WNYC News

Sunday, Sept. 7 marks the first day of regular season play for both of our local NFL teams. Recent years have not been kind to the Jets or the Giants, but some believe this season offers glimmers of hope for long-suffering fans. 

Sports reporter Priya Desai joins Weekend Edition host David Furst for a preview and also wraps up this year's U.S. Open on the tennis tournament's final day.

It's September. Time for students to head back to school and for voters to remember there's an election coming up. One of the most closely watched races in the nation is the battle for the governor's seat in New Jersey, between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Charles Stile, political columnist at The Record and northjersey.com joins us for an update.

Speaking with Weekend Edition host David Furst, he says as we look ahead to next year's midterm elections, people will be paying close attention to the results in New Jersey.

Summer produce is starting to phase out, but there's still plenty of cucumbers at farmstands across the city. From Kirby to Persian to American Slicing, cucumbers are versatile, cheap and some can, of course, be pickled and preserved. 

Amelia Tarpey is a program and publicity manger for GrowNYC Greenmarkets. She says cucumbers are priced at around $1 each to up to $6 per pound.

Richard Caroll Jr. thought his Harlem apartment was a great deal when he moved in in 2004.

The artist said the natural light that spilled in through the living room windows made for a perfect painting studio. The rent was technically $2,000 a month, but the landlord let him pay $1,200, according to court records.

Carroll said there were no glaring issues at first. Then the stove stopped working, the windowsills decayed, the ceiling lights broke, the bedroom door fell off its hinges, and rats chewed through the wall under the kitchen sink.

In 2022, a landlord who bought the building after Carroll moved in tried to evict him, saying his lease had expired, even though he wasn’t behind in rent. It was only while fighting the eviction case that he learned his apartment had been rent-stabilized until he moved in. Court records show the prior tenant had been paying less than $500 a month, while Carroll’s rent climbed to $1,425.

“I was robbed for $1,000 a month for 20-something years. That’s how I felt,” Carroll said following the judge’s decision. “My apartment was in total decay. So, I paid an extra $1,000 a month for 20 years, and I didn’t even have a livable space.”

New Yorkers endured the worst subway service in recent memory in June and July. That and more in this week's On The Way roundup of New York City transit news. 

New York City Restaurant Week has become a staple of the city’s dining scene since it debut more than 30 years ago. Now, the city’s first Curbside Restaurant Week is starting this Friday, where you can enjoy discounts and special treats at 38 participating establishments with city-sanctioned outdoor dining sheds.

The city recently restricted its pandemic-era outdoor dining program, causing restaurant participation to decline.

Sara Lind is the co-executive director of Open Plans, a group that advocates for more livable streets. They organized Curbside Restaurant Week with Untapped New York. Lind joined WNYC's Sean Carlson to talk more about what to expect.

New York City public school students will soon no longer have processed meats as a part of their school lunches. The same goes for meals served in shelters, jails, public hospitals and other city agencies.  

The changes are the result of a recent update to the city’s health food standards, which will also restrict artificial colors and certain sweeteners. It will take effect on July 1st.  

New York City’s acting health commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse joined WNYC's Sean Carlson to talk more about the updated food standards. 

Mayor Eric Adams returned from an unexpected trip to Florida on Wednesday to mounting speculation that he is on the verge of dropping his long-shot re-election bid as an independent.

That and more in this week's Politics Brief roundup. 

President Donald Trump wants cities and states to force homeless people with mental illness and addiction into treatment facilities. To make that happen, he signed an executive order this summer directing federal agencies to dramatically shift how they fund programs for homeless people.

It’s a policy change that upends the approach New York has taken to housing homeless people for years: offering stable housing without requiring people to meet sobriety rules or agree to mental health treatment first.

New York City providers say this policy, known as housing first, has succeeded. They say it’s the reason the city effectively ended chronic homelessness among veterans and has kept thousands of formerly homeless people off the streets. But homeless advocates worry that if they persist with housing first policies, they’ll lose much needed federal dollars for their programs.

Here’s what we know about Trump’s executive order and how it will affect New York City.

State court officials will soon decide whether more than a dozen New York City judges who are 70 or older can keep serving past retirement age. A database of judicial records shows one judge in Queens is a statistical outlier in terms of legal errors.

The annual process to determine whether judges in their 70s can remain on the bench is typically secretive, and input submitted during the public comment period is kept confidential. But information about New York’s judiciary has become increasingly public amid a movement in recent years for more transparency, shedding new light on a branch of government that wields immense power yet often operates far from public view.

Now, in a rare public bid to oust a sitting judge, a group of criminal justice reform advocates, citing court data and records, say higher courts have reversed Queens Justice Michael Aloise’s decisions on evidence and sentence lengths at a higher rate than nearly any other state judge. In a letter shared with Gothamist, they urged officials to force Aloise into retirement.