New York City in brief

A 339-mile underground cable soon will ferry Quebec’s hydropower to New York City, with the Champlain Hudson Power Express on track to deliver enough juice for a million homes this spring. The $6 billion wager aims to wean the city from fossil fuels—presumably without flooding anyone’s basement—or at least give Con Edison’s switchboard operators livelier small talk.

Letitia James, flanked by Senator Rachel May and food worker unions, is pitching Albany on the One Fair Price Package, targeting companies’ use of “surveillance pricing”—algorithms that subtly tailor prices to each shopper’s digital quirks. New York’s proposal would bar personalised pricing in grocery stores and pharmacies; we admire their faith that legislation can outpace the code-wielding merchants of Manhattan, at least for a New York minute.

Alarm is rising in New York as city leaders and anxious parents grapple with a ballooning income gap, fearing it could tighten the already selective gates to quality education. While efforts by the Department of Education to “level the playing field” are perennial, wallets still often outpace school reforms—reminding us that, for now, meritocracy remains more slogan than daily reality.

With the cost of living in New York City scaling heights more familiar to mountaineers than minimum-wage earners, labor leaders and officials have launched the “$30 for Our City” campaign, pressing for a $30 hourly floor through legislation. The coalition claims that current wages don’t stretch as far as they once did—even if our city’s famous slices and subway rides certainly do.

A federal judge in Massachusetts has put the brakes on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent overhaul of childhood vaccine guidance, ruling his changes flouted required legal protocols. The move suspends new advisor appointments and votes—including efforts to drop hepatitis B shots for newborns—leaving the advisory panel at a standstill. Some 200 medical groups have opted to stick with the previous vaccine schedule, rather than join the experimental revolution.