NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill has fired the police officer accused of using a banned chokehold on Eric Garner in 2014, siding with the departmental trial judge who recommended termination earlier this month. O'Neill's decision, revealed early Monday afternoon, is final, closing the years-long book on embattled NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, whom a local grand jury and federal prosecuters all declined to criminally prosecute. Late last week, News 4 had reported that the number two official at the NYPD had accepted the judge's ruling that Pantaleo lose his job and handed the findings over to O'Neill. O'Neill said it was "clear that Daniel Pantaleo can no longer effectively serve as a New York City police officer." Get More

A strong majority, 74%, of U.S. business economists appear sufficiently concerned about the risks of some of President Donald Trump's economic policies that they expect a recession in the U.S. by the end of 2021. The economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics, in a report released Monday, mostly didn't share Trump's optimistic outlook for the economy, though they generally saw recession coming later than they did in a survey taken in February. Thirty-four percent of the economists surveyed said they believe a slowing economy will tip into recession in 2021. That's up from 25% in the February survey. Another 38% of those polled predicted that recession will occur next year, down slightly from 42% in February. Only 2% of those polled expect a recession to begin this year. Get More

A man says crew members on a SkyWest Airlines flight refused to allow his brother with autism to sit near a family member Friday and walked off the plane, forcing all 75 passengers to deplane and board another flight three hours later. Now, the crew, including the pilots, have been grounded while the airline investigates the incident, NBC News reports. Ayomide Isola, 23, was on SkyWest flight 3596 from Detroit to Houston with his mother, sister and 21-year-old brother, Tayo, who is nonverbal and unable to express himself. SkyWest is a connection carrier for Delta and other major airlines. SkyWest acknowledged the flight experienced a delay boarding "as a result of an issue regarding customer seat assignments," and said it was investigating the incident. "We are committed to providing exceptional onboard service to all of our customers and are working with our partner Delta to reach out to the customers," a spokeswoman said. Delta said in a statement Monday that it was reviewing the details of the incident to "better understand what happened." Get More at NBC News

Two years after the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, the battle to remove a Confederate statue in downtown D.C. has been renewed. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton reintroduced a bill to remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike near Judiciary Square on July 30. “[Gen. Albert Pike] was a Confederate general who served dishonorably and was forced to resign in disgrace,” Norton said in a statement. Get More

The U.S. military has conducted a flight test of a type of missile banned for more than 30 years by a treaty that both the United States and Russia abandoned this month, the Pentagon said. The test off the coast of California on Sunday marked the resumption of an arms competition that some analysts worry could increase U.S.-Russian tensions. The Trump administration has said it remains interested in useful arms control but questions Moscow's willingness to adhere to its treaty commitments. The Pentagon said it tested a modified ground-launched version of a Navy Tomahawk cruise missile, which was launched from San Nicolas Island and accurately struck its target after flying more than 310 miles. The missile was armed with a conventional, not nuclear, warhead. Get More

The average American household will be down $1,000 per year thanks to the newest round of tariffs on Chinese goods, according to J.P. Morgan. The firm estimates the average annual tariff cost per household will increase from $600 from the first two rounds of tariffs. The new tariffs are scheduled to begin Sept. 1 and in mid-December. “What distinguishes China Phase III tariffs from preceding tariffs is the impact to Consumption and Capital goods whereas previous tariffs focused more on Intermediate goods,” J.P. Morgan head of U.S. equity strategy Dubravko Lakos-Bujas said in a note to clients. “This suggests that the expected consumer impact should be larger in the latest round.” Get More

Twitter said Monday it has suspended more than 200,000 accounts that it believes were part of a Chinese government influence campaign targeting the protest movement in Hong Kong. The company also said it will ban ads from state-backed media companies, expanding a prohibition it first applied in 2017 to two Russian entities. Both measures are part of what a senior company official portrayed in an interview as a broader effort by Twitter to curb malicious political activity on a popular platform that has been criticized for enabling election interference in the U.S. and around the world and for accepting funds for ads that amount to propaganda by state-run media organizations. Get More

Authorities are searching for a man who was caught on camera swinging a sword at another man during a dispute over a trash pile in Florida. Broward Sheriff's Office officials on Monday released video of the July 15 incident in the hopes of finding the sword-swinging man and a woman who was also seen in the footage. Get More

As Afghanistan mourned the 63 people killed in a suicide bombing at a Kabul wedding , a brother of the groom spoke through tears of his weariness at the bloodshed in the country and the crushing guilt he felt at having to face his neighbors, many of whom lost relatives in the weekend blast. "Around 20 victims' families live in our very neighborhood," said 22-year-old Ramin, whose brother, Mirwais Alami, survived along with his bride, Raihana. "We don't know how we should look at them," said Ramin, who like many Afghans uses only one name. "Maybe they don't want us, or like us, anymore." Get More

Lawyers for a Maryland man whose murder conviction was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial" are asking the Supreme Court to step into the case. Lawyers for defendant Adnan Syed say in court papers Monday that the justices should order a new trial for Syed and reverse a Maryland court ruling against him. Syed claims his trial lawyer violated his constitutional right to competent representation because she failed to investigate an alibi witness. Syed is serving a life sentence after he was convicted in 2000 of strangling 17-year-old Hae Min Lee and burying her body in a Baltimore park. Syed and Lee were high-school classmates who had dated. Get More