Brooklyn Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Hate Crime Against Black Woman

In 2018, a 57-year-old Black woman was walking to a subway station in Brooklyn when a white man began stabbing her and yelling racial slurs.

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The Best Guitars for Beginners, According to Our Readers

Holy shit: A lot of you really like the guitar. There were so. many. passionate and helpful responses to our call for the best guitar for beginners. I didn’t bargain for a master class in purchasing your first axe, but that’s exactly what I got, and I implore anyone exploring guitar to go check out all the wonderful…

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Harris allies granted call with Biden campaign after Dodd blowup

Allies of Kamala Harris sought and received a meeting with Joe Biden’s campaign staff this week after a leader of his vice presidential vetting team was quoted doubting whether she’d be a loyal No. 2.

Prominent supporters of the California senator asked for the virtual sit-down on the heels of a POLITICO report Monday that Harris is not a lock for VP. It quoted former Sen. Chris Dodd, one of four members of the vetting unit, remarking to a prominent Democratic donor that Harris had “no remorse” for attacking Biden during a debate last year. Biden’s campaign at the time viewed the attack — Harris went after Biden for opposing a school busing program — as a cheap shot contrived to make him look racially insensitive.

That story and another recent POLITICO report detailed that a contingent of Democrats is lobbying against Harris to be chosen as Biden’s running mate.

The conference call included several of the state’s highest-ranking elected officials and labor and business leaders, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Secretary of State Alex Padilla, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, state schools chief Tony Thurmond, state Treasurer Fiona Ma and Chad Griffin, a Democratic consultant and former head of Human Rights campaign, according to organizers.

Representing the Biden campaign were the four main members of his vetting team: Dodd, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; and Biden's former White House and Senate counsel, Cynthia Hogan.

Harris was not involved in organizing the call, they said.

A person on the call said Harris’ allies wanted the campaign to hear from people who know her best. The implication was that others who’ve criticized Harris to the media, and compared her unfavorably to another contender for VP from California, Rep. Karen Bass, were not providing an accurate reflection of Harris or her record.

One person briefed on the call said the Harris allies wanted to “correct the record,” and directly referenced the POLITICO reports.

“This was about us sharing how much Kamala would be a stellar vice president,” said one official who participated on the call, referencing Dodd’s earlier remarks.

“He spoke at length about her and said very nice things,” the person said of Dodd’s comments about Harris on the conference call.

POLITICO alluded to the call in a Wednesday story, but the extent of the organization behind it was unclear at the time. Dodd said “very supportive things” about Harris during the call, according to Kounalakis.

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, who was on the call, said he wanted to convey some of Harris' attributes.

“We love Senator Harris, and will continue to share her incredible work and record here in California," Garcia said. "She’s extremely loyal and has the highest integrity and character.”

Biden has said he'd name his running mate sometime next week, but aides now expect the announcement will come the second week of August.

Biden’s campaign faced a backlash over Dodd’s remarks to the donor. A second source has since told POLITICO that Dodd made similar comments about Harris on at least one other phone call during the vetting process.

A source close to Dodd said that he thinks highly of Harris, has spoken with her several times during the vetting process and that he supported Harris' campaign for Senate.

Critics suggested that Dodd was questioning a woman for being ambitious. In a sign of the extensive damage control the campaign did in the aftermath, Biden's campaign manager tweeted later this week: "Ambitious women make history, change the world, and win. Our campaign is full of ambitious women going all out for Joe Biden."

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New Jersey weighs rolling back reopening plans as Covid cases spike

New Jersey was a shining example of how states can flatten the Covid-19 curve. Now, it's on the brink of rolling back its economic reopening.

More than four months after coronavirus forced Gov. Phil Murphy to shut down the state’s retail economy and direct residents to remain at home, swelling case totals in the Garden State have triggered fresh alarm bells.

“We are standing in a very dangerous place," said Murphy during his press briefing on Friday, shortly after announcing that almost 700 people had tested positive for the virus in the previous 24 hours. “The only way to silence these alarms and get back to the process of moving forward is for everyone to take this seriously."

Murphy said new enforcement mechanisms or fresh restrictions on indoor gatherings are likely in the coming days if the numbers continue to trend in the wrong direction.

“Everyone who walks around refusing to wear a mask, or hosts a house party, or overstuffs a boat is directly contributing to these increases,” he said. “This has to stop. And it has to stop now."

New Jersey, at least for the last two months, was one of the few states that appeared to have navigated its way through the worst of the pandemic.

The steps taken by Murphy, along with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, to shut down non-essential businesses and limit social interaction were being touted as a blueprint for other states looking to flatten the curve.

Even as Covid-19 surged across the U.S. through June and July, which compelled tri-state governors to order mandatory quarantines for out-of-state travelers, New Jersey’s economic reopening remained on a positive trajectory.

Beaches and boardwalks were opened. Non-essential businesses were allowed to reopen their doors. And though Murphy hit pause on indoor dining, that measure was largely viewed as preventative, rather than reactive.

But all the while, compliance with social distancing guidelines seemed to be slipping. Police officers spent hours breaking up a massive party of 700-plus in Jackson over the weekend, which led Airbnb to shut down dozens short-term rental properties across the state.

