The Trump administration, showing a peculiar fondness for surprise, will now force New York’s counties to implement stricter SNAP work requirements by November, not March, risking abrupt benefit losses for hundreds of thousands. This abrupt timeline…
Two New York City Council committees have unanimously greenlit the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan, an ambitious rezoning scheme to upzone 230 blocks of Queens that would allow roughly 11,800 new homes—over a third deemed permanently affordable—and 7,000 jobs, with $413 million earmarked for infrastructure. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams hails it as a generational leap; now for the full Council to remember which way is up on October 29th.
New York’s City Council committees have unanimously advanced the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan, pledging to rezone over 300 blocks of southeast Queens and, on paper, deliver nearly 12,000 new homes—about a third of them “permanently affordable”—plus $413 million in infrastructure and public space upgrades. The 15-year blueprint promises 7,000 new jobs and the city’s largest ever Inclusionary Housing zone; true to form, completion will be fashionably late.
Donald Trump announced that the US will slap 100% tariffs on Chinese goods from November 1st, citing Beijing’s “hostile” push for rare earth export controls—a move echoed by China’s threats to restrict exports on almost everything, even some products it doesn’t produce. Stocks promptly tumbled over 3%, and a planned Trump-Xi summit is off; for now, it’s tariffs, not handshakes, that are in fashion.
As New York’s mayoral election looms, front-runner Zohran Mamdani’s plan to shift non-violent mental health calls from police to clinicians is winning over residents—even in neighborhoods once solidly behind Eric Adams’s law-and-order mantra. Most locals Gothamist interviewed now favor fewer blue lights and more social workers, though funding hinges on Albany’s blessing; as ever, the city’s crises demand both ambition and a hardy sense of déjà vu.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on two counts of mortgage fraud, alleging she misrepresented her intent to occupy a Virginia home she bought in 2020—a curious turn for the Democrat who famously won a 2023 fraud case against Donald Trump. James, denying wrongdoing, called the charges politically motivated, though the Department of Justice now seems to run more on loyalty points than legal precedent.
Letitia James, New York’s attorney-general and perennial thorn in Donald Trump’s side, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia for alleged mortgage fraud involving a $137,000 loan on a purported second home in 2020. James calls the charges political retribution; supporters see weaponisation of justice. Whether all this is about $19,000 or more about settling old scores, lawyers—and headline writers—are sharpening their pens.
Donald Trump, in characteristic form, unveiled plans for sweeping federal layoffs “oriented toward Democrats” as America’s government shutdown crept past its tenth day; the White House frames this as fiscal pressure, though critics see pure partisanship. With Congress deadlocked over funding and health subsidies, thousands of public workers now ponder both their paychecks and which side, if any, will blink first—with job security clearly in short supply.
After Rochester Gas & Electric and New York State Electric & Gas floated plans to hike electricity rates by up to 26% and gas by 22.2%, over a million New Yorkers may find themselves $600 a year poorer but inheritors of a modernized grid. The firms, Avangrid subsidiaries, tout job creation and animal-friendly upgrades—though consumers might feel more squirrelly about fatter returns for utilities than safer squirrels.
