Chasidim stop bike lanes

For some New Yorkers, cycling is a religion.

So, when the city’s department of transport removed a bike lane that cut through the Chasidic area of Williamsburg last week, it was seen as a sacrilege.

“They illegally sold out the citizens of New York,” said Baruch Herzfeld, a modern Orthodox Jew who owns the Traif Bike Geschaft repair and rental shop on the southern edge of “hipster”, or bohemian, Williamsburg.

Mr Herzfeld and other bikers are enraged because, it appears, New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg struck a back-room deal with Williamsburg’s Satmar community.

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Bloomberg founder boosts jobs

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York and founder of the financial information and services firm of the same name, is to invest up to $45m (£31m) helping unemployed bankers and financiers return to Wall Street. The mayor has proposed creating a privately run fund to loan money to local start-up companies, among several plans to encourage entrepreneurship and attract new financial firms to the city to ensure it doesn’t lose its place in the global financial hierarchy.

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The billion-dollar donors

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, gave away $235m last year, making him the leading living donor in the US — and probably the world. The self-made billionaire of Bloomberg, the financial firm, contributed to more than 1,200 organisations, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s recent list.

Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, donated $105m while casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson pledged $41.9m, mostly to the Birthright Israel Foundation.

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