Day: March 19, 2025

A collection of topical political cartoons from various artists curated by the Brooklyn Eagle editorial staff.

The post Cartoon Sketchbook: March 19 appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

The MetroCard is officially going the way of the subway token. 

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber announced on Wednesday that the agency will retire the MetroCard by the end of the year. Sales and distribution of the cards will end on Dec. 31, 2025, making way for the full-time use of OMNY, the MTA’s new contactless tap-and-go payment system.

“After 32 years, it’s time to say goodbye to the MetroCard and go all in on the fare payment system of the future,” Lieber said. “Tap-and-go – already the choice for 65% of our riders – is not only easier and more convenient to use, it also opens the door for new discounts and promotions that’ll put money back in riders’ pockets.”

One of those discounts includes free rides. With OMNY, riders automatically receive free, unlimited rides for the rest of the week once they have paid $34 (or $17 for enrolled reduced-fare customers) in fares — the same as taking 12 trips, MTA officials explained. 

It seems like only yesterday that the MetroCard hit the transit scene. The MTA rolled out the plastic cards in 1994 as the eventual replacement of metal subway tokens, which were relegated from everyday commuting staples to artifacts of subway history.

Though the MetroCard circle of life is nearing completion, MTA officials said the agency will still accept the cards going into 2026. An official end date is yet to be announced. 

The MetroCard’s days are numbered as city straphangers increasingly use OMNY, which can be accessed directly with digital wallets and contactless credit and debit cards.

But there is a bright spot for anyone who will miss slipping their sleek MetroCards back into their wallets after passing through the turnstile. OMNY is available in physical card form, too.

OMNY cards are available for $1 and can be loaded or reloaded at some stores, online, at Mobile Sales Van locations, or at subway stations where OMNY vending machines are currently available. 

MTA officials said OMNY vending machines will be available in all 472 subway stations by the fall.

“The tap-and-go system has greatly simplified how to use the MTA and navigate New York City,”  NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said. “Tap-and-go has become very popular among subway and bus riders, and for good reason – it is the fastest, easiest, and most convenient way to pay the fare and we encourage any remaining customers to make the switch as soon as possible for a seamless transition.”

Although New Yorkers have embraced OMNY overall, many have trouble saying goodbye to this historic piece of MTA history.

“I’m a creature of habit,” one New Yorker said. “It took me a while to learn how to use the MetroCard and load it, and now it’s going, and I’ll have to figure out OMNY. Not by my choice.”

The MTA is encouraging riders to spend down the value on their MetroCards, though remaining balances will be eligible for transfer or reimbursement two years from the expiration date on the MetroCard.

To transfer funds, riders can bring an OMNY card and their remaining MetroCards to any of the Mobile Van locations, MTA customer service centers located in 15 stations, or to Lower Manhattan at 3 Stone St. 

Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday blamed the perception that New York City is unsafe and its sprawling homelessness crisis squarely on the Democratic challenger in the 2025 NYC Mayor’s Race who says he is best positioned to fix those issues: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Adams, during a Wednesday morning interview on the Reset Talk Show with host JR Gittens, took aim at Cuomo — the current frontrunner in the mayoral race — for signing off on criminal justice reforms in 2019 which Hizzoner claims make it hard for the city to crack down on repeat offenders.

“When you look at the problems we are facing around public safety, it was born out of Albany; it was the laws that he passed, and he wanted to see move forward,” Adams said of the former governor, who resigned in 2021 amid nearly a dozen allegations of sexual misconduct that he denies.

“You can’t come back later and try to reinvent your life when you were in office already,” he added. “The recidivism we’re seeing in our city is because of the laws that were passed by him.”

Adams said this in response to a question about the Cuomo campaign’s focus on addressing anxieties around crime, including a plan to hire 5,000 more NYPD officers.

‘The people will judge’

Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, simply responded, “The people of New York City will judge performance.”

The former governor also introduced proposals to put more recidivists behind bars, address quality-of-life concerns, and double the number of cops patrolling the city subways.

Adams has ramped up his criticisms of Cuomo over the past few days as the former governor has nabbed endorsements from several of his close political allies and raised far more campaign cash in the first 13 days of March than Adams brought in since mid-January.

In his campaign launch video earlier this month, Cuomo said the city feels “threatening, out of control and in crisis” because of a “lack of intelligent action” by its leaders. While Cuomo has refrained from directly attacking Adams by name, his statements are a clear indictment of the mayor’s leadership.

In 2019, Cuomo signed a package of criminal justice reforms that eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies — though the law has since been tweaked several times to once again give judges more discretion to set bail. He also signed changes to the state’s discovery laws that year, which require prosecutors to quickly share evidence in their possession with the defendant’s counsel on a strict timeline.

Both the changes to bail and discovery were aimed at addressing inequities in the criminal justice system, such as those accused but not convicted of a crime languishing in jail pre-trial and defendants going to trial without seeing much of the evidence prosecutors will present.

However, many elected officials have said that while the reforms were well-intentioned, they went too far and made it harder to keep repeat offenders behind bars before trial. Too many cases are tossed on technicalities.

Earlier this month, Cuomo defended signing the bail reform laws, saying “it righted a terrible social wrong.”

Homelessness problem

Adams also blamed Cuomo for making certain decisions that he said precipitated the city’s current homelessness crisis—though he did not go into specifics. Furthermore, he blasted the former governor’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes and years-long feud with former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“When you look at the homeless crisis that we’re seeing, it was some of the programs that he shut down,” Adams said. “When you look at what happened under COVID, a report is being released of the bickering that took place between him and the previous mayor that didn’t allow New York to get the resources that they deserve. We look at the deaths in the nursing homes.”

Azzopardi also pushed back on those claims, saying that while Cuomo cut funding to a now-defunct rental assistance program known as Advantage in 2011, he replaced it with other housing subsidy programs that received more funding. Those included a program to develop 20,000 supportive housing units, he said, 80% of which were slated for the city.

Azzopardi also defended Cuomo’s response to COVID-19 as governor and how his administration communicated information about the pandemic to the public.

When it comes to allegations that Cuomo’s actions as governor led to the high COVID-19 death rate in nursing homes, Azzopardi pointed to a January Justice Department Inspector General report he says found that New York followed federal guidelines and that Trump’s first DOJ went after Cuomo for purely political reasons.

The Trump administration is threatening to pull federal funding from NYC’s transit system if it doesn’t provide a plan to address crime.

The post Trump administration threatens to pull New York transit funds as it questions anti-crime efforts appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

POLICE ON WEDNESDAY morning announced the arrest of Jacob Angstadt, 27, of Pennsylvania, over an alleged February road rage incident.

The post Man arrested in BQE road rage incident appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

Количество инцидентов со стрельбой и травмами в сообществах, участвующих в государственной инициативе по искоренению насилия с применением огнестрельного оружия (GIVE), снизилось в течение первых двух […]

Enraged Brooklyn residents are accusing the city of a “bait and switch” to replace a building slated for affordable housing with a new homeless shelter.

In 2022, New York State allocated $50 million to fund marijuana dispensaries operated by people historically targeted by biased

The post ✰PREMIUM<br> <i>Spotlight: </i>How the recreational marijuana rollout failed appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.