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New York Today

N.Y. Today: Officer Who Choked Eric Garner Faces Police Charges

“I felt sort of numb being in the same room as my son’s murderer,” Gwen Carr, Eric Garner’s mother, said after a disciplinary hearing for Officer Daniel Pantaleo.Credit...Julio Cortez/Associated Press

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Good morning on this chilly Friday.

Weather: Cold and sunny shall be the whole of the weekend forecast. Highs around 37, lows in the 20s. Today will be breezy too, so bundle up.

Alternate-side parking: in effect today, suspended tomorrow.

Four years after placing Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold, Officer Daniel Pantaleo appeared at Police Headquarters on Thursday.

So did Mr. Garner’s mother, sister and supporters.

People packed a fourth-floor trial room at One Police Plaza for the first hearing of Officer Pantaleo’s disciplinary case. He is accused of violating Police Department policy by using excessive force against the 43-year-old Mr. Garner.

Mr. Garner’s final words became a rallying cry for a national movement after he gasped “I can’t breathe” while Officer Pantaleo restrained him in a chokehold on a sidewalk in Staten Island.

The New York Times’s Ali Winston was at Police Headquarters. Here’s his report:

Officer Pantaleo, wearing a dark suit, was escorted into the room by police union officials.

Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado set a trial date for May.

Officer Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, argued for a trial date in July, after the statute of limitations expires for potential federal civil rights charges that the Department of Justice may still bring against his client. (In 2014 in state court, a grand jury declined to indict Officer Pantaleo.)

Proceedings are expected to last 10 days, with testimony from about a dozen witnesses . The evidence is voluminous: More than 40,000 pages of documents were turned over in discovery.

After the hearing, Mr. Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said, “I felt sort of numb being in the same room as my son’s murderer.”

Patrick Lynch, the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, yelled over protesters outside that the trial was a “kangaroo court.”

He said the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the independent agency prosecuting Officer Pantaleo, was rushing the case.

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Victorina Morales, an undocumented Guatemalan who has worked at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey for years.Credit...Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

The president’s undocumented housekeeper: Two Central American women began working at Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf club as undocumented residents. Now, they’re talking.

Inside look: A juror explains what led to the hung jury for the man who confessed to killing Karina Vetrano as she jogged in a Queens park.

Giving birth in shackles: A lawsuit claims that the police kept a pregnant Bronx woman handcuffed as she had her baby.

You can’t sit with us: Connecticut school barred parents from having lunch with their kids. The world responded.

A lot of lox: Russ and Daughters have been selling lox since 1914. They know what they’re doing.

The best ‘Messiah’ in New York: It’s on Wall Street. You knew that, right?

Divided States of America: A 24-minute conversation about tribalism and politics. [WNYC]

Irate customer: A customer in a Bushwick bodega threw merchandise and injured a worker who told him he’d have to wait at least five minutes for his egg sandwich. [NBC New York]

Woo! Who?: Saw-whet owls — miniature, robin-size raptors that are usually elsewhere this time of year — are turning up in large numbers in Central Park and around the city. [WNYC]

You had one job: Transportation Department workers were supposed to paint yellow lines down a street in Coney Island. They came out very wiggly, and the local city councilman is mad. [Brooklyn Daily]

Happy Birthday, Queens Chronicle! A local weekly paper celebrates four decades in business. [Queens Chronicle]

That’s what the governor of New York will be paid by 2021, based on recommendations from a state commission looking at giving state lawmakers raises. Currently, Gov. Andrew Cuomo makes $179,000.

State legislators would see their salaries go from the current $79,500 up to $130,000 by 2021.

Friday

(Re)watch the 1997 concentration-camp comedy classic “Life is Beautiful” and discuss its ethics at the Society for Ethical Culture. 7 p.m. [$5]

Hear music by young participants in a songwriting workshop at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. 7:30 p.m. [Free]

Harlem Library hosts the Manhattan Small Business Fair. 10 a.m. to noon. [Free]

Also uptown: Harlem School of the Arts presents a singing, dancing “Harlemettes Holiday.” [$25]

Saturday

The New York African Diaspora International Film Festival at Columbia Teachers College offers a day of films exploring law, justice and police brutality. 1:30 p.m. [$30]

Sunday

Community Baking Day at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn. Bundle up and bring something to bake in the wood-fired brick oven. Noon. [$5 suggested donation]

Join the participatory-music group Tkiya for a Hanukkah jam at the Borough Park branch of Brooklyn Public Library. 2:30 p.m. [Free]

— Iman Stevenson and Derek Norman

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

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Raekwon (blue jacket) and Cappadonna (on the mic) of the Wu-Tang Clan.Credit...Cameron Pollack/NPR

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album, “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers),” members of the Staten Island- and Brooklyn-bred ensemble performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert this week.

If you followed the group, you’d notice two big changes since 1993.

The first, obviously, is the absence of a founding member, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004. Among ODB’s lasting impacts was, perhaps, welfare reform. No, seriously.

He was collecting food stamps before his music career took off. After he became famous, he took at least one more trip to collect the subsidy, riding in a limousine with an MTV camera. (You can watch video of it here.)

An article in The Atlantic talks about how that played a role in welfare reform.

The other big change: the gray hair and stringed instruments. The Wu have aged well.

Have a great morning.

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