August 25, 2025

Now, on to the news…

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has promised to “freeze the rent” for the city’s rent-regulated apartments. But local law might prevent him from doing so.

As Christian Browne points out, the mayor has no power to regulate rents. That authority is vested in the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), which examines a series of factors each year to determine whether regulated rents should be adjusted.

“Critically, all members must weigh and consider the data and other information before them, as set forth in the law, and their decisions must be justified by this evidence,” Browne explains. “Mamdani is guaranteeing, in effect, to fix the outcome of RGB proceedings for his entire term, regardless of whether the data justify that outcome.”

And if the RGB makes a decision contrary to the evidence? Its actions could be challenged in court.

Read more about Mamdani’s rent-freeze campaign and how it could sink his entire agenda.

A group of Republicans wants to rebrand the GOP under the label “pro-labor conservatism.” But how?

Enter the Teamsters union, which some in the party have embraced after it declined to endorse a presidential candidate last year. Even President Trump picked Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor secretary—she’s a favorite of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien and has already prevented the Labor Department from undoing some of Joe Biden’s costliest regulations.

The union is reportedly sending campaign donations to some House and Senate Republicans. But the party should proceed with caution, Ken Girardin warns. “This awkward pairing isn’t likely to work out well for GOP politicians or for American workers,” he writes. “In fact, the only thing it may succeed in doing is filling the Teamsters’ coffers and boosting union influence in American politics.”

When Portugal enacted drug decriminalization in 2001, it saw swift declines in blood-borne infections and overdoses.

But when Oregon and British Columbia decriminalized drugs in the early 2020s, the results were disastrous. Overdose deaths spiked, and crime and public drug use became rampant. It didn’t take long before both jurisdictions reversed course.

Why the stark difference?

As Adam Zivo explains, Portugal “imposed a robust system of non-criminal sanctions to control addicts’ behavior and coerce them into well-funded, highly accessible treatment facilities.” Oregon and British Columbia, meanwhile, didn’t establish any sort of dissuasion commission and effectively made drug possession consequence-free.

Read more about why the experiments failed.

“The city that never sleeps”: that famous moniker has long defined New York City.

Not anymore, Guy Denton writes. Across all five boroughs, the city’s restaurants, bars, and other institutions that once stayed open until the wee hours of the morning, or even 24/7, now close between 8 and 11 p.m. “Late-night coffee shops are all but extinct, and all-night diners are similarly endangered,” he observes.

What’s going on?

Denton spoke to business owners to find out. Read what they told him.

“Yup. I have two daughters who are relatively new teachers. Both got some experience of the public school system doing student teaching in widely differing areas of the country (New York City and the deep Midwest). Both decided to teach in Catholic schools as a result of the experience, in spite of the significantly lower salary scale. They love it because the schools they work for don’t tolerate animalistic behavior by students.”

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Manualman, commenting on the problems with the PBIS framework

Photo credit: Stephanie Keith / Stringer / Getty Images News via Getty Images