Nearly 40K and counting: Here’s where ICE arrested immigrants across NY and NJ

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Sunny, highs in the upper 60s.

It's Wednesday in New York, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted more than 19,500 arrests during President Donald Trump’s second term, largely targeting Latin American immigrant men without criminal histories.

In New Jersey, ICE has carried out nearly 18,000 arrests. The sum between the two states is more than double the number of ICE arrests made in the prior 18-month period under President Joe Biden. 

Here's what newly released ICE data reveals about Trump’s immigration crackdown and which cities and neighborhoods have been most affected.

And here's what else is happening:

• Central Park is more popular than ever — and there's a growing sense of chaos along its 6-mile car-free loop, where three people have died in crashes since June.
• Legionella bacteria was detected in a Staten Island apartment complex’s water system last week after two residents were diagnosed over the last year with Legionnaires’ disease, city health officials said.
  • The city is also investigating after two residents of an apartment complex in Glen Oaks, Queens, were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease.
• Mayor Zohran Mamdani has appointed Christopher Watler, a nonprofit executive with decades of experience building re-entry and diversion programs, to chair the city’s Rikers Island oversight board.
• The Mamdani administration plans to spend nearly $9 million on local organizations providing gender-affirming care to minors.
  • This comes after NYU Langone and Mount Sinai struck deals with the Trump administration to end their trans youth health programs.
• New York City is considering expanding the size of one of its upstate reservoirs after a drought two years ago reduced the city’s water supply to worryingly low levels.
• City health officials said they're concerned that recent federal changes to the green card application process could lead some immigrants to avoid public benefit programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
• Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, are taking advantage of a quirk in state law that allows them to take millions of dollars from their parties, bypassing caps on individual campaign contributions.
• Thanks to this year's super El Nino, New York City is in for an especially vibrant fall foliage season starting in mid-October.

• The MTA says its new saloon-style fare gates have reduced fare-evasion by roughly 70% at some stations.
• During a City Council hearing earlier this week, executives from major AI companies gave a lot of versions of "I don't know" in response to questions about the risks posed by their products. 
• The mayor is backing a City Council bill that would allow individual consumers to sue companies for unfair or abusive business practices. (For example, a senior who gets scammed by someone using voice technology to impersonate their grandchild could sue the voice tech company.)
• The Mamdani administration hired one of the premiere shoppy-shop branding firms to design its city-owned grocery stores.
• The Parks Department is seeking bids from companies that could turn the defunct parachute jump at Coney Island into a tower that would display marriage proposals, birthday wishes and other family-friendly messages. 
• Tonight is the night for the Yankees to not look meek or flubby.
• Rattails are allegedly back.