New York City

I still look back fondly on my 10th birthday party – a cute little scavenger hunt through the landmarks of Central Park. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to waste a peaceful Sunday afternoon reliving those glory days 20-odd years later.  Zohran Mamdani is cut from a different cloth, it seems. New York’s socialist soon-to-be mayor hosted his very own campaign-themed “Zcavenger Hunt” on Sunday, and thousands of over-worked (or unemployed?) New Yorkers seemingly had nothing better to do than embrace their inner whimsy.  Mamdani announced the event on Saturday in typical fashion – a highly produced video clip poking fun at his opponents.

Zohran Mamdani’s presumptive victory will make history: if elected in November, he will become New York’s first Muslim and first Indian-American mayor. Powering his win in the Democratic primaries was a massive surge of young, urban, progressive voters changing the city’s political future. But beneath the energy and hope lies something more troubling: a generational embrace of a politics of entitlement, poised to undermine not only the city’s finances but also the values that have historically bound together American civic life. The city’s youth voting base turned out in force: voters aged 18–29 gave Mamdani the win.

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has declared that in his New York City, buses will be free, childcare will be free, rent will be frozen and government-run grocery stores will light up the crime-riddled horizon. Cockburn thinks current Mayor Eric Adams, now running as an Independent, must have read Zohran's free-stuff-for-New-Yorkers list and spotted a hole: WiFi. In a press conference yesterday, Adams was joined by the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development to announce their new $3.25 million plan to provide free WiFi to low-income New Yorkers in 35 government-subsidized buildings. "Liberty Link will deliver free and low cost internet to 2,200 households across the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. . . . Today, we're bringing Section 8 online," the Mayor said.

When Zohran Mamdani applied to Columbia University in 2009, he checked both the “Asian” and “Black or African American” boxes on his admissions form. He wasn’t lying – technically. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani said he was trying to express his complex heritage. But in a recent interview with The New York Times, he admitted something telling: he doesn’t consider himself black.That admission, buried beneath the usual progressive buzzwords about “nuance” and “complexity,” should be a wake-up call for anyone still defending race-based admissions in elite education. Mamdani didn’t cheat the system. He played by its rules. And that’s exactly the problem.

For New York liberals of a certain age, the term “states’ rights” has long been synonymous with segregation in the South. It’s personified by Alabama governor George Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door,” in June 1963, to prevent desegregation of the state university. Wallace blocked two black students from entering the university auditorium, and the ensuing confrontation between the governor and the Kennedy administration signaled the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow system that followed the Civil War. The governor was partly acting on the not entirely fallacious contention that under the federal system, state prerogative should sometimes supersede federal government edicts, and even rulings by the US Supreme Court.

Forget Trumpbucks and Bidenbucks: Americans could see Muskbucks (or DoGEbucks?) hitting their mailboxes if the world’s richest man has his way.This time, it wouldn’t be via payouts from X — it would be courtesy of the billions of dollars in savings that Musk claims have already come from the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DoGE) wide-ranging cuts. According to Musk, DoGE has already saved taxpayers $55 billion — and he would like to see payments sent back to taxpayers when his agency winds down ahead of America’s 250th birthday. The idea started — where else?

It was a gray May afternoon in New York City when a thirty-year-old homeless man named Jordan Neely — who had dozens of encounters with law enforcement, suffered from schizophrenia and other mental health issues and was under the influence of synthetic drugs — boarded the F train and began ranting and raving at the straphangers on board. He said he was ready to die, that someone would die today, screaming that he didn’t mind going to jail or getting life in prison. Scared passengers backed away, with one young mother barricading her five-year-old behind a stroller. Witnesses attest to what happened next: a young man headed to the gym, an ex-Marine named Daniel Penny, did what others wouldn’t be brave enough to do in this situation.

Talk about making history: New York City mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the first sitting NYC mayor to face a federal charge while in post. Adams, who has served as mayor for three years, has been the subject of a federal investigation into whether his campaign was on the receiving end of illegal foreign donations from the Turkish government. New York is currently hosting the annual United Nations General Assembly; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's president, left the city hours before Adams's indictment. The indictment itself remains sealed, with more details expected to be revealed later today. Adams previously served as Brooklyn borough president and was an officer in New York City police forces for two decades.