The Florida man who trashed a Manhattan cab during the Knicks' Game 4 riot has his excuse: he was turning 21. His plea deal cost him $500 in restitution, while the cabbie he left injured says he's done driving for good.
— via NY Post, Nicholas McEntyre
A commissioner's chief of staff ordered Rikers staff to keep the federal monitor in the dark unless he signed off first, an anonymous tip revealed. The monitor calls it the most brazen attempt to dodge court oversight he's seen in more than a decade watching the jail.
— via Gothamist, Ryan Kost
An Elmhurst parking lot sits on an African burial ground dating to 1818, and Attorney General Letitia James is now stepping into its foreclosure sale. She wants any buyer legally on notice, after the site was paved over, filled with towed NYPD junk cars, and cited by the city as illegal.
— via The City, Greg B. Smith
A founding member of Hell Gate's tech arm is resigning, warning that its AI publishing system has grown from bonobo-brainstem hardware in a Maspeth storage locker into what he calls the single greatest threat to human civilization and the solar system's orbital integrity.
— via Hell Gate, Nick Pinto
A third of NYC students are still chronically absent this year, exactly matching last year's rate and well above pre-pandemic levels near 1 in 4. The city just overhauled its attendance rules and added school avoidance liaisons, but homeless students and kids with disabilities remain the hardest to reach.
— via The City, Amy Zimmer, Chalkbeat
Equinix spilled 5,000 gallons of diesel into a Meadowlands creek last week. Now it's building a fifth Secaucus data center right next to the leak site, with permits already years in the works and cleanup booms still floating downstream.
— via Gothamist, Michael Sol Warren
Thieves hit eight pharmacies across the city this summer, from Flushing to Pelham Gardens. Health officials also report most hospitalized cases involve neuroinvasive disease, since the sickest patients are the ones who seek care.
— via Gothamist, James Ramsay
The New York Film Festival opens to passholders September 25, stacked with a Guadagnino film about Sam Altman, a Paul Thomas Anderson concert movie and Nathan Fielder's meme-spawning Elizabeth Holmes documentary. Screenings are already selling out, so here's what's worth chasing tickets for.
— via Hell Gate, Hell Gate
For 30-plus years, one Midtown restaurant has been where Wall Street rivals actually get along, from Larry Fink and John Mack to Jamie Dimon and the Trumps. It closed for nearly a year to reboot, and now the Bruno brothers are fighting to win back the crowd that scattered to Hudson Yards and home offices.
— via NY Post, Charles Gasparino
Bowen Yang takes his first Broadway bow, Orlando Bloom flaunts abs in Spain, and Brad Pitt turns up for a big dog rescue in Tennessee. Plus Shakira, Kim Kardashian, Celine Dion and more, all caught in one big celebrity photo roundup.
— via NY Post, Nicole Mazza
Belmont Park reopened Friday after a three-year, $455 million rebuild, with a new grandstand, bigger paddock and a winter-ready synthetic track. One old tradition didn't survive: bringing your own booze and coolers is now banned, though the track will still sell drinks.
— via Gothamist, Ryan Kost
A distant relative's DNA on a genealogy site cracked a Bronx rape case that sat cold for more than two decades. The conviction is the first in New York to come from investigative genetic genealogy, and it's tied to a second assault the same man committed blocks away.
— via Gothamist, Samantha Max
New York City is naming the seven-member board that will replace its decades-old tax lien sale with a "land bank" empowered to buy up debts, arrange payment plans and seize buildings from negligent landlords. Mamdani's housing adviser Cea Weaver and Commissioner Lisa Garcia are among the first appointees.
— via Gothamist, David Brand
She planned a six-week European trip around a Tinder fling she'd met just twice in person. He dumped her the moment she landed in London, then fled to their planned romantic getaway alone while she was stuck in his empty flat.
— via NY Post, Asia Grace
A new lawsuit accuses seven Chi Phi brothers at Cornell of drugging and gang-raping a student while texting “free p: y” to summon more attackers. Cornell allegedly let the accused try to “mitigate their conduct” by writing essays.
— via NY Post, Peter Senzamici
Hans Zimmer is taking his film scores out of theaters and into arenas, hitting nearly 30 North American cities from February through April 2027 with a 19-piece band and rave-style visuals. Tickets go public Sept. 25, but resale sites already have them.
— via NY Post, Matt Levy
Rave pants are back on the runway, and the company that made them famous in the first place never actually left. UFO Contemporary's Lorna Brody talks warehouse-party origins and why her brand still refuses to play the influencer game.
— via Hell Gate, Katie Way
New York will pay $24 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit over the 2024 beating death of prisoner Robert Brooks, whose murder by guards was captured on body cameras. One officer was convicted of murder and six others pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but a state senator says the case exposes years of unaddressed abuse in the prison system.
— via Gothamist, Jimmy Vielkind
New York's Department of Investigation has hired outside lawyers for $3.8 million to dig into what City Hall really knew about toxic Ground Zero dust, weeks after 170,000 released documents showed officials fretted over asbestos and liability while telling the public the air was safe.
— via Gothamist, Liam Quigley
NYU Langone will pay $8.5 million to end a DOJ probe and its trans youth care program, following a nearly identical deal Mount Sinai struck weeks earlier. The hospital denies wrongdoing, but Mayor Mamdani, Rep. Nadler and civil rights groups call the settlement a capitulation to federal pressure.
— via Gothamist, Giulia Heyward