It was 47 years ago, New Year’s Eve of 1974, that baseball changed forever. That was the day that Jim "Catfish" Hunter left the Oakland A’s after an arbitrator named Peter Seitz ruled that the A’s had violated Hunter’s contract by not paying him money he was owed.
In that moment, Hunter -- one of the great pitchers of his time -- became baseball’s first free agent. Ring out the old. Ring in the new.
Hunter signed with the Yankees on a five-year, $3.25 million contract. He may not have fully understood how baseball had been changed forever because of Seitz’s ruling, a year before Seitz essentially ended baseball’s reserve clause, which had previously bound players to their teams until, and unless, they were released. But baseball had changed forever, years after a brave man named Curt Flood had his career end when he challenged the reserve clause all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I hung up the phone,” Hunter said at the time when he learned of the ruling, “and turned to my wife and said, ‘We don’t belong to anybody.’”
Hunter eventually pitched in three World Series for the Yankees, after winning three straight championships with the A’s from 1972-74, before coming to New York. Much later, he became another champion Yankees player afflicted with ALS, the way Lou Gehrig had been, dying at the age of 53 back home in North Carolina.
But after making such fine history in Oakland -- in the Fall Classics and with four straight 20-win seasons -- Hunter made a different kind of history off the field in New York on New Year’s Eve, where the big news on that night wasn’t just a ball dropping in Times Square.
Hunter probably didn’t think he was changing the world because an arbitrator ruled in his favor. But that is exactly what he did.
The money Hunter made when he signed that night at the Yankees’ old offices in the Parks Administration Building (in Flushing, Queens, of all places) seems quaint in comparison to the money modern free agents now make. But it was huge money at the time, ending what the New York Times called “the most celebrated bidding war in American history.”
All because the quiet man from Hertford, N.C., didn’t legally belong to anybody after it was ruled that he could leave Charlie Finley’s A’s and make his own choices about where he wanted to pitch next.
One of the ironic parts of this story -- still such a huge story and turning point in baseball history -- is that even though it was the beginning of the way George Steinbrenner would also change baseball forever, Steinbrenner was suspended from the game at the time because of illegal contributions to the Richard Nixon presidential campaign (a felony for which he was eventually pardoned). So Yankees team president Gabe Paul was the point man in the negotiations. But before Steinbrenner had gone off to serve his suspension, he’d said this to Paul:
“Any time you have the opportunity to get control of a player for cash, go ahead.”
Not long afterward, with Steinbrenner back in control of the Yankees and starting to throw money around, he signed Catfish Hunter’s old A’s teammate, Reggie Jackson, to a five-year contract with a total value of $3.5 million.
Jackson kept winning in New York the way he and Hunter -- whom Jackson once described as the “boss” of the old A’s -- had won those three World Series titles in Oakland. Jackson wanted New York and the stage of Yankee Stadium, the same as Hunter did before him.
“I believe there were higher offers,” Hunter said after signing his contract, “but no matter how much money was offered, if you want to be a Yankee, you don’t think about it.”
So the Yankees beat out the Pirates, Dodgers, Padres, Royals, Expos and Cleveland for Hunter’s services. Hunter had arm troubles in New York and was diagnosed with diabetes, and he only occasionally looked like the pitcher who had gone 88-35 over his final four seasons with the A’s.
Hunter was afraid his career might be over in the summer of 1978, because of shoulder problems. Then, he underwent a 10-minute, non-surgical “shoulder manipulation” at the hands of Yankees team doctor Maurice Cowen. One last time, Hunter was freed up in a different way.
Hunter came back to the Yankees that July, when they were still 13 games behind the Red Sox in the American League East. If he wasn’t the Hunter of old, he was close enough. There is no way that New York would have caught Boston during that unforgettable summer, or go on to win its second World Series title in a row, without Hunter pitching the way he did down the stretch.
Hunter went 2-9 with a 5.31 ERA in 19 starts in 1979, before retiring at the age of 33. Still, he made it to the end of a contract that we’re remembering today, because that contract ought to be remembered.
Ahmad Zahir Azizi sits at his kitchen table beaming at the camera, barely able to contain his laughter, as he speaks over a video call.
Just weeks earlier, he was released from immigration detention in Australia and granted a temporary bridging visa after more than eight years in state custody.
I had interviewed Azizi via video call countless times before, but never had I seen him smile like this, let alone laugh. Every time we saw one another, he seemed broken. I thought he had given up.
Now, I smile with him, and ask: “Can you tell me again about the day that you were released?”
Azizi gets up, closes his window, and yet again, he begins telling me his story.
Raging seas and sinking boats
In 2013, Azizi, now 37, fled Afghanistan after he was targeted by the Taliban for his work with coalition forces.
He left his wife and four children behind, hoping to bring them to join him when he had found somewhere safe to settle.
He bought passage out of the country, headed to Indonesia, then took the last leg of his journey to Australia on a tiny, decrepit fishing boat. “It [was] two nights and two days,” he says.
The boat was very old, built from wood, and more than 50 people were squeezed inside.
The weather was wild. The sea raged “up and down” and on the final night the boat broke and water flooded in, forcing the crew to pump it out in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.
They called for help via satellite telephone, Azizi says, and connected with the Australian navy.
Eventually, a “big ship” came and brought them on board and as everyone was moved, their fishing boat sank underwater behind them.
The navy boat brought Azizi and the other asylum seekers to Christmas Island, an Australian external territory northwest of the continent that houses an offshore immigration detention centre.
He was put through countless health checks and tests, he said, and given “different vaccines”.
“After three days … they ask me, we want to send you to Manus [Island].”
At the time, Manus Island, in northern Papua New Guinea, was home to a notorious immigration detention processing centre set up by Australia, known for continued human rights violations over the years it was in operation.
“Because I didn’t understand about Manus … I say OK [it’s] up to you,” says Azizi, adding that Australian officials told him they were sending him to Manus Island for “process[ing]”.
