National Blood Donor Day is Sept. 4. If you ever wanted to do something to help people, but didn’t have money to donate or time to volunteer, giving blood is another way to give back that can potentially save a life — maybe even more than one.

In 2025, giving blood is less painful and more inclusive than you might remember.

More members of the LGBTQ+ community are now welcome to donate blood after the U.S. Federal Drug Administration updated blood donation guidelines in 2023. And just this year, the oft-dreaded finger stick was replaced with a sensor slipped on to a finger to measure a donor’s hemoglobin, the protein in blood that carries oxygen.

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Want to know your blood type? A donation will reveal that information. And the Red Cross now provides free A1C testing, which is used to screen for diabetes and prediabetes.

“One in 10 people in our country have diabetes but nearly a quarter are undiagnosed — and some 80% of those living with prediabetes are also unaware of having it,” Doreen Thomann-Howe, CEO for the American Red Cross in Greater New York, said in a statement. “When offering A1C screening previously in March, we found that over half of donors were unaware of their own A1C levels.”

There’s no substitute for blood, and research continues into the production of artificial blood. Anyone in medical need can benefit from donated blood, from a cancer patient, to an accident victim, to someone undergoing surgery.

“The need for blood is constant, and every two seconds someone in the United States needs blood. Although about 62% of the U.S. population is eligible to give blood, only about 3% donate,” Thomann-Howe said. “A single blood donation can help save more than one life.”

Blood donations plummeted during the pandemic, which is when I started regularly donating blood. I am a two-gallon blood donor with the American Red Cross, which means I have donated blood at least 16 times over my lifetime and have two pins to show for it.

A pin for every gallon of blood I’ve donated to the American Red Cross. (photo by Darleene Powells)

Interested in donating? There are a few things to know before you show up at a blood drive.

Connect

The American Red Cross has a website and a smartphone app, where you can make an appointment at your nearest blood drive site, see where your donated blood goes, and keep track of your past donations. I always make an appointment to donate blood, but other organizations like hospitals may allow walk-ins at their blood drives.

Prepare

The website and app will also be where you complete the RapidPass, a health screening questionnaire, prior to your appointment.

The day before your appointment, drink plenty of water and get a good night’s rest. Avoid rushing to your appointment — I was once in such a hurry, my blood pressure was too high to donate. Remember to bring photo identification.

Feel good

The American Red Cross provides both salty and sweet snacks, water and juices for donors after they give blood. (photo by Darleene Powells)

After your donation, the Red Cross provides snacks, water and juice to help you replenish your fluids. Take advantage of the refreshments and make sure to take it easy after your donation. I’ve also been admonished not to skip any meals after giving blood.

And don’t forget to feel good about your good deed. You may have helped save a life.

A 14-year-old student was found with a gun during the first day of the school year at a St. Paul high school Tuesday, according to police.

Police were called to Johnson Senior High School on Arcade Street at 9:30 a.m.

The school received a tip that a student may have brought a weapon to school, Principal Jamil Payton wrote in an email that will be sent to parents Tuesday.

“During a staff search conducted by one of our assistant principals, interventionist, and school support liaison (SSL), a gun was found,” he wrote. “No one was injured.”

Police responded to the school, and found staff had the teen and the firearm secured, said Alyssa Arcand, a St. Paul police spokeswoman. The handgun was unloaded when police recovered it.

Officers booked the teen into the Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Center.

“I understand this news can be extremely upsetting, especially on the first day of school,” Payton wrote. “At the same time, I want to call out that our safety protocols worked as intended.”

An investigation is underway, according to Arcand.

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“We absolutely should weed out exploitative landlords, but we also need policies that support responsible owners. Otherwise, small landlords give up, banks take over, and buildings end up owned by large corporations.”

Apartment buildings near Carroll Place and East 165th street in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Lately it seems like “landlord” has become a dirty word in New York City, and all of us, good and bad alike, are being painted with the same broad, hostile brush. I’m a Democrat living in Manhattan, and my husband and I have always believed in fair housing, treating tenants with dignity, and keeping the city vibrant.

Yes, some landlords are greedy and irresponsible. But when policies lump all landlords together, they punish small, community-focused owners like us alongside the worst actors. We need a new approach, one that balances tenant rights while driving landlords to maintain responsible practices.

