A 9-year-old boy was fatally struck by a school bus while crossing in Williamsburg on his way to school, at a five-way intersection residents and officials describe as one of Brooklyn's busiest and that has no crosswalk markings, a gap that will now define what neighbors demand first and what the city owes every kid who still has to cross there today. A Board of Correction report on three Rikers deaths found the same pattern each time: officers off post, missed safety checks, and medical responses that came too late, including a detainee left in a medical crisis for nearly half an hour while unsupervised and another who lay for five minutes during an apparent overdose before staff administered Narcan. And the LIRR strike deadline is May 16, close enough that anyone with a fixed schedule on the railroad should be mapping alternatives now rather than waiting for the walkout to force the decision.

Cloudy through the day with a high near 61°F and a cooler morning around the low 50s. Expect a low near 45°F tonight. No rain is expected, but the damp feel from low clouds will make shaded sidewalks and bus stops feel colder than the numbers suggest, especially early and after sunset. The mild daytime temperature is good for walking, but the evening drop matters if you are waiting on open-air platforms, stuck in weekend service gaps, or standing at curbside pickup lines longer than planned.

Lawmakers are criticizing NYPD subway arrests tied to people “lying down” on trains, calling the enforcement “problematic” and “cruel.” The practical impact for riders is not abstract: it is about what gets treated as a removable nuisance versus a human in crisis, and whether the system’s response is outreach or cuffs when a car is crowded and someone is sprawled across seats. The report notes Mayor Zohran Mamdani has not commented publicly on the strategy, leaving agencies to define the line between safety and punishment in real time.

Hundreds of staffers at two nonprofits that serve recently incarcerated people, the Fortune Society and the Osborne Association, announced a unionization push on Friday. About 600 employees, including case workers, career coaches, and housing specialists, are seeking to join Local 153 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union. For clients, the stakes are basic stability: whether caseloads stay manageable, turnover slows, and the people tasked with translating reentry into appointments, paperwork, housing steps, and job leads can afford to stay in the work.

A 9-year-old boy was fatally struck by a school bus while crossing in Williamsburg on his way to school. The crash happened at a hectic five-way intersection of Lee Avenue, Lorimer Street, and Wallabout Street, where there are no crosswalk markings, despite it being one of the area’s busiest junctions. Parents and kids are still crossing there today, and neighbors are pushing for basic safety measures like painted crosswalks, signals, and a redesign to better match the risk.

The MTA opened a new accessibility project at the 148th Street station in Harlem, adding new access points as part of a broader push that includes a record number of elevator projects systemwide. For riders who rely on step-free access, this is not a ribbon-cutting. It is a change in how long trips take and how exhausting they are, reducing the detours, station-swaps, and dependence on paratransit that turn a short ride into an hour of improvisation.

A Long Island Rail Road strike could begin as soon as May 16 as the MTA faces off with labor unions. That deadline is close enough to affect weekend planning now, especially for riders who depend on the LIRR to reach Manhattan or connect work across borough and suburban nodes. If you need the railroad for a fixed schedule, this is the window to watch for updates and map alternatives before you are forced into them.

A new report from the city’s Board of Correction details findings about three deaths at Rikers Island and describes a pattern the board says is familiar: officers off post, missed safety checks, and medical care that was bungled. The report includes stark specifics. In one case, a detainee was found dead with 66 pills in his cell. In another, a person in distress during an apparent overdose lay for five minutes before staff administered Narcan. In a third, a detainee was left locked in a cell, unsupervised, for nearly half an hour while experiencing a medical crisis. For families and advocates, the “today” reality is that custody remains a city-run environment where basic supervision can fail, and where a delay measured in minutes can become irreversible.

Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards plan is drawing renewed calls for more affordable housing units, according to a new report from Empire State Development summarizing feedback from workshops and survey respondents. Housing affordability was categorized as the top priority for a plurality of participants for the next phase, which could bring seven additional buildings near Barclays Center. The leverage is in timing: once decisions harden into commitments, “affordable” becomes a fixed set of income bands and counts, not a moral argument, and the people most affected are often left negotiating details after the outline is already set.

Police say a second man has been arrested in connection with an April 18 car takeover gathering in Maspeth described as involving about 50 cars, 100 people, and two rings of fire. The newly arrested person, Winston Pat, 20, was identified by police as the driver of a white BMW seen doing donuts in an intersection. These gatherings are not just loud. They turn public streets into stunt space, increasing risk for bystanders and drivers who did not sign up for it, and the additional arrest signals the investigation is extending beyond whoever was easiest to grab that night.

The NYPD is searching for a man accused of stealing an electric wheelchair from an apartment building at 888 Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Surveillance video shows the person dragging it out. For the owner, it means losing essential mobility, making it harder to get to appointments, buy groceries, or leave home, while neighbors scramble to help and find a replacement as police investigate.

Organizers are reviving the Cannabis March with Saturday events beginning at noon at the Washington Square Park arch, followed by a march to Union Square Park and a rally and concert scheduled from 2 to 6 p.m. The impact is the same as any major crowd event in lower Manhattan: expect packed sidewalks, slower buses, and detours around Washington Square and Union Square if you are trying to run errands or meet someone on time. If you live nearby, plan your grocery run and pickups around the peak hours rather than trying to squeeze through them.

In Brooklyn’s Columbia Waterfront District, a community garden known as Urban Meadow is at the center of a dispute over access involving the nearby Columbia Waterfront Montessori community, with a city program caught in the middle. It is a small-space fight with real stakes: who gets to use shared green space, when, and under what rules, in a city where even a patch of dirt can become contested infrastructure.

Some NYC parents are reacting to the 2026 to 2027 school calendar, including the later start to the school year compared with last year, describing it as a childcare challenge. The details may be far off, but the consequence hits early: camps, paid childcare, family leave, and relative schedules get priced and booked months ahead. For households already balancing work hours and school hours, a calendar shift is not a note on a website. It is a budget line.

That’s Today in New York.