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Health & Environment

Health & Environment in New York

Hospitals, heat, flooding, air quality, and the long resilience fight, plus the health stories that hit neighborhoods unevenly. The science under the headline, with the source named, never a brand’s press release.

Desks we analyze here: STAT News, amNewYork (Health), Grist.

The coverage, newest first

35 stories
  1. October 7, 2026 The Yankees have to win three straight Four errors, three unearned runs and a 5-2 loss in Tampa left the Yankees down 0-2 to the Rays, with Game 3 at Yankee Stadium tonight. Citywide
  2. September 28, 2026 The nor'easter that closed the weekend A falling tree killed NYCHA supervisor Leighton Brown, 56, on an overtime shift at the Cypress Hills Houses, in the last week before his promotion... Brooklyn
  3. September 27, 2026 The nor'easter's worst hits this morning A falling tree killed NYCHA worker Leighton Brown, 56, in East New York on Saturday, and the heaviest flooding is forecast around Sunday's 9 a.m... Brooklyn
  4. September 26, 2026 The nor'easter that emptied the weekend calendar Gov. Hochul declared a state of emergency for the city, and the city put a travel advisory in place from Friday 2 p.m. through Sunday morning, with... Brooklyn
  5. September 18, 2026 The South Bronx Legionnaires' cluster turns deadly again A second person has died in the Legionnaires' cluster in Melrose and Morrisania, where Legionella turned up in cooling towers at 10 addresses, Yankee... The Bronx
  6. September 16, 2026 The South Bronx Legionnaires' outbreak Legionella turned up in cooling towers at 10 South Bronx buildings, including Yankee Stadium and Lincoln Hospital, and residents pressed the health... The Bronx
  7. September 15, 2026 Legionella at Yankee Stadium and nine other Bronx towers Ten South Bronx cooling towers, one of them at Yankee Stadium, tested positive for Legionella in a cluster that has killed one person. The Bronx
  8. September 14, 2026 Legionella found in 10 South Bronx cooling towers Preliminary tests found Legionella in 10 of the 24 cooling towers the city sampled around Melrose and Morrisania, one of them at Yankee Stadium, as... The Bronx
  9. September 13, 2026 The Sunday morning flood watch The city opened 51 public schools as overnight shelters Saturday, ahead of storms forecast to drop up to 2.5 inches of rain an hour between 5 a.m... Citywide
  10. September 12, 2026 The South Bronx Legionnaires' cluster The Health Department confirmed a Legionnaires' cluster in ZIP codes 10451 and 10456 that has killed one person and sickened five, and says it has... The Bronx
  11. September 11, 2026 Ground zero's seventh bell Friday's ceremony adds a seventh moment of silence, for people killed by 9/11-related illness, while the federal health program counts only about... Citywide
  12. September 11, 2026 A Legionnaires' cluster in the South Bronx One person has died and five have Legionnaires' disease in Melrose and Morrisania, the city's second cluster this summer. The Bronx
  13. September 9, 2026 The city releases its 9/11 air-quality records The city posted more than 170,000 pages Tuesday, settling two FOIL lawsuits, and among them is a May 2002 note whose author wrote that the word... Manhattan
  14. September 5, 2026 Mount Sinai's deal with the Justice Department A New York hospital system agreed to end a category of care rather than hand its patient files to a grand jury. Manhattan
  15. September 2, 2026 The city's post-outbreak Legionnaires' rules Eleven people died on the Upper East Side. The fix starts with finding the cooling towers nobody registered. Manhattan
  16. August 31, 2026 The wettest August in five years has the city growing out of its cracks An 11-foot sunflower on Classon Avenue is not a fluke; the sanitation department is out shopping for bigger weed whackers. Citywide
  17. August 29, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' outbreak reaches 11 deaths The deadliest Legionnaires' cluster since 2015 is over. Most of the cooling towers that feed these outbreaks still go uninspected. Manhattan
  18. August 28, 2026 State approves the city's takeover of Maimonides Medical Center Brooklyn's biggest private hospital is about to become a public one, and the fight over what that means for Borough Park is not finished. Brooklyn
  19. August 24, 2026 The second Legionnaires' summer The city wrote the country's toughest cooling-tower rules and then did not have the inspectors to enforce them. Nine people are dead. Manhattan
  20. August 21, 2026 Twin tornadoes hit Queens and Long Island A birthday cookout at a Nassau beach club ended with the roof gone and furniture flying across the sand. Staten Island
  21. August 15, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' death toll hits nine Nine people are now dead from a cooling tower nobody has identified yet. Manhattan
  22. August 8, 2026 A Second Legionella Alarm, One Week After the Last One Ended The city just declared the Upper East Side outbreak over. Now a union says a Chelsea hotel's cooling tower tested positive too. Manhattan
  23. August 7, 2026 Harlem Legionnaires' Victims Sue the City Two summers of the same bacteria, the same cooling towers and now the same death toll, seven, have Harlem asking why its outbreak waited a year for a... Manhattan
  24. July 31, 2026 The Upper East Side's seventh Legionnaires' death, and the East Village's unequal wait Two Legionella outbreaks, two very different city responses, and one very clear lesson about which New Yorkers get treated as an emergency. Manhattan
  25. July 29, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' Outbreak's Sixth Death The bacteria may be gone, but the toll keeps climbing. Manhattan
  26. July 28, 2026 Fifth Death in Upper East Side Legionnaires' Outbreak City inspectors are still finding buildings that skipped legally required Legionella tests as the death toll climbs. Manhattan
  27. July 24, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' outbreak's fifth death The city has known how to stop this since 2015. Four of the buildings where it just found live bacteria weren't even following the law. Manhattan
  28. July 22, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' outbreak turns political A fifth death, a Council speaker calling the health department's response insufficient, and an inspector corps still short of jobs it was funded to... Manhattan
  29. July 21, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' outbreak claims a fourth life A bacteria the city has beaten back before killed again, and the scientists whose job is to stop it are running the response more than a third... Manhattan
  30. July 20, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' Cluster A cluster that started in a handful of cooling towers has now taken three lives, and City Hall says it's already over. Manhattan
  31. July 19, 2026 The Upper East Side Legionnaires' cluster claims a second life The city says its cooling-tower crackdown stopped the outbreak from spreading further; it didn't stop it from killing a second New Yorker. Manhattan
  32. July 19, 2026 Flash floods swamp the five boroughs, a day before the World Cup final Soho went underwater in the time it takes to watch a soccer half, and the storm still had a second act coming Sunday. Manhattan
  33. July 16, 2026 The Legionnaires' Cluster Hits 63 A month-old bacterial outbreak just found its 63rd victim, and this week's heat is exactly the fuel it needs to keep spreading. Manhattan
  34. July 12, 2026 The Legionella Law New Yorkers Are Ignoring Five years after the last deadly outbreak forced a tougher law, barely one in seven building owners is following it. Manhattan
  35. July 2, 2026 A Brooklyn Senior Center Closed During the Heat Wave. It Was Also a Cooling Center. The landlord at 1960 E. 7th Street let the lease run out on a 20-year-old program serving the most isolated seniors in Sheepshead Bay, right as the...

