President Trump’s refusal to release $205 million in Department of Transportation funding has brought New York’s $16 billion Gateway Tunnel overhaul to an abrupt halt, much to Governor Kathy Hochul’s chagrin. With 1,000 workers idled and commuters’ …
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, has unveiled a raft of executive actions and legal tweaks—candied as the “Let Them Build” plan—to loosen the State Environmental Quality Review Act’s grip on new building projects. She claims outdated bureaucracy can add $82,000 per unit and up to 56% in time, spurring a housing squeeze; if only paperwork could be repurposed as affordable homes.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is off to Albany, “tin cup” in hand, seeking relief for New York City’s $12 billion shortfall—a situation he attributes to his predecessor Eric Adams and state parsimony. Despite pleas for tax hikes on the affluent and ambitious plans for universal child care, Governor Kathy Hochul remains cool on revenue-raising, leaving Mamdani well-practiced in passing hats, if not budgets, for now.
Mount Sinai and Montefiore nurses in New York reached tentative deals to end a nearly month-long strike, with voting on the contracts—boasting 12% raises over three years and fresh staffing and AI safeguards—expected to conclude by Wednesday, say union and hospital sources. Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian are still wrangling. Hospitals claim continuity of care, though the $10,000-a-week temp nurses may miss the picket-line camaraderie.
National Grid’s latest tally shows New Yorkers cranking up record amounts of gas to fend off an unrelenting cold snap, yet most ire is aimed not at the weather, but at mysterious “delivery” fees now dwarfing actual consumption costs—sometimes topping two-thirds of bills. While the Public Service Commission approves these rates, clarity and warmth both seem in short supply, unless you count the heat of customer complaints.
Eighteen New Yorkers perished in a bitter cold snap, a grim milestone now prompting the City Council’s first public grilling of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s infant administration. With the social services chief, Molly Wasow Park, resigning and council members sparring over policies on homeless encampments and shelter protocols, we brace for much wrangling—and wonder if city hall’s learning curve can outpace winter’s next freeze.
America’s 2025 tax tweaks burst onto the scene with a bouquet of new deductions and credits—seniors may shave off up to $6,000, families gain a Child Tax Credit sweetened to $2,200, auto-loan interest becomes friendlier if the car’s made in the USA, and tipped workers can shield hefty amounts, at least until 2028. We suspect the IRS’s forms may now require their own deduction—for confusion.
New Yorkers set fresh records for natural gas consumption during the latest deep freeze, with National Grid logging eight of its ten busiest days ever between January 23rd and February 7th, mostly on Long Island and the Rockaways. Con Edison, serving over a million, tallied its own top-three mark—and raised rates—while officials dolled out energy-saving tips as consolation prizes. The state’s gas phase-out remains on ice until 2027.
Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian, part of nearly 15,000 New York strikers, are now voting on a contract that their own union committee rejected, after a month on the picket line. The tentative deal offers a 12% raise over three years and some new hires, though not quite the numbers unionists aimed for—a reminder that in labour medicine, a dose of compromise is seldom side-effect free.
