Son kills dad on Zoom call with 20 others: US police

A 32-year-old Long Island man was arrested and charged with murder Thursday after the man fatally stabbed his father while he was on a Zoom video chat with about 20 people, authorities said.

The father, Dwight Powers, 72, had been participating in the Zoom call at his home in Amityville, a village in the town of Babylon about 40 miles east of Manhattan, just after noon Thursday when he was attacked by his son, Thomas Scully-Powers, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement.

People on the call reported seeing Powers in the meeting with them and then suddenly realizing that he was no longer on screen, a spokesman for the Suffolk County police said. Some participants in the meeting may have witnessed part of the attack, the spokesman said, adding that the police had been given a description of the son by people who were on the Zoom call.

The spokesman declined to comment on the type of meeting that was being held.

Newsday reported that there had been about 20 other people on the video call, which the police confirmed later Thursday night.

“They just noticed him fall off the screen and then they heard heavy breathing,” Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County police homicide squad told Newsday. “It was horrible that they had to witness this.”

Several participants in the conference called 911, and the police found and arrested Scully-Powers in less than an hour, authorities said. The police spokesman said it had taken officers longer to locate Scully-Powers because people in the meeting did not know where Powers lived.

Beyrer told Newsday that the motive in the stabbing was still being investigated but that there was no indication that it was related to the coronavirus pandemic. It was not clear how many times Powers had been stabbed by his son, he added.

Scully-Powers was injured when he jumped out a second-story window of the home where he and his father both lived and was transported to a hospital to recover, police said. Online records indicate that the home is an apartment in a senior living community.

As of late Thursday, the area surrounding the complex was blocked off to traffic by police vehicles. Caution tape separated the street from nearby parking lots.

Police said Scully-Powers had been charged with second-degree murder and would be arraigned after being discharged from the hospital. 

-Matt Stevens, The New York Times-

New York defends storm shutdown

NEW YORK, United States - New York authorities on Tuesday vigorously defended a decision to shut down America's biggest city for a storm that skirted the Big Apple, dumping the worst snow on Long Island and New England.

Travel bans were lifted, public transport resumed and parks reopened in the city of eight million people, easing many of the measures put in place as Winter Storm Juno moved in on Monday.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city got only a fraction of the two feet (60 centimeters) of snow that had been widely predicted in the 48 hours leading up to the storm.

Nevertheless UN headquarters, schools, museums and numerous shops and restaurants remained closed Tuesday.

The National Weather Service warned that life-threatening conditions persisted along the coast from Long Island into Connecticut and Massachusetts, where more than two feet of snow blanketed some areas.

"You plan the best you can and you lean toward safety," New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference under a barrage of questioning.

He conceded there were likely to be "some" loss of business, but said he had no estimates.

"It may actually have brought us back to full operating capacity sooner but I do not criticize weather forecasters. I learn," Cuomo said.

The clean-up is expected to continue until Wednesday, when schools will reopen, and city and state employees will return to work.

Broadway theaters announced that most shows would go ahead Tuesday as planned, after the Great White Way went dark Monday.

A 'no-brainer'

De Blasio, who repeatedly warned before the storm struck that it was likely to be one of the worst in the city's history, fended off accusations that he had been needlessly alarmist.

"To me, it was a no-brainer. We had to take precautions to keep people safe. God forbid this storm had not moved east, we would then have been hit," he said.

Had travel not been banned, city residents would have been in possible mortal danger, and any economic impact would have been far more negative had there been more destruction, he said.

"We are going to be very forceful in our messages to people when we sense danger. This is what you saw in the last 48 hours," De Blasio said.

On the streets of Manhattan, there were mixed feelings about whether the authorities had over-reacted.

"This is a mere dusting and I've been here for my whole life, with a little bit in London, and this is ridiculous, when they call it a storm," said financial consultant Curtis Brill.

Jennifer Daly, who comes from New Orleans but works on New York's Fifth Avenue, took it in stride, saying she was used to similar hype about hurricanes that do not always turn out as severe as warned.

"People do have to be cautious and ice and driving do not mix, so it's better to take precautions and not have accidents," she said.

Air travel disrupted

In the end, snowfall varied throughout the New York area, with some parts of the city receiving as little as four inches -- far short of the city's record 26.9 inches in February 2006.

Long Island was however still being hard hit with up to 20 inches of snow, and easternmost Suffolk County continues to see blizzard-like conditions and face "serious issues," Cuomo said.

County police confirmed that a teenage boy died late Monday in a sledding accident.

Cuomo lifted the travel ban, which was imposed at 11:00 pm Monday, at 8:00 am (1300 GMT). Limited service on city rail and subway lines resumed an hour later.

Service was expected to be back to normal by Wednesday.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also lifted the travel ban in his state, but officials in both states nevertheless warned against all but essential travel.

Driving bans were still in effect in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Flight disruptions are still extensive. Around 5,250 flights within, to and from the United States have been cancelled for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to flightaware.com.

Officials said virtually all flights at New York's LaGuardia airport were cancelled Tuesday as well as most at Newark and John F. Kennedy international airports.

In Boston, 85 percent of flights were cancelled, said flightaware.com.

Thousands were without power along the coast of Massachusetts, including on Nantucket Island, where some were evacuated from their homes, local media reported.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

NYC, Long Island begin gasoline rationing

New York City and Long Island began rationing Friday to ease a gasoline crisis from Hurricane Sandy that officials said could last two more weeks.

The new rules let cars fuel up only if the last number of the license plate matches the day's date -- even-numbered license plates on even-numbered days and odd-numbered on odd days.

Plates ending with a letter are considered odd-numbered. People filling up gas cans are not affected -- nor are buses, taxis and emergency vehicles, officials said.

New Jersey began gas rationing Saturday.

"This is not a step that we take lightly," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "But given the shortages we will face over the next few weeks, and the growing frustrations of New Yorkers, we believe it is the right step."

Bloomberg said only about a quarter of the city's roughly 800 gas stations were open at any given time, adding the fuel shortage could last another couple of weeks.

Gasbuddy.com said nearly 70 percent of Long Island gas stations were empty.

Federal, state and local efforts to resolve the gasoline crisis were set back by Wednesday's nor'easter, officials said. The storm temporarily halted efforts to repair oil and gasoline terminals and prevented barges carrying fuel from reaching their docks, The New York Times said.

The major utilities said 761,000 customers were still without power, down from 8.5 million shortly after Sandy hit 10 days ago.

Two major New York-area tunnels were to reopen Friday -- one for cars and the other for trains.

The 72-year-old twin-tube Queens-Midtown Tunnel, a highway tunnel crossing under the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, was to reopen at 6 a.m. Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

The 62-year-old Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which at one point had water up to its ceiling, remained closed with no reopening date. That twin-tube tunnel crosses under the East River between Manhattan and the borough of Brooklyn.

Amtrak said it expects that by the end of Friday it would reopen a flooded commuter-rail tunnel under the Hudson River to let New Jersey Transit trains get to New York's Pennsylvania Station, a major intercity train station and commuter rail hub normally serving more than 300,000 passengers a day.

Amtrak and New Jersey Transit have been using just one Hudson River tunnel since Nov. 2 after Hurricane Sandy flooded the second tunnel.

source: upi.com