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    Amid Concern Over Trump Order, New Yorkers Rally to Support Trans Youth

    Thousands of protesters in Union Square called for action against an executive order that threatens to withhold federal funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care.Bells, drums and chants rang out Saturday afternoon in Union Square in Manhattan as thousands of New Yorkers gathered to protest an executive order from the Trump administration targeting transgender children and teens.The order, which threatens to withhold federal funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming treatments to trans youth, has left many local families worried and reeling.At the rally, parents and children came together with activists and lawmakers to share their stories and call for action against President Trump’s policies.Juno Krebs, 10, a nonbinary student from Brooklyn, said the executive order was “scary” and that it felt like the administration was “trying to take away our rights.”“I don’t identify as a girl or a boy, and I should be respected for that,” Juno said. “It doesn’t feel any different. It just feels like me, honestly.”For Michelle Byron, the mother of a transgender and nonbinary teenager, the order has raised painful and frightening questions about her child’s ability to continue receiving gender-affirming care, which can include hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgery, though such procedures are rare for minors.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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    Human Torso Found in Suitcase in the East River Near Manhattan

    A New York City ferry captain saw the luggage and called the Police Department’s Harbor Unit. The authorities have not identified the remains.A New York City ferry captain on Wednesday discovered a suitcase drifting in the East River that turned out to have a human torso inside, according to an internal police report.The captain, who was aboard the vessel Susan B. Anthony, saw the luggage floating in the water late Wednesday afternoon near Governors Island, a largely recreational area just off the southern tip of Manhattan, according to the report.Unable to fish it out of the river, the captain called the Police Department’s Harbor Unit for help, the report said. Officers from the unit pulled the suitcase from the water at around 5:30 p.m. and, after seeing what was inside, brought it to Pier 16 on the East Side of Manhattan, about a quarter-mile south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the police said.The authorities have not been able to identify the remains. A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner said the office would perform an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of the person’s death.Reached on Thursday, the ferry captain declined to comment.The discovery of body parts in New York City’s waters is uncommon, but not unheard-of. A human head was found in Jamaica Bay in Queens last May. Then, in August, other human remains began to wash up on the shore of Brooklyn Bridge Park, just steps from its early-20th-century carousel. Over the course of several weeks, officers found a human skull, leg fragments, vertebrae and two feet inside a pair of construction boots, according to another internal police report.News reports of such discoveries date back more than a century. In 1900, the body of a longshoreman was found floating in the East River just below East Ninth Street in Manhattan, according to an Oct. 1 article published that year in The Evening World, a turn-of-the-century newspaper.In another case, authorities in 1967 pulled a man’s body from the Hudson River, according to a New York Daily News article from Aug. 19 of that year. The police later identified the man as 62-year-old Joseph Robert Juliano, who had Mafia ties. More

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    A Trip to New York

    Expert advice to make the most of a New York City vacation.The window displays at Bergdorf Goodman beckon. There’s a new riverside ice rink in Williamsburg. Buildings, brownstones and bodegas across the city pop with decorations. A woman I saw holding court on the 6 train last week was accessorized with felt antlers, a gaudy Christmas sweater and three large dogs also wearing holiday sweaters.But the crowds these days, and oh, the prices! The cost of everything, from sandwiches to hotel rooms, has soared. And the city expects to get nearly 65 million visitors this year, this close to prepandemic levels. In recent days, it has felt as if all of those people are on the sidewalks of Midtown, furiously trying to elbow their way into Bryant Park’s holiday market.In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share eight tips for enjoying New York — whether you’re visiting for the holidays or any other time of the year — without going broke or getting lost in the crowd.The Louis Vuitton flagship store during the holidays this year.Katherine Marks for The New York Times1. The city that never sleeps tends to wake up late. Crowds are sparse in the early mornings across all the boroughs, even at the top tourist spots. So grab a bodega coffee and enjoy Rockefeller Center at 5 a.m., when the Christmas tree lights up daily, or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise.2. You need to book that table, reserve that slot, buy those tickets in advance. This is crucial for the must-do activities on your itinerary, including fine dining (here is The Times’s list of New York City’s 100 best restaurants), some Broadway shows and even visits to Santa at Macy’s. You may pay less for off-peak times, or reservations might even be free, but you’ll still need a reservation.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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    Vote For the Best Metropolitan Diary Entry of 2024

