New York City in brief

Some 180,000 New Yorkers risk losing food stamps as new federal work rules come into force under Donald Trump’s domestic policy overhaul; city social workers are racing to help beneficiaries find employment or face losing their safety net. Adjusting to Washington’s shifting goalposts is rarely easy—especially when the only thing trickling down seems to be the paperwork.

The Trump administration’s proposed rule to bar families with undocumented members from subsidized public housing threatens thousands of mixed-status New Yorkers—posing a headache for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose NYCHA repair pledge now risks being drowned in eviction notices. With over half a million city dwellers relying on public housing and federal vouchers, we suspect the mayor’s silence may soon need more than a fresh coat of paint.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul this week unveiled an initial rollout of free child care seats for two-year-olds in four New York City boroughs—Staten Island, as ever, sits out—while Albany lawmakers rehearse their familiar skirmish over whether taxing the rich might somehow fund such largesse. Meanwhile, a Queens councilwoman’s social media antics keep the city’s ethics committee in regular employment.

After one of New York’s chilliest winters in years, energy bills have scaled new heights, with gas use breaking records in February and prices doubling since last year. Utility spokespeople at Con Edison and National Grid assure us the pain is simply a pass-through: higher commodity costs, not their fault, land squarely on customers—leaving everyone a bit more enlightened, and considerably less warm, about supply charges.

A New York appeals court has struck down a state law forbidding landlords from rejecting tenants who pay rent with federal Section 8 vouchers, ruling it unconstitutional—a setback for housing advocates who hoped Albany might narrow the city’s stubborn affordability gap by legal fiat. For now, landlords need no longer pretend rent-paying sources are none of their concern, at least within the vague bounds of “property rights.”