8 Oct 2025

Comienza un nuevo año escolar, y con ello los retrasos de autobuses escolares

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Aproximadamente 150.000 niños de la ciudad de Nueva York van al colegio en autobús, entre ellos unos 66.000 estudiantes con discapacidades y estudiantes que viven en refugios. Así que cuando hay un problema con el servicio de autobuses, estos grupos suelen ser los más afectados.

Solo en las primeras semanas del año escolar 2025-2026, se han producido 4.476 casos de autobuses que no han llegado y 8.068 retrasos y averías de autobuses, según informaron las autoridades municipales. (Dogora Sun / Shutterstock.com)

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en inglés el 6 de octubre. Traducido por Daniel Parra. Read the English version here.

Con el inicio del nuevo curso escolar el mes pasado, los emblemáticos autobuses escolares amarillos vuelven a circular por las calles de la ciudad de Nueva York. Sin embargo, algunos se retrasan.

La coalición Road to Better Busing, formada por defensores y padres afectados por los retrasos de los autobuses, se está movilizando para conseguir mejoras.

Nueva York es el distrito escolar más grande del país, por lo que también cuenta con el sistema de autobuses escolares más grande. Aproximadamente 150.000 niños viajan en estos autobuses, la mayoría de los cuales son latinos y afroamericanos, según investigadores.

Alrededor de 66.000 alumnos que utilizan el autobús son estudiantes con discapacidades y estudiantes que viven en refugios temporales, incluidos los que se alojan en el sistema de refugios de la ciudad. Cuando hay un problema con el servicio de autobuses, estos grupos suelen ser los que más sufren.

“Cada año, al comenzar el año escolar, hay una cosa con la que podemos contar: nuestros teléfonos no pararán de sonar con llamadas de familias cuyos hijos no pueden ir al colegio debido a fallos en el servicio de autobuses escolares”, afirmó Randi Levine, directora de políticas de Advocates for Children of New York, durante unas declaraciones en una manifestación frente a la alcaldía a finales de septiembre.

Durante el año escolar 2023-2024, en una red de 9.000 rutas de autobuses escolares que recorren las calles de la ciudad, se produjeron 80.000 retrasos. Solo en las primeras semanas del año escolar 2025-2026, se han producido 4.476 casos de autobuses que no han llegado y 8.068 retrasos y averías de autobuses hasta la semana pasada, según informaron las autoridades municipales.

La mayoría de los problemas de esta última categoría son retrasos (7.629), mientras que en septiembre se produjeron 439 averías, según el departamento de Escuelas Públicas de la Ciudad de Nueva York (NYCPS por sus siglas en inglés y anteriormente conocido como el Departamento de Educación).

El NYCPS advirtió que la Oficina de Transporte Escolar (OPT por sus siglas en inglés) gestiona el sistema de seguimiento de los retrasos y averías de los autobuses escolares, y señaló que puede haber errores en los datos.

Cuando se producen estos incidentes, los padres pueden presentar quejas de varias maneras: utilizar el ServiceNow para llamar al servicio de asistencia de OPT (que ofrece servicios de traducción en varios idiomas), utilizar SupportHub para enviarlas en línea o enviar un correo electrónico a NYCPS.

“Trabajamos diligentemente para resolver cualquier problema que las familias tengan con sus servicios, de modo que todos los estudiantes lleguen a la escuela a tiempo”, afirmó un portavoz del departamento de educación. “Por eso hemos introducido un moderno sistema de seguimiento por GPS para los autobuses, hemos ampliado las herramientas de comunicación con las familias y hemos mejorado la planificación de las rutas para satisfacer mejor las necesidades de los estudiantes”.

Sin embargo, Gothamist informó a principios de septiembre que el GPS de los autobuses escolares de la ciudad de Nueva York tiene fallos: los conductores y las empresas de autobuses no se conectan al sistema de forma sistemática, que además depende de datos facilitados por los propios usuarios.

Mia Greenidge es directora de servicios de transición para jóvenes en IncludeNYC, una organización que ayuda a jóvenes con discapacidades, y madre de un niño de 5 años que va al jardín en el servicio de autobús especializado. Según cuenta, durante los primeros días de clase llevaron a su hijo a la escuela equivocada.

“Tuvimos suerte en esta situación”, dijo Greenidge, y explicó que su hijo fue llevado a la escuela correcta en 20 minutos. “La escuela a la que lo llevaron estaba a unas pocas cuadras [de la escuela correcta]”.

