“By refusing to include the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the revamped pilot, New York State is complicit in the ongoing danger facing these residents. Basement safety is not a luxury, it’s a matter of life or death and we need to right this wrong.”

Ida aftermath in Queens.

On Sept. 1, 2021, Hurricane Ida dumped an unprecedented 3.5 inches of rain per hour on New York City—nine inches in total. Our city’s outdated sewer system was quickly overwhelmed, leading to 13 deaths. Eleven of those people drowned in basement apartments.

Just this month, over two inches of rain fell on New York City in just one hour—the second rainiest hour since Ida. Once again, streets turned into rivers and subways flooded. Water poured into unregulated, unsafe basement units. Constituents have told us that every time it rains, they brace for impact. As we approach the fourth-year anniversary of Hurricane Ida, we are still failing to protect our most vulnerable. 

That’s why we introduced Resolution 991 in the City Council, urging Albany lawmakers to pass bills A.597/S.2507 that would expand the state’s basement conversion pilot program to include unfairly excluded communities. This program, which the city has failed to roll out in a timely manner, would make hundreds and even thousands more basement apartments safe.

RELATED READING: Navigating NYC’s Housing Crisis Through Basement Living

Extreme flooding is no longer a freak event. As climate change accelerates, decades of inaction have led to extreme weather becoming the norm. The new seasonal reality will be flash floods and torrential storms. Yet much of our housing stock remains woefully unprepared. As environmental and housing crises are colliding, no one feels the danger more than the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers living in basement apartments. 

The problem is further exacerbated by Donald Trump and Republicans cutting over $300 million in FEMA funding for New York City and New York State flood mitigation, which affects Bushwick, East New York, East Elmhurst, Corona, and Astoria residents the most. 

The city tried to make basement apartments safe through the Basement Conversion Pilot Program many years ago, only to be stymied by city funding cuts and state regulatory barriers. Last spring, the state lifted many of those barriers but confusingly excluded the working-class neighborhoods of color with some of the highest concentrations of basement units. Yet again our communities have been left out of the conversation.

Why? Because state representatives lobbied against their own community’s inclusion. 

None of the community boards in our districts were included in this pilot even though Community Board 5, represented by Councilmember Nurse, hosted the original pilot many years ago before petering out due to the aforementioned barriers—the same barriers which were lifted through recent State action. 

By refusing to include the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the revamped pilot, New York State is complicit in the ongoing danger facing these residents. Basement safety is not a luxury, it’s a matter of life or death and we need to right this wrong.

We cannot wait for the next storm to remind us of our failures. Ida was the warning and the clock is ticking. The state must act now to make sure that every home can be a safe shelter. 

Sandy Nurse and Shekar Krishnan are members of the New York City Council representing neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens respectively. They submitted this op-ed in partnership with the Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone (BASE) Coalition.

The post Opinion: A Storm is Coming. The State Must Act Now to Make Basement Apartments Safe. appeared first on City Limits.

Minnesotans will have more privacy protections for their online data under a new law set to take effect on Thursday.

The Consumer Data Privacy Act will give people in the state the right to opt out of businesses tracking personal data like names, email addresses or location history for use in targeted marketing. Traits like ethnicity and sexuality also are covered by the law.

The law grants consumers the right to obtain personal data held by a company and a list of other companies that bought the information. Consumers also can ask businesses to delete data or request that the business edit inaccuracies.

A growing number of states have introduced consumer information protection laws as data collection has become increasingly pervasive.

Generating data

Targeted advertisements based on a phone’s location or a user’s shopping history are just one facet of personal data collection. Newer cars and even some home appliances — like dishwashers and refrigerators — now connect to the internet, potentially giving outsiders information about a person’s habits.

A typical person generates about 1.7 gigabytes of data a day — the equivalent of 2,000 photos on a phone, said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. It can come from everything from fitness apps to social media browsing.

“We cannot and should not just think that violations and invasions of our privacy are just the way it is in this modern time,” Ellison said as he briefed reporters on the law Monday at the state Capitol. “We have a right to our privacy, and we have to protect it.”

Businesses have to comply with the law if they control or process the personal information of 100,000 or more Minnesota residents or if they earn more than 25% of their revenue from the sale of personal data and handle 25,000 consumers’ data.

For the first six months the law is in effect, businesses will have 30 days to correct violations after notification by the attorney general.

