The FDNY is on scene with two manholes on fire in the heart of the Crown Heights Jewish community. FDNY tells YWN that there are no injuries at this time, and that they have evacuated some surrounding properties on Kingston Avenue and President Street. The following locations have been evacuated: · 333 Kingston Avenue – two story mixed residential and commercial with one residential unit. · 330 Kingston Avenue – unknown. · 329 Kingston Avenue – three story mixed residential and commercial with zero residential units. · 326 Kingston Avenue – two story mixed residential and commercial with zero residential units. Con Edison has been notified and is en-route to investigate. Video and photos via Yitzy Engel for YWN (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The incredible Chesed of Hatzolah Air soars once again as their dedicated flight crew flew a severely injured Yeshiva Bochur back from Colorado. As YWN had reported last week, two boys were on a hike with their camp, when they slipped and fell. One suffered a fractured pelvis, while a second boy suffered even more serious injuries including a femur and spinal fracture. Both boys were airlifted to a trauma center, where the seriously injured boy underwent emergency surgery. Upon learning that one of the boys would have to be flown home, Hatzolah Air immediately deployed with a specialized medical team and highly-trained flight crew to Centennial Airport in Colorado.

One of the country’s largest egg producers illegally inflated prices when the pandemic hit New York, taking in $4 million as it charged up to four times more per carton, state Attorney General Letitia James charged in a lawsuit Tuesday. James claims that in March and April, Hillandale Farms price gouged more than 4 million cartons of eggs sold to grocery store chains, U.S. military facilities and wholesale food distributors. The lawsuit seeks restitution for consumers. “As this pandemic ravaged our country, Hillandale exploited hardworking New Yorkers to line its own pockets,” James said in a prepared release. An email seeking comment was sent to Hillandale.

A former chief who was one of New York City’s highest-ranking female police officials accused the department of denying women the opportunity to advance to senior leadership posts in a federal lawsuit. Lori Pollock, who retired last week, had been in charge of the department’s data-driven, crime-fighting strategy. She had asked to be considered to become the next chief of detectives, a path taken by two of her predecessors, including current commissioner Dermot Shea, according to The New York Times. Pollock, 56, was instead reassigned to head the Office of Collaborative Policing, a role she considered a demotion. “How is it that the only woman to have served in that capacity was demoted?” Pollock asked the newspaper.

A bill that would require adults to wear seat belts in the back seats of vehicles passed in both the New York State Assembly, and the New York State Senate, and was signed into law by Governor Cuomo on Tuesday morning. The bill, A6163, says “no person sixteen years of age or over shall be a passenger in the back seat of a motor vehicle, unless such person is restrained by a safety belt.” Existing New York state laws require people under the age of 16 to wear seat belts in the back seat. “We’ve known for decades that seat belts save lives and with this measure we are further strengthening our laws and helping to prevent needless tragedies,” Gov. Cuomo said in a press release.

A Brooklyn man charged with trying to help ISIS by encouraging attacks on New York’s subway system pleaded guilty Monday in Manhattan federal court. Zachary Clark, 41, pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 9. Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a release that Clark admitted pledging allegiance to the terrorist group. Authorities said in court papers that he posted calls for attacks on the public and institutions in New York in encrypted pro-Islamic State group chat rooms. They said he posted maps and images of the New York City subway system and encouraged Islamic State supporters to attack it.

Riverdale Nursing Home in the Bronx appears, on paper, to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with an official state count of just four deaths in its 146-bed facility. The truth, according to the home, is far worse: 21 dead, most transported to hospitals before they succumbed. “It was a cascading effect,” administrator Emil Fuzayov recalled. “One after the other.” New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.

New York’s mass transit agency wants Apple to come up with a better way for iPhone users to unlock their phones without taking off their masks, as it seeks to guard against the spread of the coronavirus in buses and subways. In a letter to CEO Tim Cook obtained by The Associated Press, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Patrick Foye said riders have been seen removing their masks to unlock their phones using face-recognition technology, despite a recent update by Apple that simplifies the unlock process for people wearing masks. Previously, an iPhone user wearing a mask would have to wait a few seconds as face recognition software tried to identify them before they eventually could enter a passcode.

El Al’s board of directors has agreed to meet with Eli Rozenberg, son of New York businessman Kenny Rozenberg, who has submitted an offer to purchase a controlling stake in the company, Globes reported. However, the El Al board is demanding a meeting with Rozenberg himself instead of his representatives as he requested. “My client requests that your client should participate personally in the meeting,” El Al’s attorney, Adv.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday dismissed President Donald Trump’s executive orders as “laughable” and another chapter in the federal government’s botched response to the coronavirus as he praised New Yorkers for mostly good behavior that has reduced the infection rate in his state. The Democrat was particularly critical of Trump’s Saturday announcement that states must pay part of $400 weekly unemployment insurance benefits. He told a telephone news conference that Trump’s plan would likely cost New York state $4 billion. “The concept of saying to states, you pay 25 percent of the insurance, is just laughable,” Cuomo said. “It’s just an impossibility. So none of this is real on the federal side.