Could New York Ban Face Masks on the Subway? Here’s What to Know.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was exploring whether to reinstitute a partial ban on face coverings in New York City over concerns about their possible role in hate crimes.
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![New York had the oldest anti-mask law in the country until it was repealed in May 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/06/14/multimedia/hochul-masks-01-zcbv/hochul-masks-01-zcbv-thumbLarge.jpg?auto=webp)
![New York had the oldest anti-mask law in the country until it was repealed in May 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/06/14/multimedia/hochul-masks-01-zcbv/hochul-masks-01-zcbv-threeByTwoMediumAt2X.jpg?auto=webp)
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was exploring whether to reinstitute a partial ban on face coverings in New York City over concerns about their possible role in hate crimes.
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Even as transit systems nationwide struggle, New York City’s transportation network appeared to finally score a major win with the now-paused tolling program.
By Ana Ley and
Chicago reversed the flow of a river. Boston put a highway underground. And New York, well, came close to enacting congestion pricing.
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Congestion pricing was the latest ambitious proposal that couldn’t navigate New York’s rocky political terrain. It’s a tall order to achieve substantial change in the city.
By Dana Rubinstein and
How Governor Hochul Decided to Kill Congestion Pricing in New York
Although the governor said she long feared the program might hurt New York City’s economy, she never disclosed her reservations, leaving some feeling betrayed.
By Grace Ashford, Dana Rubinstein and
Supporters of Congestion Pricing Are Furious at Hochul’s ‘Betrayal’
Advocates who have been fighting for decades for the program were shocked by the governor’s sudden move and lamented its impact on funding for the city’s subway.
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Does Gov. Hochul, a Buffalo Native, Really Get New York City?
Governor Hochul is more of an outsider to New York City than most of her predecessors. Critics say that put her at a disadvantage in dealing with congestion pricing.
By Jesse McKinley and
In Final Analysis, N.Y. Legislative Session Is Defined by Its Omissions
The State Legislature passed a climate bill that would force polluters to pay into a “cost recovery” fund, but the focus of the session’s last days was on the collapse of congestion pricing.
By Grace Ashford and
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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it is making drastic cuts to the transit system’s capital plan after Gov. Kathy Hochul’s halted the tolling program.
By Ana Ley
Thousands of high-paying jobs in the state could be at risk if the funding that had been expected from congestion pricing is not restored, a new report says.
By Stefanos Chen
The three cases are among several filed by opponents of the tolling program, which was halted by Gov. Kathy Hochul this month.
By Winnie Hu and Ana Ley
By James Barron
New York State passed a bill that will restrict the use of algorithms on minors’ social media feeds, in hopes of addressing mental health concerns.
By Claire Fahy
More than 1,000 musicians, politicians and philanthropists gathered in Harlem on Tuesday night to celebrate the theater’s 90th anniversary.
By Sarah Bahr
The New York City comptroller, Brad Lander, and a group of stakeholders have developed a legal strategy to overturn Gov. Kathy Hochul’s shutdown of the Midtown toll program.
By Dana Rubinstein
The birding group has rebranded as NYC Bird Alliance because of John James Audubon’s connections to slavery.
By James Barron
Janno Lieber said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was reining in its ambitions after Gov. Kathy Hochul moved to halt congestion pricing.
By Ana Ley and Ed Shanahan
The city was built on bold ideas. Suddenly Gov. Kathy Hochul paused a game-changing plan to fight congestion. Can we still do big things in a polarized moment?
By Michael Kimmelman
State Senate Democrats rebuked Gov. Kathy Hochul over her decision to halt a long-developed plan to charge drivers tolls to enter Manhattan’s core.
By Grace Ashford and Claire Fahy
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s misguided decision would be a huge setback for the quality of life in the nation’s largest city.
By The Editorial Board
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she halted the tolling plan because of New York City’s unstable economic recovery. Experts say the alternatives are worse.
By Stefanos Chen
A more flexible and sophisticated design might have saved the program from widespread criticism.
