Eight Killed, 11 Injured on Hudson River Bike Path; Police Shoot and Capture the Driver
Terror in Manhattan. Eight people were killed and at least a dozen injured when a driver mowed down pedestrians and cyclists on a popular bike path in lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center. It was the deadliest attack in the city since Sept. 11, 2001.
Among the dead were five tourists from Argentina and one from Belgium.
Sayfullo Saipov, 29, has been identified as the driver of the rented Home Depot pick-up truck. He left a note at the scene saying he carried out the attack on the behalf of ISIS. Saipov is from Uzbekistan and came to the United States in 2010. Saipov became a legal permanent resident and has lived in Ohio, Florida and New Jersey.
“This was an act of terror, a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said, “There’s no evidence that suggests a wider plot or a wider scheme.”
Trump, who changed his Twitter image from an American flag to a photo of the Midtown Manhattan skyline, tweeted: “I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!”
About four hours after the attack, the city hosted its annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade less than a mile from the crime scene.
Obamacare open season. The fifth open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act starts today with limited public awareness because of Trump’s cuts to the program’s advertising and to groups that employ people to help with enrollment. The enrollment period has been cut in half to 45 days.
No one is sure how well the government call centers and computer systems will handle the expected surge of applications leading up to the Dec. 15 deadline for people to enroll through HealthCare.gov.
In some states that run their own exchanges, consumers will have more time to sign up. The deadline is Jan. 14 in Minnesota, Jan. 15 in Washington State and Jan. 31 in California and New York.
Scientist silenced. A U.S. Forest Service scientist who was scheduled to talk about the role climate change plays in wildfire conditions was denied approval to attend the conference featuring fire experts from around the country. William Jolly, a research ecologist in Missoula, Mont., was supposed to speak at the International Fire Congress in Orlando, Fla. The denial follows earlier reports that the EPA blocked three scientists from making presentations at a conference in Rhode Island featuring climate change. The U.S. is experiencing its most expensive fire season in history, with more than 8.8 million acres burned.
Maybe tomorrow. House Republicans delayed the rollout of their tax bill late on Tuesday, in a sign of early trouble for what party leaders had hoped would be a quick victory. The bill, which had been scheduled for release today, was delayed until Thursday, as Republicans struggled with the daunting arithmetic of drastically cutting tax rates without alienating key constituencies by eliminating popular tax breaks. After a day of negotiations on Capitol Hill and confusion across Washington, the House’s chief tax writer acknowledged the delay but vowed to stay on track with an ambitious plan to pass a bill through the chamber by Thanksgiving.
Sexual harassment. The top editor at NPR has been placed on indefinite leave because of allegations of unwanted physical contact with two women nearly two decades ago while he was working at another news organization. The women said Michael Oreskes, then the Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, kissed them while they were talking to him about working at the newspaper. Oreskes joined NPR in March 2015 after working at the Times and the Associated Press in senior editing roles. Allegations against former New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier and political journalist Mark Halperin have also come to light recently. The women said they met with Oreskes after he expressed an interest in reviewing their work and giving them career advice. Neither was ever hired.
