Donald Trump announced that the US will slap 100% tariffs on Chinese goods from November 1st, citing Beijing’s “hostile” push for rare earth export controls—a move echoed by China’s threats to restrict exports on almost everything, even some product…
Eric Adams may have bowed out of New York’s mayoral race two weeks ago, but we’ve scarcely had time to miss him: between a eulogistic Harlem street renaming, a sudden fact-finding dash to Albania, and tart commentary from Public Advocate Jumaane Williams suggesting unfulfilled promise, the incumbent keeps the city guessing—and campaigning, perhaps, from a preferred seat: the aisle of a transatlantic flight.
Lenox Hill Hospital will lay off 31 ambulance workers and scrap three vehicles covering Upper Manhattan, blaming operational needs and bracing for federal cuts (the gloriously named One Big Beautiful Bill Act threatens to trim New York’s health budget by $8 billion annually). The city’s reliance on Fire Department ambulances will likely grow, though “efficiency” may now be measured in minutes—and creative rerouting.
Prompted by a Harlem Legionnaires’ outbreak that killed seven and sickened 114, New York’s City Council is mulling monthly testing and required summertime biocide treatments of cooling towers, where Legionella bacteria thrive. Inspections have lagged since Eric Adams became mayor, but the city is hiring more inspectors. If this proposed crackdown passes, landlords will be spritzing and scrubbing with newfound zeal, at least while regulators are watching.
Following a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem that hospitalized 90 and killed 7 this summer, New York’s City Council voted to make monthly testing of cooling towers mandatory, rather than once per quarter, with qualified professionals overseeing the job. The move, mirroring orders from Mayor Eric Adams, hopes to outpace both bacteria and negligence lawsuits—though broader protections for water systems remain, for now, on ice.
New York City’s Presbytery seeks permission to demolish the crumbling, 1890 West Park Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side, eyeing up to $30 million from its sale for a new social justice endowment. The transaction promises a philanthropic windfall—unless, of course, city landmarks commissioners, impassioned locals, or Mark Ruffalo put preservation above proceeds. In Manhattan, even faded grandeur can spark an encore.
Nearly five months after New York’s Department of Transportation barred cars from a lane of the 116-year-old Queensboro Bridge to create long-awaited separate paths for pedestrians and 8,500 daily cyclists, the city has yet to finish essential signage and markings—resulting in confusion that’s only slightly preferable to the old mêlée. Perhaps winter, which waits for no advocacy group, will spur bureaucratic paintbrushes into action.
A bill from Brooklyn’s Lincoln Restler would let New York City’s beleaguered restaurateurs—and, now, grocery stores and cafes—offer outdoor dining year-round, after pandemic-era rules shrank from 12,000 to under 2,000 permits amid new red tape and fees. As proposals float for more snow shovels and fewer rats, both council and mayor’s office aim to claim credit—proving good dining policy requires as many cooks as kitchens.
New York City braces for coastal flooding from Sunday noon through Monday evening, after the National Weather Service cautioned that tidal surges could push water up to 2.5 feet over sections of Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and Suffolk County. Travel disruptions and soggy basements loom, but, as ever, we await humanity’s heroic resistance to street canoeing and the perennial temptation to test one’s luck in borrowed galoshes.
