U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage rates rose to 6.37% in late May, nudging the average monthly payment for a typical $403,400 home up by $350 compared to two years ago, according to Freddie Mac and the National Association of Realtors. With inflation, pri…
Governor Kathy Hochul has announced agreement on New York’s state budget, although key details remain as foggy as the city’s skyline—five weeks after the deadline. Lawmakers now face open questions on bail reform, housing, and taxes, while City Hall’s calculators hum in anticipation. Once again, "agreement" in Albany seems to mean everyone can finally go back to disagreeing in smaller rooms.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is suspending the 7 train between Queens and Manhattan over two May weekends to tackle overdue maintenance and bolster flood defenses in the Steinway tunnel. Commuters are urged to brace for detours, as improvements aim to keep the ageing line limpingly competitive. We assume Queens will muddle through—possibly more festively—while the trains get their tune-up.
In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered both city and state probes after Bellevue Hospital released Rhamell Burke hours before police allege he fatally shoved Ross Falzone, 76, in a Chelsea subway. Officials promise a “root cause analysis” of Bellevue’s psychiatric intake protocols, which the hospital insists are above reproach—a confidence that, if met, might yet outpace the city’s famously glacial escalators.
During a Friday inspection at Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza, Congressmen Dan Goldman and Pete Aguilar observed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest four immigrants—three men and a woman—immediately after their scheduled appointments, including one as she exited an asylum hearing. Despite regular vows of procedural fairness, the dynamic at this Midtown landmark currently offers little comfort beyond the improved quality of its detention cell tap water.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered NYC Health + Hospitals to investigate Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric discharge policies after Rhamell Burke, released from its ward just hours earlier, allegedly killed 76-year-old Ross Falzone in Chelsea. Burke had spent barely an hour under evaluation before his release; the subsequent fatal subway assault suggests that New York’s robust safety net might currently be missing a few critical stitches.
Health officials in New York have noted a fresh bout of measles, with cases confirmed in both Manhattan and Nassau County—neither patient vaccinated, each freshly returned from international travel. While robust local coverage keeps a wider outbreak at bay, the Center for Disease Control points an unamused finger at under-vaccination and globetrotting as the culprits—proof that old viruses, like bad habits, travel well and die hard.
The MTA and Columbia University have shaken hands on a deal to install elevators at the 125th Street 1 train station in West Harlem, finally making the 121-year-old structure accessible to wheelchair users and others encumbered by gravity. Columbia will chip in $33 million towards the street-to-mezzanine lift and wider escalators; New York’s chronically vertical subway is, by increments, beginning to yield to the present century.
A Manhattan judge has delayed a decision on New York City’s push to shift its homeless intake center to 8 East 3rd St., after community group V.O.I.C.E. sued over safety and procedural concerns. Arguments will now wait until May 28 while City Hall provides more paperwork—leaving officials, and the area’s homeless population, subject for now to the less-than-sterling hospitality of the dilapidated Bellevue site.
