Hochul to let pharmacists prescribe COVID vaccines amid federal policy shift

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Mostly sunny, highs in the mid 80s.

It's Friday in New York City, where getting a COVID shot should soon be less of a hassle.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to sign an executive order today giving New York pharmacists cover to dispense COVID vaccines.

This comes as the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which was overhauled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has yet to issue guidance for booster shots this fall — a delay that pharmacists say is unusual.

Here's what the latest update means for patients statewide.

And here's what else is happening:

• Starting this weekend, seven-day service will expand to 11 more public library branches citywide.
• Construction on a plan to deliver “train-like” bus service on Flatbush Avenue could start as soon as the end of this month, transportation officials said.
  • Meanwhile, more than half of New York City buses got failing grades in a new analysis of MTA data on speeds, on-time performance and frequency of delays.
• A Brooklyn man who died in NYPD custody at the Kings County courthouse last Friday was visibly ill and had asked to go to the hospital hours earlier but never made it, according to his lawyer, sister and law enforcement officials.
• Meet a Harlem man who spent 20 years paying market rate for his decaying apartment before discovering it was a rent-stabilized unit.
• Meet Frankie Focus, Gov. Hochul’s new mascot promoting New York’s school smartphone ban. 
• Police said an 18-year-old man has been charged in connection with an East Harlem shooting that killed a 69-year-old woman last week.
• Crisis respite centers — which offer intimate, homelike environments where people can recover from mental health crises for up to 28 days — are a growing alternative to psychiatric emergency rooms.
• New York City’s annual LGBTQ+ film festival, which runs from Oct. 9 to 21, will give Arizonans free access to screenings after a queer film festival in Phoenix shut down last month in response to a federal directive.

• Zohran Mamdani, who maxed out his matching-funds-eligible fundraising in record time during his Democratic primary campaign, has now reached the fundraising limit for the general election.
• President Donald Trump said he effectively wants Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams to drop out of the mayoral race within the next 10 days, according to grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis.
• Ubering home from the U.S. Open sounds like one of the more expensive and frustrating transportation options.
• Update: Beloved Chinatown slushie bodega A&N Fruit Store will not be closing.
• Long Islanders are driving to Williamsburg to shop at the chain stores on North 6th Street.
• Curbside Restaurant Week starts today.
• Joe Rogan was wrong when he said the Earth is cooling, according to the authors of the study he cited. 
• "I have a gut feeling that Labubus are about to be banned from my kids’ school."