Happy Monday in New York, where nothing quite undercuts the mystique of political power like meekly waiting in line for money.
Our elected representatives can sometimes feel a little larger than life. We mortals can only guess at the high-stakes maneuvering, the deals and secrets and backstabbings, going on behind the scenes of the grand marble chambers of the Albany Capitol Building. But every year, following the release of the chronically tardy state budget, our state senators and assemblymembers wait like well-dressed schoolchildren on a lunch line to collect their weeks of back pay.
Due to a 28-year-old law designed to incentivize timely spending negotiations, state lawmakers are blocked from receiving their normal paychecks once the budget passes its April 1 deadline. This year was the longest stretch, at 57 days, that lawmakers have gone without payment since the notorious 125-day-late budget of 2010.
It makes for a funny visual, but comes with real challenges for some lawmakers who can not easily go months without a paycheck.
“I’m sort of back to dipping into savings and relying on my partner, which is not something I like to do,” Assemblywoman Diana Moreno, a Democrat from Queens, told the New York Times. “I think we hesitate to talk about [...] our missing paychecks because we don’t want it to sound like, ‘woe is me.’ But when you have working-class representatives, this does have an impact.”
There was a mix of attitudes among lawmakers this year about the pay freeze, with some who understood the principle of the rule while others were frustrated that they were asked to work without pay during one of the busiest periods of the year.
One state senator, however, expressed a sentiment likely shared by more than a few New Yorkers.
“Why does [Governor Hochul] get paid and the rest of us [don’t]?” Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from Buffalo, told Gothamist. “She gets a free house. She gets a helicopter. So I don’t think missing the paycheck’s going to hurt her too much.”
A new statewide survey of nearly 600 educators indicates that New York’s in-school smartphone ban is highly popular with the state’s teachers, as the first school year with the policy comes to an end.
The NYC Sings Music Festival celebrates a quarter-century by placing 25 artist-designed “Sing for Hope” pianos across New York City, with almost half of them in Brooklyn.
On Saturday, police found a mother and a daughter stabbed to death in a Park Slope apartment. Law enforcement sources believe it was a murder-suicide.
Don’t trash your old vapes — NYC’s volunteer recyclers want to lay them to rest properly. Look for clear plastic vape disposal boxes now scattered around the city.
The 50th annual Brooklyn Greek Festival is set to run all week, rain or shine, outside of the Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Schermerhorn Street.
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Our World In Photos
Photo: Jon Chol Jin/AP
NORTH KOREA — Is there more determination than fun here? Children take part in a game during the 76th anniversary of the June 1 International Children's Day at the Taesongsan Pleasure Park in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, June 1, 2026.
For more pictures like this, see Our World in Photos.
Pope Leo XIV compares AI to the Industrial Revolution as new alternatives to big AI firms take shape
Pope Leo XIV visits the Città Universitaria (University City) at Sapienza University of Rome to meet with faculty and students at the institution's primary campus, one of the world's oldest and largest universities, Thursday, May 14, 2026. Photo: Gregorio Borgia/AP
With the release of his encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV has signaled that he wants the church to respond to artificial intelligence much as a predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, responded to upheavals during the Industrial Revolution over a century ago.
Since the first act of his papacy, the current pope has repeatedly invoked the earlier Leo’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. That document, which waded into the political and economic debates of the time, denounced the excesses of the Gilded Age and pointed toward a more just social order. Now, Leo XIV has used his first major statement to the world to present a new Rerum Novarum for the age of AI.
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For the Road
Solsitce Series: The longest day of the year is fast approaching, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden will be ringing it in with live classical music performances at sunrise and sunset. On the summer solstice, June 21, the Metropolis Ensemble will perform two versions of “Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons,” a reimagination of Vivaldi’s classic seasonal concertos. The Metropolis Ensemble is a nonprofit organization, founded in New York City by Grammy-nominated composer Andrew Cyr, that creates and supports new music. Learn more.
Happy Birthday to Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman!
On this day in 1936, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The Queen Mary steamed into New York Harbor on her maiden voyage today 42 minutes behind the record hung up by the Normandie on her first westward crossing of the Atlantic.”
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