[Jawahir Al Naimi/Al Jazeera]
The island
From that point, Azizi entered a world of guards and regulations.
He and the other asylum seekers were put on a plane to Darwin and from there to Papua New Guinea.
“[There was] more security than refugees [in the plane],” he says. “When I come down to the airport … two guards were there, more security was there and [they took] me out from the aeroplane and put me on the bus.”
At first, Azizi was held inside an offshore processing centre on Manus Island which had been reopened in 2012 and continued operating until 2017, when it was closed after a Papua New Guinea court ruled it illegal.
Countless reports highlighted “filthy living conditions”, assaults and high rates of mental illness in these compounds, describing the immigration detention centre as being “cruel, inhuman, degrading and violating prohibitions against torture”.
Azizi remembers the 20-foot (six-metre) shipping container he was given to sleep in, which was divided into two rooms, each housing four people. There were 270 people in his compound, he says, and it was crowded.
The shipping container he lived in had no windows, no fresh air, he remembers.
In January 2015, Azizi was finally given official refugee status, although he continued to be held in the detention camp. He was never told the reason why.
Then, in 2017, the gate was opened and the camp closed. Azizi was moved to new accommodation in Lorengau, a town elsewhere in Manus province.
It was around this time that he met Jane, a 74-year-old Australian woman who has grown so close to him that she now considers him a son. They had connected on Facebook and in 2018 Jane went to Manus Island and met him in person.
“He was allowed out [of his accommodation] from six in the morning until six at night, so he would come every morning and cook breakfast for me,” Jane says.
She remembers lining up at an ATM one day with Azizi, when she went to withdraw some money. “There’s always a line, a big line to get the money, Azizi couldn’t stand in the line,” she says.
Azizi explains that it’s because of how much time he spent in lines while in detention. “Go to breakfast, you stay one hour [in] the line; if you’re going for lunch you stay one hour in the line; if you’re going for dinner you stand one hour in the line.”
Park Hotel prison
Then, in July 2019, Azizi was brought to mainland Australia under a short-lived medical evacuation scheme with a range of physical illnesses.
His ailments: “Number one, my migraine, my headache; number two is my tooth… my stomach; my blood pressure; my legs; and my arm is numb,” says Azizi.
“If you are stay[ing] in one container, [you do] not have freedom, not have [a] doctor, not have good food, not have anything; you must [stay] sick,” he says.
Al Jazeera contacted Australian Home Affairs to ask about Azizi’s descriptions of his conditions in detention, and other aspects of this story. The department said it does not comment on individual cases, but that it is “committed to the welfare of detainees” who have access to things including “health services, appropriate food … educational programs, cultural, recreational and sporting activities … and clean, comfortable sleeping quarters”.
After that, Azizi was moved around Australia to different immigration detention centres and hotels. Again, he was not told why.
Home Affairs told Al Jazeera that, in general, decisions on detainee placements depend on a number of factors, including the operational capacity of each facility and the safety and security of detainees and staff.
Meanwhile, Azizi’s wife and children were still left behind in Afghanistan. He had hoped to bring them to safety once he sought asylum, but was unable to help them from inside immigration detention.
During his time on Manus Island, he lost countless family members to Taliban violence, he says.
Helpless, Azizi could only watch as the situation back home grew ever more dire. In 2020, he lost his older brother to the Taliban.
“I remember that day,” Jane says, recounting the phone call she received from Azizi. “I was at a shop … and I … went and sat in the car and listened to him telling me.”
Azizi was “absolutely distraught”, she says. “All I’ve got is the phone, I mean I couldn’t [do much], I’m not there, I only had the phone.”
His 14-year-old son said he wanted him to come back to Kabul so they would all die together ... Azizi was beside himself.
Jane
In Afghanistan, on the way back from his brother’s funeral, Azizi’s family had been attacked by Taliban fighters waiting along the road.
“My brother [had] guns, if [he did] not have guns Taliban [would have killed] all my family,” he says.
“They went in two cars and one car was completely a write-off,” says Jane.
Then, in early 2021, the Taliban began its sweeping offensive across Afghanistan, quickly gaining control of the country in just four months and taking Kabul in August.
But Azizi was still locked up and could only watch from afar as his family was pushed further and further into danger.
Still held in detention throughout this time, Azizi felt unheard and wanted to speak out via the media as a way of pleading with the Australian government to evacuate his family.
“That’s the worst I have seen him, I think,” says Jane. “That’s when his 14-year-old son said he wanted him to come back to Kabul so they would all die together. I mean, Azizi was beside himself.”
‘Azizi, is this you?’
It was in late 2021 that things suddenly changed for Azizi.
In June, he was moved to Park Hotel, which is used for immigration detention in Melbourne, where he contracted COVID-19 as the disease surged among the detainee residents.
He again spoke out, describing a poor diet at the hotel and the lack of help he had received.
Throughout this time, Azizi said he couldn’t imagine ever being free.
“I [was] thinking, just whole my life I will stay in detention,” he says. “Sometimes I was thinking I’m not [a] criminal, why [are they keeping] me in detention?… I [helped the] coalition but still [Australia] is keep[ing] me in detention.”
In early November, an Australian Border Force (ABF) officer came to the hotel to gather requests from the refugees. “She was looking for me … [but] I understood this is all bulls**t,” says Azizi, adding that he thought the reports would simply end up in a rubbish bin.
Azizi did not write a request or speak to the officer.
Then, two days later, everything changed overnight.
He was lying in his bed watching news from Afghanistan on his phone, when security came into his room to tell him that ABF officers wanted to meet him. The same officer who had come to take requests from the refugees a few days before was waiting downstairs.
“She says ‘two days ago I saw you but you did not talk to me’. I say yes because it’s not help[ing], just you are writing and putting [it] in the rubbish [bin],” he recounts.
“She is laughing and says ‘I have very good news for you’. I say, what is that good news? And [she says ‘the] minister has signed your visa’. I say what kind of visa? She says ‘a bridging visa’.”
