A “Widow’s Bay” wave slammed into the Emmy Awards on Monday night as the Apple TV show set a single-season record for a comedy with 14 wins, including best comedy series and best actor for star Matthew Rhys, who took home three trophies.Rhys lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights with his wife, actress Keri Russell. He is on the board of directors at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and enjoys restoring historic boats.

“Widow’s Bay” had won eight Emmys in a previous ceremony before sweeping all six of its categories Monday night. Stephen Root won best supporting actor in a comedy series and Kate O’Flynn won best supporting actress.

Happy Tuesday in New York City, where everyone is up in arms about the dangers of AI (does it have something to do with our newsletter yesterday about the decline of entry level job openings in the tech sector? Probably not.)

Here’s a little recap of how we got here: in July, experimental AI agents with OpenAI broke free of their restrictions and autonomously decided to hack another company’s systems. Last week, two senior researchers at Anthropic resigned over concerns that major AI companies are “gambling with our lives” by pursuing ever-more-powerful models, despite concerns inside the companies that AI may present an existential threat to human civilization. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the industry to slow down development, and some of his claims were backed up by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis of Google’s DeepMind.

The flurry of warnings from people in the know has unsurprisingly sparked reactions ranging from concern to panic among the public and elected officials. Yesterday House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for “decisive congressional action immediately” to slow down AI development. New York Assemblymember Alex Bores is launching a $30 million organization called “Who Decides” to consolidate a Democratic approach to AI safety. Mayor Mamdani called on the federal government to act quickly.

“We should be seeing a far greater response from the federal government on this issue, one that has the urgency befitting any conversation around the end of humanity,” Mamdani said at a press conference yesterday.

New York has made strides toward limiting the spread of AI. Late last year, Governor Hochul signed the RAISE Act, which set guardrails to encourage greater safety, transparency and accountability among major developers in the industry. She also issued a 1-year moratorium on new large-scale data centers in the state. A few weeks ago, Mayor Mamdani banned the use of student-facing AI tools in the classroom for 2-K through eighth grade.

Still, watchdogs say there is a lot more to do. A report from Public Advocate Jumaane Williams this month calls for more legislation to strengthen oversight of AI used by city government.

“With technology rapidly evolving and NYC poised to rival Silicon Valley on its current trajectory, we believe that the time to be proactive is now,” the report reads.

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In August 2026, Meta agreed to one of the largest consumer protection settlements in American history. The settlement resolves claims from 47 states alleging that Meta intentionally designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to be addictive to young users and harmful to youth mental health.

As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to pay up to US$17.1 billion – approximately 20% of Meta’s 2025 pretax profits – in penalties over the next 10 years. Meta also agreed to implement changes to its platforms for young users, including daily time limits, access restrictions during school hours and late nights, and “productivity breaks” that interrupt scrolling every 60 minutes.

The settlement does not restrict Meta from continuing to collect data from young users, from using that data to sell its targeted ads, or from serving those targeted ads to young users. In short, while Meta agreed to some limited changes to safeguard young users, it also succeeded in protecting its surveillance-based business model.

Read on to learn more.

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