Category: ESTA News

On the 6th, the New York State Senate passed a bill that expands the punishment area for drivers of reckless driving to private parking lots.

This bill, proposed by Congressman John Liu, is to include private parking lots as areas subject to punishment for reckless drivers so that reckless driving vehicles that engage in idling and street racing with excessive exhaust noise can be cracked down in parking lots owned by private companies such as shopping malls is the main goal.

Currently, in New York State, when police detect reckless drivers on public roads or highways, they can conduct direct crackdowns, but reckless driving in private parking lots is not enforced unless the owner directly reports it.

Rep. John Liu said, “After the pandemic, vehicles for drag racing during late-night hours are gathering in parking lots with wide parking spaces such as Bay Terrace Shopping Mall and Fresh Meadow Shopping Centre, which threatens the lives and property of residents using nearby facilities. is being applied,” he explained about the background of the bill.

Currently, reckless driving is punishable as a misdemeanour in New York State, and for the first offense, up to 30 days in prison or up to $300 in fines, and penalties at the level of revocation of the driver’s license are applied.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, was indicted for illegally stealing classified documents, and about half of the American public thought the prosecution was natural, a survey found.

At the same time, a similar size of the American public responded that the indictment was ‘political’, confirming again that the public opinion of the American public is divided according to political inclinations over the prosecution of former President Trump.

According to a public opinion poll released on the 11th by ABC Broadcasting of the United States with the polling company Ipsos on 910 American citizens on the 9th and 10th, 61% of the total respondents said that former President Trump’s alleged transfer of classified documents was a ‘serious matter’.

By party support, 91% of Democratic supporters and 38% of Republicans viewed former President Trump’s allegations as serious, respectively.

48% said yes, 35% said no in answer to whether Trump should be prosecuted for transporting classified documents.

Another 46% of the total said former President Trump should stop his campaign.

Separately, 47% of all respondents said the prosecution was politically motivated. These responses were primarily driven by Republican supporters, Ipsos said.

On the other hand, Democratic supporters replied that former President Trump should be prosecuted, and the campaign should be suspended, the company said. This stark difference between Republican and Democratic supporters over the prosecution of former President Trump is consistent with the results of a public opinion poll conducted in April, when former President Trump was indicted for allegedly silenced sexual intercourse.

In a poll released by ABC and Ipsos on April 2, 88% of Democrats said, “should be prosecuted” for sexual intercourse silence, while 65% of Republicans said, “should not be prosecuted”.

In addition, 47% of all respondents at the time said the incident was politically motivated.

Republican supporters said that the case was a political investigation, regardless of whether they were in favour or against the prosecution of former President Trump.

Authorities launch investigation The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 3rd that authorities have launched an investigation after a series of deaths at a famous racetrack where the Kentucky Derby, one of the biggest horse racing events, was held recently.

Churchill Downs Racecourse in Louisville, Kentucky, announced the day before that it would move its racetrack to another racetrack in Kentucky following federal and state investigations into the deaths of 12 horses over the past five weeks. Only until this weekend’s race will be held at Churchill Downs, and from next week, horse racing will be held at Ellis Park, owned by Churchill Downs.

An accident in which two horses were killed in a Kentucky Derby match held on the 6th of last month was also included in the investigation by the authorities. Investigators interviewed Churchill Downs veterinarians this week and reviewed related documents, including autopsy reports of dead horses, poison reports and veterinary and trainer records of dead horses.

The condition of the racetrack surface is also being investigated. However, it is said that a certain pattern surrounding the death of 12 horses has not yet been found. Churchill Downs CEO Bill Kastangen said: “What happened on our track is so upsetting and unacceptable that we need more time to conduct a thorough investigation into all the details and circumstances.” said.

The NYT reported that Churchill Downs issued a recommendation on the 1st that it should not force horses that are not in good condition to compete.

Accordingly, the racecourse decided to abolish the current system of giving incentives to trainers of all horses that competed from first to last, and instead pay this money only to first to fifth trainers and restrict frequent participation in the race.

The New York State Audit Office announced on the 30th that as of March of this year, as of March this year, as of March, the tolls passed on to the collection agency for using New York State highways and not paying tolls for a long time amounted to $275 million. Among them, unpaid tolls for vehicles registered in states other than New York State accounted for 43% of the total, at $119.3 million.

Vehicles registered in New Jersey accounted for $34.2 million, accounting for 28.7% of vehicles registered in other states, and those registered in Connecticut accounted for $16.7 million, accounting for 14%. According to the New York State Highway Administration, 90% of highway toll collection is done with E-ZPass, and the rest is collected through the mail. A $25 fee and a cancelled account will be the outcome if EZ Pass isn’t paid within 30 days.

In addition, an additional fee of $16 will be charged for non-return of the EasyPass device due to account cancellation. In the case of postal collection, if payment is not made within 30 days, a warning notice and a $5 penalty will be imposed, and if payment is still not made after 30 days, an additional $50 fee will be charged.