“She says ‘this is your paper, you have [a] visa, you can go’.”
After a long time, my father is free. My father is not a criminal and should not be a long time in detention.
Aziz's son
Azizi was given half an hour to gather his belongings, take a shower and say goodbye to his fellow detainees. He said he spent at least 10 minutes frozen in his room, wondering what to do first. Take a shower? Pack his clothes?
He called his family and told them the good news.
Azizi’s 14-year-old son remembers the moment clearly. They were woken in the middle of the night by his father’s phone calls.
The teenager, who we are not naming for his safety, communicates via Azizi: “After a long time, my father is free,” he writes. “My father is not a criminal and should not be a long time in detention.”
“My mum can’t believe it when my father calls. She is surprised,” he adds.
After speaking with his family, Azizi went back downstairs to meet the ABF officers and prepared to leave the hotel. The same officer he had spoken to before did a double-take.
“[She] told me ‘Azizi, this is you?’ I say yes that’s me!,” says Azizi, smiling. “‘No, it’s not you’,” he remembers her response, “‘your face is changing, your face is happy, you’re different now, what happened, why?’”
She was laughing, he says.
Azizi was taken to another detention centre to gather his belongings that were stored there. From there, he was put into a taxi and taken to a motel where he was put up by the government for three weeks. He was given two $50 AUD ($36 USD) vouchers, $342 AUD ($248 USD) in cash, and left completely unsupervised for the first time in almost nine years.
‘I’m free!’
I interviewed Azizi a couple of days later for a story about his release. That’s the first time it struck me how different he was from the previous times we had spoken. He was overflowing with joy; he couldn’t stop laughing and his smile was so full of life.
The first thing Azizi did when he reached the hotel was to go to the mosque.
“Inside, I say bless you God because I’m free,” he explains. “After I come [out] I [was] looking behind me, maybe security is come with me … [but there] is no security, [there] is not anything!
“This time I was very happy, really, I was really happy. I say ‘freeeee, free, I’m free!’” he chuckles, “some people stare at me, they say, oh this man is crazy.”
Later on, he took his $50 vouchers and went to the supermarket. “Long time I didn’t eat grapes, I first buy grapes, mango, banana, everything,” Azizi says.
“In detention, there was very little fruit and this was a big problem,” Jane explains. “Only two pieces of fruit every 24hrs.”
Azizi also bought okra – his favourite food – and brought it home to cook. “When … I was staying in detention … they [were] not [serving] okra … eggplant, just … beef, lamb, chicken, beef, lamb, chicken.” Throughout his life, he had rarely eaten so much meat. He missed vegetables.
(Now) I want to think about a good job … and lots of friends ... I will go to see some nice places, and relax.
Azizi
So far, Azizi’s observations of Australian people have been overwhelmingly positive. They don’t ask invasive questions, they’re not unkind to him like the guards in detention, he says. He has spent a lot of time with friends he made online in Australia over the years: advocates, activists, Facebook contacts.
But it has been quite an adjustment getting used to Australian culture. On the first night of his release, some friends threw a party for him and the other refugees who had been freed.
“When I was gone to that house, these young girls come hug me,” he says. “[It’s] not like in Afghanistan!” he continues, adding that he felt both happy and shocked at the display of affection.
Kabuli Pulao
In the weeks that followed, Azizi began exploring Melbourne.
He went to the beach and enjoyed the water and fresh air. He went to an Afghan restaurant and sat down to real, Afghan food, for the first time in years, ordering Kabuli Pulao, a type of pilaf usually made of steamed rice, raisins, carrots and beef or lamb.
“I was thinking I was still in Afghanistan, my country,” he says, smiling.
He then bought extra bread to take home with him. “Because in Afghanistan, people when they eat breakfast and eggs … cheese … milk – anything – is must eat by bread,” he explains.
It is a small manifestation of the autonomy Azizi now has, but he relishes the fact that he can do as he pleases, that he does not need to ask for permission.
He wakes up to the sound of birds rather than the sound of detention camp guards slamming their fists onto his door. The headache he has been living with for years is gone.
But most significant of all, he can now plan for his future. He never used to think long term in detention because he had no idea when or if he would be released. “[Now] I want to think about [a] good job … and lots of friends, every time I will go to beach, I will go to see some nice places, and relax,” he says.
He is also helping his family apply for humanitarian visas so they can leave Afghanistan and they can all start a new life together.
Since the Taliban took Kabul, his son says they have come to search his house countless times. The family is in hiding.
If he could come to Australia, his son wrote in a message, he would finish school and go to university. “I like to be an engineer. My brother wants to be a doctor. My sister wants to be a judge in the court.”
When asked what he would like to say to the Australian government, Azizi relays his son’s words via WhatsApp message: “Please help us to move to Australia so that we can be all together,” he wrote. “Afghanistan is very dangerous and I want to stay with all my family.”
Trying to add the titles to your digital library earlier today was harder than it should’ve been, as continued server problems, following yesterday’s Fortnite outage, slowed down the store. It’s unclear if Epic Games is still having issues or if people just really wanted these games, but according to its status page, everything should be running smoothly now.
If you’re wondering how Epic Games can afford to just give away games, check out the documents that surfaced earlier this year as a part of its legal battle with Apple over the App Store. As Tim Sweeney confirmed on Twitter, the company negotiates a flat fee for the giveaways instead of per copy, so suddenly billions of dollars worth of software become much cheaper.
We don’t know how much the company is paying Square Enix to give away the Tomb Raider games, but an Arkham Trilogy giveaway in 2019 only cost the company $1.5 million — a relative drop in the bucket compared to the money Fortnite brings in, plus the value of adding more customers to its games store.
They will be available to add for free until January 6th at 11AM ET, so you have plenty of time to get them — unless you forget and never actually do it, so it’s probably a better idea to just click that “Get” button now.
