New York City in brief

Rolling out his $127 billion preliminary budget, Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered New Yorkers two fiscal painkillers: raise property taxes by 9.5% or target the city’s millionaires and big firms via higher income and business levies. Despite $1.77 billion in promised savings, state aid from Governor Hochul, and some creative reserve-tapping, we note a $5.4 billion gap recommends prudence—though not the ‘Rainy Day’ kind city hall prefers.

Representative Grace Meng of Queens brought New York’s Deputy Mayor for Health, Dr. Helen Arteaga, to the State of the Union in Washington, hoping proximity to power might reverse the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—Donald Trump’s $1 trillion Medicaid cut. As hundreds of rural hospitals and many Community Health Centers teeter, Senate Republicans are urged to revive critical ACA tax credits; optimistic New Yorkers, we sigh, rarely get a ‘beautiful’ health bill.

After a month-long freeze, work on the $16 billion Gateway Tunnel beneath the Hudson River—connecting New York and New Jersey—is set to resume this week, following a court order forcing Washington to release $235 million in withheld funds. Some 1,000 laid-off laborers are dusting off their shovels, though with $15 billion still unforthcoming, the commission’s enthusiasm may yet encounter another tunnel at the end of the light.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to lift property tax rates by 9.5%, part of a $127bn budget bid to patch a gaping deficit, may also mean steeper electricity and gas bills for residents, as utility giants like Con Edison tend to pass higher taxes straight to customers—a tradition as dependable as the city’s subway delays, if somewhat less enchanting.

A nor’easter turned New York City into a snow globe this week, burying LaGuardia Airport under more than 22 inches and prompting Mayor Zohran Mamdani to declare a state of emergency. With all but essential traffic banned and schools closed, the city hunkered down while winds whipped up to 55 mph—leaving us to dig out, grumble, and perhaps secretly treasure a snow day’s enforced pause.