raised in Syria, is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to an American citizen.He was arrested on Saturday and transferred to detention in Louisiana.A spokeswoman for President Trump, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters on Tuesday that the government had the authority to revoke Mr. Khalil’s green card under the Immigration and Nationality Act.“This is an individual who organized group protests that not only disrupted college campus classes and harassed Jewish American students and made them feel unsafe on their own college campus, but also distributed pro-Hamas propaganda fliers with the logo of Hamas,” she said.Her remarks came a day after Mr. Trump vowed that the apprehension of Mr. Khalil was “the first arrest of many to come.”Some free speech groups and civil rights activists have questioned the legality of Mr. Khalil’s detention, which his lawyers have challenged in court. On Tuesday, some New York Democrats expressed concern about the arrest. But Mayor Eric Adams shrugged off questions about it at a City Hall news conference, saying that the federal government, not the city, had authority over the matter.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More