Donald Trump’s White House has sent Eric Hamilton, its trusted courtroom brawler, to shore up efforts to quash New York’s $9 congestion toll, which continues to bankroll Metropolitan Transportation Authority upgrades despite presidential pronounceme…
After New York’s coldest start to winter in over a decade, residents are warned by Con Edison and National Grid to brace for a near-10% jump in energy bills, thanks to sky-high gas demand and reliance on pricey, shrinking fossil fuel capacity. With nuclear plants like Indian Point gone and new generation slow to surface, we may warm ourselves with the knowledge that sticker shock does, eventually, wear off.
New York City’s first snowy trial under Mayor Mamdani left sidewalks resembling obstacle courses and sparked Council hearings after 17 cold-related deaths. With the Sanitation Department issuing just 85 violations from over 8,000 complaints, and agencies tripping over jurisdictional lines, we’re left to ponder whether the world’s “greatest city” can remember where it left its shovel—or at least agree whose turn it is to use it.
As New York City girds for a weekend where wind chills may scrape minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, officials released details on five recent storm deaths—each caused by hypothermia between January 24th and 26th, with alcohol or drugs contributing in most cases. While the mayor trumpets new warming centers and outreach, some city workers apparently missed the memo on where their own buses were parked—a frostbitten reminder that even rescue missions can get lost in the cold.
As New York shivered through its coldest night of winter, Mayor Zohran Mamdani hustled to boost warming centers—now ten across all five boroughs—and mobilized over 150 extra outreach workers to coax the vulnerable indoors. Despite this flurry of activity, hypothermia has claimed thirteen lives since the last cold snap, a grim measure of just how hard it is to outpace winter in the city that never sleeps.
New Yorkers are bracing for wind chills of minus 20°C as an Arctic front drifts in, prompting the National Weather Service to issue an extreme cold warning and Governor Kathy Hochul to strike a rare note of meteorological drama. With 17 outdoor deaths reported citywide in recent weeks and ferry services frozen out, we suspect even the hardiest urbanites may rediscover the joys of central heating—assuming their landlords oblige.
As a cold snap chilled New York, Rep. Dan Goldman introduced a bill to channel up to $225 million in federal emergency grants annually to the New York City Housing Authority, aiming to fix its infamously fickle boilers. By broadening “security” to include heat, the measure could hand NYCHA—the nation’s largest public landlord—its warmest legislative embrace in years, if Washington’s purse strings thaw before the pipes do.
Governor Kathy Hochul has split New York’s climate advocates with her plan to exempt certain housing projects from the State Environmental Quality Review Act, a law revered—and reviled—since 1975. While groups like the New York League of Conservation Voters cheer streamlined approvals near transit, others warn of developers wielding machetes, not scalpels, through cherished protections. We suspect affordable housing, not crystal-clear consensus, is what’s in short supply.
As the Northeast shivers through another bout of record-smashing cold—a collaboration between icy gusts and plummeting thermometers—forecasters from the National Weather Service promise warming soon, though presumably not soon enough for those counting their frozen pipes. We might trust in the upcoming thaw, but for now, the only thing moving faster than the wind is demand for woollen socks.