‘If you’re not paying anything for the product, you are the product’

Minnesota is now one of 19 states to adopt a consumer data privacy law.

While some companies are critical of what they call a patchwork of privacy laws, bill sponsor Rep. Steve Elkins, DFL-Bloomington, said the lack of federal action on the issue demanded action from the states.

Elkins, who has worked for the past 25 years in data management, said free applications — like weather apps — often harvest data from users such as location history and sell it to third parties.

“There’s an adage in the software industry,” he said. “If you’re not paying anything for the product, you are the product.”

Supporters say it will help empower consumers to question data-driven decision-making by businesses on jobs, housing and insurance, similar to how they can request data on their credit scores.

Protections under the law

Minnesota’s law has some advantages over others, including the right to question a company’s decision to deny a service, Elkins said.

For example, a property company will not be able to deny a tenant’s rental application and refuse to disclose data that may have helped them arrive at that decision merely because it is “proprietary.”

Other protections include a requirement for businesses to get permission from a parent or guardian before selling information of consumers under the age of 16. Consumers can question the results of automated decisions made about their data. Businesses have 45 days to respond to requests for information.

Data on a consumer’s ethnicity, race, religion, health, sexuality and genetic information also is protected under the new law.

Opt-out requirement

Some online platforms already give users the option to opt out of data sharing for targeted advertisements, including the search engine DuckDuckGo and the browser Mozilla Firefox, Elkins said. When the personal data law takes effect on Thursday, there will be a universal opt-out requirement.

Companies like Apple and Microsoft are generally in favor of third-party data selling restrictions, and most resistance comes from data broker companies, Elkins said. In 2019, a state lobbyist for Microsoft approached Elkins about sponsoring a data privacy bill.

To help acquaint Minnesotans with the new consumer protections, the attorney general’s office has launched a new website: privacymn.com.

Materials include drafts of letters consumers can use to assert their rights and guidance on how to report violations of the new law. It also offers guidance on how to set up opt-out mechanisms.

Complaints can be filed with the attorney general at 651-296-3353.

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As of July 20, of the 35,800 total migrants in city shelters, 80 percent are already in Department of Homeless Services-run sites. About 6,800 are in four non-DHS shelters where the 30- and 60-day deadlines still apply, officials told City Limits.

The Department of Homeless Services’ intake center for families with children in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The entrance ramp to the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) office is long and steep, and on a recent warm summer morning, children ran up it while their parents walked to the front door. Some were dragging small wheeled suitcases. 

The building, run by the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), is the first stop for families with kids seeking shelter in the city. As of late June, that now includes migrants and asylum seekers, who previously had to complete their shelter intake at a separate arrival center in Manhattan. 

The city has been transitioning immigrants to a single shelter system under DHS, as it dismantles the extensive network of emergency shelters run by other city agencies opened to house migrants and asylum seekers over the last three years. During peak periods, several hundred arrived daily.

But for the last several months, only a few dozen migrants have entered shelter each week, as the number of those departing the city increased. Since June 2024, following the Biden administration’s implementation of new asylum claim limits, both the number of people crossing the border and arriving in the city has dropped significantly. 

The shift also means fewer people are subject to the city’s controversial shelter deadlines, which don’t apply to those staying in DHS-operated facilities. 

As of July 20, most immigrants had already been moved to the DHS shelter system: of the 35,800 total migrants in shelter, 80 percent are in DHS-run shelters, while about 6,800 are in four non-DHS shelters. 

Those who remain in the few non-DHS shelters will continue to have their stays time-limited as a capacity management policy, City Hall said. Families with children will receive 60-day notices; when their time is up, depending on capacity, they will either be offered an extension or placement in the DHS system.

“[O]ur understanding is that … if you need more time, just basically tell your case manager or someone on site, and you’ll be extended in place,” explained Will Watts, deputy executive director for advocacy with the Coalition for the Homeless, which monitors conditions in the city’s shelters.

“You’re not going to need to go anywhere to ask for an extension. So if this works like it’s supposed to, no one really should need to be going to another site after a certain period of time,” he added.

Migrant adults and families without kids in non-DHS shelters will continue to receive 30- or 60-day notices, after which they will be offered placement extensions based on bed availability.

“It was always the goal for the city to consolidate these systems. Our settlement was always meant to be temporary,” said Kathryn Kliff, staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project.

