News

Trees Count at Sara Roosevelt Park with Mayor’s Office of Operations

Volunteer with NYC Parks for Trees Count 2025!

At each event volunteers will receive a tote bag with all the materials needed to count trees.

They provide a 20-minute training session that includes the basics of tree identification and how to measure and assess each tree. Using their Tree Census app, they split up into different zones within the park to start counting trees!

After completing the first training event, volunteers are welcome to continue counting trees on your own in smaller parks across the city.

Their “tour guides”:

Annual Gala Turtle Extraction Event. Gabrielle in the wet clothes!

Thanks to Ted and Richard and Valiant Volunteers!! Especially Gabrielle to the right of Adam and drenched!(above)! (and despite a weather watch from NYState)

And a few valiant watchers!

With support from:

On a more serious note:

Richard, our neighbor who his cared for our garden turtles, nursed sick ones back to health, and has mentored me for years, asked that this announcement from the organization he helped start be forwarded as widely as possible.

More than 2,000 Wild Turtles Seized in Mexico Conservationists Race to Save Survivors

These turtles represent seven species of mud turtles native to Mexico — including dozens of critically endangered Vallarta Mud Turtles (Kinosternon vogti), the most imperiled turtle species in the Western Hemisphere.

Donate Here.

Thanks to the immediate response from more than 60 donors and institutions, urgent help is on the way to support the veterinarians and animal care teams at Zoológico Guadalajara. They have already begun providing lifesaving treatment, disease testing, and specialized care for the survivors. While hundreds of turtles have already perished, your support is helping ensure that many others now have a chance to recover and, one day, return to the wild.

Thanks to BRC funding and the BRC Team and ED Kim Fong and the Parks Department’s Max Goldstein and Terese Flores and the MKGardener’s work  – we are ready.

Before:

After: Belgian Blocks are pulled back, Hydrangea trimmed and plot weeded.

Andrew’s Drawing!

Wonderful. Parnas always ends with some Good News in these complex and disturbing days:

Good news with Aaron Parnas

A few samples:

-Pollution control efforts in Lake Tahoe prevented 727,000 pounds of fine sediment from entering the lake in 2024, achieving significant reductions in sediment (29%), phosphorus (23%), and nitrogen (17%) runoff, as part of the California–Nevada TMDL Program aimed at restoring clarity to 78 feet by 2031.

An organization called Green Legacy Hiroshima (GLH) is preserving the legacy of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb–surviving trees (hibakujumoku) by cultivating and distributing their seeds worldwide—already planted in 41 countries by 2025—as part of a thousand-year peace memorial project supported by the UN, ensuring these living symbols of survival and hope endure long after the original trees are gone.

A GoFundMe raised nearly $100,000 for baby Cameron Casacci’s rare brain surgery, and after an appeal, his insurer reversed its denial and agreed to cover the procedure; the funds will now support his long-term therapies through a medical trust.

Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny donated a record $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute, funding its expansion into a self-governed entity to advance early detection, innovative treatments, and comprehensive patient care.

Scientists confirmed the discovery of a new manta ray species, Mobula yarae, off Mexico’s Yucatán coast—the third known manta species—distinguished by grey wing tips and a strong V-shaped marking, offering rare insights into evolution and ongoing speciation in large marine animals.

Chinese scientists created CHSN01, a steel alloy once thought impossible, that withstands extreme cold, 20 Tesla magnetic fields, and immense stress, paving the way for more powerful nuclear fusion reactors, including China’s next-generation tokamak set for 2027.

Jamaican student Rayvon Stewart invented Xermosol, a UV-light self-disinfecting door handle that kills 99.9% of pathogens in 30 seconds, aiming to improve hospital sanitation in tropical climates and earning multiple innovation awards.

The White Earth Nation in Minnesota celebrated the birth of its first home-born bison calf—an out-of-season surprise symbolizing “resilience, healing, and hope”—marking a milestone in the tribe’s buffalo harvest and breeding program, part of a larger Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council effort to restore bison to Native lands for cultural, spiritual, and ecological renewal.

A $375 million agreement called the NWT: Our Land for the Future Trust will give 21 First Nations in Canada’s Northwest Territories stewardship over 150,000 square miles of land and water for long-term conservation, making it the largest deal of its kind in North America and a major step toward Canada’s goal of protecting 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

Cozumel divemaster Manolo Acuña Zepeda was severely injured after pushing his group of divers out of the path of an illegally operated speedboat over Yucab Reef, and the dive community rallied to raise nearly $50,000 for his medical care, enabling his recovery and future return to diving.

Researchers validated a new portable, non-invasive ultrasound device called Neosonics that can detect meningitis in babies with about 94% accuracy, potentially replacing risky spinal taps; developed by New Born Solutions and tested in Spain, Mozambique, and Morocco, the tool uses AI to analyze cerebrospinal fluid through a newborn’s fontanelle and could expand early diagnosis and treatment in underserved areas.

A tiny runt goat named Lil, rejected at birth on a Wiltshire, England farm, was rescued and nurtured by two border collies, Luna and Nya, who now act as her surrogate parents and are even teaching her sheepdog skills, helping her grow strong and bond more with the dogs than the other goats.

Massimo:

A crooked tree lives its own life, but a straight tree is turned into wood.

Chinese Proverb

CityField Citygroup City not Citi, Thurs-Sat, 2-6 pm 104 Forsyth Street, New York, New York

Responding to Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness in NYC’s Subways and Other Public Spaces

Thursday, Sept 4 Starting at  8:45 am (refreshments) 9am program -10:00 a.m.
NY Law School, 2nd Floor Events Center, 185 West Broadway

Join Ben Max, Executive Editor and Program Director for New York Law School’s Center for New York City and State Law, and our panel of experts to discuss the newly updated legal standard for involuntary removals; the expansion of co-response programs and options for inpatient and community-based care; and the impact of the recent Executive Order from the White House.

POLICY BRIEFING Center for NYC and State Law Responding to Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness in NYC’s Subways and Other Public

Closing the ‘Instacart Loophole’

This afternoon, the City Council will vote on a package of five bills that would, if passed, close what Streetsblog called the “Instacart loophole” in the 2021 laws. It would establish a minimum wage of $21.44 per hour for the city’s roughly 20,000 grocery store deliveristas working for companies like Instacart and Shipt. That’s in line with the wage increases that food delivery workers for app companies like UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Relay (finally) got in April.

“All delivery workers deserve to get paid a living wage for their work, no matter what they deliver or who they work for,” Councilmember Sandy Nurse, one of the bills’ sponsors, told Hell Gate. “These workers, many of whom are supporting families, are being paid poverty wages simply because they deliver similar items on different apps. We’re ending this two-tiered wage system because we will not leave these workers behind.”

Check out Hell Gate for more info.