Good Morning, Brooklyn: Thursday, August 25, 2022

August 25, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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BROOKLYN CANCER CENTER OPENS SITE ON FLEET PLACE: The Brooklyn Cancer Center, a partnership between New York Cancer & Blood Specialists (NYCBS), and The Brooklyn Hospital Center (TBHC) on Thursday announced the opening of its newly-created facility, at 86 Fleet Place in Downtown Brooklyn, providing a new home for the region’s top cancer care. Top-ranked physicians, including Chief of Hematology/Oncology Maxim Shulimovich, MD, Asmat Ullah, MD; Shahzaib Nabi, MD; Minh-Phuong Huynh-Le, MD, and Kalimullah Quadri, MD will staff the Brooklyn Cancer Center, which will provide state-of-the-art facilities, increased capacity, expert care and culturally sensitive services for patients with all types of cancer and blood disorders.

The Brooklyn Hospital Center is an independent community hospital in Fort Greene/Downtown Brooklyn. New York Cancer and Blood Specialists is considered one of the leading oncology practices in the nation.

The newly-opened Brooklyn Cancer Center on Fleet Place.
Photo courtesy of The Brooklyn Hospital Center

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CITY BAR ASKS FOR MEMBERSHIP’S RESTRAINT ON STATEMENTS ABOUT MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH: Responding to legal threats against federal law enforcement and judges, the New York Bar Association is calling on all members of the bar and political leaders “to refrain from making knowingly false or misleading statements about the legal process or government institutions or officers executing the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, to recognize the gravity and significance of the issues raised by this case, to allow any legitimate legal issues to be heard and resolved in court, and to recognize how words recklessly spoken in a highly charged environment can lead to violence.”

The City Bar, in a 16-page document related to legal and judicial aspects of the Mar-a-Lago search, pointed out that attorneys and high-ranking elected officials have made remarks “that demonstrated an alarming acceptance of violence as a means of redress of perceived wrongs committed by law enforcement officers against the former President, and were quickly echoed and amplified, in both words and deeds, by those who would advocate violence as an acceptable response.”

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GHOST GUN RETAILERS AGREE TO HALT SALE OF COMPONENTS: Two online ghost gun retailers — Rainer Arms, LLC, based in North Auburn, Washington, and Rock Slide USA, based in Broadway, North Carolina — have stopped illegally selling and delivering gun components that are used to assemble illegal and untraceable firearms to New York City residents, Mayor Eric Adams announced this morning. Following a June 2022 lawsuit against these and three other gun retailers (Arm or Ally in Kansas City, Missouri; Salvo Technologies, doing business as 80P Builder, in Largo, Florida; and Indie Guns, based in Orlando, Florida) the parties agree to immediately stop selling ghost guns to New York City residents; implement a technological bar to any such sales in the future, and provide the city with sales data for all such sales since 2020.

In addition to the city’s lawsuit, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed her own lawsuit in June against 10 defendants — including the five named in the city’ lawsuit for selling tens of thousands of illegal, unfinished frames and receivers to New Yorkers that were then converted into unserialized, untraceable handguns and assault-style weapons.

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MAYOR, AMAZON AGREE TO PROHIBIT SALE OF CONCEALING LICENSE PLATE COVERS: New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Amazon have collaborated to further prohibit and prevent the sale of any vehicle license-plate accessory advertised on the e-commerce site as a “camera blocker” to anyone ordering such a product within New York state. As part of this cooperation, Amazon will proactively search for and restrict the sale of smokescreen license plate covers and tinted license plate covers to customers with a New York state address, and has agreed to automatically display electronic notices stating that a given item cannot be shipped to New York locations — before one of these products can even be added to a customer’s online shopping cart.

The city enacted Local Law 22 this past January, prohibiting the sale of products designed to conceal or obscure vehicle license plates to New York City residents. This local law builds upon a provision of the State Vehicle and Traffic Law, which also prohibits the concealing or obscuring of license plates.

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APPLICATION PROCESS NOW REQUIRED FOR FREE OR REDUCED SCHOOL LUNCHES: Free and reduced-price school meals will now require more documentation from parents, with the expiration of Congress’ pandemic-related program that expanded access and reduced paperwork. Parents will now be required to fill out application forms that are available on their children’s school or school district’s website to receive these benefits for the upcoming school year, with additional information available via https://hungersolutionsny.org/federal-nutrition-programs/school-meals/school-meal-application-toolkit/.

Food assistance programs are particularly essential as families contend with the high cost of food, fuel and other necessities due to still high inflation.

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THUNDERBIRDS GIVE SKILLS PERFORMANCE AT NOON ABOVE NYC: New Yorkers out and about during their lunch hour will be treated to a planned flyover demonstration, as the United States Air force (USAF) Air Demonstration Squadron “Thunderbirds” will fly over New York City today starting at noon, according to a notice from the NYPD’s Public Information department. According to the Air Force’s website, “The Thunderbirds perform for people all around the world to display the pride, precision and professionalism the U.S. Air Force represents.”

The flyovers are meant to showcase the elite skills that all Air Force pilots must possess and demonstrate.

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ROBOTIC SURGERY AT HOSPITAL IN CONEY ISLAND: NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island has begun performing minimally invasive robotic surgery in the areas of gynecology, urology, thoracic, colorectal and general surgery with its Da Vinci Xi surgical system. This new surgical option builds on the hospital’s greater strategic vision of enhancing its surgical, inpatient and ambulatory care departments to further improve patient experience and clinical outcomes by minimizing blood loss and post-operation pain, explains Abdo Kabarriti, MD, FACS, Chief of Urology, and Director of Robotic Surgery at NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island. Coney Island Hospital projects it will complete approximately 200 robotic cases in the first year alone.