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Explainer The NYC noise code, and the quiet hours that don't exist New Yorkers argue about quiet hours that were never written down. What the code sets is a threshold against your own block: 10 dB(A) above the ambient level from 7am to 10pm, 7 dB(A) above it from 10pm to 7am, measured inside the receiving property or 15 feet from the source. Construction runs weekdays 7am to 6pm and any other hour needs after-hours authorization, and which agency responds, NYPD within 8 hours or DEP by scheduled inspection, depends on what is making the sound. Explainer Where New York City's water comes from A billion gallons a day arrives from mountain reservoirs up to 125 miles away, and most of it never touches a filter. The city's own water documents explain how that works. Explainer The trash rules, from the bin to the curb As of June 2026 every house and building with up to nine apartments has to put its trash in the official NYC Bin, and the warning period ends on September 8, 2026, when the $50 tickets start. Trash goes out after 6 p.m. in a bin or after 8 p.m. in bags where bags are still allowed, composting has been mandatory citywide since April 2025, and the fine for getting any of it wrong climbs to $200 on the third offense. The rules, from the Department of Sanitation's own pages.

Health & Environment, explained

The questions New Yorkers actually ask.

Where do you go for care if you can’t afford it here?

NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest public health system in the country, runs the safety-net hospitals and clinics that treat anyone regardless of ability to pay or immigration status. It is chronically underfunded and politically fought over, which is why its budget is a story that keeps coming back.

Why does New York flood so badly now?

A mix of more intense rainfall and a drainage system built for a different century. Low-lying, often outer-borough blocks take the worst of it, and the long fight over coastal resiliency and the state climate law is really about who gets protected and who pays for it.

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