WASHINGTON — Meeting President Joe Biden’s goal of offering 500 million free at-home Covid-19 tests for Americans will require a massive scale-up in test manufacturing that may take months to achieve — falling short of demand as the omicron variant drives a surge in infections.
The U.S. had a supply of around 200 million at-home rapid tests in December. Test-makers have indicated they will be able to increase that to just over 500 million a month by March with added capacity from current manufacturers and the recent clearance of two new tests from Roche and Siemens, according to estimates from Mara Aspinall, a health professor at Arizona State University who tracks the testing market.
Not all of those tests will go to the federal government’s free testing effort. A White House official said the 500 million free at-home tests will come from additional supply the administration is anticipating will be added.
Dec. 24, 202102:43
But even with new tests being approved and manufacturers racing to expand capacity, the number of new tests available is expected to grow just modestly in January while Roche and Siemens begin packaging and shipping their products, ramping up more significantly in February. That means it could take several months for the federal government to meet its goal, according to production targets from the manufacturers and Aspinall’s estimates.
"I am much more confident than I was a week ago that we can meet the need," Aspinall said. "The challenge is how quickly we can get those tests shipped out and how quickly we can meet that 500 million goal."
Administration officials haven’t said when they expect to have all 500 million tests available for the public, beyond saying the first batch of tests will start going out sometime in January. Officials with the Defense Department and Department of Health and Human Services are aiming to finalize contracts with test manufacturing companies late next week and are working on an “accelerated contracting timeline,” White House Covid response coordinator Jeffrey Zients said Wednesday. Officials are also still working on the website where people will be able to request a test and a system for distributing them, he said.
It also remains unclear how the tests will be distributed, which agency will be tasked with that process and how many tests each person will be able to get.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Aspinall said. “It’s the combination of understanding the supplying pathways, then on top of that figuring out what the supply chain looks like, what the distribution looks like and how the whole process comes together.”
Biden has made testing a priority for this administration in recent months, committing to spend $3 billion in the fall on at-home tests to spur companies to scale up production as the government distributes millions of at-home tests to food banks and health clinics. Administration officials have urged Americans to get tested before holiday gatherings as an added layer of protection and enforced testing programs in schools to keep children in the classroom.
Even before Biden announced his plan for the federal government to buy 500 million tests, representatives for test manufacturers had been pushing to ramp up production further, hiring more workers, adding shifts and tapping subcontractors to help, with production going from 80 million tests in November to just over 200 million in December.
Abbott, maker of BinaxNow, said it plans to increase capacity to 70 million tests per month from 50 million, and Quidel is increasing its production of the QuickVue test to the same amount. Access Bio said it was targeting 25 million tests for December and planned to produce an additional 40 million in the coming months. Ellume said it will start making 15 million more tests a month after production launches at its new facility in Frederick, Maryland, in January.
The Food and Drug Administration also gave clearance in the last week to new tests from Roche and Siemens, with each company saying the plan is to have “tens of millions” of the new tests available each month, without offering a specific timeline for how many tests would be delivered when.
Having the federal government ready to purchase such a large amount of tests could give the test-makers an incentive to ramp up production even further than planned, though demand from consumers and local governments for the tests has already outstripped the available supply, Aspinall said.
While the federal push is helping bolster the market for manufacturers, it has also raised questions about what effect it could have on the wider availability of tests. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Biden earlier this week on a call that he was worried his state won’t have enough of the rapid tests for its test-to-stay program for schools, where students exposed to an infected classmate are able to remain in class if they test negative.
The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials raised a similar concern to Biden administration officials, questioning whether the federal government's massive purchasing of tests might cut into their ability to access tests for their own programs. Michael Fraser, the group's CEO, said administration officials assured him that the federal government's efforts won't hinder states' plans.
Also competing for tests will be employers and their workers, if Biden’s vaccine mandate survives legal challenges. Under that rule, unvaccinated employees would have to show proof of a negative Covid test every week.
Hutchinson warned Biden that the administration should not "let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions."
"The production of 500 million rapid tests that will be distributed by the federal government is great," the Arkansas Republican said, "but obviously that dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer as governors.”
CORRECTION (Dec. 30, 2021, 6:00 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Michael Fraser’s title. He is the CEO of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, not its president.
Shannon Pettypiece
Shannon Pettypiece is the senior White House reporter for NBCNews.com.
Plus, Philly will soon see a vaccine mandate implemented for indoor dining. And through Jan. 17, businesses that serve food can choose to accept negative tests from the past 24 hours in lieu of proof of vaccination — but only if they come from non-home testing providers like labs or pharmacies.
Despite a lack of free at-home test kits, there are many places in the city where you can get a COVID-19 test at no cost to you — but it might take a little legwork. Here is what you need to know:
In many cases, testing sites will not require out-of-pocket fees for you to be tested, though they may bill your insurance, if you have it, for a visit fee, the city health department notes online. Some sites also have requirements such as:
Making an appointment to be tested
Having a referral from a doctor for a test
Meeting certain criteria, such as recent exposure to COVID-19
Staying in your car, if it is a drive-thru site
Additionally, different testing sites may offer different types of COVID-19 tests, such as PCR or rapid antigen, which vary in terms of how long it takes to get your results. So, if possible, it’s best to plan ahead and contact the testing location to see if its testing meets your needs, and if you are eligible to receive a test free of charge.
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Regardless of where you go, you may experience a substantial wait in line, or difficulty in securing an appointment if the site does not accept walk-ins due to the demand for testing. For example, between Dec. 20 and 22, more than 39,000 people were tested at city sites alone, The Inquirer reported.
Insurance can also help when it comes to being tested at an urgent care facility, if it includes a visit with a clinician. As Vybe notes online, neither rapid PCR nor antigen tests are covered by insurance if done without a full visit there, so they suggest getting a test alongside a clinician visit if you are symptomatic or think you’ve had significant exposure, which should not result in out-of-pocket costs to you.
If you do not have insurance, there are still many places where you can be tested free of charge, including city clinics and pop-ups, community centers, and pharmacies. In most cases, you’ll be asked to provide identification but can still get a test if you don’t have it, the city says online.
