Criticism heats up as NYC mayor goes absent before winter storm hits
NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams was nowhere to be found Friday as a winter storm bore down on New York City and a house fire claimed the lives of two small children on Staten Island.
High-ranking officials in his administration said the mayor took two days off starting Thursday and that he’d return to work Saturday. They refused to divulge where he was.
“I certainly do know where he is,” Lorraine Grillo, Adams’ first deputy mayor, said to reporters. “Let me just say this to you — he might as well be here, because we’ve been speaking constantly throughout the day.
“The mayor decided to take two days off and get some rest,” she added.
It didn’t take long for Adams, whose reputation includes a love for the city’s nightlife, to catch heat for the move. One former city official slammed the mayor, accusing him of “gallivanting” in the city’s time of need.
An Adams administration official said it’s “strange” for City Hall to refuse to divulge the mayor’s whereabouts — and floated a theory for the dodgy response.
“They’re probably not saying where he is because they don’t want anyone to know who he’s with,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.
—New York Daily News
North Korea fires ballistic missiles ahead of year-end meeting
North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles Friday ahead of a major political meeting to set policy for the new year, after ratcheting up tensions with a record number of launches in 2022.
The suspected ballistic missiles were fired at around 4:32 p.m. from an area near Pyongyang’s main international airport toward waters off North Korea’s east coast, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said. They traveled a distance of about 250 kilometers (155 miles) and 350 km (215 miles) respectively before falling into the sea, it said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is finding space to ramp up provocations and conduct tit-for-tat military moves against the U.S. and its allies as President Joe Biden focuses on Russia’s war in Ukraine. The launch came three days after the U.S. sent a bomber and F-22 stealth fighters to the peninsula for joint drills with South Korea.
Kim has called for a meeting of his ruling Workers’ Party at an unspecified date in late December to review economic and political efforts for this year and decide on policy plans for 2023. The North Korean leader has shown no interest in returning to nuclear disarmament talks that have been stalled for almost three years, and has stood firmly to a pledge to never give up his atomic arsenal.
—Bloomberg News
Woman who sought reward for Lady Gaga’s stolen dogs is sentenced
LOS ANGELES — The criminal case against a woman who walked into a Los Angeles police station with two of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs days after the singer’s dog walker was shot in a robbery has come to an end.
Jennifer McBride, 52, pleaded no contest Thursday to one count of receiving stolen property and was sentenced to two years of probation, court records show.
McBride originally faced two criminal charges, but one count of being an accessory after the fact was dropped as part of the plea deal, court records show.
The dog walker, Ryan Fischer, was walking Lady Gaga’s three French bulldogs in the 1500 block of Sierra Bonita Avenue in Hollywood on Feb. 25, 2021, when a car pulled up and two men jumped out.
Fischer resisted when the men tried to snatch the dogs, and he was shot in the chest. The assailants took two of the dogs and escaped. He was later released from a hospital.
The dogs were recovered after McBride walked into a Los Angeles police station with the two bulldogs days after the shooting.
She claimed that she came across the dogs tied to a pole and asked about a $500,000 reward the singer had offered for their return, police said at the time. McBride was later arrested.
—Los Angeles Times
Florida is now the fastest-growing state in the country, census shows
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida is now the fastest-growing state in the Union, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimates.
Between 2021 and 2022, Florida’s population increased by 1.9% to 22,244,823. The last time the Sunshine State earned the distinction was in 1957.
Florida is also the third most populous state, behind only California and Texas.
Idaho, the previous fastest-growing state, has a rather small population of 1,893,410 people, roughly the population of Florida's Broward County.
All those new Floridians have to fit into a limited amount of space. Florida’s population density has increased by 800%, skyrocketing from 51.7 people per square mile in 1950, when we were the 29th most densely populated state, to 401.4 per square mile in 2020.
Florida’s population is nine times what it was in 1946. It currently is the 10th most densely populated state. Alaska, not surprisingly, is the least densely populated, with 1.3 people per square mile, and New Jersey is the most, with 1,263 people per square mile.
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
