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No one covers the city like the Daily News. For nearly 100 years, New York’s Hometown Newspaper has been your eyes and ears — and your voice. Do you have a story you think we should tell? Call us at (212) 210-NEWS or email us at news@nydailynews.com. This is your paper, and we are committed to covering the issues that matter to you. Here are some of our top stories from the past week:
Targeted twice: “Not again.” That’s what a Bronx woman said to herself the second time her store was robbed. A pair of bandits held up Ahlam Alfarah twice in nine days inside Smoke Shop Plus on Featherbed Lane near Jesup Ave. in Morris Heights. Both times, the mask-wearing creeps pushed right passed Alfarah’s 5-year-old daughter, terrifying the child. “[My daughter] said to me, ‘What am I going to do if something happens to you, Mommy?’” Alfarah told The News on Thursday. The thieves got away with $850 and are still at large.
Deja vu: Some New York City schools will reopen again Monday. In-person learning will resume at preschools, 3-K programs and elementary schools, Mayor de Blasio said. District 75 schools that provide special education will go back Thursday. “All the testing says schools are safer than the surrounding community,” Gov. Cuomo said. State officials said Monday that public schools will no longer temporarily shut down if their neighborhoods are designated coronavirus clusters.
Five fraudsters: Five MTA employees were busted in a more than $1 million overtime scam on Thursday. Long Island Rail Road workers Thomas Caputo, Joseph Ruzzo, John Nugent and Joseph Balestra and NYC Transit worker Michael Gundersen, “allegedly made themselves some of the highest-paid employees at the entire MTA by claiming extraordinary, almost physically impossible, amounts of overtime,” said Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. Gundersen, 42, is accused of padding his $102,000 salary with $383,000 from bogus hours. He would have had to work 10 extra hours every day of the year to make that much, prosecutors said.
Educator exposed: A Staten Island high school teacher is accused of masturbating during a video call, authorities said. A report was filed Monday alleging the Tottenville High School educator was nude and touching himself during a Google meet, police said. The teacher has not been charged with a crime and his name was not released. “The investigation is active and ongoing at this time,” a police spokeswoman said.