Pop-ups from the city health department, BDCC, and Philadelphia FIGHT, for example, all advertise no out-of-pocket costs for COVID testing at their facilities. And places such as CVS, Labcorp’s at-home collection service, RiteAid, Walgreens, and Quest Diagnostics also offer free testing, though many of them ask that you fill out a questionnaire to determine your eligibility. Generally, questionnaires ask about your exposure to COVID-19, potential symptoms, and current health status, as well as demographic and identification information.
Can I get an at-home rapid test for free?
Right now, most likely not. Private insurers are not currently required to pay for the cost of at-home rapid tests, like those you can buy at pharmacies and other stores. That will change in the near future, per an announcement from the White House earlier this month that indicated individuals with private health insurance will soon be able to be reimbursed for the costs of the tests.
The White House has also announced a program that will work to distribute free rapid at-home tests, but that effort will not begin until sometime in January. About 500 million tests are slated to be distributed nationwide, but when the program will launch and how it will work is not yet clear.
In general, that means that as long as you do not have symptoms, you should isolate yourself from others for five days, and wear a mask when around others for an additional five days after your isolation period ends. Folks who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 and are fully vaccinated and boosted should wear a mask when around others for 10 days, and get tested on day five of that period.
COVID-19 has hit Greenpoint hard, and the race to get an at-home or PCR test is well underway in the neighborhood. The newly opened city-run testing site at McCarren Recreation Center hopefully will help make things easier. We highlighted where else to get tested in the area, and our Instagram stories are the best place for frequent updates about lines, turnaround times for results, and other helpful info about the process.
Other big Greenpoint news – the City will allocate $75 million towards the completion of Bushwick Inlet Park, a project that has been in the works for 16 years.
Thai Brooklyn will open a permanent location on 37 Greenpoint Avenue. We spoke with founder Sarah Seely about her practice, which incorporates a variety of different bodywork, yoga, and meditative practices.
If your idea of relieving stress includes more jabs and uppercuts, check out our profile of Krush from Krush Boxing Brooklyn, who can frequently be found teaching students of all ages and backgrounds in McCarren Park.
Other profiles include designer and curator Zabrina Estrada of Etéreo Vintage,Caryn Coleman, who founded the nonprofit The Future of Film Is Female, and Mothership NYC, an artist collective and work space on West Street.
The beloved Free Store on Greenpoint Avenue was forced to close after the Polonaise Terrace building was sold. On December 21, the Secret Lantern Society NYC hosted a joyous lantern festival in Domino Park.
Newly opened soul food restaurant Taste of Heaven should have just the kind of food you need during these winter pandemic blahs, just like the tacos at Betty’s Deli and Grocery. If you’re in need of a new ‘do, try Land of Barbers, which just re-opened on Franklin Avenue.
Thrillist also released their dining guide to Greenpoint.
North Brooklyn Angels has some available volunteer shifts at the beginning of the New Year
A trailer drove into the new concrete barriers protecting the bike lane on Wythe Ave & Williamsburg Street, prompting more discussion about street safety.
SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — (10 a.m. update) The at-home test kit distribution event in Seminole County has ended. Officials gave out close to 11,000 test kits this and supplies were depleted in less than an hour.
AT CAPACITY: The At Home Test Kit Distribution Event has ended. Seminole County made over 9,000 test kits available this morning and supplies have been depleted.
As the demand for COVID-19 testing remains high across Central Florida, Seminole County Emergency Management is working to make sure residents have access to resources.
A line of cars were parked at Seminole State College in Sanford hours before the agency opened the location Wednesday to give out free test kits.
What You Need To Know
Today’s event for the public is at 100 Weldon Boulevard. It starts at 10 a.m. and people do not have to be a resident of Seminole County to get one.
Health officials said this type of event is important because Seminole County’s COVID-19 positivity rate is high. And it’s not the county’s first time doing this type of event.
Right now, Seminole County Emergency Management says the positivity rate is at 26%. Officials said they are hoping these kits will continue catching more cases, while easing up lines at larger scale testing sites.
So far, they’ve given away 40,000 test kits. Today, they’re handing out 8,000 more.
This time, each car will be limited to two test kit boxes. But each box contains six at-home COVID-19 tests.
If you’re trying to travel, Emergency Manager Alan Harris said this particular type of test will give you all the verification you will need to get the green light to go, if you’re negative.
He said he hopes this will offer people a potentially faster way of confirming their COVID-19 status.
“One way or another, they’ve got to get a test,” Harris said. “If they want to go on a cruise, if they want to do any other activity…if they want to go out of this country, they’re going to have to get a test. This is one method, going to a test site is another method. But those are really the only options.”
Harris says the county is holding 2,000 test kits for nursing homes or long term care facilities as well as first responders.
The European Union’s largest economy has a long history with das auto, for better and worse. Many foreign tourists in Germany have a speed-limit-free trip on the autobahn among their bucket list items, but even among Germans, car culture is strong. The home of the Porsche, Audi, and BMW was also the birthplace of the Volkswagen — the "people’s car" for average Germans, first introduced in 1937 by then-chancellor Adolf Hitler.
Today, Germany has one of the world’s highest rates of car ownership: 574 vehicles per 1,000 residents. It’s all the more notable, then, that a Berlin-based citizens group organizing to fight climate change was able to submit more than 50,000 signatures in late 2021 in favor of virtually eliminating private automobile use in a 55-square-mile area of the city center.
The area lies inside the city’s Ringbahn, a circumferential rail line shaped roughly like a dog’s head that envelopes much of Berlin’s urban population. The 23-mile loop runs through multiple districts of Berlin, while the area inside the route comprises a dense urban environment more than twice the size of the island of Manhattan.
This makes the advocacy group’s move to ban most private car trips inside the Ringbahn one of the most aggressive climate actions in the world. It comes none too soon, according to Thomas Howie, a member of the group Volksentscheid Berlin Autofrei ("People’s Decision for Auto-Free Berlin") movement, or just Autofrei for shorthand. The group has around 150 members.
