NYC Rent Guidelines Board approves 2-year rent freeze, fulfilling Mamdani campaign pledge

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☁️ Mostly cloudy, highs in the mid 80s.

It's Friday in New York City, where residents last night once again spilled into the streets to celebrate — this time over a rent freeze.

For the first time ever, the city's Rent Guidelines Board has approved a two-year freeze on rents for about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.

Hours before the board's vote, pro-landlord member Christina Smyth resigned, saying the rent freeze went against data indicating that rents needed to go up to cover building costs. But a recent report from Robin Hood found that rent regulations have kept roughly 140,000 New Yorkers from slipping below the poverty line.

The decision by the board also marks a massive win for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose call to "freeze the rent" helped propel him from being a little-known state Assembly member to the city's youngest mayor in more than a century. 

Here's what else is happening:

• Meanwhile, some Mamdani supporters say he's failed to deliver on a different campaign pledge: To reform the NYPD and curb the crackdown on low-level offenses.
• New York elected officials and immigration advocates condemned Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to end humanitarian protections for noncitizen Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
• The organizers behind the annual NYC Pride March are defending their decision to allow hospital systems that ended gender-affirming care for minors to participate in the parade.
  • The NYC Pride 2026 march and the Queer Liberation March, which touts itself as a corporation-free alternative event pushing for trans and immigrant rights, both step off on Sunday. Here's our complete guide to the city's Pride events.
• Gov. Kathy Hochul has put a two-year hold on a plan to limit childcare vouchers for New York City parents who work part time.
  • The decision comes weeks after Gothamist reported that city officials and childcare providers were scrambling to comply with the rule and feared major disruptions to the program that more than 100,000 families rely on for low-cost care.
• The Brooklyn district attorney's office said it's conducted one of the largest gang takedowns in the borough's history, indicting 22 people — mostly alleged members of the Renegade Goons and subsets of the Folk Nation gang — in connection with 26 shootings. 
• City health officials have confirmed the presence of Legionella bacteria in the water supply at an East Village housing complex where two residents tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease over the past year.
• A review of court filings by Gothamist found that over 70 detainees have filed federal lawsuits alleging medical neglect and deficiencies at the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark.

• An update on food stamp theft: Organized crime groups are still "skimming" SNAP recipients' EBT cards, and there's still no way for victims in New York to get reimbursed.
• The MTA has added new toilets to 10 subway stations, including at Union Square and Queensboro Plaza. 
• Unpaid interns who work at City Council members' district offices (interns at 250 Broadway get paid) are pushing for $32 an hour.
• The New York City parks department have been struggling to fix “dozens of sprinkler outages” at splash pads, according to internal emails obtained by the New York Post.
• Jordyn Woods' internet-famous orange handbag, which she brought to watch her fiancée Karl-Anthony Towns win an NBA championship with the Knicks, is going on display at the Guggenheim in what the museum said is an effort to attract teenagers who might not otherwise visit.
• Variety is calling the new "Jackass" movie "oddly poignant."
• The wandering emu of North Jersey has finally been caught.