Thirty-four thousand building workers across the city are 11 days from a strike with bargaining still far apart, a deadline that would pull doormen, porters, and maintenance staff out of co-ops, apartments, and commercial buildings at the same moment the budget fight is consuming City Hall's attention. A new watchdog report found squatters occupied 548 empty NYCHA apartments over three years, while a separate analysis found newly built affordable units sit vacant for a median of 439 days between construction and occupancy, housing the city built that nobody can live in yet. And starting Saturday, NYC Ferry's East River route splits into two on weekends, so today is the last day to plan around the schedule you know.

Morning starts in the mid-50s with sun and some clouds, then tops out in the mid-60s before easing back toward the low 60s later. Winds run south to southwest and stay light to moderate, enough to make ferry decks and exposed platforms feel cooler than the thermometer. It stays dry through the day, so sidewalks and crosswalks should be clean and grippy for commutes and school drop-offs. Tonight settles into the low to mid-50s, with only a low chance of a brief late-night rain shower, so most errands and curbside routines stay intact without wet-bag hassles or slick steps.

City Council is tightening its posture ahead of the budget deadline, with Finance Chair Linda Lee outlining the Council’s proposals in a Thursday segment that framed the fight as a set of service choices, not a single total. The near-term consequence is practical: priorities that sound abstract turn into hours at after-school programs, headcount at sanitation and inspections, staffing at social services, and the city’s ability to respond to routine quality-of-life complaints without pushing them into next month. The coming days are where those preferences either become line items or get traded away.

A Manhattan federal judge ruled that the Trump administration was wrong to cut magnet school funding tied to New York City’s policies affecting trans students, including allowing students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that match their gender identity. The immediate impact is stability: schools and families plan around money that has to be predictable enough to staff programs and run a school year without sudden holes. It is also a signal about whether Washington can use funding as a lever to punish local policy choices, and what kind of legal runway the city has to resist.

NYC Ferry riders should treat today as the last normal planning day before major schedule changes begin Saturday, following a spring schedule start Wednesday. The East River route will be split into two all day during the weekend and will also change during weekday peak periods.

In the East Bronx, a tow operation is clearing illegally parked tractor-trailers and heavy equipment from the Throgs Neck Expressway service road near East Tremont Avenue and from Tillotson Avenue after a rise in resident complaints. The NYPD 45th Precinct quality-of-life team removed multiple vehicles during an overnight period when tractor-trailers are prohibited from parking.

One year after the deadly Hudson River helicopter crash, families and officials are calling for safety legislation for sightseeing flights. The immediate relevance is not nostalgia but risk management: what standards govern aircraft operating above dense public space and what enforcement actually exists when the business model is fast, frequent trips. The debate will be slow, but it is also the kind of policy work that only becomes visible after the city has already paid a price.

Roughly 34,000 building workers across New York City could go on strike later this month, with 11 days left in their contract and bargaining still far apart after three sessions, according to reporting. For most buildings, this is not theoretical labor news but a continuity threat: doormen, porters, maintenance staff, and engineers are the people who keep heat, elevators, trash, and safety routines from turning into daily disruptions. If talks do not narrow quickly, co-op boards, landlords, and commercial tenants will be forced into contingency plans that cost more and deliver less.

Food access groups in the Bronx are bracing for a surge in need as the full impact of federal SNAP changes and cuts looms, warning that the borough is especially vulnerable because it has the city’s highest hunger, food insecurity, and poverty rates.

A Bronx resident’s account shows how policy becomes a physical ordeal under tighter rules. Mariluz Diaz, 51, described arriving at the Bronx Food Stamp Office with a cane and expecting long waits as she navigates disability and recovery after hip replacements.

A new report found that newly built affordable apartments in New York City can sit empty for a long time after construction is complete, a bottleneck that turns “housing created” into “housing delayed.” Enterprise Community Partners analyzed its portfolio, including 50 projects in the five boroughs, and found that across more than 4,500 affordable apartments in the city, a median of 439 days passed between when apartments were finished and when they were occupied.

A city watchdog report says squatters occupied hundreds of NYCHA apartments, underscoring how vacancies become a liability when turnaround is slow. The Department of Investigation found 548 empty apartments were taken over by squatters over the past three years.

Immigration enforcement is moving into a high-stakes legal phase that could affect daily behavior far beyond the courthouse. A coalition including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road New York, and the Legal Aid Society filed a class action lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York Wednesday, alleging ICE and other federal agencies are unlawfully arresting immigrants in New York solely based on race or ethnicity, without probable cause.

In Manhattan, a man was shot and killed Thursday evening on the Upper West Side, and the investigation is likely to bring visible disruption around the scene. Police said a 33-year-old man was shot multiple times around 5 p.m. near Columbus Avenue and West 104th Street and later pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Morningside, with no arrests reported as of later Thursday evening.

A former NYPD sergeant was sentenced to up to nine years for killing a man by throwing a cooler at him during an attempted drug bust in the Bronx. The rippple effect from this case is not just a single outcome but a marker of accountability that tends to shape everything around it: community trust, internal oversight arguments, and how aggressively city leaders can reform lethal misconduct.

Forest Hills Gardens is getting attention for a piece of city infrastructure most neighborhoods never see: alleyways that keep trash off the curb. The neighborhood’s design uses rear lanes and tiny trash trucks, a rare system in a city where garbage bags are part of daily street life.

Thousands of bottles of Vital Nutrients Aller-C dietary supplements were voluntarily recalled due to undeclared egg, soy, and hazelnut allergens, according to the FDA, including product sold in New York and New Jersey. A public health alert was also issued for certain beef and pork products sold in New Jersey and other states after sesame oil was used without being declared.

That’s Today in New York.