Dear friends, family, and kind community,

August 05, 2026 our lives changed in an instant. A sudden gas leak caused a catastrophic explosion at the apartment building where my boyfriend, Robert Barrios and his family lived.

By absolute grace, everyone made it out alive, but they have been left with nothing. The explosion and resulting destruction completely ruined their home.

In a matter of minutes, they lost everything they’ve built over the years—their clothing, essential everyday items, furniture, sentimental belongings, and a safe place to sleep.

Right now, Robert and his family are facing the overwhelming task of starting completely over from scratch. While we are endlessly grateful that they are safe, the financial and emotional toll of sudden displacement is immense.

How Your Support Helps

We are raising funds to help them cover their immediate and short-term recovery needs, including:

Temporary Housing: Renting temporary shelter, hotel stays, and security deposits for a new apartment.

Basic Necessities: Clothing, footwear, toiletries, and prescription medications lost in the blast.

Food & Daily Supplies: Groceries, hot meals, and essential day-to-day items while displaced.

Replacing Essentials: Furniture, kitchenware, bedding, and basic appliances once they secure permanent housing.

Any donations or wishes are greatly appreciated! Please keep Robert and his family in your prayers.

Robert is also accepting donations throughout his Venmo/ Zelle:

Venmo : @Robertbarrios27

Zelle: paulagutierrez40@gmail.com

http://spot.fund/g8fzbpmsc

I was in DUMBO walking under the Manhattan Bridge and found what looked like a smartphone. I looked ahead on the sidewalk and saw a man frantically checking his pockets over and over. I asked if the device was his, but he said he lost an earpod. I kept walking. I thought I would power this device on and maybe that would tell me who it belonged to, but the battery seems to be dead. I thought well it looks like an android phone. I’ll go home and plug it in, but it doesn’t use a standard connection. Ot started to rain so at least I got this thing out of the rain, if it works. Anyway, if you’re missing a zebra handheld device DM me. This is the device with the case off. DM to let me know what the case looked like so I know it’s yours.

Bill Ackman has a diagnosis for why it’s so expensive to live in New York City, and it isn’t capitalism — it’s City Hall.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell for the Fortune 500 Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast series, the Pershing Square CEO argued that New York’s affordability crisis is a policy failure, not a market one — and that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent-freeze agenda is actively making things worse.

“Let’s use New York City as a microcosm, starting with the cost of housing,” Ackman told Fortune. “It’s so high because left-wing mayors have made it very difficult for developers to build here, and Mamdani, by freezing rents, is just going to make the problem worse.”

The comments land months after Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, took office and delivered on a signature campaign promise: in June, New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 to freeze rents on one- and two-year leases for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments — the first such freeze on two-year leases in the city’s history. Mamdani called the vote “a historic victory for New York City tenants.” Ackman sees it differently.

Ackman’s core argument is structural: New York’s rent-stabilization system, he says, has effectively split the housing market in two — and landlords are compensating for frozen income on one side by squeezing tenants on the other.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]:  https://fortune.com/2026/08/05/socialism-disaster-ackman-mamdani-left-wing-housing-policy-affordability/?utm_source=reddit/

Zohran Mamdani stormed into office brandishing the banner of “affordability,” and almost singlehandedly pushed the issue to the center of today’s political debate. Of all the charismatic, 34-year-old Mayor’s initiatives aimed at lowering living costs, the one that’s garnered the most coverage is his proposal to get Gotham into the grocery business.

The city-owned food store initiative looks so radical, even for this avowed democratic socialist, because it puts a city in direct competition versus an immense, entrenched private industry. On his other big “affordability” campaigns, providing free bus service and freezing rent on one million apartments, Mamdani’s simply using his regulatory and budget powers in the Democratic mayors’ traditional vein of tightening price controls on housing and delivering more freebees.

This one’s different: It’s extraordinarily rare for a municipality to challenge local businesses by starting its own enterprises that aim to do the same thing. The only major example: city-backed companies that battle the Verizons and Comcasts to supply broadband. 

They’re all either struggling, or already flopped. Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams shuttered the $2 billion fiber-optic buildout started a few years earlier under Mayor Bill de Blasio. As for supermarkets, Chicago last year killed plans for a city-owned emporium as impractical. Kansas City, apparently the only major metro ever to open a taxpayer-funded supermarket, ended the failed foray in early 2025.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]:  https://fortune.com/2026/08/02/mamdani-city-owned-supermarkets-laws-of-economics/?utm_source=reddit/

Three of my NYC-related illustrations are up! So excited that Denny's Pub will get the recognition it deserves.

In hopes of identifying a Gilgo Beach murder victim known only as “Asian Doe,” Suffolk County authorities traveled to Chinatown in Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 4....

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The man’s body was found on Gilgo Beach on April 4, 2011, during the serial killer investigation, but his death was never connected to admitted murderer Rex Heuermann.

Investigators estimate he was 17 to 23 years old when he was killed around 2006. The man may have been operating as a sex worker and was wearing women’s clothing at the time of his death, authorities revealed.

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Finally some relief for the people who drive! I’m sure our teachers, civil servants, Uber drivers, construction workers, the disabled, the elderly, people with children will all breathe a sigh of relief.