City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Welcome to City Limits’ NYC Housing Calendar, a weekly feature where we round up the latest housing and land use-related events and hearings, as well as upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Know of an event we should include in next week’s calendar? Email us.

Upcoming Housing and Land Use-Related Events:

Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Landmarks and Preservation Commission will meet. More here.

Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings and Dispositions will meet on the following landmark and land use applications: Brooklyn Edison Building, 1 Wall Street Banking Room, South Jamaica Gateway Rezoning, Coney Island Phase 3, South Bushwick Neighborhood Homes, and the MHANY Multifamily Preservation Loan Program. More here.

Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 12 p.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet on rezoning applications for the 135th Street and Brooklyn Yards. More here.

Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 6 p.m.: The City’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development will hold an online workshop for for tenants, landlords, and realtors with the NYC Commission on Human Rights focused on preventing housing discrimination. More here.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection will hold a hearing on a bill that would require hotels to obtain a license in order to operate. More here.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on General Welfare will hold an oversight hearing on the city’s efforts to support domestic violence survivors in its shelter system. More here.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Land Use will meet on applications for Brooklyn Edison Building, 135th Street, 343 West 47th Street Demolition Special Permit, South Jamaica Gateway Rezoning, Coney Island Phase 3, South Bushwick Neighborhood Homes, and the MHANY Multifamily Preservation Loan Program. More here.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 5 p.m.: The Brooklyn Borough President’s Office will hold a public hearing on land use applications for 2185 Coyle Street, 581 Grant Avenue Development, and the 441 & 467 Prospect Avenue Rezoning (Arrow Linen Supply Company site). More here.

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 6:30 p.m.: State Sen. James Sanders will host a town hall on the city’s buildings emissions law, Local Law 97, with a focus on resources and connections to support property owners’ with compliance. The event will take place at St. Camillus-St. Virgilius Parish Gymnasium in Rockaway Park. More here.

Thursday, Oct. 10 at 8 a.m.: The Urban Land Institute will host two expert panel discussions focused on affordable housing in New York City. More here.

Thursday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m.: The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a celebration at the Museum of the City of New York. More here.

NYC Affordable Housing Lotteries Ending Soon: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) are closing lotteries on the following subsidized buildings over the next week.

Tiebout Residence aka 2385 Tiebout Avenue Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $104,640 – $181,740

1634 aka 1640 Flatbush Avenue Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $31,612 – $218,010

18-15 Linden Street Apartments, Queens, for households earning between $97,029 – $218,010

30-67 31 Street Apartments, Queens, for households earning between $78,858 – $218,010

550 10th Avenue Apartments, Manhattan, for households earning between $59,280 – $209,625

The Arabella, Bronx, for households earning between $80,572 – $250,380

679 Marcy Avenue Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $94,938 – $181,740

By DANIEL NIEMANN, MARIA CHENG and MIKE CORDER

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for their discovery of microRNA, tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it.

If scientists can better understand how they work and how to manipulate them, it could one day lead to powerful treatments for diseases like cancer.

The work by Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun is “proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function,” according to a panel that awarded the prize in Stockholm.

This photo combo shows 2024 Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine Gary Ruvkun, American molecular biologist, left, and Victor Ambros, professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Newton, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Ambros and Ruvkun were initially interested in genes that control the timing of different genetic developments, ensuring that cell types develop at the right time.

Their discovery ultimately “revealed a new dimension to gene regulation, essential for all complex life forms,” the panel said.

What is the Nobel Prize for?

RNA is best known for carrying instructions for how to make proteins from DNA in the nucleus of the cell to tiny cellular factories that actually build the proteins. MicroRNA does not make proteins, but helps to control what cells are doing, including switching on and off critical genes that make proteins.

Last year’s Nobel for medicine went to scientists who discovered how to manipulate one of those types of RNA, known as messenger RNA or mRNA, now used to make vaccines for COVID-19.

Ambros’ and Ruvkun’s revolutionary discovery was initially made in worms; they set out to identify why some kinds of cells didn’t develop in two mutant strains of worms commonly used as a research model in science.

“Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans,” according to the citation explaining the importance of their work.

That mechanism has been at work for hundreds of millions of years and has enabled evolution of complex organisms, it said.

Ambros, currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, performed the research at Harvard University. Ruvkun’s research was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he’s a professor of genetics.

Why does microRNA matter?

The study of microRNA has opened up approaches to treating diseases like cancer because it helps regulate how genes work in our cells, said Dr. Claire Fletcher, a lecturer in molecular oncology at Imperial College London.

Fletcher said there were two main areas where microRNA could be helpful: in developing drugs to treat diseases and in serving as possible indicators of diseases, by tracking microRNA levels in the body.

“If we take the example of cancer, we’ll have a particular gene working overtime, it might be mutated and working in overdrive,” said Fletcher. She said scientists might one day be able to use microRNA to stop such effects.

Eric Miska, a geneticist at Cambridge University, said the discovery by Ambros and Ruvkun came as a complete surprise, overturning what scientists had long understood about how cells work.

Their discovery of microRNA shocked many scientists, Miska said, explaining that such small bits of genetic material had never been seen before. The tiny fragments of RNA — the human genome has at least 800 — were later found to play critical roles in how our bodies develop.

Miska said there is ongoing work on the role of microRNA in infectious diseases like hepatitis and that it might also be helpful in treating neurological diseases.

Fletcher said the most advanced studies to date are reviewing how microRNA approaches might help treat skin cancer, but no drugs have yet been approved. She predicted that might happen in the coming years, adding that most treatments at the moment target cell proteins.

“If we can intervene at the microRNA level, it opens up a whole new way of us developing medicines,” she said.

How did Gary Ruvkun and Victor Ambros react?

The phone call from the Nobel panel is often a surprise, but there are certain signs that recipients and their families pick up on.

“Well, when a phone rings at 4:30 in the morning. … It never happens here,” Ruvkun said.

“Natasha actually answered it,” Ruvkun added, referring to his wife. “And she goes: ‘He has a Swedish accent.’”

It took a little longer to rouse Ambros.

“Somebody called my son, who called my wife as my phone was downstairs,” he said.

Ruvkun knew immediately the impact the award would have on his life.

“Well, I just kept repeating in my mind, this changes everything because you know, the Nobel is just mythic in how it transforms the life of people who are selected,” Ruvkun said. “The Nobel Prize is a recognition that’s sort of 100 times as much press and celebration as any other award. So, it’s not part of a continuum. It’s a quantum leap.”

Going to pick up his award in December will be the third time he has been to a Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm after attending to watch his mentor Robert Horvitz receive the 2002 award and then his buddy Jack Szostak, who won in 2009.

“There’s a trip coming up. It will be the third, possibly the best,” Ruvkun said.

Ambros said he didn’t expect the award as he felt that the Nobel committee has already singled out RNA in the 2006 prize that went to his friends Andrew Fire and Craig Mello.

“It represents the recognition of how wonderful and unexpected discoveries come from a curiosity in basic science financed by taxpayer money. It’s a vitally important, probably the most important message, that this investment really pays off,” he said.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine went to Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 that were critical in slowing the pandemic.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.

Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Oct. 14.

This story has been updated to clarify that microRNA helps regulate gene activity, rather than carrying instructions for making proteins.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, Cheng reported from London. Associated Press journalists Steven Senne and Rodrique Ngowi in Newton, Massachusetts, and Adithi Ramakrishnan in New York.

The Twins may not have a television home for next season, but they now know that their radio home will continue to be WCCO after coming to an agreement to extend their partnership.

The Twins and Audacy announced a multi-year extension on Monday morning that will keep the Twins on 830 WCCO with a simulcast on 102.9 The Wolf and free streaming on the Audacy app for local fans. The length of the contract has not been disclosed.

WCCO has been the Twins’ flagship radio home for 53 of 64 seasons. The Twins returned to the station in 2018 after an 11-year hiatus and have been there ever since. They explored other options this offseason as their deal with WCCO expired before reaching a new agreement.

