New York City in brief

Construction on the $16 billion Gateway tunnel beneath the Hudson River will resume next week, after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release $205 million in frozen funds. The project—America’s largest public works effort—had ground to a halt and briefly cost 1,000 jobs, but officials now hope to mend storm-battered tracks by 2035. Naming rights for Penn Station, thankfully, remain unsold—for now.

Zohran Mamdani, newly-minted mayor of New York City, has replaced five of nine members (and reappointed one) on the Rent Guidelines Board, installing allies like Chantella Mitchell as chair and tipping the balance on his pledge to “freeze the rent” for a million rent-stabilized tenants. Whether these fresh faces brave the city’s housing arithmetic or blink at landlord outcry may keep cocktails animated from Astoria to Wall Street.

Responding to a Trump administration order and threatened loss of $73 million in federal highway funds, New York has stopped issuing commercial driver licenses to many immigrants, leaving up to 200,000—mostly truckers and school bus drivers—at risk of job loss. As legal wrangling unfolds, the driver shortage tightens, and we wonder whether the only thing moving slower than city traffic will be the courts themselves.

After a federal judge forced the Trump administration to release $77 million in frozen funds for the $16 billion Gateway rail tunnel under the Hudson, construction remains in limbo, with officials promising that shovels will eventually hit soil. Workers await go-ahead, while President Trump dubs it a “future boondoggle,” and local governors ring his phone in hope—proving even infrastructure delays can be built on a foundation of political theatre.

Governor Kathy Hochul says she will restore an estimated $60 million annually in public health aid to New York City, unwinding former governor Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic-era cuts and easing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s $1.5 billion budget headache. The funds let the city resume essential services—vaccinations, disease control, and the like—without quite so much creative accounting. Now, if only pathogens respected budget revisions.