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By Shaun Abreu and Kevin Riley
Eugene Toussaint has been a public defender in Queens for over a decade. But with a caseload of more than 100 clients and scores of his colleagues leaving for better-paying jobs, he fears he may be reaching a breaking point.
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By Gus Saltonstall
HARLEM, NY — Mayor Eric Adams’ rat-busting crews are headed to a collection of New York City neighborhoods identified as popular rodent hangout spots, including Harlem.
Adams, along with the help of Harlem Council Member Shaun Abreu and other elected officials, ramped up the city’s war on rats with four pieces of legislation to reduce rat residency across the city, including a new push to identify targeted “rat mitigation zones”
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By Gus Saltonstall
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in Washington Heights has one of the world’s largest collections of Spanish art and literature — but it has been closed since 2017 due to renovations — and now its workers are on strike just a month before it is set to finally reopen.
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By Chris Sommerfeldt
A top attorney in Mayor Adams’ administration faced waves of criticism from City Council members Monday after refusing to offer support for a bill that would slow down Housing Court proceedings amid a recent uptick in New Yorkers going without legal representation in eviction cases.
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By Dean Moses
Elected officials and housing rights advocates rallied on Monday in City Hall Park to push for new bills aimed at funding the Right-to-Counsel.
Six years after the Right-to-Counsel law was passed, speakers lamented that they found themselves back to demand action on the topic.
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By Ralph Spielman
New bills to overhaul scaffolds that now cover 280 miles of sidewalks in New York City would force builders to make them taller, take them down faster, and illuminate them more brightly while they are standing.
Sheds near parks and playgrounds would have even stricter regulations, pushing the proposed height of a shed even higher.
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By Catherine Stoddard and Linda Schmidt
Scaffolding has been a part of New York City’s landscape for years.
And while they serve a functional purpose by protecting pedestrians from falling debris, they’re an eyesore to look at and it seems they stay up for – well – ever.
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By Samantha Maldonado
The City Council on Thursday passed a slate of bills in an effort to prevent lithium-ion battery fires.
Over the past two years, lithium-ion batteries have caused a record number of fires, with the batteries that power e-bikes and e-scooters the source of the vast majority of those incidents, according to the Fire Department.
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NEW YORK (WABC) — New York City Council members are voting Thursday on new legislation aimed at regulating lithium-ion batteries and reducing fires caused by the batteries.
Lithium-ion battery fires have been increasing at an alarming rate across the city, going from 44 fires in 2020 to 216 fires in 2022 and resulting in exponential increases in injuries and deaths.
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NEW YORK – There’s a new effort to put a stop to body size discrimination.
Manhattan Councilman Shaun Abreu introduced a bill Tuesday to ban discrimination on the basis of height or weight in employment, housing and access to public accommodation.
At a rally on the steps of City Hall, Abreu spoke about how such biases can be detrimental.
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