Progressive NYC Private School Fighting Foreclosure Files Bankruptcy
Manhattan Country School, an Upper West Side private school promoting social justice and a progressive academic curriculum that is battling possible foreclosure, has filed bankruptcy.
MCS sought court protection Friday listing assets and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million each on its Chapter 11 petition. The school, which operates on a sliding-scale tuition model based on families' ability to pay, has said it suffered losses during the Covid-19 pandemic from helping impacted parents by reducing prices. The maximum annual tuition is $59,000.
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Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cuomo campaign attorney goes after union that criticized him
NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo's campaign attorney recently threatened a union that endorsed one of his rivals, issuing a cease-and-desist letter over its criticisms of the frontrunning New York City mayoral candidate, according to a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO. Longtime election lawyer Martin Connor admonished the Manhattan-based Communications Workers of America Local 1180, alleging its campaign literature made 'false and defamatory claims' against the former governor. The union endorsed Cuomo opponent Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker who stands to draw some votes away from the former governor's base of Black Democrats. A super PAC backing Cuomo has handily outspent Adams — and every other candidate — with $8 million so far, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Adams is expected to begin airing ads soon, following a $2 million cash infusion from the city's Campaign Finance Board Friday. A filer posted to the union's website — dubbed the 'top 10 reasons' not to support Cuomo — matches the issues outlined in Connor's letter. Among the lawyer's complaints laid out in the May 26 missive: The flier accused the ex-governor of never having been a New York City resident, claimed he settled a Department of Justice probe over sexual harassment allegations, charged his gubernatorial administration with covering up nursing home deaths during Covid and said he allowed a high tax rate on wealthy people to expire. And Connor took issue with the group claiming Cuomo is not a 'friend' of workers. Politically influential unions 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council are among the labor groups backing Cuomo — despite calling for his 2021 resignation. Adams has the backing of the CWA local and District Council 37, the largest public-sector union in the city that boosted her for Council speaker and once employed her chief of staff. Additional assertions in the union's flier — including Cuomo's push for a less generous pension tier, cost-saving labor contracts and the taxpayer money spent to defend him against sexual harassment allegations — were omitted from the letter. Connor threatened to contact elections officials and state Attorney General Letitia James — a Cuomo foe and Adams backer — 'for your deceptive and misleading claims which may interfere with legitimate voters seeking to exercise their franchise free of this sort of misinformation.' Union President Gloria Middleton declined to comment 'under the advice of my attorney.' Adams' campaign also declined to comment. Cuomo's hardball tactics — honed over a half-century of working on campaigns — are well-known and oft-reviled in New York's political world. 'It's no surprise that Adreiene Adams and her supporters are willfully distorting and lying about the governor — they've been doing it the whole campaign,' Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said. 'New Yorkers should not be fed misinformation by people seeking to represent them — they deserve the truth and will be fighting Trumpian misinformation tactics every step of the way using every tool at our disposal.' The letter is an aggressive effort by Cuomo to silence supporters of a rival candidate before the June 24 primary, which polls show he is expected to win. It also underscores how the former governor's campaign is taking a combative posture when countering the scandals that drove him from office four years ago. Cuomo has insisted he did not purposefully hide Covid nursing home fatalities, but his administration was later found to have undercounted the number of people who died in the facilities during the initial months of the pandemic. Cuomo, who has touted his Covid leadership on the campaign trail, is reportedly under a Department of Justice investigation after a Republican-led House panel alleged he lied under oath that he personally edited a state report on the matter. Cuomo has denied lying to Congress, and on Sunday said he and his attorneys have yet to be contacted about the probe. Some of Connor's complaints are valid; others focus on rhetoric that Cuomo's critics frequently hurl at him. Cuomo is a New York City native. He grew up in Queens, though he spent the last two decades living in Westchester County and Albany before