After more than 150 staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency aired concerns about Lee Zeldin’s partisan leadership in a letter, the administrator responded with gusto—placing 144 on administrative leave for “undermining” his agenda. Under Zeldin, the agency has shed both pollution rules and scientific counsel, all while President Trump praises him as a “secret weapon.” Still, we find the agency’s new motto appears to be “don’t ask, don’t inhale.”
New York City in brief
Top five stories in the five boroughs today
America’s biggest food-aid scheme lost about 4.2 million recipients after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—despite its name, hardly a feast—tightened work rules and cut exemptions for groups including older adults, some legal immigrants, and the homeless. The Trump administration frames this as prudent belt-tightening, though data suggest beneficiaries are dropping off for paperwork reasons more than fresh job prospects. Hunger, it seems, is an unreliable job recruiter.
New York’s grand climate ambitions may singe wallets in Co-Op City, whose 50,000 Bronx residents face monthly maintenance charges leaping from $950 to $4,000 if state and city laws force the shutdown of their famously efficient natural-gas plant. Solar panels offer only a faint glimmer; a billion-dollar retrofit looms. Affordable housing, it seems, risks being priced out before it’s powered down.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is toying with postponing his executive budget, citing stalled talks with Governor Kathy Hochul, who herself is knee-deep in resolving Albany’s own budget—now more than 25 days overdue. Hochul has steered $1.5 billion citywards, but insists Mamdani trim further before handing over more. With seven budget extenders and counting, fiscal brinkmanship is the dish of the day.
New York’s Mayor Mamdani has named Elizabeth Adams, late of Transportation Alternatives, as the city’s inaugural “Senior Adviser for Fast and Free Buses”—a role with the unenviable task of delivering voters’ dream of quicker, fareless commutes. Smarter bus lanes and free rides could indeed open up Gotham, if Adams can conjure up the missing $1 billion and keep both Yankees fans and Albany on board.