By Nicole Gelinas
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But transit advocates said the suspension of the tolling program was no victory for the state’s beleaguered commuters.
By Patrick McGeehan
Hundreds of millions of people around the world have recently voted in elections with important climate issues like extreme heat and coal dependence.
By Manuela Andreoni
The famous racetrack in Nassau County is being demolished, and a new structure will take its place.
By James Barron
The M.T.A. had planned on $15 billion in financing backed by the tolls of congestion pricing for a number of crucial upgrades and repairs to the aging transit system.
By Ana Ley, Winnie Hu and Stefanos Chen
First the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must vote. Then Gov. Kathy Hochul may seek another way to shore up the finances of the transit system.
By Liam Stack
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s abrupt decision to delay the long-awaited plan put her in line with the former president, who has a habit of attacking New York, his hometown.
By Claire Fahy
Weeks before New York was to charge motorists to enter Manhattan’s business district, Gov. Kathy Hochul postponed the program, citing economic concerns.
By Grace Ashford
The tolling program aimed to diminish traffic while raising money for mass transit.
By Ana Ley
The acting budget director, Sandra Beattie, helped a friend and former lawmaker land lobbying and consulting deals, investigators said.
By Jay Root
Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to postpone a plan to charge motorists to enter Manhattan’s business district, citing fears that it will hurt the city’s economy.
By Dana Rubinstein and Grace Ashford
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Lawmakers in Albany are rushing to address various environmental and health-related initiatives, with just a week left in the 2024 legislative session.
By Grace Ashford and Claire Fahy
After meeting the pope and the mayors of Rome, London and Dublin, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York paused to reconnect with her past.
By Claire Fahy
At a climate change summit at the Vatican, Gov. Kathy Hochul positioned New York State as a leader in pursuing environmental goals, but also recalled her late father.
By Claire Fahy
New York City plans to rebuild three piers and add a new cargo crane after taking control of more than 100 acres of the Brooklyn waterfront.
By Patrick McGeehan
The departure of Chris Alexander, an architect of legalization in New York, follows a report that was critical of his leadership.
By Ashley Southall
A falcon has laid two eggs in a nest in Lower Manhattan. A camera is filming the wait for them to be hatched.
By James Barron
In a victory for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the court upheld a lower-court ruling against the ethics commission, created by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The state promised to appeal again.
By Grace Ashford
As Gov. Kathy Hochul urged business leaders to make technology widely accessible, a comment she made about Bronx children raised eyebrows.
By Grace Ashford
The group, which led the fight against Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee to lead the state’s top court, argues that judges are routinely reappointed to the bench without sufficient evaluation.
By Hurubie Meko
The courts are being resurfaced as the rapidly growing sport of pickleball becomes the off-season replacement for skating in Central Park.
By James Barron
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Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City emerged as two of the winners from a budget process that blew past the April 1 deadline.
By Claire Fahy
Gov. Kathy Hochul used the $237 billion budget to wedge in contentious issues like extending Mayor Eric Adams’s control over New York City schools.
By Grace Ashford
The spending plan, which still needs to be approved by the full State Legislature, includes measures on criminal justice, education and illegal cannabis shops.
By Grace Ashford
The agreement could clear the way for the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes and make it more difficult for landlords to evict renters.
By Grace Ashford and Mihir Zaveri
New York lawmakers are moving closer to a deal on a state budget, but a slew of obstacles remain, including the timing of Monday’s total eclipse.
By Grace Ashford and Claire Fahy
The state hopes to take advantage of Medicaid reimbursement rules to divert federal funds into state coffers.
By Grace Ashford
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wanted the New York City Marathon to pay $750,000 to make up for toll revenue lost when the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was closed.
By Dana Rubinstein
The deal could clear the way for the construction of new homes and make it more difficult for landlords to evict renters, if lawmakers in Albany can find a compromise.
By Mihir Zaveri and Grace Ashford
A push by leading Democrats to restrict how social media companies use algorithms to serve content to children has been met by a high-stakes lobbying effort.