En otra ocasión, Greenidge dijo que su hijo estuvo en el autobús durante casi dos horas, a pesar de que vive a 30 minutos de su escuela. “Al intentar ponerse en contacto con la empresa de autobuses, con el despachador o con la dirección de la empresa, nunca pude hablar con nadie allí. Así que gran parte de la comunicación la mantuve con la escuela”, dijo.

Levine dijo que Advocates for Children of New York ha recibido muchas quejas sobre los servicios de autobús en lo que va de año escolar y que, en 40 casos, ha tenido que llamar al departamento de educación para resolver el problema.

Lori Podvesker, directora de políticas de discapacidad y educación de IncludeNYC, dijo que la organización ha observado un aumento del 20 por ciento en las quejas relacionadas con los autobuses en comparación con el mismo periodo del año pasado. De las 27 llamadas que recibió IncludeNYC sobre problemas de transporte, 13 eran sobre autobuses, dijo.

Por su parte, el departamento de educación afirmó que este mes ha recibido más quejas por autobuses que no han llegado que por autobuses que han llegado tarde: 4.476 y 4.270, respectivamente.

Los defensores y los padres afirman que los estudiantes sufren las consecuencias cuando llegan tarde al colegio o a casa. Pueden perder tanto tiempo de clase como servicios especializados. Greenidge cuenta que su hijo acude a terapia de análisis conductual aplicado después del colegio. Ella programa las citas con cierto margen, pero cuando los retrasos del autobús son largos, él acaba perdiéndolas.

“Eso cuesta dinero, porque cuando tienes que cancelar una sesión, igual te cobran”, afirma.

Otro problema es la duración del trayecto en autobús de muchos estudiantes. Parents to Improve School Transportation, una organización comunitaria que aboga por mejores servicios de autobús, compartió la historia de una familia cuyo hijo recorre en zigzag todo Manhattan durante más de dos horas, lo que hace que se orine durante el largo trayecto. 

Durante muchos años, defensores y padres han señalado el contrato que no ha cambiado desde hace 46 años entre el NYCPS y las empresas de autobuses escolares, así como la escasez de conductores, como las causas fundamentales del problema. 

Sara Catalinotto, cofundadora de Parents to Improve School Transportation, le dijo a City Limits que la ciudad necesita reclutar y retener mejor a los conductores, y debería alentar a más empresas a competir por los contratos. Los defensores también piden a la ciudad que no prorrogue los contratos de transporte escolar sin exigir una rendición de cuentas.

“Como organización centrada en la educación, queremos dedicar nuestro tiempo a defender lo que ocurre dentro del aula, garantizando que los estudiantes tengan el apoyo que necesitan para prosperar. Pero, en cambio, nos vemos obligados a gastar nuestra energía luchando solo para asegurar que los estudiantes puedan llegar a la escuela”, dijo Levine a la multitud durante la manifestación de finales de septiembre. “Esto tiene que cambiar”.

Para ponerse en contacto con el reportero de esta noticia, escriba a Daniel@citylimits.org. Para ponerse en contacto con la editora, escriba a Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

The post Comienza un nuevo año escolar, y con ello los retrasos de autobuses escolares appeared first on City Limits.

8 Oct 2025

Injuries already taking a toll on Wild

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ST. LOUIS — On Monday, Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes smiled as he talked about his team’s centers and the veteran experience he expected to have down the middle, with Marco Rossi, Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman and newly-acquired Marco Sturm ready to go for the season-opening visit to the Blues.

By Wednesday, everything had changed.

Before his team boarded their Missouri-bound charter, Hynes revealed that an upper body injury that has limited Sturm’s availability for all of training camp has caused a setback, and the Wild will not have the faceoff specialist for the foreseeable future.

“I know he’s going to be out for a while. I believe that he’s getting ready to see doctors. I think it’s later today or tomorrow,” Hynes said on Wednesday afternoon. “So, I’ll probably have more information for you then. But I would anticipate him being out for a significant amount of time.”

The Wild are already without veteran winger Mats Zuccarello, expected to miss 7-8 weeks because of a lower body injury.

In the near term, Sturm’s absence means a more youthful look on the fourth line, with veteran Vinnie Hinostroza on one wing, relatively untested Liam Ohgren — who has 28 NHL games on his resume — on the other, and likely Hunter Haight, 21, or possibly Danila Yurov, 21, making his NHL debut at center.

“There’s lots of games coming, so we’ll just get to the lineup that we feel most comfortable with and gives us the best chance to win against St. Louis,” Hynes said, noting the Wild will look to experienced centers such as Hartman to pick up some of Sturm’s faceoff and penalty-killing roles.

“As long as he’s out, I’ve got to be good in the faceoff dot and be reliable,” said Hartman. “I’m excited to get going.”

