WNYC News

It's not all about fireworks — July is also the height of summer stargazing in our region. The month boasts three meteor showers, and Manhattanhenge returns to the city with awe-inspiring sunsets.

WNYC's Rosemary Misdary joins Weekend Edition host David Furst for the July astronomy report.

Zohran Mamdani is the presumed Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. Technically, the primary's outcome will officially be decided by a ranked choice count next week, since no Democrat received a majority of the vote. But the presumed win by a young, progressive, self styled democratic socialist candidate over former governor Andrew Cuomo sent reverberations throughout a Democratic party that is still searching for ways to move forward in the wake of President Donald Trump's return to office.

Meanwhile, it was a different story on the other side of the Hudson.

WNYC Senior Editor David Giambusso joins Weekend Edition host David Furst to discuss the results and the takeaways for Democrats.

A look at Zohran Mamdani's transportation policies -- and what it would take for him to achieve them. That and more in this week's On The Way roundup of transit news. 

WNYC’s education reporter Jessica Gould recently spoke with high school student journalists about a remarkable year.

 As part of WNYC's ongoing political coverage our Community Partnerships Desk is spending time in laundromats around the city to engage with voters and get a sense of what issues they care about. It's a project we're calling Suds and Civics. 

This week's Politics Brief focuses on Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani's stunning upset over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates in the Democratic primary. 

Fried, whom Gothamist shadowed on a recent morning, is embedded with multiple organizations’ outreach teams, in addition to serving as the medical director of the Manhattan Outreach Consortium, a collaboration among three nonprofits doing street outreach across the borough. Read the full story here.

A new book dives into the stories behind 30 monuments and statues commemorating Black Americans around New York City.

David Felsen is an 11th grade history teacher in Chelsea, and the author of "New York City Monuments of Black Americans." He told WNYC's Michael Hill that these statues are a depiction of what society values at any given point in time, and as such help catalogue how those values change over time. 

The first statue of a Black person in New York City appeared in 1876 at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It's a nameless figure who commemorates Civil War soldiers. Booker T. Washington in 1945 became the first identifiable Black American honored in a city monument. The city didn't have a statue dedicated to a Black woman, however, until 2008, when a bronze figure of Harriet Tubman was erected in a traffic triangle in Harlem.

It’s hot in New York today and temperatures are expected to remain in the the nineties and possibly reach triple digits this week.

New York State health commissioner Dr. James McDonald talked with WNYC's Sean Carlson about how New Yorkers can stay safe in the region's first heat wave of the year.

This June, some graduates from public high schools in New York will have a little something extra on their diplomas.  

The New York State Seal of Civic Readiness aims to signal to future colleges or employers that the student understands what it means to be a contributing member of a community or society.  

Jenna Ryall directs Civics for All, which manages the seal for New York City schools. Roshny Saha is a 12th grader at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services in Manhattan. They both joined WNYC's Morning Edition host Michael Hill to talk about what it means.