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Money Pours In for Cuomo and Mamdani in Mayoral Race

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Money Pours In for Cuomo and Mamdani in Mayoral Race

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, a progressive state lawmaker from Queens, will announce strong fund-raising numbers in the New York City mayoral race on Monday as they push to unseat Mayor Eric Adams.

Mr. Mamdani has raised more than $840,000 over the last two months and has more than 16,000 total donors, his campaign said. It is a surprisingly good showing for a candidate who was not well known to New Yorkers until recently, but who has attracted attention for his use of social media and vocal opposition to the Trump administration.

Mr. Mamdani said in an interview that his campaign had momentum because he was focused on addressing the high cost of living in the city.

“We have run a campaign that speaks directly to the working class, and I think that’s resonating,” he said.

The campaign fund-raising deadline on Monday will provide a snapshot of the race roughly 100 days before the Democratic primary in June. Mr. Adams is running for a second term while confronting record-low approval ratings.

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Mr. Cuomo, who has led in polls, raised $1.5 million from more than 2,800 donors in 13 days, his campaign said. He expects to receive public matching funds after raising $330,000 in eligible funds from 1,700 donors who live in the city.

His donors include Geoffrey S. Berman, the former United States attorney in Manhattan who was fired by President Trump in 2020; Mr. Cuomo’s former wife, Kerry Kennedy; and Jessica Seinfeld, the cookbook author and wife of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

“I’ve been humbled by the depth and breadth of the outpouring of support we’ve received upon entering this race,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “New York is the greatest city in the world, and those who live here deserve a New York that is better, stronger, safer and more affordable than the New York we have today.”

Two other leading Democrats announced their fund-raising totals on Sunday. Brad Lander, the city comptroller, raised $225,000 during the recent filing period that ran from January to March.

“These results show that New Yorkers are hungry to end the Adams-Cuomo nightmare of endless scandal and corruption, and replace it with strong, honest leadership,” he said in a statement.

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Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker who announced her campaign on March 5, raised $128,000 in five days. Her campaign said she had not yet met the threshold for the city’s generous public matching funds program, which awards $8 for every dollar donated by a city resident, up to $250 per person.

Ms. Adams, who is not related to the mayor, visited Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn on Sunday and told reporters that she would catch up on fund-raising. She said that even though Mr. Cuomo might be leading in the polls, he had “very high” unfavorable ratings.

She told the congregation that New Yorkers are “tired of the drama” and “tired of the trauma,” an apparent reference to Mr. Adams’s legal and political troubles. Ms. Adams said she had received phone calls from out-of-town relatives asking what was going on in New York.

“We don’t have to continue to be a city of embarrassment,” she said.

Several campaigns have already qualified for public matching funds, including those of Mr. Lander and Mr. Mamdani. A candidate must raise at least $250,000 and receive contributions from at least 1,000 donors who live in the city to qualify.

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Mr. Adams, who is facing federal corruption charges, was denied public matching funds in December. The city’s Campaign Finance Board ruled that he was not eligible because of the conduct outlined in his indictment, a decision that prevented him from receiving as much as $4.3 million.

Several of the mayor’s longtime allies have endorsed Mr. Cuomo. Mr. Adams has not begun to campaign seriously, though he insists he is running for re-election.

Mr. Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 after a sexual harassment scandal, is arguing that he is the most experienced candidate and the one who can get things done. He has denied the harassment allegations and challenged his accusers in court.

Mr. Mamdani, who released plans to freeze rents and to make buses free, has risen in the polls. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed him in third place after Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Adams.

A video of Mr. Mamdani confronting Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, in Albany last week went viral. His campaign said he raised nearly $250,000 in the day or so after the video was posted.

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Another social media post by Mr. Mamdani was widely skewered for his breach of subway etiquette. A photo showed the candidate placing a large burrito and a side of salsa on a subway seat late one evening while holding a fork and knife over them.

But Mr. Mamdani, who is Muslim, took the ridicule in stride, saying that the photo reflected his busy campaign schedule during Ramadan.

The photo, he said, expressed the reality of “fasting while campaigning and not always having a place to break your fast except the train you’re taking from one event to the next.”

Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.

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Video: LaGuardia Crash Survivors Recount Ordeal

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Video: LaGuardia Crash Survivors Recount Ordeal

“I just thought, please don’t let this be how my life ends. I’m not ready to die. When we landed, it was a very rough landing. Like we landed and the plane jolted back up, and that caught a lot of passengers off guard. Everyone kind of like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then you hear the pilot braking, and it was like just this grinding sound.” “Everybody was shocked everywhere. There was — there’s people screaming. The plane just veered off course. I mean, it was just — it all happened so quickly, but it all felt just like a very dire situation.” “Oh, God. Oh my goodness. That’s crazy.” “People were bleeding from their nose, cuts and scrapes. I saw black eyes, all different types of facial contusions, bruising and bleeding. I was sitting by the exit door, and I opened the exit door. There was a sense of camaraderie amongst the survivors. Nobody was pushing, shoving, ‘I got to get out first.’” “The plane actually tipped back as we were leaving, as people were getting off the plane. That was when the nose kind of fell off the front of the plane, and the whole plane kind of went up to what we’d seen in all the pictures of the plane’s nose in the air.” And there was no slide when we got out. A lot of us were jumping off of the airplane wing to get down. And when I got out and I saw that the front of the plane, how destroyed it was, I just was — I was in shock.” “It was only really when I was outside of the plane, looking back at the plane, and I had seen what had happened to the cockpit, and then just like this sense of dread overcame me, where I was just like, wow, a lot of people might have just been pretty badly hurt.” “I’m grateful to the pilots who were so courageous and brave, and acted swiftly, and they saved our lives. And if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to come home to my family. I’m forever indebted to them. They’re my heroes.”

