In what authorities said was a
premeditated beatdown, a gang of six Rikers Island prison inmates
attacked a New York City correction officer Saturday.
The unidentified 39-year-old officer
was hospitalized in serious condition, Michael Skelly, a spokesman for
the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, told the New York Post.
Media reports said the officer had suffered a broken neck or "fractured spine."
According to internal records, the beating took place
in the George Motchan Detention Center around 6:30 p.m. A known Bloods
gang member -- identified as Steven Espinal -- struck the officer in the
head before five other inmates joined in, the New York Daily News reported.
Responding officers used pepper spray on the attackers to stop the beating, records said.
A jail insider reportedly overheard Espinal planning
the attack while talking on the phone earlier Saturday, the Daily News
reported.
Jail officer unions have slammed New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio for enacting policies that they say have facilitated more
violence in the prison. In 2015, De Blasio ended solitary confinement
for inmates 21 and younger, and instead ordered them sent them to
"Transitional Restoration Units" for counseling.
All of the inmates in Saturday's attack were 21 or
younger, said Elias Husamudeen, president of the Correction Officers
Benevolent Association.
“The mayor’s policies are going to get one of us
killed,” he said. “Tomorrow they will get visits and shop in the
commissary like everyone else.”
The inmates will face additional criminal charges, a department official said.
Sending astronauts back to the moon is one of the top space priorities of President Trump.
But his administration wants to accomplish that without giving NASA
additional money, and it won’t occur until after he leaves office, even
if he wins re-election.
Instead, it aims to give the private sector a greater role, according to a budget proposal to be released on Monday.
The
administration is also looking to end American payments for the
International Space Station by 2025. The space station is currently
scheduled to operate through 2024, but the expectation was that it would
be extended through at least 2028.
According
to excerpts from NASA documents obtained by The New York Times before
the budget’s release, the administration will propose $19.9 billion in
spending for the space agency in fiscal year 2019, which begins on Oct.
1. That is a $370 million increase from the current year, the result of
the budget deal reached in Congress last week and signed by Mr. Trump.
The budget numbers were confirmed by a person who was not authorized to talk publicly about them.
In
future years, the administration would like NASA’s spending to drop to
$19.6 billion and stay flat through 2023. With inflation, NASA’s buying
power would erode, effectively a budget cut each year.
A NASA spokesman said he could not discuss the budget proposal until it was released.
The
proposal is just an opening bid. Congress decides the final spending
numbers, sometimes adjusting them or ignoring a president’s priorities.
But an administration’s wishes are often incorporated.
NASA’s budget will be announced at a moment when the agency has no permanent leaders to carry out the new directions. Mr. Trump nominated Jim Bridenstine,
an Oklahoma congressman, to be the next administrator, but the Senate
has not yet confirmed him. Whether the administration has the votes to
confirm him remains uncertain. This is by far the longest period in
NASA’s history without an administrator.
Photo
President Trump with his
daughter Ivanka Trump as he spoke with the astronauts Peggy Whitson and
Jack Fischer as they orbited Earth on board the International Space
Station in April.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Additionally, no one has been nominated for the No. 2 position, deputy administrator.
The
Trump administration has also established a National Space Council, led
by Vice President Mike Pence, to coordinate space policy between
military and civilian agencies. The council held its first public meeting in October, and is to meet again this month.
The
Trump administration is also looking to trim the budget of NASA’s earth
science directorate, which includes climate research and cancel several
spacecraft like the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem
mission. The nearly $1.8 billion budget for that part of NASA would be
about 6.5 percent lower than what was enacted for fiscal year 2017. The
Trump administration also wants to end education programs. Similar
proposals last year were disregarded by Congress.
The
astrophysics division would be cut by 12 percent, but overall, the
budget would give an increase to NASA’s science directorate, primarily
for robotic planetary missions.
Rumors of the intent to end space station financing were recently reported in The Verge and other outlets, drawing strong criticism from some lawmakers, including key Republicans.
“I
hope that those reports prove as unfounded as Bigfoot,” Senator Ted
Cruz, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on
Space, Science and Competitiveness, said on Wednesday during a Federal
Aviation Administration conference on commercial space transportation.
He
decried “numbskulls” at the Office of Management and Budget in the
White House for coming up with the idea. “As a fiscal conservative, you
know one of the dumbest things you can do?” he said. “Canceling programs
after billions in investment when there is still serious usable life in
it.”
The
same conference was attended by Scott Pace, the executive secretary of
Mr. Pence’s space council. While he did not discuss details of the
budget, Mr. Pace suggested that money needed to be freed up for new
initiatives.
Three
people died when a EC-130 helicopter operated by sightseeing tour
company Papillon Airways went down at 5:20 p.m. (7:20 p.m. ET) Saturday
near Quartermaster Canyon, within the Grand Canyon on the Hualapai
Nation.
Three other passengers and the pilot were injured.
The
six passengers on board were visiting from the United Kingdom, Police
Chief Francis E. Bradley Sr. of the Hualapai reservation said.
Passengers
Becky Dobson, 27, Jason Hill, 32, and Stuart Hill, 30, suffered fatal
injuries in the crash, according to a news release from the Hualapai
Nation Police Department. Their bodies were recovered early Sunday
afternoon.
The survivors of the
crash were rescued during an operation that stretched into the early
hours of Sunday morning, Bradley said.
The
injured pilot was identified as Scott Booth, 42. The hospitalized
passengers were identified as Ellie Milward, 29, Jonathan Udall, 32, and
Jennifer Barham, 39, according to the police news release.
