NYC's taxi union teams with Uber, hedge fund to demand healthcare 4 driver deaths

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Mostly sunny, highs in the lower 70s.

It's Tuesday in New York City, where the union representing cab drivers has teamed up with Uber and a hedge fund that owns thousands of taxi medallions to demand a public health fund for drivers.

The request was made through a letter sent to Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul, and comes after four yellow taxi drivers died on the job over the summer.

The coalition specifically called for New York state to redirect a 50-cent surcharge on all yellow cab rides — which currently goes to the MTA and brings in around $24 million annually — into a health fund for drivers.

Here's how the Taxi Workers Alliance and ride-hail giant Uber, which have long had a contentious relationship, came together to make this push.

And here's what else is happening:

• Oscar Belgal, the man shot by ICE agents in Marble Hill last week, remained in solitary confinement at a federal lockup in Brooklyn yesterday with a bullet still lodged in his neck, according to his attorneys.
  • The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is pressuring Mayor Mamdani to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch if she doesn't remove ICE from the city.
  • Mayor Mamdani yesterday announced a comprehensive review of the NYPD’s use of force policies.
• Gov. Hochul and her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, will square off tonight in their lone debate ahead of the gubernatorial election.
• Police said a Staten Island cyclist heading the wrong way was fatally struck by an ambulance in Bulls Head last night.
• New York City’s plan to move thousands of freight deliveries out of trucks and onto the waterways took a small but important step forward last week when a 55-year-old former passenger ferry transported a single container of produce from the Bronx down to Manhattan.
• New York state now has at least 110 confirmed cases of measles, which is more than double last year's total. Dr. James McDonald, the state health commissioner, told us how this spread took off.
• NJ Transit and Amtrak commuters will likely need to adjust their travel plans over the next five weeks as construction continues on a new bridge over the Hackensack River. 
• Here's what it was like living at The Greenpointer, a 40-story luxury high-rise in Greenpoint that was entirely powered by a roaring generator for more than a month.

• New York City is launching a program today to wipe out the interest on certain unpaid tickets to incentivize homeowners and small businesses to pay back $25 million in outstanding fines.
• There are so many stickers in this town.
• Actor Selma Blair pleaded not guilty in Queens Criminal Court yesterday after allegedly harming two flight attendants on a flight into JFK Airport and then kicking a police officer and a nurse. 
• The Big Apple Triathlon, which involves a swim in the Hudson, successfully returned over the weekend.
• Credit to Jane on the Upper West Side for adopting so many dogs.
• We got an "NCIS."