She’s referring to the settlement reached last year that temporarily narrowed New York City’s right-to-shelter rules—which generally require the city to provide a bed to anyone in need—as officials struggled to find space for new arrivals.

“They are working toward a world where everyone goes through DHS intake, and that means that everyone is entitled to the protections you’re entitled to,” Kliff said. 

‘Not out of the woods yet’

Since the end of June, anyone looking for shelter—including migrants—should go to the DHS’s regular intake centers. For single adults, that means visits to sites in Manhattan, while families with children must go to the PATH building in the Bronx. 

During City Limits’ recent visit, New Yorkers without a home were visiting PATH, and only a couple of single adult migrants were looking for accommodation more suited to their needs. A man who asked not to be identified for fear of federal immigration enforcement said he uses a cane and is looking to move to a lower floor of the Wards Island shelter, where he has been staying for a month, so he can walk less.

“The young people, full of energy, were placed on the first floor, and I was placed on the seventh floor,” the man, 44, said in Spanish.

After entering and leaving a few minutes later, he said he and a friend had been referred to DHS intake for single adults in Manhattan. They said that they could not find anyone who spoke Spanish within the PATH intake center.

However, when asked about it, a DHS spokesperson said that 15 interpreters work in shifts at PATH every day to ensure that there are always interpreters on hand. In addition to in-person services, the agency also has interpreters available remotely through the city’s language line.

Since the spring of 2022, over 237,700 migrants have come through the city’s shelter intakes. From July 14 to July 20, fewer than 100 new migrants entered it, while more than 300 migrants left, officials said. 

“While we have made strides on the crisis, we are not out of the woods yet. There are still 36,000 migrants in need of shelter and services,” a City Hall spokesperson said.

As part of the scale-down efforts, the city recently closed several facilities, including the Asylum Application Help Center, located at the American Red Cross headquarters in Manhattan, which offered various immigration legal services, and the Arrival Center at the Roosevelt Hotel, where families applied for and extended their stays in shelters. 

Other recent closures include the “Reticketing Center” in the East Village and a network of “faith beds,” which were set up in religious centers to accommodate people seeking shelter.

Migrants lined up outside the Reticketing Center in the spring of 2024. (City Limits/Adi Talwar)

The Reticketing Center closes

The city started giving 60-day shelter deadlines to single migrant adults in July 2023. That November, their shelter stay limit was reduced to 30 days. In October 2023, the city announced that family notices would be given to families with kids, and these started in January 2024. 

While people could request an extension after their time ran out, housing and homelessness advocates heavily criticized the deadline policy—and some lawmakers introduced legislation to ban it—saying the frequent moves were disruptive to families trying to stabilize their lives. 

The administration opened its East Village “Reticketing Center” in October 2023 to process all adult migrants’ shelter extension requests, as well as provide those willing to relocate elsewhere with free travel tickets to locations outside the city.

For months in late 2023 and early 2024, immigrants gathered outside the former St. Brigid’s School building, forming long lines as they sought shelter placements or extensions. Some arrived with their suitcases and backpacks, ready to request a one-way bus or airplane ticket.

The administration closed the site at the end of June. According to the mayor’s office, over 100,000 people visited the Reticketing Center to request additional time in shelters or tickets for onward travel during its many months of operation. 

“Over the past year, thanks to the successful implementation of 30- and 60-day time limit policies in conjunction with asylum seeker management strategies, including reticketing and case management, 84 percent of migrants have left our system and taken their next steps toward self-sufficiency,” a City Hall spokesperson said.

The mayor’s office said that migrants can continue to request tickets for travel through their shelter placements.

Faith-based shelter program 

City Limits first reported on the administration’s plans for a faith-based emergency shelter program in May 2023, and the mayor’s office formally announced it that June.

On paper, the plan aimed to establish a network of around 950 shelter beds spread across 50 houses of worship, which would offer overnight only accommodations to migrants so that the sites could continue their daytime programming.

However, the program, which cost the city less than the use of hotels converted into emergency shelters, took much longer than expected to launch, as some of the sites faced obstacles meeting code compliance accreditations.

The faith-based shelter program included daytime “hospitality centers” in different boroughs where migrants could spend the day and access services such as showers and meals.

Although the contract for this program was expected to last two years, the city ended it in late June, citing decreased need.