House parties in Long Beach Island, Middletown and Stone Harbor were catalysts for sizable outbreaks. The Rutgers University football team has been quarantined after more than a dozen players contracted the virus at an off-campus shindig.

“This should be a sobering reminder to healthy residents, especially young individuals, that this disease is serious. You could be battling cough, fatigue or shortness of breaths for weeks or months,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during Friday‘s briefing. “It’s not worth taking unnecessary risks.”

The rate of transmission, a measure of how many people will likely be infected by each new patient, slipped above 1.0 this week and stayed there — which means the virus is now spreading faster than it’s being contained. On Friday, it was 1.35.

On July 1, New Jersey’s seven-day average for new cases stood at 289, according to data compiled by The New York Times. Taking into account the 699 new cases reported on Friday — bringing the total to nearly 2,500 in the past five days — the state’s current seven-day average is now more than 500.

“It is overwhelmingly indoor activity, high congregation, lack of ventilation” that’s causing the recent surge of new cases, Murphy said Friday. “If we take any steps, we’re not going to wait a whole lot longer.”

Barring a marked improvement in public health data over the weekend and early next week, Murphy on Friday said he’d likely be ordering new capacity restrictions for indoor venues in the coming days. The current cap for indoor venues is the lesser of 25 percent normal capacity or 100 people.

While it’s unlikely Murphy will take any immediate steps resembling his shutdown order, which went into effect March 21 and was lifted June 9, Covid-19’s resurgence is bound to put more strain on a public health infrastructure that’s barely begun to recover from the initial wave of patients seen earlier this spring.

The administration’s efforts to bolster New Jersey’s contact tracing processes are still a work in progress. The state has only just begun to centralize oversight of its long-troubled nursing home and long-term care industry; almost 7,000 died in outbreaks at those facilities since March. Delays in obtaining test results from commercial labs persist.

On Friday, Persichilli said the state would be distributing more $32 million to county and local health departments to bolster ongoing efforts to contain Covid-19.

With dark clouds on the horizon, in an odd twist of fate, Friday also marked the first time since March 10 that no Covid-19 deaths were reported at any of the state’s acute care hospitals.

After calling for a moment of silence to mark that milestone, an acknowledgment of the almost 14,000 New Jerseyans who have lost their lives to Covid-19, Murphy emphasized the hospitals’ 24-hour reprieve from death was merely an indication of where New Jersey was a month ago, not the direction it’s headed.

“As important a milestone as that is,” he said. “It’s a lagging indicator.”

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James Murdoch resigns from News Corp board

James Murdoch resigned from the board of directors of News Corporation on Friday, citing disagreements over editorial choices by some of the conglomerate's news outlets.

News Corp owns Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal; publishing house HarperCollins; the New York Post and several other media outlets. Murdoch's resignation letter was revealed in an SEC filing from the corporation.

“We’re grateful to James for his many years of service to the company. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp's executive chairman and Lachlan Murdoch, its co-chairman, in a statement. James Murdoch is Rupert Murdoch's son and Lachlan Murdoch's brother.

James Murdoch has expressed frustration with some of the coverage of the company's news outlets in the past. He and his wife, Kathryn, told The Daily Beast through a spokesman in January they were upset by coverage of climate change by Fox News and some of the company's Australian outlets.

"Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known," the spokesman told The Daily Beast. "They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.”

Fox News is housed in Fox Corp, the successor company to an acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019. 21st Century Fox split from News Corp in 2013. James Murdoch used to sit at the head of 21st Century Fox but left the company amid the Disney acquisition. Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch are co-chairmen of Fox Corp, and Lachlan Murdoch serves as its CEO.

When asked for more clarity on the editorial disagreements prompting the resignation, Jim Kennedy, chief communications officer for News Corp, responded with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's statement. Spokespeople for Dow Jones and a spokesperson for News Corp Australia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

James Murdoch has backed Democratic candidates for president, and Kathryn Murdoch donated $1 million to help Democrats win a Senate majority, Bloomberg Government reported last month. She told POLITICO in January she would happily support whoever the Democratic candidate would be. James Murdoch donated $615,000 to help get Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden elected.

His father, meanwhile, has had a close relationship with President Donald Trump. Rupert Murdoch kept a direct phone line to the president early in his term, The New York Times reported at the time, and he advised Trump during his 2016 campaign. Trump is a regular viewer of Fox News, often tweeting out quotes from Fox hosts and analysts and calling in to its shows. Some of those comments have taken a negative turn recently amid growing concern he is slipping by wide margins ahead of November's election.

James Murdoch's resignation also comes shortly after a dramatic confrontation between the newsroom and opinion section of The Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of Journal reporters last week wrote a letter to the newspaper's publisher, Almar Latour, urging clearer divisions between the publication's news and opinion operations. Reporters alleged that work published in the opinion section was at times backed by shoddy evidence and often hindered their reporting. The reporters called for a clearer delineation to enable readers to understand the difference between the two independent operations.

After the reporters' letter leaked, the Journal's Editorial Board published a brief but scathing note saying it would not "wilt under cancel-culture pressure."

"It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution," the note to readers said.

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