Even though Berlin isn’t near a rising ocean, Howie says, climate change has other effects in the city, including droughts and a corresponding lowering of the water table.
Autofrei is not the first car-free movement in the world, and many efforts, such as those in London, have gained steam during the pandemic.
"Although Berlin and Brandenburg seem like they are covered in water [as the area has many lakes], you can already observe the effects of the lowered water table; many trees are dying in our city," he wrote via email.
"Of course, this might not seem that drastic in the short term; however, it is highly likely that water prices will climb significantly in the medium term. This will impact all of us. More worryingly, extreme heating events, such as the 2003 heat wave, which killed thousands in Paris, will happen more often."
Recent studies have also shown that land subsidence, in which formerly stable land sinks unexpectedly, is likely to increase in inland areas due to climate change.
There would be limits to the proposed Berlin car ban. Rental vehicles would still largely be allowed in the city’s core, and people with disabilities who needed private vehicle travel would get waivers, as would tradespeople.
But limits aside, the Autofrei advocacy team has made significant progress in building on a coalition of environmental groups that have been growing their collective support base for decades. Those include hiking and forestry clubs dating from the Cold War era, the Passivhaus initiative that started in West Germany in the 1970s, and members of religious groups, along with cycling advocates, railfans and aging former attendees of the Ökoseminar ("eco-seminar") meetings held semi-illicitly in a Prenzlauer Berg church’s secret environmental library during the waning days of socialist East Germany.
The ecological groundswell came to a head in 2021 with the rise of a national Green Party candidate for the chancellorship, Annalena Baerbock, who at first surged in the polls before a blend of embarrassing revelations and foreign interference took her largely out of contention in September’s federal elections, in which the Green Party placed third. Baerbock has since joined the national governing coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats as Germany’s new foreign minister.
The Autofrei organization started as a group of about 15 people, many of whom had already been active in other pro-pedestrian advocacy, says Lisa Buchmann, another member of the group’s press team.
"Our volunteers and group members come from all over Berlin, including areas outside the S-bahn ring," Buchmann says. "Because of this, digital meetings and other online tools turned out to be the most efficient and most accessible way to organize ourselves. We used mailing lists a lot in the beginning, but by now, most of our daily communication and exchange takes place via Slack."
Buchmann says the organization, which seeks to challenge "the lack of imagination of people" regarding the cityscape, is relatively decentralized, with funding coming largely from small-euro donations, and with each working group having its own tools and communications channels. "They are pretty self-organized."
Autofrei is not the first car-free movement in the world, and many efforts, such as those in London, have gained steam during the pandemic. Other efforts, however, haven’t fared so well.
Citizens of Madrid, for example, tried to implement car restrictions in their city center, but the plan quickly became a political football. It was implemented in 2018, only to be rolled back in 2019 by a newly elected conservative city government — which soon found that the people actually rather liked the ban, with residents pushing back against the ripping out of pedestrian infrastructure. So Madrid’s restrictions were reinstated, only to then be struck down by Spain’s supreme court in May.
Ideas to poach
Other European cities have been more successful in implementing pedestrianization measures, giving inspiration to rivals. The grandfather of them all may be Groningen, Netherlands, where the population of about 230,000 spends more time on bicycles than in cars, according to The Guardian, and breathes the cleanest air of any Dutch city, according to a ranking by the European Environment Agency.
Groningen’s odyssey started in the mid-1970s, when a young, newly educated urban reformer named Max van den Berg got a rare carte blanche opportunity to reverse the popular design trend at the time of tearing down buildings to build freeways through cities. Instead, van den Berg took the opposite approach: He divided the city into quadrants and forced all nonlocal traffic to go around on a ring road in order to get from one quadrant to another, making cycling the most attractive way to travel through the center.
Germany has its own share of the pedestrianization landscape. Among the leaders is Heidelberg, a south Germany university city of around 160,000 that is coming along with its own car-free plans, with the mayor telling the The New York Times that if citizens need a car, they should "use car sharing … if you can’t use car sharing because you’re living too far outside and there is no mass transportation, then use the car, but just to the train station and not to downtown."
Citizens in Heidelberg who give up their cars are allowed to ride public transit for one year free. And the city’s pedestrian zone is about a mile across, Germany’s longest.
Larger European cities have also had luck in pushing a focus on transit, bicycles and pedestrians, with London eyeing additionalpedestrianization in the near future, and Paris committing to build 112 miles of new segregated bike lanes by 2026, according to Bloomberg CityLab. And cities such as Barcelona have taken the Groningen approach of reducing through-traffic in city centers, creating superblocks to encourage walking, cycling and transit.
The most successful competitor in the race to be free of private autos may be Oslo, Norway, which recently took the relatively inexpensive approach of removing virtually all on-street parking from its city center.
That move was nearly as effective in getting rid of cars as an outright ban, according to a 2019 article in Fast Company, with pedestrian activity in the city center jumping 10 percent in the year after the parking places were converted to cycle lanes, miniature parks and other uses.
This planning in the EU’s largest city comes in addition to what Berlin Senate spokesperson Jan Thomsen calls a "brilliant" public transport system that already offers S-bahn (fast urban railway), U-bahn (underground subway), Straßenbahn (the tram lines in former East Berlin) and bus service, alongside car-sharing, electric scooter and bike-sharing programs. Thomsen says the city government does not officially support the proposed ban, with many staffers viewing it as an overly bureaucratic solution.
Cities in the U.S. often face steeper obstacles to enacting car-free zones, especially because many American cities don’t have expansive transit networks. Some activists have instead worked through zoning laws to allow denser development in areas that surround already dense downtowns, making car ownership less necessary.
The activist group 1000 Friends of Oregon had a big role in lobbying for the state to enact a law in 2019 to ban single-family housing zones, which would allow denser development in areas surrounding denser city centers in coming years. California followed suit in September.
