PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s owners announced Wednesday the paper will be shutting down in a few months, citing financial losses.

Block Communications Inc. announced it will cease publication on May 3. The paper is printed on Thursdays and Sundays and says on its website the average paid circulation is 83,000.

A couple dozen union members returned to work at the Post-Gazette in November after a three-year strike.

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More than five years ago, the newspaper declared it had reached a bargaining impasse with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment on those workers. The paper was later found to have bargained in bad faith by making offers that were not intended to help reach a deal and by declaring an impasse prematurely.

The announcement that Block was shutting it down came on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court declined the PG Publishing Co. Inc.’s emergency appeal to halt an National Labor Relations Board order that forced it to abide by health care coverage policies in an expired union contract.

Andrew Goldstein, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said the paper’s journalists have a long history of award-winning work.

“Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh,” Goldstein said. The union said employees were notified in a video on Zoom in which company officials did not speak live.

The Post-Gazette said Block Communications has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over two decades in operating the paper, and the company said it deemed “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”

The Block family said in a statement it was “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”

A phone message seeking comment was left Wednesday at Block Communications headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.

The paper traces its roots to 1786, when the Pittsburgh Gazette began as a four-page weekly, and became a leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. It went through a series of mastheads and owners before 1927, when Paul Block obtained the paper and named it the Post-Gazette.

By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump is seeking more than $6.2 million in attorney fees and costs from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office stemming from the election interference case brought against him and others that was recently dismissed.

Georgia state legislators last year passed a law that says that if a prosecutor is disqualified from a case because of their own improper conduct and the case is then dismissed, anyone charged in that case is entitled to recoup “all reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred” in their defense.

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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office were removed from the case over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship she had with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case. The prosecutor who took over the case late last year dismissed it in November.

“In accordance with Georgia law, President Trump has moved the Court to award reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred in his defense of the politically motivated, and now rightfully dismissed, case brought by disqualified DA Fani Willis,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, said in a statement.

The Associated Press has reached out to representatives for Willis seeking comment.

“One way to address the problem is by the city taking on the cost of building new apartment buildings and entering into vertical ground leases with landlords. This would allow landlords to charge tenants less and still turn a profit.”

Buildings in Battery Park City, lower Manhattan. (Shutterstock.com)

To address the housing shortage, the city should make it cheaper for landlords to build new units. A public-private partnership where the city builds the shells of new apartment buildings and leases the interiors to landlords, who in turn develop and rent them to tenants, can increase supply and lower rents.   

Some estimate that the city needs 500,000 more housing units by 2032 to keep up with demand. Rental prices are skyrocketing because of this high demand and limited supply. “Abundance,” a book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, claims that the lack of affordable and plentiful housing is a major contributor to basically all the ills that plague our cities, like homelessness, wealth inequality, and drug abuse. The lack of affordable rent will crush the soul of the city, as aspiring musicians, artists, and actors continue to get priced out. 

As crazy as it sounds, one way to address the problem is by the city taking on the cost of building new apartment buildings and entering into vertical ground leases with landlords. This would allow landlords to charge tenants less and still turn a profit.  

The city could use a mix of public funds and mortgage financing to pay developers to construct the exterior and base structures of the buildings. The expense of building the interiors is left to landlords (more below). Unlike other public-private housing partnerships, like Battery Park City, the city would own the buildings. The buildings should be thoughtfully designed with the same profit-earning mentality of apartment buildings built by the private sector.  

The city could then execute vertical ground leases of 50 to 100 years with landlords. The landlords would be responsible for designing and building the interiors, and have as much control as possible over the layout of each floor. But the city could impose some conditions to ensure that the buildings have a sufficient number of units, and that landlords do not overcharge rent.  

Here is why this plan could be a win-win-win:  

Landlords would have significantly lower up-front costs, allowing them to charge less in rent and still make money. Landlords would only need to recoup their costs from developing and maintaining the interior of the buildings. And since the landlords would not own the buildings, they would not have to pay real estate taxes. This could amount to millions of dollars in savings per year.  

Tenants would benefit because as explained above, the landlords’ lower up-front costs means they can charge less in rent. If the government builds enough of these buildings, it could dramatically increase the supply of rental units which would also lead to lower rental prices across the City.  

The city would earn money in the form of ground rents from the landlords that lease the buildings, creating a long term income stream. As an example, the Battery Park City Authority earned $52 million in ground rents in fiscal year 2023 alone. And the BCPA projects that it may earn over $8 billion in ground rents by 2069.  

Since the city would own the buildings, it would benefit from the value of real estate increasing over time, and the capital improvements that the landlords make to the buildings on their own dime. (Any increase in the value of the buildings from renovations and improvements made by the landlords belongs to the city, since it owns the buildings.) It is like house flipping, except the landlords do all the renovating for the city for free.  

The city must be creative and consider public-private partnerships like this if it wants to fix the housing crisis. Committing public funds in ways that benefit private landlords makes people feel uncomfortable, but it can be effective. The BPCA makes so much money that it was recently able to commit $500 million to other affordable housing projects in other parts of the city.  

This plan would be challenging and expensive. Figuring out how to pay for these buildings, choosing which public property to commit to the projects, finding developers to design and build the buildings, and finding landlords interested in leasing the buildings are just some of the challenges posed by this plan. But no cost is too high to save New Yorkers from astronomically expensive rent. It could revitalize the city.  

