PARIS — Manil Hadjoudj was handing out fliers at the entrance to Sorbonne University, tirelessly repeating, “Do you care about electric scooters?” to passing students, most of whom seemed indifferent to his plea. “I care about our pension system right now,” one of them said without stopping. Mr. Hadjoudj, 18, had been hired by the […]
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In recent years, the already short list of possible candidates to hold the Winter Olympics has become even shorter. Headline-grabbing cost overruns and humbling defeats in public referendums have made cities wary of building venues for sports like ski jumping and bobsled with limited appeal beyond the Games, while climate change has rapidly shrunk the […]
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The law also restricts the square footage of the floor area of new residential buildings to 12 times the size of the lot the buildings are built on — even as Manhattan is covered in commercial buildings with floor-area ratios into the upper 20s. Some of the city’s most celebrated older residential buildings exceed the […]
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In 2015, when Shangqiu, a municipality in central China about the size of Kentucky, laid out a plan for the next two decades, it positioned itself as a transportation hub with a sprawling network of railways, highways and river shipping routes. By the end of 2020, Shangqiu had built 114 miles of high-speed rail, and […]
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When Ariel Palitz tells people she is New York City’s first nightlife mayor, they usually respond, “That’s cool.” And then: “What does that mean?” Some imagine the role involves barhopping and staying out until dawn. But it is very much a day job, and Ms. Palitz acts as a liaison, a peacekeeper, an educator and […]
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NASHVILLE — The metropolitan government of Nashville sued the State of Tennessee on Monday, asking a judge to block a new law that would slash the size of its governing body to 20 members, from 40. The standoff has emerged as a particularly stark example of flaring tensions between liberal-leaning cities and conservative state lawmakers […]
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SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Along a stretch of County Road 124 in New York’s picturesque Finger Lakes region, men stand guard at a barbed wire blockade, tending a fire they keep burning around the clock and protecting a two-story home that is on the verge of collapse. The scene is the latest front in a […]
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Bret: Oh, yeah. I’m aware. Just to be clear, Gail, my column was not against masks per se. It was anti-mask mandates as an effective means of curbing communitywide spread. Masks can obviously work in tightly controlled settings, like operating rooms. People who correctly wore high-quality masks probably protected themselves and others, at least if […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden told Senate Democrats on Thursday that he would not stand in the way of a Republican-led proposal to block a new criminal code for the District of Columbia, according to senators who attended a private luncheon with him in the Capitol. With a floor showdown expected next week, Mr. Biden told […]
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It is that division, in her view, fomented by candidates who see politics in the city as a zero-sum game, that provided Vallas with an opening to win over the city’s white citizens. As she put it, “People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side of […]
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WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress are working to block changes to the District of Columbia’s criminal code, potentially setting up a politically charged veto fight with President Biden as the party works to capitalize on fears of rising crime in the run-up to the 2024 campaign. Senate Republicans hope to marshal the votes as early […]
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Local governments across China, facing a financial tipping point after three years of expensive Covid measures, are forcing abrupt changes on the country’s health care system, squeezing benefits and angering citizens. Thousands of seniors, who are most vulnerable to the cutbacks, converged on municipal parks and other public spaces in recent days to protest the […]
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As the race for Los Angeles mayor began to tighten late last year, Karen Bass, the presumptive favorite, received some notes of encouragement from a kindred spirit: Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago. Ms. Lightfoot had successfully navigated a similar political path in 2019, becoming the first Black woman to be elected mayor of her […]
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In the summer of 2020, New York’s progressive movement looked more robust than ever before. The murder of George Floyd by the police led activists to occupy City Hall Park for a month and prompted the City Council to pass a budget that called for $1 billion in cuts to the New York Police Department. […]
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Whatever the outcome, the spread of basic income programs is a reminder of the growing divide between Democrats and Republicans, urban voters and rural conservatives, those who want more government in people’s lives and those who want less. “There’s no indication that I see that the American public thinks what we really need is more […]
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BERLIN — The city’s airport came in more than $4 billion over budget and nine years late. Then there is the chronic housing shortage, the overcrowded schools and the crumbling subway system. If all of that is not enough to dispel any notion that Berlin is a model of efficiency, then maybe this Sunday’s court-ordered […]
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SAYREVILLE, N.J. — In the week since a New Jersey councilwoman was shot to death in a car on the street outside her house, the police have interviewed friends and family members and enlisted the help of the State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the county prosecutor, speaking publicly on Wednesday for […]
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Earlier this week, I wrote that American policing lies largely outside of democratic control. In practice, despite the formal authority of mayors, city councilors and other elected officials, police departments can and do operate without meaningful accountability or public oversight. But the problem of democracy and American policing goes beyond questions of accountability. The police […]
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