While most American cities aren’t quite ready for full car bans, activists can prepare the way by doing things such as organizing block-long neighborhood festivals that shut down streets temporarily, says 1000 Friends’ deputy director, Mary Kyle McCurdy.
Such events can better demonstrate what small car-free areas might look like in the future, and the disruptions brought about by the pandemic have provided some leeway for experimentation.
"COVID has certainly increased" the banning of cars on individual streets, she says. "It’s a step toward realizing that we need to make our streets safer for all users, not just for cars."
What comes next
The Berlin Senate, the city’s governing body, has until the beginning of January to examine the text of the proposed car ban law (German) and either pass or reject it.
If the law were to be rejected by the Senate, the advocacy group would then enter a second round of signature gathering, with 175,000 valid support signatures needed to put the measure on the 2023 ballot. If passed, the law would take effect in 2027, Howie says.
European cities are in a competition to create 'climate-friendly, resilient and equitable places that will attract millennials and the creative class and lead to long-term economic success.'
The ballot measure has a better chance in the capital than if it were introduced in other parts of Germany. Thanks partially to a strong transit system, Berlin has the lowest car ownership of any of Germany’s major cities: 350 cars per 1,000 residents, according to the EU-funded group Civitas, compared with the national average of 574 per 1,000, and with 570 per 1,000 in Munich, the most car-heavy major city.
Berlin voters also are known for making unorthodox choices, which could work in favor of an outright ban. In the most recent election, which took place in September, Berliners approved a ballot question that recommends a state buy-up of thousands of apartments managed by large landlords — a measure few thought could win support when the campaign started.
The opposition to a private car ban will almost certainly be strong. Germany’s automakers are well-organized, and other groups, from oil industry lobbying associations to road construction companies, will surely join the legislative battle.
One group that will not be putting pressure on lawmakers is the Automobilclub von Deutschland, a nonpartisan association of motorists in Germany.
"If we are asked for our opinion … we will respond. We have no such specific request from Berlin," group representative Herbert Engelmohr wrote in an email.
Engelmohr further says that for many Germans, the automobile is a "cultural asset" that is "synonymous with quality of life, independence, flexibility, and, ultimately, personal freedom."
That sentiment doesn’t sit well with Howie.
"The car was a cultural asset perhaps in the ’60s or ’70s, when a certain generation [was] offered something new," Howie says. He argues that removing private cars from roads will speed up business deliveries and reduce costs.
"Today, a younger generation [is] focused on living in cities that are livable and pleasant to be in and, more importantly, stopping climate change that threatens future generations’ existence."
European cities are in a competition to create "climate-friendly, resilient, and equitable places that will attract millennials and the creative class and lead to long-term economic success," Howie says.
Despite the best efforts of some politicians, there are still some widely-available ways for individuals to earn federal-income-tax-free income. This is the second of our two-part series on the subject.
Tax-free capital gains and dividends
For folks who occupy the sweet spot, the federal income tax rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends is still 0%. The surprising truth is you can have a pretty healthy income and still be within the 0% bracket for long-term gains and dividends, based on your taxable income. For instance:
Say you’re a married joint-filer with two dependent kids in 2022. You claim the $25,900 standard deduction. You could have up to $109,250 of adjusted gross income (AGI), including long-term gains and dividends, and still be within the 0% bracket. ($109,250 – $25,900 = $83,350 of taxable income, which is the top of the 0% bracket for joint filers in 2022.)
Say you’re divorced with two dependent kids and file as a head of household. You claim the $19,400 standard deduction in 2022. You could have up to $75,200 of AGI, including long-term gains and dividends, and still be within the 0% bracket. ($75,200 – $19,400 = $55,800 of taxable income, which is the top of the 0% bracket for heads of households in 2022.)
Say you’re unmarried with no kids. You claim the $12,950 standard deduction in 2022. You could have up to $54,625 of AGI, including long-term gains and dividends, and still be within the 0% bracket ($54,625 – $12,950 = $41,675 of taxable income, which is the top of the 0% bracket for single filers in 2022.)
AGI equals the sum of your taxable income items reduced by the sum of so-called above-the-line deductions for things like deductible contributions to a traditional IRA; up to $300 in cash contributions to IRS-approved charities if you don’t itemize or $600 if you’re a married joint-filer; self-employed retirement plan contributions, self-employed health insurance premiums; the deductible portion of self-employment tax; alimony payments made under a pre-2019 divorce agreement; up to $250 of educator qualified out-of-pocket expenses; plus up to another $250 if your spouse is also an educator who incurs qualified expenses and you file jointly.
If you itemize deductions, your AGI, including long-term gains and dividends, could be even higher, and you would still be within the 0% bracket for those gains and dividends.
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Capital gains sheltered with capital losses are tax-free
When you incur capital losses during the year and/or have a capital loss carryover from a prior year, you can shelter current-year capital gains to the extent of current-year capital losses plus any capital loss carryover into that year. If you still have a net capital loss after this drill, you can use it to shelter up to $3,000 of income from other sources (salary, self-employment income, interest income, whatever), or up to $1,500 if you use married filing separate status.
Tax-free withdrawals from Coverdell Education Savings Accounts (CESAs)
You can contribute up to $2,000 annually to a Coverdell Education Savings Account (CESA) set up for a beneficiary (typically your child or grandchild) who has not yet reached age 18. A CESA is an account set up by a “responsible person,” which means you, to function exclusively as an education savings vehicle for the designated account beneficiary.
CESA earnings are allowed to accumulate federal-income-tax-free. Then tax-free withdrawals can be taken to pay for the beneficiary’s college tuition, fees, books, supplies, and room and board. If you have several beneficiaries in mind, you can contribute up to $2,000 annually to separate CESAs set up for each one.
