Law firms in five upstate New York regions will be allowed to return to in-office work after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that COVID-19 business restrictions will be loosened in those areas.
Those regions include the Finger Lakes, Central New York, the Southern Tier, the North Country and the Mohawk Valley.
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UPDATED!!!!!
The timeline for allowing upstate New York law firms to return to in-office work continued to remain unclear Friday morning.
The confusion comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested in a radio interview Thursday that international experts would have to analyze COVID-19 data and sign off on regions moving into phase two of the state's reopening plan.
"The reopening in the first five regions ends tomorrow," the Democrat said during that interview. "When the reopening of phase one ends, we'll give the experts all the data. It's posted on the web but let them analyze it. And if they say we should move forward, we move forward."
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Franklin Templeton has likely had more media exposure in the past few days than the investment firm has experienced in its entire 73-year history.
So far, the San Mateo, California-based company has deftly dealt with a highly charged and potentially catastrophic public relations situation that unfolded during a holiday. And its relatively quick, succinct response might serve as a model for other corporate legal and PR departments facing a sudden crisis.
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It's not like closing down bars and restaurants, clothing stores or hair salons.
"It's even a different proposition from closing schools, as critical as they are," said Lucy Lang, a former Manhattan prosecutor who runs the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"They are different because courts implicate people's liberty and constitutional rights -- the things we hold most dear," Lang said.
Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners became wildly popular many years ago by simplifying the process of going paperless. Their user-friendly hardware and uniquely simplified scanning software created a package that took the chore out of building a feature-rich, personalized scanning workflow.
But ScanSnap Manager, the magical desktop software that's the secret sauce to this solution for the older generation of scanners that many of us are still using, is 32-bit software and therefore not compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina. Owners of perfectly functional older ScanSnap scanners face the difficult choice of either having to buy a new scanner or stay on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
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Five Mexican citizens apprehended this week after illegally entering the United States in remote northern Maine were returned to Canada within hours under a rule put into place as part of the U.S. government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A similar policy by the Canadian government allows the return to the United States of most people seeking asylum in Canada.
While the restrictions haven't ended illegal immigration into the United States from Canada, the emergency policy has all but ended the use of Roxham Road in Champlain, New York -- one of the most well-known routes used by people fleeing the U.S. to seek asylum in Canada.
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This report charts a course for New York to follow, setting a regional approach - one we can adjust, based on data we'll continually monitor - designed to open as many parts of the state as possible, for as many people as possible, as soon as it is demonstrably safe to do so.
Our plan to safely reopen New York in phases will be guided by science and data.
Read the full NY Forward plan here:
https://on.ny.gov/3fAGrua
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Law firms are in Phase II of Governor Cuomo's economic re-opening plan. Phase I is scheduled to start in three (3) regions of the state on May 15. There will be two-week pauses before the institution of the next phase to monitor possible resurgence of the COVID-19 virus.
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For the first time in history, people outside the U.S. Supreme Court's walls will be able to hear arguments as they happen. It may not be baseball, but plenty of court watchers and casual fans alike are excited for the action.
The institution rejects cameras in the courtroom or even same-day audio, but the coronavirus threw it a curveball and now the justices are livestreaming 10 arguments over the next two weeks, with that audio carried to the public by C-Span and other networks.
Detailed below are those controversies to be considered by the nine justices over six dates, beginning May 4 and wrapping up on May 13. They'll be phoned in by counsel as the court abides social distancing requirements necessitated by the pandemic.
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Read more and review a complete schedule of the arguments to be broadcast...