moving to Manhattan ahead of his mayoral run. Contrary to the union's flier, the former governor was not party to a DOJ settlement which was reached with his successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and he's denied any wrongdoing. The debate over the so-called millionaire's tax is more nuanced. In 2011, Cuomo faced pressure on his left flank to maintain a high tax surcharge set to expire at the end of that year. Cuomo negotiated a compromise that resulted in a lower tax for wealthy people, but at a higher rate if the surcharge had been allowed to expire. Cuomo's critics at the time derided the deal as a giveaway to millionaires. He embraced higher taxes on rich New Yorkers in 2021, citing the financial toll from Covid. Cuomo battled with labor leaders early in his first term as governor. He pressed public-sector unions for cost-saving contracts amid a financial crunch and threatened mass layoffs if the savings weren't achieved. He eventually secured the deals he wanted.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Palm Beach Police: 'SIM swap' scam tried to steal more than $200,000 from Palm Beacher
Two Westlake residents have been arrested by Palm Beach Police, who say the pair executed an elaborate financial fraud known as "SIM swapping" that attempted to steal more than $200,000 from a Palm Beach resident. And the scheme could extend far beyond the island, police said. The pair were taken into custody May 28, Palm Beach Police spokesman Capt. Will Rothrock said. A 29-year-old woman faces charges of organized fraud and fraudulent use of personal information of a person age 60 or older, and a 31-year-old man was arrested on a charge of fraudulent use of personal information, according to arrest reports. Both remained at the Palm Beach County Jail on May 29. The woman was held without bond, and a Palm Beach County judge ordered that she have no contact with the Palm Beach resident or the man arrested in the case, according to court records. She also cannot have any devices that can access the internet, and she is not allowed to use the phone except to contact her attorney, court records show. The man's bond amount was set at $350,000, and he also cannot use or have any devices that connect to the internet, court records show. He was directed not to contact the Palm Beach resident or the woman, and while in jail, he cannot use the phone except to contact an attorney, according to court records. If he makes bond, he will be on in-home arrest with a GPS monitor, records show. On April 10, a Palm Beach resident called police to say someone had fraudulently accessed his AT&T and bank accounts, and had tried to transfer money and login to several websites, according to an arrest report. The Palm Beach resident said he received a call on April 8 from someone who said they were with AT&T, and that he needed to validate his phone numbers using a code sent to him via text message, an arrest report said. About 20 minutes after that phone call, phone numbers connected to the resident's AT&T account stopped working, police said. The scam is known as "SIM swapping" or "SIM hijacking," according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center, also called the IC3. Fraudsters will gain control of a person's phone number and then use it to access their banking and other financial and personal accounts, the agency said. The resident provided the code that he received to the person, but later discovered that the code was used to forward his phone number to a different provider, Verizon, police said. By giving that code to the person who said they were from AT&T, he allowed them to complete the final step to move all three of the phone numbers on his account to the other carrier, police wrote in the arrest report. In 2024, there were 982 complaints of SIM swapping with a total reported loss of $25,983,946, the IC3 said in its annual report. The previous year, 1,075 SIM swapping complaints were made with a reported loss of $48,798,103, according to the IC3. Once the phone numbers were transferred, someone tried to withdraw money and make a wire transfer from the Palm Beach resident's bank account, police said. Someone also successfully took over one of the man's email accounts. Transactions made through the resident's accounts included $2,300 sent via Zelle to a St. Petersburg resident, $77.97 spent at a Circle K in The Acreage, $1,500 in ATM withdrawals, and a $215 Venmo payment, an arrest report said. There was also a $4,006.08 payment made to designer clothing retailer Farfetch U.K., along with Airbnb charges of $2,341.79 and $660, an arrest report said. Because the resident was concerned that his Apple account had been compromised, he used the "Find My" feature on his iPhone, which can be used to locate devices connected to an Apple account, police said. The resident saw an unknown iPhone on Liberty Lane in Westlake and told police that he has never been to that address and has no connections there. A Palm Beach Police detective later drove by that address several times and saw two vehicles, a 2022 black Cadillac Escalade