We don’t own fair-market apartments. We manage 100 units across two buildings in the Bronx, all of which are rent stabilized or occupied by Section 8 tenants. That means we already operate under strict rent restrictions and oversight. New York’s “Good Cause Eviction” law doesn’t directly impact our business, but the mindset behind these sweeping policies is spreading, and it’s setting up the entire housing market for worse outcomes.

People think landlords love to evict tenants. We don’t. Eviction is a nightmare; it means months, often over a year, of paying legal fees and going to court, all while the tenant remains in the apartment without paying rent. Even after court approval, we often wait months for a marshal to enforce it. During that time, we still pay taxes, utilities, insurance, and the mortgage.

From 2014 to 2021, the average annual rent increase for our regulated units was around 1 percent, while operating costs climbed steadily. That left us in a fragile position when COVID hit: tenants stopped paying rent, eviction moratoriums prevented enforcement, and the court backlog meant cases dragged out even longer.

We’re still digging out: the 2025 Rent Guidelines Board study showed Bronx landlords’ net operating income rose only 0.8 percent, far below citywide averages. At the same time, the city keeps layering on good, but costly mandates—we recently replaced an elevator to meet inspection rules and are now making critical roof repairs.

We want to invest more. We often modernize kitchens and bathrooms for long-term tenants, and we’d love to improve common areas and energy efficiency, not just because it’s good business, but because we believe, as Matthew Desmond wrote in “Evicted”: “a stable and decent home is said to be a fundamental requirement for individuals and families to thrive.” Landlords shape communities and support livelihoods in ways often overlooked, by tenants, policymakers, and even landlords themselves.

But how are we supposed to make these improvements if we can’t recover the costs? The nominal rent increases and lengthy eviction process drain time and resources that could otherwise go toward building upkeep. This lack of incentive creates an environment where mediocrity becomes the default, not because landlords don’t care, but because they’re stuck.

That’s where the cascade happens. If fair market landlords see the same constraints coming their way, they won’t invest in their properties. We absolutely should weed out exploitative landlords, but we also need policies that support responsible owners. Otherwise, small landlords give up, banks take over, and buildings end up owned by large corporations. Then everyone wonders where the community-based landlords went and why the sense of community disappeared with them. 

Government ownership isn’t the answer either. Bureaucracies are often impersonal and inefficient. Yes, there’s an inherent tension in a capitalist system where landlords profit from a basic need like housing. But that doesn’t mean the solution is to make it unprofitable. Guardrails should prevent abuse, but they also must allow landlords to run sustainable, successful businesses.

As a Democrat who believes deeply in affordable housing, I’m worried. Housing quality doesn’t improve through punishment alone. It improves when governing policies create the incentives and means for landlords to reinvest. We need to understand why tenants fall behind, offer small but meaningful incentives for maintenance and upgrades, and streamline the eviction process without sacrificing fairness.

Housing policy can’t be one-sided, that’s lazy and shortsighted. It’s not enough to squeeze landlords and hope they do the right thing while their finances collapse. If we keep ignoring these realities, we’ll end up with exactly what we say we don’t want—deteriorating buildings owned by institutions, not neighbors.

I urge our city’s leaders to look at the housing crisis from all sides, not just from the angle that earns applause or political points. Lasting solutions will only come when we acknowledge the challenges facing both tenants and the small landlords who house them.

Kelly Feili lives in New York City and works in cybersecurity, where she has spent much of her career focused on public policy. Her family owns and manages two rent-stabilized buildings in New York City. This is her first op-ed on housing policy, a topic she has grown passionate about through personal experience. 

The post Opinion: NYC Needs More Than Tenant Protections—It Needs a Balanced Approach to Housing appeared first on City Limits.

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is ending a program that allows members of its Prime membership subscription program to share their free shipping benefits with people who don’t have the same primary address.

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In an update to the customer service section of its website, the online behemoth says it will eliminate the sharing on Oct. 1 and is encouraging users outside the household of the account holder to sign up for their own Prime subscription.

Amazon is replacing the so-called Prime Invitee program with Amazon Family, which lets account holders share the free two-day shipping perk as well as a broad range of other perks like exclusive deals and movies with only one other adult in their household, up to four teens (who were added before April 7) and up to four profiles for children, according to Amazon’s website. Amazon said that the adult could be a spouse, family member or roommate.

Prime members pay $14.99 monthly or $139 annually.

The news comes as the Seattle-based company is making big investments in expanding its network to bring faster delivery to customers in less densely populated areas across the U.S. The service is available in 1,000 of the more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities targeted by year-end, the company said in late July.