WNYC News

Its been a whirlwind 24 hours for New York City mayor Eric Adams. He saw the criminal case hanging over his head dismissed, and he announced to the world that he's running for re-election as an independent. WNYC's Jon Campbell joined Michael Hill to discuss what happens next, and how the crowded field for mayor is responding. 

As childcare becomes increasingly expensive, a study from the Rutgers Center for Women and Work, a member of the First 1,000 Days Policy Coalition, shows that changing the income requirement for childcare subsidies would help tens of thousands of working parents.  Debra Lancaster, the center's Executive Director and Becky Logue-Conroy, a research analyst at the center, joined WNYC host Michael Hill.

With his criminal case in the rearview mirror, Mayor Eric Adams is pivoting to his re-election campaign. He will run as an independent, eschewing a crowded Democratic primary. WNYC's Brittany Kriegstein has been speaking to voters in areas that supported Adams four years ago. She joined WNYC's Michael Hill to discuss what they're saying, and the history of New York City Mayors with an independent streak. 

Korissa Matta had two months to move out of her old apartment in the East Village in spring 2022. She wanted to use her local Buy Nothing group to give away her old stuff.

But over the course of the summer, she was removed from the group twice for not responding quickly enough to an admin confirming that she still lived in the area.

Matta said the rules seemed unnecessary.

“People don’t want to follow all of those rules to get rid of a yoga mat that’s chewed up by their dog,” she said.

Even though Matta joined another Buy Nothing group after moving, she doesn’t use it anymore. But she said she’d put up with the drama if she needed to use the group again in a pinch.

It’s a pinch that many New Yorkers are feeling these days.

Buy Nothing groups, which connect people via Facebook to distribute free items, are having a moment in New York City, where rents have been rising faster than wages.

One group in Bushwick has more than doubled over the past three years and now counts over 17,000 members. In the East Village, group admin Sunny Cervantes said she’s flooded with too many membership requests to keep up with. Her group is 4,000 strong.

“These are hard times,” Cervantes said. “People need help.”

Scanning the groups across the five boroughs, there’s nearly no limit to what people give away. Nightstands, aquarium gravel, fire safety notice stickers, eight brown eggs, half a box of condoms, a Thanksgiving turkey — if you can think of it, it’s probably been on Buy Nothing. And as the cost of living keeps increasing, members will stomach almost any amount of drama and red tape for the savings.

There are more than 100 Buy Nothing groups across the city and more than 120,000 worldwide — and most follow rules set by a loosely organized national entity, the Buy Nothing Project.

In New York City, members said these groups make hard times easier by helping them save money, reduce waste and build community. Several people interviewed for this story said they’d saved thousands of dollars and furnished their apartments with items sourced from Buy Nothing groups.

But as the groups expand across the city, so do the challenges. Sometimes there are just too many people in them to be used effectively, so admins divide them in two. Other times members defect and start their own groups after disagreements over what the groups are for.

That’s because Buy Nothing groups are about more than just free stuff. Most aim to build neighborhood consciousness out of free stuff: little communities of mutual aid, equity and cooperation. But not everyone agrees on how to do that, and building a community is even harder when it’s happening in Facebook comments sections and under posts about free furniture.

And while in theory the basic rules are simple (no buying, no selling, no trading), in practice, according to several current and former Buy Nothing members interviewed for this story, rules can feel restrictive, fights can break out over silly issues and moderators can zealously enforce seemingly arbitrary rules. But plenty of other members said the rules and drama don’t faze them — they’re just happy to save a few bucks.

Adams says he's running for mayor as an independent in the general election. In a video posted to social media, he says that the city needs independent leadership. His decision comes a day after a federal judge yesterday dismissed his corruption case for good.  Dr. Christina Greer is a professor of political science at Fordham University in the Bronx. She joined WNYC's Michael Hill on "Morning Edition" to discuss the fallout. 

Today marks World Autism Day, an internationally recognized day to raise awareness of autism.

Newark Airport recently opened a second “sensory room” in the airport’s Terminal A. It’s a calming room for neurodivergent travelers and travelers on the autism spectrum.  

The vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Jeff Lynford and general manager of Newark Airport Aiden O'Donnell talked with WNYC's Sean Carlson more about it.

Five years after the pandemic first struck New York and the nation, Alisha is one of potentially hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers — researchers are unclear exactly how many there are — who are still slowed down by long COVID. Their condition is defined by symptoms that come on after an acute COVID infection and last for at least three months, and sometimes years. Although long COVID is a well-documented phenomenon, there’s still no diagnostic test to confirm its presence, meaning that symptoms are generally self-reported. Read the full story here.

New York City officials and anti-hunger groups are bracing for deep cuts by Republicans in Congress to the federal food stamp program that feeds more residents than ever before: 1.8 million people across the city, including more than half a million children. 

City officials estimate even conservative reductions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP could amount to a loss of $870 million a year for the city — or $130 a month for a family of three. Food insecurity organizations are now pushing the Adams administration to pump up city funding for local pantries, and at the state level, advocates are hoping to set a minimum monthly payment for SNAP as well as increase funding for food banks. But those efforts wouldn’t be enough to make up the major gulf left by the federal government. 

Emergency food advocates say the consequences will devastate the one in five New Yorkers who use SNAP dollars, and also affect the local economy as people spend less in grocery stores, bodegas and farmers markets. They also warn that the city’s food pantries and soup kitchens could be overwhelmed.

“ There's really no way that the city and the state can step up and fill holes of those magnitudes, ” said Molly Wasow Park, commissioner of the Department of Social Services.

Read more at Gothamist.com. 

A deadly traffic crash on Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway is renewing calls to crack down on serial speeders.  

The NYPD says the driver in the Midwood crash had a suspended license, made an illegal turn and killed a woman and her two young daughters. A website that tracks moving violations shows she already had been ticketed for multiple moving violations, including speeding through school zones.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes represents parts of western Brooklyn in Albany. He sponsored legislation to require the installation of speed limiters in the vehicles of people with multiple speeding offenses. He joined WNYC's Michael Hill to talk about the bill, and why he says now s the time to get it passed. 

Starting today, New York City is increasing penalties for illegal dumping in city parks in an effort to keep them cleaner. City officials are also planning to install security cameras around the Bronx parks to monitor any illegal dumping.

City parks commissioner Sue Donoghue talked more about the new rules with WNYC's Sean Carlson.