New York City

New York City requires its employees, including teachers, firefighters, police officers, among others, to present proof of vaccination as of Friday, according to rules passed in 2021. The vaccination rate among municipal workers in New York City stands at nearly 95 per cent as a number of exceptions were nodded in recent months on religious or medical basis, according to local media reports.

"Until now, the highest number of voters thinking crime was a very serious problem was 50 per cent back in January 2016," said a release on a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters in New York City on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported. Crime ranks as the most urgent issue facing New York City, according to the survey.

"The Department of State is in regular communication with law enforcement partners and encourages investigation into these incidents," the spokesperson said in an email to IANS. In the latest incident, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in New York City's Union Square was defaced with black paint on February 4 and it followed an attack on the Independence leader's statue in Washington on India's Republic Day, January 26.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that statewide indoor business mask-or-vaccine requirement will be lifted starting this Thursday and will remain optional for businesses, local governments and counties to enforce. The mask-or-vaccine protocol was implemented on December 10 as the Omicron variant caused a spike of cases in the state and extended to Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

National media attention subsided toward the end of 2021, but this January has brought more horrifying news: the death of a 62-year-old Asian man from injuries inflicted in an attack in New York last April, and the alleged murder of Michelle Go, who was pushed into the path of a Times Square subway train.

Inmates were found hanging from the ends of makeshift nooses or slumped from drug overdoses in a place with a basic responsibility to keep each inmate safe from harm, pending trial or release.