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Video: Passenger Jet and Fire Truck Crash at LaGuardia Airport, Leaving 2 Dead

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Video: Passenger Jet and Fire Truck Crash at LaGuardia Airport, Leaving 2 Dead

new video loaded: Passenger Jet and Fire Truck Crash at LaGuardia Airport, Leaving 2 Dead

The two pilots of a Air Canada Express jet were killed after a collision with a Port Authority fire truck on Sunday at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

By Axel Boada and Monika Cvorak

March 23, 2026

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How a Family of 3 Lives on $500,000 on the Upper West Side

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How a Family of 3 Lives on 0,000 on the Upper West Side

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

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Rent is not the largest monthly expense for Anala Gossai and Brendon O’Leary, a couple who live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. That would be child care.

They spend $4,200 each month on day care for their 1-year-old son, Zeno.

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“We really liked the center,” Ms. Gossai, 37, said. “Neighbors in our building love it. It’s actually pretty middle of the road for cost. Some were even more expensive.”

The rent for their one-bedroom apartment is $3,900 per month. Space is tight, but the location is priceless.

“We’re right across from Central Park,” she said. “We can walk to the subway and the American Museum of Natural History.”

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‘Middle Class’ in Manhattan

Ms. Gossai, a data scientist, and her husband, 38, a software engineer, met in graduate school. Their household income is roughly $500,000 per year. While they make a good living, they try to be frugal and are saving money to buy an apartment.

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They moved into their roughly 800-square-foot rental eight years ago when it was just them and their dog, Peabody, a Maltese poodle. Now their son’s crib is steps away from their bed. They installed a curtain between the bed and the crib to keep the light out.

Like many couples, they have discussed leaving the city.

“When we talk about the possibility of moving to the suburbs, we both really dread it,” Mr. O’Leary said. “I don’t like to drive. Anala doesn’t drive. I feel like we’d be stuck. We really value being able to walk everywhere.”

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Ms. Gossai is from Toronto, and Mr. O’Leary is from Massachusetts. In New York City, wealth is often viewed in relation to your neighbors, and many of theirs make more money. The Upper West Side has the sixth-highest median income of any neighborhood in the city, according to the N.Y.U. Furman Center.

“I think we’re middle class for this area,” Mr. O’Leary said. “We’re doing OK.”

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The couple tries to save about $10,000 each month to put toward an apartment or for an emergency. They prioritize memberships to the Central Park Zoo at $160 per year and the American Museum of Natural History at $180 per year.

Their son likes the museum’s butterflies exhibit and the “Invisible Worlds” light show, which Mr. O’Leary said felt like a “baby rave.”

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Ordering Diapers Online

The cost of having a young child is their top expense. But they hope that relief is on the horizon and that Zeno can attend a free prekindergarten program when he turns 4.

For now, they rely on online shopping for all sorts of baby supplies. The family spent roughly $9,000 on purchases over the last year, including formula and diapers. That included about $730 for toys and games.

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Ms. Gossai said one of her favorite purchases was a pack of hundreds of cheap stickers.

“They are good bribes to get him into his stroller,” she said. “Six dollars for stickers was extremely worth it.”

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They splurge on some items like drop-off laundry service, which costs about $150 a month. It feels like a luxury instead of doing it themselves in the basement.

Keeping track of baby socks “completely broke my mind,” Ms. Gossai said.

Their grocery bills are about $900 per month, mostly spent at Trader Joe’s and Fairway. Mr. O’Leary is in charge of cooking and tries to make dinner at home twice a week.

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They spend about $500 per month on eating out and food delivery. A favorite is Jacob’s Pickles, a comfort food restaurant where they order the meatloaf and potatoes.

Saving on Vacations and Transportation

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Before Zeno, the couple spent thousands of dollars on vacations to Switzerland and Oregon. Now, trips are mainly to visit family.

Mr. O’Leary takes the subway to work at an entertainment company. Ms. Gossai mostly works from home for a health care company. They rarely spend money on taxis or car services.

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“I’ll only take an Uber when I’m going to LaGuardia Airport,” Mr. O’Leary said.

Care for their dog is about $370 per month, including doggie day care, grooming and veterinarian costs. Peabody is getting older and the basket under the family’s stroller doubles as a shuttle for him.

They love their neighborhood and the community of new parents they have met. Still, they dream of having a second bedroom for their son and a second bathroom.

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Their kitchen is cramped with no sunlight. So they put a grow light and plants above the refrigerator to brighten the room.

Since they share a room with their son, he often wakes them up around 5 a.m.

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“In the sweetest and most adorable way,” Ms. Gossai said.

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