As the city’s public defender landscape heads toward a potential crisis, the city this week announced plans to create a new office to connect New Yorkers with free legal services.

QueensLink, an ambitious and expensive transportation proposal for the World’s Borough has been put on the backburner under the current mayoral administration – but that could change if Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor in November.

Three Queens candidates running for open seats in the City Council declared victory in their respective races on Tuesday after the city’s Board of Elections released its first ranked-choice voting tabulation in June’s primary election.

Queens Defenders officially had its criminal defense practice taken over by a Brooklyn-based legal services provider on Tuesday, around three weeks after its former executive director was arrested on federal fraud charges.

The money needed to fund a key step in the fight to build a trauma hospital in the Rockaways was included in the city’s budget this week.

Attorneys working at the city’s largest public defender group are prepared to begin the largest public defender strike in 30 years if the organization they work for doesn’t increase their pay and meet other demands for a new labor contract.  

After mostly staying quiet during the lead up to June’s primary election, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards dished out his thoughts on the state of the mayor’s race to reporters on Monday.

Mayor Eric Adams illegally declared a state of emergency in the city’s jails in an effort to skirt around implementing a law banning solitary confinement in New York City, a judge ruled on Monday.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards approved the city’s plan to redevelop a major section of Downtown Jamaica on Monday, bucking the recommendations made by two local community boards.

As City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams shook hands on a $115.9 billion city budget, many aspects remain unclear. Among them, if previously committed funds to secure a site for a trauma center in Rockaway will be included.

A LaGuardia Community College STEM grant program was cut by the Trump Administration and the professor is calling for it to be reinstated.

If we want LIC to stay accessible, we need to build more homes here. That’s why I support the OneLIC proposal.

“Those most impacted by incarceration must help shape the system that determines freedom.”

“We don’t have to wait or wonder what this abundant future might look like. As the president and CEO of New York City Economic Development Corporation, I invite you to take the 7 train to Willets Point, Queens.”

“We all share responsibility for reducing waste and protecting the Earth. But how we do that matters deeply. The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, an alternative proposal, takes a one-size-fits-all approach that could harm low-income New Yorkers by raising the cost of essential goods.”

“New York’s rocky overhaul of its Medicaid consumer directed home care program puts 280,000 elderly and disabled New Yorkers at risk. It also risks the health coverage of 400,000 workers.”