Christopher Werth

In a pair of lawsuits filed on Thursday, the online platform and two hosts have asked the State Supreme Court in Manhattan to block the city from implementing a new law that, they claim, will “all but eliminate the short-term rental market in New York City.”

A raft of City Council bills would strengthen enforcement of existing laws that require landlords to inspect for deteriorating lead paint and conduct abatement work.

The city passed a mandatory inspection law in 2021, two years before a parking garage collapsed in lower Manhattan. It won’t take full effect until the end of 2027.

A Lower Manhattan parking garage partially collapsed on Tuesday afternoon, officials said, killing one person and injuring several others.

According to campaign finance records, the family that owns and operates SLSCO, a Galveston-based company hired by the city to provide services to asylum seekers at emergency response centers, has given generously to governors in Texas and Florida. The Council's immigration committee chair is calling on the city to “ditch” the company.

The company that sold 160,000 air purifiers to the Department of Education benefited from a lobbying campaign that reached high into the upper ranks of City Hall.

The education department said the company that sold the air purifiers to the city – Delos Living – has an exclusive contract to distribute the costly filters. The high price tag comes as schools face hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to spending by the Adams administration.

Hours after suspending principals’ ability to use the NYC Department of Education online tool for hiring staff and managing their school budgets, the mayor’s office said it would restore their access.

The move – expected to cause disruption for school principals – is in response to a temporary restraining order, issued by a judge last week.

The decision is in response to a lawsuit filed by parents and teachers hoping to roll back an estimated $370 million in cuts to public school budgets for the coming school year. The case will move to a hearing scheduled for August 4th.

Sources close to the negotiations say the deal has stalled due to a demand from the mayor's office that the council agree to future cuts to school budgets.

New numbers released Wednesday show the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated allegations of police misconduct in just 27% of the total number of complaints arising from the 2020 racial-justice protests in New York City.