By Jay Root and Grace Ashford
The 77 steps at the foot of the New York State Capitol have been cordoned off to the public for a decade, as the cost of much-needed repairs rises.
By Jay Root
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Get up to speed on the state’s nascent cannabis industry with the New York Times reporter who covers it.
By Terence McGinley
The lack of legal dispensaries and the overwhelming proliferation of illegal ones are the biggest concerns of the rollout three years after legalization.
By Ashley Southall
A legal and political battle has erupted over the new $15 fee to drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan.
By Winnie Hu and Ana Ley
Officials said the move was intended to remove barriers to contraceptive care, as part of the state’s mission to protect reproductive rights.
By Grace Ashford
Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered a review of the way New York State licenses cannabis businesses after calling the sluggish rollout of legal cannabis a “disaster.”
By Ashley Southall
Even with the National Guard patrolling the system, some New Yorkers say they don’t feel secure, particularly after the subway shooting in Brooklyn on Thursday. Others remain unfazed.
By Christopher Maag
More bag checks will not calm the nerves of New Yorkers worried about being shoved onto the tracks by someone with mental illness.
By Ginia Bellafante
Both of New York’s legislative chambers have announced their budget proposals. They have until April 1 to hash out a spending plan with the governor.
By Grace Ashford and Erin Nolan
The “Z-grill” is likely to go for the highest price ever paid for a U.S. stamp when it is auctioned in June.
By James Barron
State Democrats are set to propose a series of ideas to address affordability and a lack of new homes. Some of the ideas are new. And some are very, very old.
By Grace Ashford and Mihir Zaveri
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Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an order forbidding the weapons at bag-check stations on Wednesday, directly after her announcement that soldiers would be deployed to New York City’s subways.
By Hurubie Meko
Ana Ley covers mass transit and commuters in New York City. In an interview, she discussed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to beef up security on the city’s subway.
By Terence McGinley
Prosecutors have said Brian Benjamin, the former lieutenant governor of New York, planned to funnel state money to a developer in exchange for campaign donations.
By Benjamin Weiser and Nicholas Fandos
Gov. Kathy Hochul would not say how long she planned to keep hundreds of soldiers and state police officers in the subway system.
By Maria Cramer and Hurubie Meko
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s subway safety plan was meant to show how Democrats can take action on crime, but the response illustrated how the issue divides her party.
By Nicholas Fandos
Some commuters said they felt safer after learning that heavily armed soldiers would patrol the subway system. Others were critical of the governor’s plan.
By Ana Ley
The Rev. Pamela Holmes will be sworn in today as the Fire Department’s second female chaplain, and the first Black woman in the role.
By James Barron
Officials have spent millions to make New Yorkers transit riders feel safe. The investment is motivated more by passengers’ perception than by crime rates.
By Ana Ley, Hurubie Meko and Chelsia Rose Marcius
Gov. Kathy Hochul, amid a series of violent crimes on the subway, said she would deploy 1,000 members of the State Police and National Guard to the transit system.
By Maria Cramer and Ana Ley
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget would slash state aid for about half of all school districts in New York, but small, rural districts could bear the biggest burden.
By Erin Nolan
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After a rally at Union Square in Manhattan, hundreds of demonstrators flooded a subway platform, took a train downtown and marched to a restaurant where the governor of New York was to speak.
By Eliza Fawcett
Legal retailers are struggling to get their footing in the face of a much larger illicit market.
By Ashley Southall
In remarks made at a Jewish philanthropy event, Gov. Kathy Hochul said that if Canada attacked the United States as Hamas did Israel, “there would be no Canada the next day.”
By Claire Fahy
Under a bill filed by Senator Julia Salazar of Brooklyn, the state correction department would gain more authority to discipline officers accused of wrongdoing.
By Joseph Neff and Alysia Santo
Two days after the assault on a man whom the group’s founder, Curtis Sliwa, misidentified as a migrant, law enforcement officials said they were looking into the incident.
By Maria Cramer and Hurubie Meko
Mayor Eric Adams’s control of the school system is up for renewal in June, and lawmakers are debating whether to return power to school boards as some other large cities have done.
