New York City in brief

The Gateway Development Commission announced it will halt construction on its $16 billion Hudson River rail tunnel if Washington persists in withholding funds, prompting the group to sue the Trump administration. The much-delayed project, crucial for the congested New York–New Jersey corridor, now finds itself stuck somewhere between legal filings and infrastructural gridlock—no easy place to catch a train, or political goodwill, these days.

New York’s housing agency fielded an unprecedented 80,000 no-heat complaints in January as icy weather tested the city’s aging boilers and landlord diligence alike; more than 30,000 calls came in a single week, and tenants like Nicole Gallan in Flatbush bundled up and braved 43-degree bedrooms, with electric heaters tripping the lights. City Hall pledged an “all-hands” response—though apparently not all wires were connected.

Nurses in New York, now four weeks into a strike, marched from Grand Central to Governor Kathy Hochul’s office calling for her to break the stalemate with Mount Sinai, NewYork–Presbyterian, and Montefiore. Hospitals have burned through over $100 million hiring travel nurses, while Hochul’s hands-off approach has drawn more boos than Bernie Sanders on the picket line—though, for now, patient beds remain as scarce as executive answers.

A clutch of Americans, many with relatives overseas, filed suit in Manhattan to halt the Trump administration’s ban on visa processing for 75 mostly nonwhite nations—Ghana, Jamaica, Ethiopia and more—arguing the policy rests on dubious claims that newcomers “extract wealth” via public benefits. The administration, standing by its “public charge” rationale, may soon find that half-closed doors rarely solve household problems.

Following last week’s police shooting of Jabez Chakraborty, a 22-year-old in mental distress now in critical condition, Mayor Zohran Mamdani again championed his campaign pledge to create New York’s Department of Community Safety—a proposed agency for mental health crises that still languishes in City Council review. A “co-response model” mixing police and specialists may move us from slogans to substance, should bureaucratic inertia not prove the toughest patient yet.