    Every week since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has published stories by, and for, New Yorkers of all ages and eras (no matter where they live now): anecdotes and memories, quirky encounters and overheard snippets that reveal the city’s spirit and heart. For the past three years, we’ve asked for your help picking the best Diary entry […] More

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    Breaking the Cycle of Childhood Poverty in New York

    This is part of an Opinion series on The New York Times Communities Fund, which assists nonprofits that provide direct support to people and communities facing hardship. Donate to the fund here. .g-goldbergseriesinfo a { text-decoration: underline; color: inherit; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-offset: 2px; } .g-goldbergseriesinfo{ position: relative; display: flex; overflow: hidden; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.125rem […] More

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    A Bagel Shop Closes, and the Upper West Side Is Absolutely Losing It

    The neighborhood reaction to the sudden, mysterious closure of a Manhattan bagel shop was intense: “No no no no no no no no no no no!!”In the vast constellation of New York City bagel shops, Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side has held a lofty but unusual position of honor.Famous among bagel aficionados as a keeper of the flame lit by the original bagel makers of the Lower East Side — hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, oven-baked, always fresh — the shop was founded in the early 1990s by Samak Thongkrieng, a Thai immigrant who learned his craft at the venerable Ess-a-Bagel.Even as the nondescript storefront became an unlikely TikTok destination, Absolute Bagels kept no social media presence of its own, had no website, did not deliver and accepted only cash.But as anyone could see from the lines up and down the block on the weekends, Absolute was among the most popular bagel places in New York.Then, on Thursday morning, tragedy. A piece of paper haphazardly stuck to the door with packing tape spelled out the sad news in bright red letters: “WE ARE CLOSED.”And lo did a cry of anguish rise from a stretch of Broadway between West 107th and 108th. It spread quickly to West Side Rag, the local news site that broke the bombshell news on Thursday morning, and then downtown, on to Brooklyn, to New Jersey, and to bagel lovers everywhere.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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    How Photographs Led Police to Person of Interest in UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing

    In the end, it was the simple act of distributing photos — not sophisticated facial recognition technology — that led the police to a man they are calling a “person of interest” in the fatal shooting of a health care executive in Midtown Manhattan last week.After the shooting of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, last Wednesday, the New York Police Department began releasing a steady drip of images. The photos, taken together, appeared to show a young man with light skin and dark features. One photo — crucially — showed his entire face.Even as the police recovered what they called an “enormous amount” of forensic evidence and video, it was that specific photo that led to the arrest of a man on Monday morning about 300 miles from New York City, according to Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives.Just after 9 a.m. on Monday, in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., an employee spotted a man who looked like the person in the photos, and then called the police, who detained the man for questioning.The man, whom the police identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, of Maryland, was carrying a gun, a silencer and some kind of manifesto, the police said.Chief Kenny said that it was hard to credit the break in the case to any one moment or piece of evidence, but that if he had to, “it would be the release of that photograph to the media.”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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    Special Education Services With a Catch: Parents Are Asked Not to Sue

    New York City school officials want families seeking such services to waive their right to sue the Education Department in exchange for receiving them. New York City parents who missed a rarely enforced deadline to apply for their children’s special education services can now receive those services, but only if they agree not to sue the Education Department.The requirement affects about 3,500 families whose children attend private or religious schools or are home-schooled and receive resources such as teacher aides who attend class with them, speech therapy and occupational therapy.About 17,000 families successfully filed to participate in the system this year by the June 1 deadline, which had not been enforced in previous years. The families who missed the cutoff were left in limbo.Because they missed the deadline, their children have not gotten the services so far this school year. The waiver, which the Education Department sent to affected parents on Thursday, would provide the families expedited services in about three days, said Nicole Brownstein, a spokeswoman for the city Education Department.But one lawyer who specializes in education issues described the waiver as “highly problematic” because of its vague wording, and another said such a pre-emptive move was extremely unusual. City Council members learned about the new waiver program during a briefing on Thursday.“I think it’s outrageous,” said Councilman Keith Powers, who attended the meeting with the Education Department. He added, “It feels wrong, and the whole process has been a mess from the very beginning.”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