The system was acquired through $2.6 million in FY21 capital funding from the former NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and Councilmember Mark Treyger.

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KINGS COUNTY HOSPITAL RECOGNIZED FOR ITS LEVEL 1 TRAUMA CENTER: Another Brooklyn site in the NYC Health + Hospitals system has been recognized for its work with trauma patients. Health + Hospitals Kings County has been recognized again as a Level 1 Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma’s Verification Review Committee, an achievement that underscores the trauma center’s dedication to providing optimal care for injured patients.

Established by the American College of Surgeons in 1987, the Consultation/Verification Program for Hospitals promotes the development of trauma centers that provide not only the hospital resources necessary for trauma care, but also the entire spectrum of care to address the needs of all injured patients, from before the patient enters the hospital through rehabilitation.

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BRIC HOUSE REOPENS AFTER PANDEMIC: BRIC, a leading, multi-disciplinary arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn, is reopening BRIC House, a 40,000-sq-foot space that hosts exhibitions, a performance space, a flexible artist studio, a state-of-the-art public access television center, a café, and classroom space. BRIC will begin welcoming their community back on September 12, with a reopening celebration on September 21, from 7 p.m. – 9p.m. at the opening reception for their fall gallery exhibition titled, “Rodrigo Valenzuela: New Works for a Post Worker’s World.”

Since closing to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, BRIC House has only opened its doors for select programming and events, and the media center has been available by appointment only. Following the official reopening, BRIC House will once again be available as a space for the BRIC community to gather, hold meetings, and hang out with one another on a daily basis.

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RESPECTED JURIST MOVES TO INACTIVE STATUS: U.S. District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie of the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn federal court) is moving to inactive status after 36 years on the bench, reports the New York Law Journal. Judge Dearie, now 78, and who attained senior status in 2011, had during his judicial career presided over a wide range of cases, including those with defendants connected to organized crime, al-Qaeda and FIFA, the governing body of international soccer.

Dearie, who once observed, “I have been on all sides of the criminal process—prosecutor, judge, even defense attorney,” told the Law Journal this week, “I’m going to miss it.”

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GATEWAY DESIGN ANNOUNCED FOR PARK IN WILLIAMSBURG: The preliminary design for a new gateway to Marsha P. Johnson State Park in Brooklyn was announced Wednesday during an event with Gov. Kathy Hochul. The ornamental gateway at the Kent Avenue/North Eighth Street entrance, which will cap a $16.5 million renovation project completed this summer, builds on newly completed improvements that consist of extensive new landscaping — including a native species perennial garden and ‘Marsha’s hillside’ to honor her love of nature.

The park memorializes Marsha P. Johnson, a Transgender woman of color who was a pioneer of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement, born on August 24, 1945 and whose 1992 death in the Hudson River was never fully solved.

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NEW YORK’S AGRICULTURE SECTOR SHOWED RESILIENCE: The agriculture sector in New York State proved to be among the most resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic, losing just one percent of jobs in 2020 compared to the statewide annual employment loss of 8.7 percent, according to a report by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Both employment and wages in the farming sector grew in 2021 to reach new highs of 23,868 employees and $970.2 million in wages. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, milk is the state’s largest agricultural commodity, ranking fifth nationally in sales.

DiNapoli’s report noted that much of the income earned on farms recirculates back into the farmer’s community.

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DEFENDANT IN YESHIVA ARSON DEEMED MENTALLY INCOMPETENT FOR TRIAL: A man who was charged with setting fire to a yeshiva and synagogue in Brooklyn on May 19, 2021 has been deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. An updated docket and court order released yesterday orders the Bureau of Prisons to send defendant Ali Alaheri, to treatment for 90 days and then report back to the court.

The court order states that, “After the defendant has been residing at the treatment facility for 90 days, the Bureau of Prisons shall provide a status report on the defendant to the Court.”

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GUN SEIZURES IN NY INCREASE BY 20 PERCENT: More than 6,000 seizures of illegal guns have taken place since January in New York, as a result of interstate gun task force, representing a 20 percent increase in such confiscations when compared to the same timeframe in 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday. New York State Police seized 1,468 guns from August 2021 to July 2022 — the highest number in the history of the agency.

That total includes 30 illegal assault rifles and ghost guns seized after a monthslong investigation by the State Police Gun Trafficking Interdiction Unit into a multi-county gun trafficking ring.

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PROPERTY TAX REBATE FOR HOMEOWNERS: New York City Mayor Eric Adams has signed legislation to provide a one-time property tax rebate of up to $150 to hundreds of thousands of eligible New York homeowners, after City Council passed the bill earlier this month. Intro 600 — co-sponsored by New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and Brooklyn members of City Council Justin Brannan (Finance Committee Chair), and Kalman Yeger, will implement a state-authorizing law, allowing the city to provide a rebate of real property taxes for eligible properties on Fiscal Year 2022 property taxes.

To be eligible for the rebate, the property must be a one, two or three family residence or a dwelling unit in a cooperative or condominium; the property must be the primary residence of the owner; and the annual income of all the owners of the property must have been less than or equal to $250,000 in tax year 2020.

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‘GREASE’ CLOSES OUT CADMAN PARK SUMMER MOVIE SERIES: Watch the ‘70’s movie classic “Grease” and sing along tonight at Cadman Plaza Park. The Cadman Park Conservancy, in association with NYC Parks is screening the popular film starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta on Thursday, August 25. Arrive at 7 p.m. to pick your spot on the lawn, near the Brooklyn War Memorial for the 8 p.m. showing.

Olivia Newton John died on August 8 of this year, following a long battle with breast cancer.