Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, announced plans to extend the Second Avenue subway into Harlem and modernize Jamaica Station in Queens, aiming to shave costs and time for an estimated 240,000 daily riders. The Metropolitan Transportation Authorit…
Zohran Mamdani, age 34 and Mayor as of January 1st, wasted no time, signing executive actions on housing within hours of his midnight swearing-in by Bernie Sanders—thereby marking both a generational shift and a progressive bow at City Hall. Tens of thousands braved frosty Manhattan streets for the ensuing inauguration, discovering that in New York, enthusiasm, like wind chill, knows few limits.
Nearly 15,000 nurses in New York City have kept up picket lines for a second day, after contract talks with Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals stalled; both sides are blaming the other for the gridlock. Officials including Governor Hochul fretted publicly about patient safety, yet negotiations remained as elusive as a well-staffed ward—proving, once again, that in medicine, cures often take longer than hoped.
Governor Kathy Hochul has rerouted New York’s perennial subway ambitions: instead of pushing the Q train from East Harlem down Second Avenue to Lower Manhattan, the MTA will now chart a $7.7 billion path west along 125th Street to Morningside Heights. The move promises new transfer points and long-awaited east-west links for Harlem, though for weary planners of a downtown line, hope appears stuck at trackside—possibly forever.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s fifth State of the State address returned to her perennial theme: affordability. Promising to ease housing costs by trimming environmental review rules, she also pledged more funding for childcare and heating assistance—though budget specifics are pending. With rivals flanking her and Mayor Zohran Mamdani cheering for child care billions, Hochul’s pitch manages optimism, buffered by the usual caveat: legislative approval and perhaps, this being Albany, a snowball’s chance.
New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is suing the Trump administration after federal officials halted construction on the Sunrise and Empire wind projects off Long Island, citing unspecified national security worries. Both developments had cleared a decade of reviews—and even Pentagon approval—which hasn’t stopped the White House from bristling at what it calls a “scam” industry. New Yorkers may need to brace for more hot air than wind, at least for now.
As nearly 14,000 nurses in Manhattan and the Bronx trade scrubs for picket signs, hospitals like Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian scramble: 1,400 temps fill a fraction of the gaps, elective procedures are shuffled, and ambulances circle for open beds. All insist New Yorkers can still get care—though, as ever, the city seems more adept at handling gridlock than resolving stand-offs.
Mount Sinai Hospital fired three labor and delivery nurses by voicemail the night before nearly 15,000 New York nurses launched the city's largest strike, citing sabotage of emergency drills—accusations the nurses call routine work gone misunderstood. With both hospital brass and the New York State Nurses Association dug in over staffing ratios and pay, negotiations remain frozen and tempers, unlike bed counts at Mount Sinai, are nowhere near capacity.
Wegmans’ embrace of facial recognition in its New York City outlets has stirred up the perennial tug-of-war between shoplifting prevention and consumer privacy, but the grocer is hardly alone—Macy’s, among others, cops to using the tech, while Target and CVS demur. With regulation in the city sketchy at best and most shoppers oblivious to the watchful cameras, the biggest crime may yet be committed by fine print.