Here’s the only catch: your right to make CESA contributions is phased out between modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) of $95,000 and $110,000 or between $190,000 and $220,000 if you’re a married joint filer. This restriction can often be circumvented by enlisting someone who is unaffected. For example, you can give the contribution dollars to another trustworthy adult (maybe a sibling or parent) who can open up the CESA as the “responsible person” and make the contribution on behalf of your beneficiary. However, when the “responsible person” is someone other than yourself, you lose any control over the account. Keep that in mind.
Tax-free withdrawals from Section 529 college savings plans
Section 529 college savings plan accounts also allow earnings to accumulate free of any federal income tax. The big selling point is that 529 accounts allow folks who can afford to make bigger contributions to get their college savings programs off the ground in a hurry. Then when the account beneficiary (typically your child or grandchild) reaches college age, tax-free withdrawals can be taken to cover higher education expenses. State income tax breaks are often available too.
Contributions to a 529 account will also reduce your taxable estate (if you’re worried about that), because the contributions are treated as gifts to the account beneficiary. Contributions in 2022 are eligible for the $16,000 annual federal gift tax exclusion. Contributions up to that amount won’t diminish your unified federal gift and estate tax exemption. Assuming no tax-law change, the unified exemption for 2022 will be $12.06 million or effectively $24.12 million for a married couple. If you’re feeling more generous, you can make a larger lump-sum contribution and spread it over five years for gift tax purposes. That allows you to immediately benefit from five years’ worth of annual gift tax exclusions while jump starting the beneficiary’s college fund.
Example: If you’re unmarried, you can make a 2022 lump-sum contribution of up to $80,000 (5 x $16,000) to a Section 529 account set up for a child, grandchild or any other person you want to help. If you’re married, you and your spouse can together contribute up to $160,000 (2 x $80,000). Lump-sum contributions up to these amounts won’t diminish your $12.06 million unified federal gift and estate tax exemption. If you want to help several children or grandchildren, you can run the 529 account contribution drill for each one.
Tax-free small business stock gains
Qualified Small Business Corporations (QSBCs) are a special category of corporation, the stock of which can potentially qualify for gain exclusion breaks. Assuming no tax-law change, QSBC shares issued after 9/27/10 will continue to be eligible for a juicy 100% gain exclusion, which equates for federal-income-tax-free treatment, if you hold the shares for over five years before selling. Consult your tax pro if you’re considering a small business stock investment that might be eligible for the QSBC gain exclusion deal.
Tax-free treatment for appreciated inherited capital gain assets
If you inherit a capital gain asset like stock shares or real property, the tax basis of the asset is stepped up to its full market value as of the date of your benefactor’s death or six months after that date if the estate’s executor so chooses. So, if you sell the inherited asset, you won’t owe any federal capital gains tax except on appreciation that occurs after the magic date. This super-taxpayer-friendly outcome is thanks to Section 1014(a) of our beloved Internal Revenue Code. The Biden tax plan included a proposal to greatly cut back the basis step-up break, but that idea appears to have been abandoned until further notice.
Tax-free Section 1031 real estate exchanges
Section 1031 of our beloved Internal Revenue Code allows you to postpone the federal income tax bill from unloading appreciated real property by arranging for a Section 1031 exchange, AKA a like-kind exchange. This time-honored maneuver is one big reason that some real estate investors have struck it rich over the years, because it keeps Uncle Sam out of their pockets. A proposal in the Biden tax plan would have severely limited your ability to postpone taxes with a Section 1031 exchange. But that tax-raising proposal is apparently off the table until further notice.
Here’s the big tax-saving bonus. If you pass away while still owning real property that you’ve acquired in a Section 1031 exchange, the tax basis of the property is stepped up as explained immediately above. So, your heirs can sell the inherited property and only owe federal capital gains tax on appreciation that occurs after the magic date, if any. Wow!
For details on Section 1031 exchanges, see my earlier column here.
The bottom line
While income and gains are generally taxable, you can collect federal-income-tax-free income and gains in a number of different ways, as I’ve explained in this column and its earlier companion. So don’t passively assume that you’ll owe taxes just because you came out ahead in a transaction. Check with your tax advisor before pulling the trigger on significant transactions, because sometimes, with good advance planning, you can get more tax-free money.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Once Broward County receives take-home coronavirus tests the county staff will distribute them for free to the public, Mayor Michael Udine said on Monday.
President Joe Biden’s administration purchased half a billion rapid test kits to be distributed free of charge.
The Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services executed the emergency contract and the funds will come from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved several types of rapid home tests that are on the market.
New Jerseyans can now have a COVID-19 test shipped for free to their home under a new program the state announced this month.
The state Health Department has partnered with test provider Vault Medical Services on the federally funded program, which state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said will increase testing “availability and accessibility” throughout New Jersey.
It comes as the Garden State continues to see COVID-19 numbers rise as the winter and holiday seasons arrive. Persichilli testing is “critical” to help track and prevent upticks.
New Jersey on Sunday reported another seven confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 12,538 confirmed positive cases, bringing the state’s seven-day case average to a new pandemic record just as statewide coronavirus hospitalizations reached their highest number in nearly 10 months.
Persichilli said this program is in addition to traditional COVID-19 testing at sites throughout the state and may be more convenient for people who have trouble leaving the house to get tested.
“With cases rising and holiday gatherings and travel, you want to protect yourself, especially if you are not feeling well or believe you may have been exposed — even if you don’t have any symptoms,” Persichilli said during the state’s last week’s coronavirus briefing in Trenton.
The kits are shipped through UPS with next-day delivery, Persichilli said. Once you receive it, you will hold a Zoom call with a Vault health care professional to guide you through the test and answer your questions, she said.
You then send the test back in pre-paid packaging through UPS’ next-day delivery, Persichilli said. You must drop off the package at a UPS site or dropbox.
You’ll receive results 24 to 48 hours after your sample arrives at the lab, she said.
However, as of Monday, the company says results may take 2-3 days after the sample is received by the lab.
The results are also automatically shared with local public health officials, Persichilli said.
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[Jawahir Al Naimi/Al Jazeera]
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