Thirty (30) days after the final notice of violation, documents relating to unpaid tolls are turned over to the collection agency. On the other hand, the New York State Highway Authority can request suspension of vehicle registration from the Parking Lot Bureau if tolls are not paid three or more times in five years.

The Federal Labour Department announced that the number of new jobless claims filed last week (May 14-20) was 229,000. Although it increased by 4,000 from the previous week, it was far less than the expert forecast (245,000) compiled by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Given that the number of claims filed last week was revised down to 225,000 from the previously announced 242,000, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits remains at a historically low level. The number of unemployment benefits claims, which showed an upward trend in April, fell back to the low 200,000 range because large-scale fraudulent claims were discovered in the state of Massachusetts and elsewhere.

The sharp downward revision in the number of claims last week is also a result of the Massachusetts crackdown. Previously, the state of Massachusetts launched a massive crackdown, saying that there was an attempt to apply for new unemployment benefits with stolen personal information or fraudulently obtain unemployment benefits using someone else’s account.

The number of “continued unemployment benefits” claims, which are claims for unemployment benefits for at least two weeks, also fell by 5,000 to 1,794,000.

The Wall Street estimate is 1.8 million. Media such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) analysed that these results suggest that the labour market is still in a strong state. The fact that unemployment claims have hardly risen since the unemployment rate hit 3.4% last month, the lowest level in 54 years, is expected to complicate the calculations of the Federal Reserve at the crossroads of monetary policy.

For the Fed, this is because it is a factor that increases pressure to raise interest rates. The Federal Reserve, which has raised interest rates 10 times in a row until this month, is facing a tight confrontation between the theory of freezing and the theory of additional hikes over the decision of the base rate with the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on the 13th and 14th of June.

Immigration reform proposal A new immigration reform bill, which will ultimately grant citizenship to immigrants living in the United States without immigration status, has been submitted to the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis and draws attention.

Republican Maria Elvira Salazar (Florida) and Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (Texas) passed the Dignity Act, which grants illegal immigrants living in the United States legal status and allows them to apply for citizenship.) was officially proposed on the 24th.

The main content of this bill is the establishment of a new ‘Dignity Program’ that provides immigration status to undocumented people who are already residing in the United States and have no criminal records.

According to the bill, recipients of the Dignity Program are allowed to work and travel for a fee of $700 per year for a total of $5,000 for seven years. In addition, recipients of the Dignity Program must pay a 1.5% payroll tax and pay for their own health insurance. According to the bill, it is estimated that up to 11 million people will be given the opportunity to stay legally through the Dignity Program. At the end of the seven-year status program, you can renew it or apply for citizenship for a total of $5,000 over five years.

After all, if you pay 10,000 dollars for a total of 12 years, you can get citizenship. The bill would direct the billions of dollars raised through fees paid by immigrants on the Dignity Program to be used for border security. The bill includes a Republican priority to finance strengthening border security, but it is evaluated that it is mainly focused on giving undocumented people the opportunity to obtain citizenship, which is a priority of the Democratic Party. For this reason, it is the view of the political world that the Republican leadership, which has taken control of the House of Representatives, is highly likely not to act on the bill.

The Republican Party is in the position that border security measures must precede immigration reform, but if this is reflected in the bill discussion process, opposition from the Democratic Party may grow. However, the legislators who introduced the bill said, “There may be criticism that this bill is not perfect, but we still have to do the right thing,” and are in the position that bipartisan efforts are needed to reform the immigration law, which has been in place since the 1990s.

The legislators pushing the bill say it would expand legal immigration opportunities while freeing up money for border security. The bill also includes creating new visas for those who want to come to the United States temporarily to visit family and giving student visa holders the opportunity to apply for permanent residency while maintaining their visa status.

New York City’s childcare subsidy program for pre-schoolers of low-income families and illegal immigrants is in danger of being scrapped. According to the Choke Beat report on the 19th, an educational media outlet, the ‘Promise NYC’ program, which supports childcare costs of up to $700 per week for preschool children from low-income families who are unable to receive federal support due to immigration status, is a new program by the city government.

According to the media, if the city council approves the budget bill submitted by Mayor Adams, the program will be suspended from July 1st. Promise NYC has been operating as a pilot program since January, and about 600 pre-schoolers are currently benefiting from it.

Last year, Mayor Adams publicized a plan to invest $10 million for early childhood education, but the new budget did not include additional budget for the extension of Promise NYC.

Mayor Adams has proposed a 3% cut in the education budget, citing rising costs related to asylum seekers. But advocates of the program urged the mayor and city council to budget $20 million for the extension. If the relevant budget is not prepared before the budget deadline, which is at the end of June, the program will be suspended from July.

According to the Department of labour, the average annual cost of childcare in Manhattan last year was more than $17,800. It is pointed out that it is not easy for undocumented families living in poverty.

New York City restaurants and grocery stores will be required to dispose of food waste bags in covered containers starting this summer. Restaurants, grocery stores, grocery wholesalers, and catering establishments that dispose of food waste must no longer leave food waste bags on the roadside and must have tight-fitting lids under a new rule announced by the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) on the 18th.

