Is it safe to eat salad? How New Yorkers are coping with the threat of cyclosporiasis.

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☔ Partly sunny this morning, then potentially heavy rain and thunderstorms, with a flood watch in effect from 2 p.m. through early Friday. Highs are in the low 80s.

It's Thursday in New York City, where the threat of parasite-induced explosive diarrhea is still here.

While cyclosporiasis cases have been trending downward since mid-July, it's unclear when things will return to normal. City and state health officials said they still don’t know which foods are carrying the parasite — even as outbreaks in other states have been tied to a specific iceberg lettuce that has since been recalled.

Here's what public health experts and shoppers at the Union Square Greenmarket told us about their strategies around produce this summer.

And here's what else is happening:

• City sanitation workers say they're fed up with being pricked by improperly discarded weight-loss drug needles.
• New York City and Suffolk County this week both recorded their first human cases of West Nile virus in 2026.
• Federal officials said ICE has detained the operator of a boat that capsized in New York Harbor earlier this month, killing a mother and her infant daughter.
• The MTA’s plan to convert its fleet of 5,700 buses to electric vehicles by 2040 has already fizzled, according to the state comptroller.
• A 36-year-old man in custody at a Bellevue Hospital jail unit died yesterday, marking the sixth death of someone in New York City jail custody this year.
• A 3,000-gallon fuel truck overturned near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge yesterday, leaking fuel into the street.
• New York City's housing agency said the city will have to add 700,000 homes over the next decade to solve the housing shortage and catch up with future population growth. 
• New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s office said it has deleted about 5,100 noncitizens from the voter rolls after they were erroneously registered due to a software error.
• More than ten Delaney Hall detainees are saying they're crime victims. They hope that lets them stay in the United States.
• After a century away, the North American river otter is back in the Bronx River.
• Frozen Yogurt is also back in New York City, and the lines for it are very long.

• Here's an inspiring saga about how to secure a rent-stabilized apartment without paying a ransom to a broker.
• New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez's political career hasn't been slowed by his famous father's corruption conviction.
• The alleged ringleader of the Penn State fraternity cocaine trafficking operation is a Long Islander.
• You simply don't have to have your birthday party at a bar. 
• Good start to the Little League World Series for the boys from Bayonne.
• David Krumholtz is not retiring, he's just putting his acting career on hold for a bit.
• The fall leaf-peeping map is out.