Sturm, 30, signed a two-year, $4 million contract with Minnesota for his second stint in a Wild uniform over the summer after winning the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers last season. After playing college hockey at Clarkson, the German made his NHL debut with Minnesota in 2019 and played more than 100 games in a Wild uniform before a March 2022 trade to Colorado, where he won his first Stanley Cup.

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8 Oct 2025

A Brazilian Carpenter’s 51-Day Detention Journey from Vermont to Texas

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Editor’s Note: This story was produced by Agência Pública (Brazil). You can read the original version here.

It was late afternoon on June 17 in Newport, Vermont, when six Brazilian carpenters left the house where they were working on a renovation. On the horizon, eight patrol cars appeared at high speed and suddenly stopped near the workers. Dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents got out and ordered the group to lie on the ground. “They stepped on our heads, handcuffed us, and took us to the station. And we didn’t know why we were being arrested,” said Salomão Castelo Branco Borges, 21, one of those detained.

With his head against the floor, Borges asked why he was being arrested, but he received no response. The young Brazilian feared making any movement that could cause further aggression. “We were scared, because they could shoot us or use a Taser. That’s how it works there: If you make any sudden move, they can shoot,” he told Agência Pública.

“On the first day, I thought they had picked me up by mistake. … I didn’t know what kind of situation I was getting into,” he said. Borges only learned 24 hours later, at the Newport police station, that the reason for his arrest was having an expired visa. He’d had a student visa and was applying for a green card.

In the 24 hours at the station, he and his co-workers were crammed into a cell, exhausted from lying on the cold floor, without food, water, showers, or even a toilet, and allowed only a single two-minute phone call. “Mom, I was arrested, but I should be out tomorrow,” was all Salomão Borges could share. At that point, he didn’t have enough information to say more.

From then on, the young Brazilian went through a 51-day ordeal under custody, passing through minimum to maximum-security prisons and an immigrant detention center in Port Isabel where, according to him, food and water were rationed and there was never a word on when he might be reunited with his family.

By early June, more than 200,000 people had been deported from the United States since President Donald Trump took office and another 60,000 were in immigrant detention. At least 1,800 Brazilians were arrested by ICE in that time, according to a Pública analysis on ICE data as of July 31. In Texas, ICE detained 32. Massachusetts is the state with the highest number of detentions in the period at 864. 

The day after the arrest, Borges and five other Brazilians were shackled at the wrists, ankles, and waist by ICE agents and then transferred to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility in Vermont, where they spent 14 days. This was just one of the nine detention centers the young man would pass through over the course of 51 days.

Borges described the CBP facility as “calm,” since the space was shared with 50 people who had committed minor offenses. Later, ICE transferred the group of carpenters to a maximum-security prison in Berlin, New Hampshire, where there were more than 300 inmates serving sentences for various crimes such as robbery, rape, and homicide.

“That’s where the terror happened. I saw a lot of fights—including one guy just a few feet away from me, slashing another man’s face with a razor blade,” he recalled. “We couldn’t sleep out of fear.”

The cell was small and rectangular, with two beds and a tiny window letting in some light. Borges and another Brazilian man spent an average of 16 hours confined in that space. According to Borges, meals were served at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 4 p.m., but they didn’t always include protein. “In the morning, it was always oatmeal. For lunch and dinner, we had vegetables and soup. Every now and then, they would send a piece of chicken,” he said.

To try to provide Borges with more decent food, his family sent money to the places where he was held, hoping that the staff would use it to buy food. However, due to the constant transfers he was subjected to, the food never reached him. Beyond food, even the little contact he could have with his family came at a cost: $2 per call, $6 per video, and 25 cents per text message.

“Being conservative, we spent about $10,000. The lawyer alone cost $4,000. [Also] we needed to pay to talk to my son, and many times we had to send money so he could try to eat somehow, because the prison food was scarce, of terrible quality, and insufficient,” said Edlaine Távora, Borges’s mother.

Larissa Salvador, a Brazilian lawyer and immigration specialist in the United States, explained that ICE has been placing immigrants in maximum-security prisons due to the high number of arrests. “They can’t keep up. They can’t deport people fast enough, nor get them in front of a judge quickly enough for the system to work,” she said.

The private prisons where the Brazilian was held have become an increasingly common facility in the States, since they are “a profitable business, being listed on the stock exchange,” said Alvaro Lima, founder of Boston-based Diáspora Brasil Institute, which studies the immigration of Brazilians. “There’s a business inside prison: The family sends money to buy more food, clothing, and water,” said Lima. “But if the family doesn’t have money, they [private prisons] came up with something ‘extraordinary:’ You can work for one dollar a day to get access to those things.”