Sam Martin is a Brooklyn resident and public interest lawyer.

The post Opinion: Creative Public-Private Partnerships Can Help Tackle NYC’s Housing Shortage appeared first on City Limits.

En 2024, la ciudad suspendió temporalmente varias regulaciones para algunos refugios mientras llegaban inmigrantes, con el fin de poder levantar más rápidamente refugios de emergencia. El alcalde Mamdani quiere ahora un plan para que todas las instalaciones vuelvan a cumplir las normas sobre capacidad y otros estándares.

Hombres frente a un refugio para migrantes adultos en el Bronx la primavera pasada. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en inglés el 7 de enero. Traducido por Daniel Parra. Read the English version here.

El martes por la mañana, el alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York, Zohran Mamdani, emitió una orden ejecutiva en la que exigía al Departamento de Servicios Sociales y al Departamento de Servicios para Personas sin Hogar (DHS por sus siglas en inglés), en colaboración con el Departamento Jurídico, que elaboraran un plan para eliminar gradualmente el uso de refugios de emergencia para migrantes que no cumplan con las normas municipales vigentes desde hace tiempo.

Esta medida marca el final de un caótico capítulo de casi tres años en el sistema de refugios de Nueva York, durante el cual la ciudad se apresuró a abrir docenas de centros de emergencia en respuesta a la llegada de cientos de miles de inmigrantes y solicitantes de asilo, instalaciones que no tenían que cumplir las mismas normas de espacio y recursos exigidas por la legislación municipal.

La ciudad ha ido cerrando estos centros durante el último año, a medida que disminuía el número de nuevas llegadas de inmigrantes. Mamdani espera recibir un plan en 45 días, es decir, antes del 19 de febrero, para que todo el sistema de refugios vuelva a cumplir con la normativa en materia de capacidad y otros requisitos, como que todas las instalaciones para familias dispongan de cocina.

Bajo el mandato del exalcalde Eric Adams, la ciudad llegó a un acuerdo para suspender temporalmente algunas de esas normas sobre el derecho al refugio durante la oleada de nuevas llegadas, con el fin de poder poner en marcha más rápidamente la capacidad de los refugios de emergencia. 

“La suspensión y modificación iniciales de estas normas y reglamentos se produjeron en un momento en que la ciudad buscaba desesperadamente capacidad de acogida para hacer frente a la afluencia de solicitantes de asilo que necesitaban servicios de acogida”, dijo un portavoz del DHS en un comunicado. “Dado que la situación se ha estabilizado, estas disposiciones de emergencia ya no son necesarias”.

En diciembre, la ciudad seguía gestionando tres refugios de emergencia no pertenecientes al DHS, dos para adultos solteros en Brooklyn y el Bronx, y uno para familias con niños en el Row Hotel, en el centro de Manhattan. Dos de ellos cerraron a finales del año pasado, quedando solo el del Bronx, aunque no es claro de inmediato cuántas personas permanecían allí. 

El último censo de solicitantes de asilo de la ciudad muestra que, en noviembre, había algo menos de 4.000 migrantes alojados en instalaciones no pertenecientes al DHS. Según la agencia, actualmente hay más de 28.000 migrantes en los centros gestionados por el DHS —de los más de 86.000 que hay en total en los refugios del DHS— y la gran mayoría son familias con niños.

La orden de Mamdani aún no pone fin al acuerdo que suspendía ciertos requisitos para los refugios, alegando la emergencia migratoria. El DHS sigue gestionando varios hoteles comerciales como refugios que no cumplen totalmente con la normativa, según Dave Giffen, director de la Coalición para las Personas sin Hogar.

“Aún no han revocado esa suspensión [del acuerdo]. [La ciudad] sigue diciendo que necesitamos cierta capacidad para alojar a las familias en hoteles que no disponen de instalaciones para cocinar”, afirmó Giffen. 

Aunque la orden ejecutiva no exige a la agencia que cumpla estas normas en un plazo de 45 días, sí exige la presentación de un plan en el que se describa cómo el DHS lo hará.

La coalición y Legal Aid Society aplaudieron la orden de la nueva administración.

“Dado que la ciudad ya no está experimentando una afluencia de recién llegados tan elevada como la observada en los últimos tres años, según la propia lógica de la administración anterior, un marco de crisis ya no es apropiado ni necesario, ni sustituye a una estrategia de reubicación y vivienda humana y duradera”, afirmaron los grupos en una declaración conjunta.

Durante las elecciones primarias, el entonces candidato Mamdani dijo que pondría fin a los límites de 30 y 60 días de acogida para los migrantes en el sistema, una política que Eric Adams instauró en 2023 para los adultos y en 2024 para las familias con niños.

“Somos optimistas”, afirmó Giffen. “La filosofía del nuevo alcalde y su administración parece estar en consonancia con la nuestra, es decir, que la respuesta a la falta de vivienda masiva es la vivienda asequible, que las personas que no tienen hogar no deben ser criminalizadas, sino que se les debe proporcionar acceso a una vivienda permanente”.

Para ponerse en contacto con el reportero de esta noticia, escriba a Daniel@citylimits.org. Para ponerse en contacto con la editora, escriba a Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

The post Mamdani terminará refugios de emergencia para inmigrantes que no cumplan con estándares de la ciudad appeared first on City Limits.