POLITICAL ARENA

Remembering Las Vegas

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More than 2,500 miles separates Las Vegas from New York City, but that hasn’t stopped New Yorkers from mourning the nearly 60 lives lost there over the weekend.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered flags in the state to be lowered to half-mast until sunset on Friday, to remember the victims of what has become the nation’s worst mass shooting incident. 

“New York stands with Las Vegas in the aftermath of this heinous and vile act of gun violence, and my heart aches for its victims and their loved ones on this darkest of days,” Cuomo said, in a release. 

A gunman reportedly opened fire on a country music festival near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in the Nevada tourist hotspot. The crowd was there to hear singer Jason Aldean, who was not injured.

“We’ve long ago run out of the right words to say in these terrible moments,” said U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, in a statement. “We pray for the dead, the wounded and their families. We thank the brave first responders who put their lives on the line to deal with this act of domestic terrorism.”

But reaching out to victims and thanking first responders wasn’t enough, Engel said, calling for the outlaw of military grade automatic rifles.

“This should not be happening here, period,” Engel said. “We cannot allow ourselves to ever become numb to these moments of horrific violence, and we certainly cannot stand idly by while our fellow citizens are gunned down in cold blood.”

 

Dinowitz takes over judiciary committee

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz has been appointed the new chair of the lower chamber’s judiciary committee, a group he’s served on for the last 20 years. It takes on legislation that affects not only the courts, but also estates, family law, domestic relations and civil rights.

Dinowitz replaces Helene Weinstein, who has moved over as the new chair of the ways and means committee. 

He earned his law degree from Brooklyn Law School, and was an administrative law judge before being elected to the Assembly in 1994.

Andrew Cuomo, Jason Aldean, Eliot Engel, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Michael Hinman,

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