The Protesters Bureau plans to hold a public hearing on the 22nd of next month, collect public opinion, and implement the new regulations as early as July.

When the new regulations come into effect, about 23,000 restaurants, 13,000 bodega and delis, and 10,000 supermarkets in the city will be immediately affected and will have to prepare their own containers that meet the regulations.

“This rule is a fulfilment of our promise to clean up the streets and reduce the rats’ food supply,” the protesters’ department said in its proposal for new regulations. On the other hand, the related industry has protested the new rule proposal.

The New York City Hospitality Federation said, “There is no space to store food waste inside the restaurant, and it is difficult to install containers on the street.”

Despite recent layoffs, one in 10 workers is the highest rate in the nation.

The Seattle Times reported that the number of high-tech professionals in Washington State continues to increase, although recent layoffs have raged at dinosaur IT companies in the Seattle area, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta. The Times, citing a recent report by CompTIA, a national IT industry information analysis agency, explained that Washington State’s high-tech professionals account for one out of 10 workers (9.4%), outpacing the national average of 5.8%.Following Washington, DC (9.3%), Virginia (8.7%), Massachusetts (8.4%), Colorado (8.3%), New Hampshire (7.9%), Maryland (7.9%), California (7.7%), Utah (7.2%) %), Oregon (6.7%), etc. formed the top 10.

In Washington state, the number of workers employed by high-tech companies or in other skill-based jobs was close to 350,000 last year. More than 80% of these were concentrated in Greater Seattle, which includes Bellevue and Tacoma. According to the report, jobs created by IT companies in Washington state this year are also expected to record an increase of about 4%, the highest in the nation .In particular, the expected number of new jobs in high-tech new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain is ranked first in the country, and the number of IT companies to be established this year is also included in the nation’s ‘Top 10’.

The ripple effect of the high-tech industry on the Washington state economy is $ 138 billion, accounting for 20% of the state’s entire economy. About 95% of this, or $131 billion, is concentrated in Metro Seattle, accounting for 30% of the local economy. Hi-tech workers in the region accounted for 12.9% of all workers, far above the state level (9.4%).

The only metropolitan city with a greater economic contribution from high-tech industries than metro Seattle is California’s San Jose Metro (57%), where Silicon Valley is located. The average rate of high-tech contribution among the 50 states nationwide is 8.8%. Thanks to Silicon Valley, California is getting an economic ripple effect of $535 billion from the high-tech industry, but this amount accounts for 17% of California’s total economy, which is lower than Washington (20%), and the proportion of workers in the high-tech industry is also high. of 7.7%, far behind Washington State (9.4%).

However, the Seattle Times reports that the proportion of blacks, Hispanics, and women among workers in Washington’s high-tech industries is the lowest in the nation, which means that high-tech jobs are relatively high-paying jobs that make it difficult for people of colour (excluding Asians) and female workers to benefit.

On the 7^th May The New York Times (NYT) reported that there are only five female South Carolina senators fighting the ‘defensive war’ that transcends political factions to protect abortion rights.

The main characters are Republican Senators Sandy Senn, Katrina Shealy, and Penry Gustafson, and Democrats Margie Bright Matthews and Independent Congresswoman Mia McLeod.

Calling themselves the “Senatorial Sisters,” they banded together to block passage of a law banning abortion from early pregnancy by state legislatures.

Currently the state of South Carolina legalizes abortion rights up to 22 weeks of gestation. However, since last year the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ‘Roe v Wade’ ruling that allowed abortion up to about 24 weeks of gestation, until recently, three times have tried to pass legislation banning abortion completely regardless of gestational age.

Republican lawmakers also received a ‘gift’ of a plastic model of a fetal bone from an anti-abortion group before a congressional debate last month.

These lawmakers climbed the Senate Capitol podium with models and made a filibuster to block the passage of the bill. Eventually, after three days of debate, the bill was again defeated.

All of them support women’s right to have an abortion, but they differ somewhat in details.

Democratic Representative Matthews and independent Representative McLeod argue that abortions should be allowed up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy, as in the ‘Roe v. Wade’ ruling.

Republicans Gustafson and Sen are in the position that abortion should be allowed only for the first three months of pregnancy (about 13 weeks), except in exceptional cases.

“The decision to have an abortion should be made by a woman and her doctor and her husband or partner,” Senator Shiley told the New York Times. He said,” showing a more forward-looking stance than the other two colleagues.

These Republicans claim that they are not ‘pro-abortion’, but ‘respect for life’. “I think if you’re pro-life, you’re completely against abortion,” Gustafson told the NYT, “But there are many different measures of pro-life.”

There are also voters who support the activities of these ‘sisters’.

“One of them said, ‘This old woman is proud of you,'” Sen said.

Women who work in state legislative offices also gave them a thumbs-up. One woman said she stopped Congresswoman McLeod from getting out of her car the last three days and said, “Thank you for what you’ve done,” she says.