A Muslim civil rights group condemned the New York Police Department Monday for running a program that recruited Muslims in city jails to become informants.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio last week announced his choice to head the city’s massive welfare agency: Steve Banks, attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society. It was hard not to be awed by the sheer brazenness of the appointment. Banks and Legal Aid have spent the last three decades fighting to expand public assistance and housing entitlements in the city and to slow down the pioneering welfare reforms initiated by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1995.