Hannah-Jones, NYC schools chancellor set to speak at high-stakes integration town hall

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Mostly sunny, highs in the mid 60s.

It's Thursday in New York City, where journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels will soon hold a town hall inspired by Hannah-Jones’ daughter’s experience in the city's deeply segregated school system.

In an interview ahead of next Tuesday's event at M.S. 131 in Chinatown, Hannah-Jones sounded skeptical about an integration breakthrough.

“I also know there are political realities, and the political reality is this has never been a winning issue in New York City, despite New York believing that it is a progressive city,” she said.

Here's what the student journalists, parents and advocates attending the town hall can expect.

And here's what else is happening:

• Heating costs are going up: National Grid said bills for approximately 1.2 million customers in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island will rise by an average of $87 a month compared to last winter.
  • Meanwhile, New Yorkers are losing about 2% of the gas they pay for every year due to natural gas leaks, according to Columbia University researchers.
• Oscar Belgal, the man shot and wounded by federal immigration agents in Marble Hill last week, said in a new legal filing that the men didn't identify themselves as ICE agents before they ambushed him.
• Police are investigating the death of a 5-year-old girl after a violent incident at a home last night in Richmond Hill, Queens.
• A Brooklyn public school dean said he was brutally assaulted by MTA fare inspectors last week over a $3 bus fare he says he paid.
• New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman has joined Gov. Kathy Hochul in calling for closing the so-called “voluntary intoxication loophole” in order to make it easier for the state to prosecute rape cases where drugs and alcohol might have been involved.
• What kinds of employment opportunities are Blakeman and Hochul each proposing to keep New Yorkers from fleeing the state? The latest installment of "New York State of Unaffordability," a podcast by WNYC and Gothamist, breaks it down.
• Police said a 25-year-old man died in Queens and, in a related incident, a 62-year-old woman was found injured beneath the Van Wyck Expressway. Neighbors identified the woman as the man's mother.
• New York City's Department of Transportation is now accepting applications for the 2027 Open Streets season — and hoping to boost involvement in the program.

• A new class-action lawsuit accuses former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's real estate firm of overcharging the rent-stabilized tenants of a building on the Williamsburg waterfront.
• New York City Comptroller Mark Levine said he won't be investing city pension funds in Israel bonds, backing off a campaign promise.
• Congrats to Ursula Koestner of Roslyn, Long Island, on her podcast episode about her grandfather's Vietnam War experience, which was among the winners of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge.
• A rare dinosaur skeleton that looks like a mini T-Rex is on display at Sotheby's. 
• New Yorkers simply love a fancy bird. 
• Behold the famous chalupa of Corona.
• SoHo got a tiny soap store.