Emails released by the Empire Center reveal New York health officials met with Public Partnerships—winner of a lucrative home care contract—weeks before formally soliciting bids, muddying Health Commissioner James McDonald’s sworn denials of early t…
New York’s “Rental Ripoff” hearings landed in Queens, as officials under Mayor Zohran Mamdani braced for another airing of tenants’ grievances—broken boilers, leaking pipes, and the odd absent landlord. Over 200 residents turned up in Brooklyn last week, and with sessions now packed to the rafters, renters are encouraged to file complaints online. Apparently, misery does love a digital company—even in the city that never sleeps.
New York governor Kathy Hochul has parked plans to unleash driverless taxis until lawmakers agree on reforms to lower car insurance costs—two unrelated wheels now locked in a political roundabout. The insurance overhaul, pitched as relief for beleaguered drivers, must apparently share a ride with robotaxis, a pairing that proves legislative horse-trading in Albany rarely travels in straight lines, let alone without a human at the wheel.
The latest $50 million slice of New York’s Community Parks Initiative will, Mayor Zohran Mamdani assures us, refurbish ten under-loved playgrounds—among them Queens' Corona Health Sanctuary and several specimens in the Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn—by 2027. Ostensibly, 100,000 New Yorkers should reap a “healthier, cleaner and more accessible city”, although children may remain indifferent to equity metrics as long as swings remain swingable.
Ruth Marcus revisits the 1793 spat between George Washington and Congress over war powers, with Hamilton thumping for vigorous executive discretion and Madison fretting about giving one “ordinary” person too much say in peace and war. Fast forward to President Trump’s tangle with Iran: evidently, the Founders anticipated that presidents might find military temptation hard to resist, particularly when laurels and political plumage are on offer.
Once scorned by tired travelers and late-night comedians, LaGuardia Airport has now clinched the top spot in North America’s “best in class” airport rankings for a third straight year, according to the Airport Service Quality survey of over 30 million 2025 passengers. New York’s Port Authority credits a decade of renovations and some heavy lifting by its partners—proof, perhaps, that miracles occasionally land in Queens, too.
The Trump administration’s $129.3 million warehouse buy in Roxbury Township, New Jersey, with plans for a vast immigration detention site, has united Democrats and Republicans in rare local harmony—if only in their dismay. Candidates in the state’s 7th Congressional District now tiptoe between calls to reform or abolish ICE, proving that even in swing districts, “abolish” can be the word that must not be spoken.
The Queens Economic Development Corporation, abetted by Empire State Development, is relaunching its free, 12-week Prime Skills course at Greater Nexus, Jamaica, from March 19th. Open to anyone over 17 (ideally Southeast Queens locals), the sessions offer budding entrepreneurs business basics, one-on-one coaching, and a $100 stipend for sticking to the syllabus—practical incentives so strong we wonder if MBA tuition could face a reckoning.
New York City Council’s ethics committee has charged Councilwoman Vickie Paladino with disorderly behavior after she posted Islamophobic remarks on X targeting Faiza N. Ali, Brooklyn-born chief immigration officer. Paladino, unbowed, insists her comments are constitutionally protected and calls the charges an “unconstitutional scheme,” but must now answer to a nine-member panel—not the first time Twitter fingers have invited real-world scrutiny.
