Mayor Bill de Blasio and Macy’s announced Thursday that the iconic Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks show will return as a live holiday spectacle on New York’s East River this Independence Day. The news comes after last year’s annual July 4 celebration was transformed into a series of pre-recorded, smaller fireworks displays around the city as the country battled the COVID-19 pandemic. Macy’s described this year’s comeback show as a “jaw dropping pyrotechnic salute to American bravery and optimism in an incomparable barrage of color, light, shape and sound.”

A former federal judge was formally appointed Wednesday to ensure attorney-client privilege is protected in the examination of multiple electronic devices seized from Rudy Giuliani. U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan appointed Barbara Jones as “special master” after the late-April raids on ex-President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney. She’s already familiar with the job, having done the same thing three years ago after FBI raids on Michael Cohen, another one of Trump’s former personal attorneys. Cohen eventually pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges. He spent about a year of a three-year prison sentence behind bars before the spread of the coronavirus in the nation’s prisons led to his release to home detention.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is leading the NYC Mayoral race, the latest PIX11 poll found. Adams got the support of 23% of the respondents in the poll, conducted June 7-8. He’s never dipped below 18% in these polls, and he was most recently at 20% before this increase. Former counsel to current Mayor DeBlasio, Maya Wiley, surged into second place with an 8% climb from the most recent poll, following an AOC endorsement. Andrew Yang brought in 15%, and former commissioner for the NYC Sanitation Dept, Kathryn Garcia, dropped from 21% to 12%. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Police arrested a man Tuesday in connection with the death of a 10-year-old boy killed when a gunman fired a spray of bullets into a home. Authorities said Jovan Young, 29, was facing charges including murder, attempted murder and assault in connection with the death over the weekend of Justin Wallace, and the wounding of his uncle. Young was in custody and awaiting arraignment. The shooting took place on Saturday night at a home in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, with Justin being hit in the torso. He was taken the hospital where he was pronounced dead. His uncle was hospitalized in stable condition. Surveillance video later released by police showed a man standing on the sidewalk and firing several shots.

A small earthquake hit early Wednesday in southern New Jersey, though no damage or injuries were reported. The U.S. Geological Survey says the 2.4 magnitude quake occurred just before 8 a.m. near Tuckerton in southern Ocean County. It had a depth of about three miles and light shaking was felt, officials said. Roughly 100 people reported feeling the earthquake, with most of the reports coming from nearby Little Egg Harbor Township. The earthquake is the first one reported in New Jersey in more than six months. (AP)

Jack Ciattarelli, a small business founder and former Assembly member, won New Jersey’s Republican primary for governor Tuesday, setting up a general election contest with Gov. Phil Murphy, who captured the Democratic nod for reelection. Murphy implicitly tied Republicans to former President Donald Trump, and warned Tuesday night that “truth” itself was on the ballot. Ciattarelli went directly for Murphy, a Massachusetts native who moved to the state later in life. He framed Murphy as out of touch with New Jersey, and attacked his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. He also promised to lower the state’s sky-high property taxes. “This is where I root for the Yankees while Phil Murphy is cheering for the Red Sox,” Ciattarelli said to applause during a speech Tuesday night.

A violent man randomly attacked Bash Kosher Pizza in Flatbush, Wednesday afternoon. Sources tell YWN that the man suddenly entered the establishment, located on Nostrand Avenue and Avenue J, at around 1:00PM. No words were exchanged, when the man began screaming, and randomly throwing tables and chairs. Frightened people eating lunch quickly barricaded themselves into the store bathroom. Eventually, a Jewish person in the store threw a chair at the suspect, who then chased him out of the store.  One outside the store, the suspect then attacked a Jewish man, by punching him at least once in the head. At that point, multiple people jumped on the suspect, and held him down.

New York City’s law department was been hit with a cyberattack that forced officials to take the 1,000-lawyer agency offline, but Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believes no data was compromised in the hack. “To this hour we have not seen information compromised or a ransom demand,” the Democratic mayor said at a virtual news briefing on Tuesday, adding that the investigation was “evolving.” City officials said they disconnected the law department’s computers from the city’s network on Sunday, after discovering the cyberattack. “As the investigation remains ongoing, the City has taken additional steps to maintain security, including limiting access to the Law Department’s network at this time,” de Blasio spokesperson Laura Feyer said in a statement.

In a stunning political development in the NYC Mayoral race, YWN has exclusively learned that Satmar (Aronim faction) has endorsed front-runner Eric Adams. Sources tell YWN that the faction held a late-night meeting with Eric Adams, where a full-throated endorsement was given. In fact, the factions “Der Blatt” Newspaper, which goes to print on Tuesday night, was actually delayed for a few hours, so the front cover can have the breaking news. Our sources tell us that the change from a previous Yang endorsement was due to the undeniable past twenty years of staunch support for the Williamsburg Hasidic community by Eric Adams – first as a NY State Senator and then as Brooklyn Boro President.

Yesterday a fourteen-second clip went around telling folks why Eric Adams is the wrong choice for our community. We as a group did not want to respond to this, since this was a move to sow discord between members of the Crown Heights Jewish community. Let’s address some of the facts and reasons why we chose Eric Adams as our only choice. For starters, Eric has represented our community for the last fifteen years. He is a former police officer and has been clear that he will be tough on crime. He was our State Senator, and then our Borough President. As State Senator Eric was constantly engaged and had an ongoing dialogue and communication with members of the community. So, we need to look beyond the cropped fourteen-second clip and see the full interview which is below.