“Audacy continues to be a terrific partner for the Minnesota Twins, with an AM, FM and digital streaming presence that delivers our fans with one of the most extensive coverage maps in professional sports,” Twins executive chair Joe Pohlad said in a statement. “Baseball on the radio remains a cherished tradition in Twins Territory.”

As for a potential new television deal — the Twins had a one-year contract with Diamond Sports Group, which runs Bally Sports North — team president and CEO Dave St. Peter said on a Monday morning radio appearance that news on that could come quickly, perhaps in the next couple of weeks.

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A friend will help you move; a best friend will help you move a body. 

This was the favorite quip of J, my best friend from youth, who died in a car accident in our last semester at the University of Texas at El Paso.  

Friendships tend to grow out of shared pleasure and shared utility. But the friend who will “help you move a body” is most rare because, like the saying implies, there can be high stakes for such limitless friendship. I first experienced something close to that feeling with J.

The words “move” and “body” have different meanings for me now. Movement is now my profession. I am an animator and an assistant professor at the University of Arizona. My research is centered on the portion of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo that separates El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, footsteps from where I came of age and where I met J and scores of people who taught about humility, compassion, and the limitless boundaries of those “best” friendships. 

I have read the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—also titled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States—and the nine subsequent treaties or conventions necessitated by the meandering river/border with two names.

Long after the 1848 treaty, the treaty named the Chamizal Convention of 1963 led to the channelization of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo that culminated in 1968. Divisions have deepened over time, separating a body of people who have resided in this region for thousands of years.

In reading these treaties, I continually trip over the word “friendship.” Ostensibly, it’s like saying, We are friends, so I’m taking your land, or, Now that I’ve taken your land, we can be friends. The treaty would draw a boundary through the deepest parts of the river channel, but the survey methods were not equitable from the start—mainly because the Mexican Survey Commission was far less resourced than that of the U.S. Geological Survey. 

I find questionable the evocation of the word “friendship” in a document that also frames the Indigenous populations of both colonial nations as a common adversary.   

The legacy of the Chamizal Convention, the Secure Fence Act, and Trump’s border wall (Nicole Antebi )

In 2021, a group of us with ties to this region formed an all-women film collective. We called ourselves “las Polígonas” (the polygons) and prioritized trust-building over any specific creative output. This felt radical and wonderful, particularly against the bleak context of the pandemic. 

Our group first met in person in El Paso to work on a project. Celina Galicia, a filmmaker in our group who recently finished a documentary titled Ternura Radical (Radical Tenderness) about Juárez activists fighting for justice in the name of victims of gender violence, took us to a park where we could easily access the river and where there was no wall, no concertina wire, and no U.S. Border Patrol agents. This was possible only because the park was located 35 miles west of the El Paso/Juárez border in New Mexico. 

One by one, we each got into the river—something none of us had ever attempted before. 

Mapping friendship in defiance of Greg Abbott’s razor buoy barrier (Nicole Antebi )

At that moment I thought about what this body of water meant to each of us and perhaps the way it observed and absorbed our struggles as well as our laughter. We made a portrait together that reminded me of a photo I once saw in a Texas Monthly article from the 1970s featuring people swimming and playing in an open channel near the International Dam. The idea struck me that this river, which has been almost entirely recast as a border checkpoint, could and does still exist as a place of recreation and pleasure.

Ingrid Leyva, another polígona, dear friend, and queer transfronteriza artist, created the seminal portrait series “Mexican Shoppers,” which complicates the way we think of the linked economies of the United States and Mexico. Our friendship is manifest in our collaborative work. We play together in this militarized space. Once, while crossing the Santa Fe International Bridge, we made a game of swapping passports again and again, increasing our speed faster as we approached the Customs and Border Protection checkpoint. Recently, we reanimated the handshake between Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz following the signing of the Chamizal Convention, but in our version we make the handshake into an infinite loop mouthing the words “Acepto” and “I accept” over and over to replace and reclaim our friendship in contrast to that of nation-states and the border we know today.

The river shapes us as much as we shape the river. 

Mapping Friendship in defiance of the channelizing of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo (Nicole Antebi )