and 2024 gray BMW SUV, parked there. Both vehicles were registered to the 31-year-old man, whose driver's license lists an address in North Lauderdale but who police learned was staying at the house in Westlake with the 29-year-old woman, who shares registration on the BMW SUV. Palm Beach Police detectives discovered that the ATM withdrawals from the resident's account were made at a bank in The Acreage, about 2 miles from the house in Westlake, an arrest report said. On April 9, the Palm Beach resident received a request to wire transfer $138,237, which was unsuccessful, police said. That same day, there was another request for a wire transfer for $82,469. The banker in that case confirmed the wire with who he believed to be the account holder, and the transfer was initiated, police said. However, once the resident received an email to confirm the transfer, he called the bank's fraud team and was able to secure the money, but it could take up to three months to get that money back, the arrest report said. Both wire transfer requests were made to a Pompano Beach resident, police said. The resident hired a private investigator who recovered photos taken by the Liberty Lane-located iPhone after someone took over the resident's Apple account, police said. Data for seven photos show all were taken at that home in Westlake, according to the arrest report. On May 7, a Palm Beach Police detective talked with a person in Las Vegas, Nevada, who had been the victim of a similar scheme and had reported the crime to the FBI. That person gave police about 50 images someone took after gaining control of his Apple account, and officers found data that connected the photos back to the Westlake address. The images provided by the person in Nevada also included photos of driver's licenses, passports, bank account numbers, emails and more, an arrest report said. When Palm Beach Police and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office searched the Westlake home on a warrant on May 5, they found the 29-year-old woman and 31-year-old man, along with a Louis Vuitton backpack, three iPhones, two pairs of sunglasses and a yellow notebook with "Work $" written on it, the arrest report said. Inside the notebook, officers said they found bank account details, Social Security numbers, addresses, names and more personal details about more than 50 people in Florida and across the United States. Officers also said they found electronic devices and a ledger that contained the Palm Beach resident's personal information. They also took $15,243 in cash from the woman's bedroom, the arrest report said. Detectives determined that once the couple gained access to a person's phone line, they could "circumvent two-factor authentication and gain access to victims' financial accounts, resulting in substantial unauthorized wire transfers and fraudulent transactions," the arrest report said. Palm Beach has cautioned residents to be wary of potential scams. "Most of these cases nationally go unsolved," Rothrock said. "The work and tenacity that our detectives put into this to follow the leads to the end and bring a successful conclusion are noteworthy." He added that the department is grateful for PBSO's help in the investigation, including to serve the search warrant. "Finding local perpetrators was a rarity and did make the investigation coordination smoother," Rothrock said. Those who believe they may have been victims of the scam should call the Palm Beach Police Department's non-emergency number at 561-838-5454, he said. This story was updated to add new information. Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@ Subscribe today to support our journalism. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach 'SIM swap' scam could extend across U.S., police say
New York Times
17 minutes ago
- New York Times
Man City pursuing deal to sign Rayan Ait Nouri from Wolves
Manchester City are pursuing a deal to sign Rayan Ait Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers. Agreements still need to be reached between the clubs and with the 23-year-old — however all parties now expect a move to happen. Ait Nouri has emerged as City's top target to strengthen at left-back after four impressive seasons since joining Wolves on a permanent basis, which followed a loan spell, from Angers. Advertisement Pep Guardiola's side are working to secure the Algeria international and further recruits before the Club World Cup in the United States this summer. Premier League clubs voted to approve allowing the window to open on June 1 before closing on June 10, with the tournament kicking off four days later. City face Wydad AC, Al Ain and Juventus in Group G of the newly-expanded competition. Ait Nouri has made 157 appearances for Wolves since joining the Midlands club, initially on loan, in 2020. He made 41 appearances in all competitions this season, scoring five goals and adding seven assists. Central defender Josko Gvardiol was City's most regular left-back before academy graduate midfielder Nico O'Reilly starred in the position over the final months of the campaign. ()