While he was imprisoned in Berlin, Borges went through a hearing, and the judge said that if he bought his own plane ticket, he could leave prison and the country. Friends and family raised $800, which would be enough to cover a flight from Boston to Brazil.

“I bought my ticket, but they didn’t take me to the airport. They didn’t keep their word, because they said it was a ‘waste of time’ and that it was ‘out of their way,’” Borges said about the agents.

During this period, at a new hearing, he volunteered to leave the country rather than continue waiting for the outcome of his asylum request. According to his mother, Edlaine Távora, the hearing took place when Borges had completed a month in detention, and the federal prosecutor said that his case was an expedited removal. “The judge said: ‘Salomão, you have the right to appeal,’ to which he replied: ‘I don’t want to’. He requested voluntary departure,” his mother recounted.

After the hearing, the Brazilian man said he was moved through three different police stations in Massachusetts before being transferred to Texas, where he served the remainder of his detention.

According to Lima, the constant prison transfers happen in a “malicious” way to weaken immigrants’ ties, leaving them far from communities, lawyers, and even their own families. “[ICE] arrests you in Massachusetts, for example, where judges are more liberal, then they send you to Texas or to places where prisons are harsher, and judges think if someone should be deported, they deport them,” Lima explained.

Borges’ last prison transfer in the United States happened at the end of July, when the Brazilian was placed on a flight from Boston to Houston, where he would serve the final part of his detention before returning to Brazil.

Before being transferred to the immigrant detention center in Port Isabel, he passed through two more jails. “For ten days, I was only eating bread, bologna, and cheese. Morning, afternoon, and night. Nothing else,” Borges said.

The rationing extended even to water, as immigrants were only entitled to about 800 milliliters per day, he said, below the recommended 3.7 liters of fluid per day according to the U.S. Institute of Medicine. “You couldn’t brush your teeth or change clothes. You couldn’t do anything,” he recounted.

Rectangular, cold, and empty, the space was nicknamed “the fridge” by Borges and his colleagues. To shelter from the cold, immigrants were given thin thermal blankets, which were not enough to warm their bodies. “No bed, only a toilet, and no food,” Borges described.

By that stage of his detention, he was accompanied by only three of the other five Brazilians arrested with him in Newport. One managed to obtain asylum, he said, and another had been transferred early on. The rest boarded the same flight that brought Borges back to Brazil.

Borges, his parents, and his two younger brothers aimed to live the “American Dream,” but for the family, the experience turned into a nightmare, which he described as “humiliating” and “traumatic” in Trump’s America.

“When I close my eyes, I see the image of what I went through there: the jail and the darkness of the cells. Then I wake up scared, thinking I might have to go through all of that again,” the young man recounted.

Borges returned to Brazil on August 7, on a U.S. Air Force flight carrying deportees of various nationalities. The plane departed from Houston, made two other stops, and finally reached Belo Horizonte, the capital of the southwestern state of Minas Gerais, a 24-hour journey without food or water, he said.

Larissa Salvador explained that staying in the country with an expired visa or using a type of visa other than a residency visa to settle in the United States is not considered a criminal offense but is subject to penalties, and ICE agents are instructed to carry out detentions—but the way it has been happening is “questionable.

“The person just overstayed their visa. You don’t need to treat them as if they had killed your father, brother, uncle, and little puppies. Because many arrests have been carried out like that,” the lawyer said.

In an official statement, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that “The Consulate General of Brazil in Boston provided consular assistance to the Brazilian national detained in Vermont and to his family,” referring to Borges’ case.

The statement also said that “The Brazilian government has made continuous efforts to ensure fair, dignified, and humane treatment for all Brazilians in custody in the United States. These efforts include guarantees of dignified treatment on U.S. soil, adequate conditions during repatriation flights—such as using shorter air routes, the presence of a Brazilian consular officer during boarding, and the non-use of handcuffs on Brazilian territory, among other measures.”

ICE did not respond to an Agência Pública request for comment for this story.

The post A Brazilian Carpenter’s 51-Day Detention Journey from Vermont to Texas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

8 Oct 2025

Last of the 10 New Orleans jail escapees from May is captured in Georgia, authorities say

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By JEFF MARTIN and JACK BROOK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — The only escaped Louisiana inmate who remained on the run following an audacious May jailbreak in which 10 men crawled through a hole behind a toilet has been found in Atlanta, the U.S. Marshals said Wednesday.

