WNYC News

This week a Thanksgiving staples is brightening up New York City greenmarkets: Cranberries.

Amelia Tarpey is a program and publicity manger for GrowNYC Greenmarkets. She says Greenmarket farmers are largely not in the cranberry business. So they buy them from farmers across New Jersey and Connecticut, which are two of the countries biggest producers.  

A deal to end the 40-plus-day government shutdown is working its way through Congress. Closer to home, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is starting to fill out his administration. All that and more in this week's Politics Brief. 

It's getting colder and less sunny out there after daylights savings. And for some New Yorkers, that means their seasonal affective disorder is back.

Dr. Molly Sherb, a clinical psychologist at Mount Sinai, talked with WNYC's Janae Pierre more about what New Yorkers can do to cope with seasonal depression.

America's largest documentary festival is back in the city this week. DOC NYC launches its 16th edition on Wednesday, with more than 200 documentaries showing in Manhattan.

Thom Powers is Director of Special Projects for DOC NYC and longtime host of WNYC's Documentary of the Week. He joins Weekend Edition host David Furst for a preview.

If you were paying attention to the victory speech by New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, you might've caught the music at the end, which was taken from a Bollywood blockbuster.

It was more than a musical moment. For those in the know, the Hindi-language song had a message. WNYC's Arun Venugopal joins Weekend Edition host David Furst to explain.

Voters in New Jersey had their say on Tuesday. In a governor's race that some polls said was running neck and neck in the days leading up to Election Day, Democrat Mikie Sherrill won a resounding victory over Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli. In addition, Democrats picked up seats in a state legislature where they already had control of both houses.

John Reitmeyer with New Jersey Spotlight News joins Weekend Edition host David Furst to discuss the results and the challenges facing governor-elect Sherrill.

Political observers said Andrew Cuomo's decisive loss in the mayor's race signals challenges for moderates in the Empire State. 

When President Trump announced he’d try to halt funding for the new Gateway train tunnels under the Hudson River last month, he billed it as retaliation against Democrats for the federal government shutdown. Instead, the move became a political albatross that hurt New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial candidate.

In Tuesday’s New Jersey’s governor’s race, Democrat Mikie Sherrill whooped GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli with more than 56% of the vote. Ciattarelli had spent the campaign supporting Trump, and failed to separate himself from the president after the White House threatened funding for the $16 billion tunnel effort, the largest public works project in the country and a long-sought solution to the single, antiquated tube to New York City for Garden State train commuters.

“Jack Ciattarelli’s line throughout the campaign would be that he supported everything Trump was doing,” said Dan Cassino,  professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. “But if Trump were to do anything that would hurt New Jersey, of course he would stand up for New Jersey.”

When Trump first threatened to halt the flow of upwards of $6.8 billion in federal subsidies for the project, Ciattarelli didn’t speak up. Only when Trump then said he would kill the project altogether did Ciattarelli chime in with a post on X that he would “fight to get it done.”

“This is something that was very clearly hurting New Jersey and Ciattarelli was not able to say, ‘Oh, I'm going to stand up to Trump in this case,’” Cassino said.

Recent polls suggest riding on Trump’s popularity wasn’t a winning strategy in New Jersey this year. Only 40% of likely New Jersey voters approve of the way Donald Trump is “handling his job as president,” while 56% of likely voters disapprove, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll.

Still, Republicans eyed the governor’s race as an opportunity after Kamala Harris won less than 52% of the state’s vote in last year’s presidential election.

Threatening the Gateway tunnel may have also given many New Jersey voters deja vu. Back in 2010, former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, abruptly yanked his state’s funding for the ARC project, which also aimed to build new rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River. If that project had gone forward as scheduled, it would’ve been completed by now.

With the government shut down and SNAP benefits in limbo, food security is top of mind for a lot of New Yorkers. 

Amelia Tarpey is a program and publicity manger for GrowNYC Greenmarkets. She said anyone who has money left on their EBT cards can stretch those dollars at city Greenmarkets. Recipients get $2 for every $2 spent at Greenmarkets, up to $10 daily.  Also, any shopper can buy an extra bag produce that'll then be donated to someone who needs it.