New York’s new coronavirus-era dance rules aren’t exactly “Footloose” strict, but don’t plan on cutting loose and kicking off the Sunday shoes with just anybody. The state says that when wedding receptions resume next month, guests will be allowed to hit the dance floor only with members of their immediate party, household or family seated at the same table. Even then, the rules say, dancers must wear face masks and stay within their own “dancing areas or zones” — spaces that should be at least 36 square feet (3.3 square meters) in size and positioned at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart from other dance zones and tables. There’s no switching dance zones, either.

Once again, another incident took place involving Jews on an airplane and mask compliance. The latest incident occurred on Sunday evening, on Frontier Airline flight F9 2878 from Miami International to La Guardia Airport. An eye-witness tells YWN that the flight attendants made an issue over an 15-month old toddler that was not wearing a mask, despite airline regulations that clearly state that “Face coverings are not required for children under the age of 2.” They threatened to remove the Jewish family, and many other passengers, both Jewish and non-Jewish began sticking up for them. The incident turned ugly, as people began screaming and protesting as they deplaned all passengers. One passenger began screaming that this was like “Nazi Germany”.

One man was stabbed to death and three others were wounded Friday night during what police say may have been a foiled robbery attempt at an illegal gambling den in Brooklyn. Three of the men were found lying on the sidewalk in the borough’s Sunset Park neighborhood around 9:30 p.m., police said. The area is also known as Brooklyn’s Chinatown. A 46-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital. Two men, ages 39 and 42, were hospitalized in stable condition with non-life threatening injuries. A fourth man was treated at the scene for a puncture wound. Police are investigating whether some of the men were attempting to rob the gambling den and whether they were stabbed by someone trying to stop them. The men’s names have not been made public. No arrests have been made. (AP)

Shomrim volunteers in Boro Park spent the night searching for a missing person in Brooklyn, and are asking the community to keep an eye out of they see him. They are looking for Levi Goldstein, aged 33 from Boro Park. He was last seen on Shabbos afternoon at 1:00PM, in front of NYU Hospital Brooklyn, located at 150 55th St. He is 5 foot 6 inches, approximately 180 pounds, has green eyes and black hair. Boro Park Shomrim were joined by volunteers from Flatbush Shomrim, Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Staten Island and Far Rockway. If you have any information that can assist in locating him, please call 911 and the Boro Park Shomrim hotline at 718-871-6666. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A photographer who was shoved by a man who then came at him with a metal pole during a trip on the Staten Island ferry on Friday was able to get out of harm’s way when New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang intervened. Spencer Platt, a photographer with Getty Images, said he was on the top deck of the boat heading toward Staten Island around 11 a.m., talking on the phone after taking some photos of Yang, who was headed to campaign events. Platt said when he turned around, the man was “just right in my face, like an inch away.” The man pushed him, sending him down onto a bench, and Platt said he saw he was carrying some kind of metal rod. “He immediately lifts that up, comes at me and has it raised over me,” he said.

Disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced a barrage of criticism from fellow Democrats after The New York Times reported that the second former aide in four days had accused him of harassment. The former aide, Charlotte Bennett, alleges that Cuomo asked her inappropriate questions. Bennett told the newspaper that the alleged incidents happened late last spring, during the height of the state’s fight against the coronavirus. The Times report of a second aide comes after Cuomo denied allegations from another former aide who accused him of harassment. Lindsey Boylan alleged that in 2018, the Democratic governor did something inappropriate following a one-on-one briefing in his New York City office.

New York lawmakers challenged the state’s health commissioner Thursday on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget cuts and his administration’s lack of transparency on outbreaks at nursing homes. The Cuomo administration for months dramatically underreported the statewide number of COVID-19 deaths among long-term care residents, and a state attorney general report in January correctly estimated the administration’s tally didn’t include thousands of deaths. It is now over 15,000, up from the roughly 9,000 previously disclosed as of late January. Cuomo’s administration initially reported both deaths inside and outside of nursing homes. But by early May, the administration suddenly began excluding deaths outside of nursing homes — a step nearly no other state took.

A New York prosecutor has obtained copies of Donald Trump’s tax records after the Supreme Court this week rejected the former president’s last-ditch effort to prevent them from being handed over. The Manhattan district attorney’s office enforced a subpoena on Trump’s accounting firm within hours of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday and now has the documents in hand, a spokesperson for the office, Danny Frost, said Thursday. District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. had been fighting for a year and a half for access to Trump’s tax records for a criminal grand jury investigation into his business dealings. The documents are protected by grand jury secrecy rules and are not expected to be made public.

By: Rabbi Abe Friedman Law Enforcement Liaison/Community Activist No, not a good idea at all, not for the person behind the bars, nor for his family, and neither for those trying to help. Every year, early Purim afternoon, the phones of many askanim would start ringing off the hook. On the other side of the line there would be a frantic individual desperately seeking assistance for a spouse, parent, sibling, or friend, who drank irresponsibly and got themselves into trouble, and ended up in a police car, or in an ambulance. In most cases, the calls relate to cases of DUI or Driving Under the Influence, or in simple language, Drinking and Driving. Just the fact that we have to resort to writing such an OP-ED is painful enough.

A new coronavirus variant that has some similarities to the South African and Brazilian variants is on the rise in New York City, researchers stated on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. The new variant, known as B.1.526, was first identified in New York in November. By mid-February, it was behind 12% of new cases, according to researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. The researchers said that when performing an analysis of databases, they identified only a small amount of the South African and Brazilian variants. “Instead we found high numbers of this home-grown lineage,” said Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.