By Troy Closson
The 421a program expired in 2022. Developers and many officials say it was crucial in getting rental apartments built, but replacing it is politically challenging.
By James Barron
The tax exemption known as 421a expired in 2022. A fight over its replacement, called 485x, could have major implications for the city’s future.
By Mihir Zaveri
Investigators found that the executive staff of Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, prioritized protecting him rather than the women accusing him of sexual harassment.
By Grace Ashford
The effort is being led by Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Biden ally whose state has been inundated with arrivals from the southern border.
By Grace Ashford
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Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new spending plan, unveiled on Tuesday, also called for investments in mental health care and for an important change to the way that cannabis is taxed.
By Grace Ashford and Erin Nolan
Gov. Kathy Hochul has ordered a review of art in the Capitol that depicts Native Americans, often in ways that glorify violence against Indigenous people.
By Jay Root and Grace Ashford
It would be one of the largest state appropriations for research into the neurodegenerative disease. Ms. Hochul’s mother died from A.L.S.
By Claire Fahy
P.W.H.L. New York plays tonight at Belmont Park and is one of six teams in the new women’s league.
By James Barron
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said the most significant problems caused by the storm were likely to persist after it moved on.
By Ed Shanahan
The governor of New York described a state that was struggling with crime, the cost of living and a mental health crisis as she laid out her goals for the year.
By Claire Fahy and Erin Nolan
Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York has made strides in addressing residents’ concerns about violent crime and cost of living, but that there was more work to do.
By Reuters
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in her annual State of the State address, trumpeted her achievements while highlighting a series of intractable problems facing New York.
By Grace Ashford and Jay Root
Authorities in New York and the surrounding area are warning residents to prepare for treacherous weather from Tuesday night into Wednesday.
By Judson Jones, Derrick Bryson Taylor and Ed Shanahan
In her speech, Gov. Kathy Hochul will propose providing leave for prenatal care, changing the way reading is taught and promoting artificial intelligence research.
By James Barron
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The “Empire A.I.” project would be a public-private partnership aimed at making New York a key player in artificial intelligence research.
By Grace Ashford
Proposals to reverse stark racial disparities in who dies during childbirth face deep-rooted obstacles, including hospital quality and the pandemic’s uneven aftereffects.
By Joseph Goldstein
The state and city will provide financing for the project, known as + POOL, as part of a broader initiative meant to encourage New Yorkers to swim.
By Hurubie Meko
The plan is among several the governor is proposing to address what leaders have called a maternal health crisis in New York.
By Grace Ashford and Joseph Goldstein
New York City felt a little early morning quake on Tuesday with a magnitude of 1.7.
By James Barron
New York has lost ground in reading performance. The governor is proposing changes to literacy education to address that.
By Grace Ashford
As the state’s legislative session gets underway, the politicians who could fix the problem face big hurdles.
By Mihir Zaveri
Legislation touching on nearly every aspect of life in the state, including wages, health care and education, is going into effect in the coming months.
By Erin Nolan
Stony Brook University, one of two state schools designated as flagships, has aggressively fund-raised and recruited students.
By Nick Tabor
Ending off-year elections will make races more competitive, increasing voter power and diminishing the role of special interests.
By Mara Gay
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More than 150,000 people have arrived in less than two years, throwing the city into crisis. Missed opportunities made things even harder.
By Andy Newman and Dana Rubinstein
The governor wanted to allow employers to use the agreements with high-paid workers, but was unable to work out a compromise with state lawmakers.
By Luis Ferré-Sadurní
The federal government needs to stop penalizing programs that help addicts safely consume their drugs while providing treatment.
By Jeneen Interlandi
Though school trips have evolved as science curriculums have changed, 400,000 children still flock to the American Museum of Natural History every year.
By James Barron
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that will create the nation’s third statewide task force to examine possible reparations for the lasting impact of slavery.
By Grace Ashford and Luis Ferré-Sadurní
The proposals include one that would ban noncompete agreements and another that would push New York to help curb deforestation.
By Grace Ashford
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