Derrick Groves was taken into custody in a house after evading authorities for nearly five months, Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair confirmed. Sgt. Kate Stegall, a spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police, also said Groves was in custody after a brief standoff.

Groves, 28, had been convicted of murder and was facing a possible life sentence before the jailbreak. He had the most violent criminal record of the escapees and authorities had offered a $50,000 reward for tips that lead to his recapture.

“He was hiding in a crawl space,” Fair said. “It appears he was the only one in this house and he was hidden pretty well.”

No one else was arrested, Fair said. Groves was arrested by the U.S. Marshals southeast regional fugitive task force and Atlanta Police Department SWAT team, Fair said.

The other nine escapees had been recaptured within six weeks of breaking out of the New Orleans jail on May 16, and most were found still in Louisiana.

This photo provided by John Hall Thomas shows Derrick Groves in New Orleans on Oct. 24, 2019 during a court appearance related to a 2018 shooting that killed two people and injured others. (John Hall Thomas via AP)

Last escapee’s mother reacts to his capture

“I’m all messed up, I’m just trying to talk to him,” Groves’ mother, Stephanie Groves, told The Associated Press. “I’m just seeing it on the internet, I woke up to it on the internet.”

Holding back tears, she said she was concerned for her son’s safety and has wanted him to surrender peacefully. She said she does not know why he went to Atlanta and has not been in contact with him after he escaped. Her family has been followed and surveilled by law enforcement, she said.

“It’s just been a mess,” she said. “I’m just glad it’s over with.”

“Of course he was going to get caught,” she added.

FILE – This undated handout photo shows Derrick D. Groves, one of the inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail on May 16, 2025. (Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

The escape in New Orleans

Groves and the nine other men yanked open a faulty cell door inside the New Orleans jail, squeezed through a hole behind a toilet, scaled a barbed-wire fence and fled into the coverage of darkness. With 10 men on the lam, it was one of the largest jailbreaks in recent U.S. history.

The inmates’ absence wasn’t discovered until a morning headcount, hours after they bolted for freedom. At the scene of the crime, the cell where the men removed a toilet to sneak through a hole, they left a message. On the cell wall they drew an arrow, pointing at the gap they slipped through — above it was a graffitied message: “To Easy LoL.”

City and state officials have pointed to multiple security lapses in the jail, including ineffective cell locks and the assertion that the inmates got out when the lone guard monitoring them went to get food. But authorities remain adamant that the men also had likely had help and that the escape may have been an inside job.

A maintenance worker at the jail was arrested for allegedly helping the incarcerated men escape, by turning off the water to the toilet where a hole was cut behind for the fugitives to sneak out of. The man has denied knowingly aiding them via his lawyer, who says he was just unclogging a toilet. Another former jail employee, identified by authorities as Groves’ girlfriend, is accused of helping coordinate the escape.

Search for the fugitives

Hundreds of law enforcement officers scoured the city for the fugitives and leveraged phone records and hundreds of tips to track some of them down quickly.

At least 16 people, many of them friends and family of the escapees, have been accused of aiding the fugitives before or after the jailbreak and were arrested on felony charges. Court documents allege that those people provided food, cash, transport and shelter.

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One fugitive allegedly hid out in a vacant home which his friend had been hired to repaint and was captured in Baton Rouge, more than 80 miles (129 kilometers) from New Orleans. Two others were caught after a high-speed car chase in Walker County, Texas. But most of the fugitives were found inside Orleans Parish city limits.

Antoine Massey, one of the last fugitives to be recaptured, allegedly posted photos and videos on social media while on the run.

Many of the men on the lam were originally in the New Orleans jail, awaiting sentences or trials, for alleged violent crimes including murder. Groves, the last escapee to be recaptured, had been convicted of second-degree murder in 2024 for opening fire on a family block party, killing two people and injuring others. He faces life imprisonment without parole.

Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, who has largely blamed the breakout on ailing infrastructure at the jail, has faced widespread criticism from state and local officials over her handling of the escape and management of the jail.

Escapees face additional charges

The nine other men accused of breaking out of the city jail pleaded not guilty to escape charges in July, appearing via video call from the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

“Everyone is entitled to due process. But there’s a video of these detainees running out of the jail in the middle of the night. They were not heading to court hearings,” state Attorney General Liz Murrill said. “We will continue to hold everyone accountable for the escape.”

All 10 men are charged with simple escape, which is tacked on top of previous criminal counts that initially landed them in jail, according to Murrill’s office. The escape charge carries a sentence of two to five years in prison.

Groves’ attorney was present for the arraignment but did not enter a plea on his behalf, reported The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune.

Brook reported from New Orleans.