NEW YORK CITY

A few thoughts on Eric Adams’ relationship with the press, and then a bunch more on New York City’s budget and political picture.

People in heavy coats huddled around picnic tables in the sun.

When the New Yorker just isn’t New York enough, you’ve come to the right pod…

Bradley Tusk looks at the Democrats playing musical chairs for their political lives as the music keeps speeding up, explains the cases for Andrew Yang and cryptocurrency, and shares the backstory behind P&T Knitware, his brand new bookstore, podcast studio, event space, and cafe on the Lower East Side.

A rip of blue in the clouds

A jam-packed episode for another jam-packed week of New York news, with Yoav Gonen of The City and Chris Sommerfeldt of the Daily News talking about all the candidates in Brooklyn who didn’t even know they were on the ballot (including one candidate who isn’t even alive), a dispatch from Alex Brook Lynn in Paris about sending formula across the Atlantic to frantic N.Y. moms, and Caroline Lewis of WNYC and Gothamist explaining what’s happening with the state’s rollout of legal weed and with the people who did (and still are) illegally selling it here.

Map master Steven Romalewski and penetrating politics reporter Brigid Bergin do their best to explain what the hell is happening with our upcoming election, where the maps are still being drawn and even the dates, plural, for various contests aren’t entirely certain. Plus, Nick Pinto of the brand-new NYC journalism venture Hell Gate breaks down his story there about the NYPD’s Stonewalling Attorney Called Out for Lying and Forging Emails.

An awful lot of New York politicians end up going to prison but Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs, who spent 17 months in Rikers as a teen followed by four and a half years in state prisons, is the first to do it the other way around. He joins the pod for a conversation about that, “the bad old days” and the state of the city now, and rapping and performing comedy with legends including the late, great Big L and Biggie Smalls.

A conversation from early Wednesday afternoon, before Frank James’ arrest, about the train shooting and also Brian Benjamin’ resignation.

Kufre Usanga is a PhD student in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, where she researches petroculture and Indigenous literatures. Usanga holds the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Award.

Dim, close, and unwholesome

Giant furry pompom

Josefa Velasquez joins from Albany to break down the stop-and-start, hurry-up-and-wait path toward New York’s forthcoming and already late $216 billion or so budget (and everything else) deal.