Work on the $16 billion Gateway tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan—a project meant to unclog America’s busiest rail corridor—will halt Friday, as a federal funding freeze instigated under Donald Trump persists. Local officials and the Gateway D…
New York prepares to grit its teeth as an arctic blast barrels through all five boroughs this weekend, bringing the city's coldest temperatures in three years and wind gusts up to 50 mph, according to Spectrum News. Authorities warn of subzero wind chills, potential power outages, and travel snags through Monday—though we can at least console ourselves that a thaw, like a subway train, is scheduled to arrive eventually.
With real-feel temperatures set to hit minus 20 in New York City this weekend, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered a flurry of cold-weather interventions: school nurses on outreach duty, 62 warming sites, and even violence interrupters pressed into meteorological service. Seventeen have already succumbed since January’s “code blue” began. We trust New Yorkers will judge the mayor’s “all hands on deck” approach slightly warmer than the forecast.
A New York City report found nearly 3,200 supportive apartments for the homeless—mostly state-run—sitting vacant, even as about 87,000 people crowded shelters and at least 17 died outdoors this winter. Officials and advocates urge streamlining red tape and fixing unused units, but bureaucratic inertia persists; apparently, even in America’s busiest city, paperwork still moves at glacial pace while people freeze.
President Trump has dispatched Eric Hamilton, a go-to legal fixer whose résumé bulges with administration pet projects, to spearhead a federal suit trying to squash New York’s congestion pricing—a $9 toll that funneled $562 million to the MTA last year. The legal wrangle has produced as much farce as progress, but with Hamilton in the ring, we suspect the White House won't be idling in neutral anytime soon.
New York City officials seemingly knew far more about post-9/11 air quality than they let on, as a newly released October 2001 memo from Kelly McKinney—then at the city’s Office of Emergency Management—reveals early recognition of health hazards around Ground Zero. We now have written proof bureaucracy moves faster than airborne toxins; it just prefers to keep its progress well under wraps.
Seventeen New Yorkers have died outdoors during the city’s recent cold snap; as sub-zero temperatures loom, advocates like The Legal Aid Society urge officials to expand shelter access and flood streets with outreach workers. City Hall has opened extra warming sites and placed over 1,250 people into shelters, but with trust in official help still thin on the ground, the forecast looks frostier than the weather.
As New York’s $12 billion budget hole gapes wider, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is poised to unveil a preliminary fiscal plan, with the underfunded CityFHEPS housing voucher program squarely in auditors’ sights. Christine Quinn of Win argues expanding these rent subsidies trims shelter costs in the long run—a maths lesson City Hall appears slow to absorb, though New Yorkers know quick fixes rarely come cheap.
At the city’s first Interfaith Breakfast, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York signed an executive order reaffirming its status as a sanctuary, pledging tighter data privacy and barring federal immigration officers from municipal properties without a warrant. The move also launches a multilingually ambitious “Know Your Rights” campaign, offering 32,000 leaflets—because in this town, a little paperwork can still go further than a uniformed agent.
