New York City officials and food pantry organizers say thousands of SNAP recipients are at risk of losing their benefits under President Trump’s sweeping tax cut measure. 

Republicans say the tax and spending package is meant to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse,” but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will primarily benefit the wealthy, leaving the poorest families worse off. 

The new law unleashes a series of new measures that food advocates say will effectively push people off SNAP, which helps 1.8 million New Yorkers afford their groceries every month. The cuts slash payments for some, kick others completely off the program and require thousands more to show proof they are working consistently if they want to keep their SNAP. 

Buffalo’s 2021 mayoral election may sound familiar: A political heavyweight tried to strut through a mayoral primary and lost to a democratic socialist. Democratic Party leaders were split on embracing the upstart, and deep-pocketed developers and business leaders put money behind an incumbent running without a major party line.

The subway system's modernization has taken so long that once cutting-edge technology for newer trains needs to be replaced. That and more in this week's On The Way roundup of New York City transit news.

For the first time, Animal Care Centers of NYC has surpassed a thousand pets in their care at one time. They are still accepting animals but asking people to drop off pets only for emergencies.

Katy Hansen, the director of marketing and communications for Animal Care Centers of NYC, talked with WNYC's Sean Carlson more about it.

On a recent Tuesday I took the 1 train up to 133rd Street to experience an increasingly popular pastime for New Yorkers: armored fighting.

The ancient form of entertainment has fallen out of the mainstream over the centuries but has regained some traction internationally this millennia — less for reenactments than for, essentially, professional-level bar brawls in chainmail.

To get a taste of this violent team sport, I attended a meetup of Santa’s Knights, a nonprofit organization that runs free weekly fitness classes that are functionally gladiator bootcamp at Harlem’s Manhattanville Community Center.

Around 20 people were in the gym the evening I attended. The week prior, the organization said it had held its first women’s class and had some 40 people show up.

“It's just getting bigger and bigger,” Damion DiGrazia, who founded Santa’s Knights in 2016, said.

The two-hour course starts like any other workout course — with stretching — then gets more specific as attendees learn the basics of using a sword.

New police data shows criminal summons have increased tenfold since a crackdown on cyclists and e-bike riders in New York City began in April.

The summonses, or pink tickets, for cyclists jumped from 561 before the directive to nearly 6,000 tickets in the second quarter of 2025.

Mayor Eric Adams has also been touting a new Department of Sustainable Delivery – funded by this year’s city budget – to regulate the tens of thousands of delivery workers on e-bikes and mopeds in the boroughs.  

Ligia Guallpa is executive director of the Workers Justice Project, and William Medina is a leader at Los Deliveristas Unidos, a division of the Workers Justice Project that advocates for delivery workers. They joined WNYC's Michael Hill to discuss the new department. 

A version of the conversation with where listeners can hear an English translation of William Medina's answers is available here. 

New police data shows criminal summons have increased tenfold since a crackdown on cyclists and e-bike riders in New York City began in April.

The summonses, or pink tickets, for cyclists jumped from 561 before the directive to nearly 6,000 tickets in the second quarter of 2025.

Mayor Eric Adams has also been touting a new Department of Sustainable Delivery – funded by this year’s city budget – to regulate the tens of thousands of delivery workers on e-bikes and mopeds in the boroughs.  

Ligia Guallpa is executive director of the Workers Justice Project, and William Medina is a leader at Los Deliveristas Unidos, a division of the Workers Justice Project that advocates for delivery workers. They joined WNYC's Michael Hill to discuss the new department. 

A version of the conversation with where listeners can hear William Medina's answers in Spanish without translation is available here. 

The latest on the New York City race for mayor leads this week's Politics Brief roundup.

Photographers David Lei and Jacqueline Emery are photographers and the authors of Finding Flaco: Our Year with New York City's Beloved Owl. They joined WNYC host Michael Hill to share what they've learned from observing another wild animal commonly found in the city: the coyote. Coyotes reached New York in the early 1930s and 1940s. By the 1990s, the canines had made it predominately to the Bronx. Now, a pair of coyotes that Lei and Emery have named Romeo and Juliet has settled into Central Park. 

President Trump is backing the Texas legislature’s push to redraw the state’s congressional maps in order to give Republicans an advantage in next year’s midterm elections. And now, some Democrats in our area are arguing their states should do the same. But is the whole process legal? And would it survive a court challenge?

Jeffrey Wice is a senior fellow at New York Law School’s Census and Redistricting Institute. He talks with WNYC's Sean Carlson more about redistricting.