A federal appeals court let stand Judge Jeannette Vargas’s order that the Trump administration must release over $200 million to the Gateway Tunnel project—New York and New Jersey’s effort to refresh a rusting Hudson River rail link—after months of withheld funds froze construction and sparked a lawsuit. The Gateway Development Commission hailed the “positive step,” while Washington’s silence suggests the money may talk before the lawyers do.
New York City in brief
Top five stories in the five boroughs today
After nearly a month on strike, the New York State Nurses Association says tentative contracts—including a 12% raise and new technology safeguards—are up for ratification among 15,000 nurses at New York City hospitals like Montefiore and Mount Sinai. If members approve, they could return to work imminently—proving once again that even hospital dramas prefer negotiated endings to cliffhangers.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani returned to Albany for the annual “Tin Cup” day budget hearing, pitching his trimmed-down “fast and free” bus plan—now a modest $600-700 million, down from $800 million—to skeptical state lawmakers, while also batting around ideas like G train weekend expansion. As for persuading Albany or Governor Hochul, we suspect the farebox isn’t the only tough nut to crack.
A New York City Council report found that even six-year-olds have been cuffed by police in public schools—the country’s largest education system—where metal detectors, daily searches, and uniformed NYPD staff remain fixtures. Advocates argue that fortifying school-based health centers rather than policing young miscreants could spare children from a pipeline to trouble; reform, it seems, sometimes starts with letting kids be kids.
Sam Levine, New York’s Consumer and Worker Protection chief, is making a name for himself—if not friends in Silicon Valley—by demanding delivery apps like Instacart pay the city’s 80,000 workers at least $21.44 an hour, enable customer tipping, and offer e-bike perks. More worker safeguards arrive in 2027. We suspect tech giants will now discover the city’s minimum-wage spirit is not just for Broadway musicals.