“Due to these closures and declining migrant population, we have been transitioning back to a single shelter system for all New Yorkers seeking shelter,” a City Hall spokesperson said via email.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Fewer Migrants Subject to Shelter Deadlines as City Transitions to Unified System appeared first on City Limits.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s official: Older Americans worried about cognitive decline can stay sharper for longer by exercising both their bodies and their brains and eating healthier.

That’s according to initial results released Monday from a rigorous U.S. study of lifestyle changes in seniors at risk of developing dementia. People following a combination of healthier habits slowed typical age-related cognitive decline — achieving scores on brain tests as if they were a year or two younger, researchers reported in JAMA and at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

It’s not too late to get started — study participants were in their 60s and 70s — and it doesn’t require becoming a pickleball champ or swearing off ice cream.

“It was the first time I felt like I was doing something proactive to protect my brain,” said Phyllis Jones, 66, of Aurora, Illinois, who joined the study after caring for her mother with dementia and struggling with her own health problems.

In this photo provided by Phyllis Jones, she prepares a smoothie with spinach, frozen blueberries, almond milk with pumpkin spice and date sugar at home in Aurora, Ill., on Friday, July 25, 2025. (Courtesy Phyllis Jones via AP)

It’s too soon to know if stalling age-related decline also could reduce the risk of later Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. But Jones and other study participants underwent brain scans and blood tests that researchers now are analyzing for clues – such as whether people also saw a reduction in Alzheimer’s-related protein buildup.

“We’re all on a cognitive aging clock and anything we can do to slow that clock down, to me, that is a significant benefit,” said Laura Baker of Wake Forest University School of Medicine, who led the study.

What’s good for the heart is good for the brain

Doctors have long encouraged physical activity and a healthy diet for brain fitness. Those steps fight high blood pressure and cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes, factors that increase the risk of dementia.

But until now the strongest evidence that specific lifestyle changes later in life could improve how people perform on brain tests came from a study in Finland.

Would it work for a more sedentary and culturally diverse U.S. population? With funding from the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institute on Aging, Baker’s team tested the strategy for two years in 2,100 adults ages 60 to 79.

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Here’s what study participants had to do

Half of participants were randomly assigned to group classes for exercise and dietary changes plus brain-challenging homework – with peer support and coaches tracking their progress.

They did a half-hour of moderately intense exercise four times a week — plus twice a week, they added 10 to 15 minutes of stretching and 15 to 20 minutes of resistance training.

They followed the “MIND diet” that stresses lots of leafy greens and berries plus whole grains, poultry and fish. Nothing is banned but it urges limiting red meat, fried or “fast food” and sweets, and substituting olive oil for butter and margarine.

They also had to meet someone or try something new weekly and do brain “exercises” using an online program called Brain HQ.

Other study participants, the control group, received brain-healthy advice and minimal coaching — they chose what steps to follow.

Both improved but the groups fared significantly better.

Combining social engagement with exercise and dietary steps may be key, said Jessica Langbaum of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, who wasn’t involved with the study.

“Americans want to have that one easy thing – ‘If I just eat my blueberries,’” Langbaum said. “There is no one magic bullet. It is a whole lifestyle.”

How to exercise your body and mind on your own

Moderately intense physical activity means raising your heart rate and panting a bit yet still able to talk, said Wake Forest’s Baker. Pick something safe for your physical capability and start slowly, just 10 minutes at a time until you can handle more, she cautioned.

Make it something you enjoy so you stick with it.

Likewise there are many options for brain exercise, Baker said – puzzles, joining a book club, learning an instrument or a new language.

Jones, a software engineer-turned-tester, learned she loves blueberry-spinach smoothies. Her favorite exercise uses an at-home virtual reality program that lets her work up a sweat while appearing to be in another country and communicating with other online users.

One challenge: How to keep up the good work

Researchers will track study participants’ health for four more years and the Alzheimer’s Association is preparing to translate the findings into local community programs.

Will people with stick with their new habits?

Jones lost 30 pounds, saw her heart health improve and feels sharper especially when multitasking. But she hadn’t realized her diet slipped when study coaching ended until a checkup spotted rising blood sugar. Now she and an 81-year-old friend from the study are helping keep each other on track.

The lifestyle change “did not just affect me physically, it also affected me mentally and emotionally. It brought me to a much better place,” Jones said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.