They had to get all the trains that run over the Queens Blvd. Line (E, F, M, and R) running modern rolling stock that operates with modern signaling (CBTC, if you wanna look it up) because that line has been having its signals upgraded. I ride the N and used to ride the Q, and both of those lines had to give up their newer equipment for that reason.

1. I’ve got complicated feelings about the Post—including a total lack of patience for the times when they play fast and loose with the facts, for instance—but they actually report these stories (and lots of other stories too), so I don’t see how you can say they “don’t care”. At this point most cities don’t even have a decent newspaper, so I’m grateful to have the Post and the Daily News in addition to the various little local Queens papers I read every week. It’s not that hard to filter out the tabloidese from a Post story, read it with a skeptical eye, and then you’re left with an actual news story. I know people who work there (and a couple of people who used to), and despite their contempt for Murdoch’s politics, they’ll admit that it’s an actual newspaper. A tabloid, sure, but a tabloid newspaper.

2. I don’t see what this has to do with the involuntary-hospitalization thing. That program, at least as I understand it, is for people who are severely mentally ill and living on the streets and in the subways and so on, not for women living in shelters who commit crimes. I don’t see the link between the two things.

The selling-puppies-in-pet-shops ban is a state law, signed by the governor after some changes were made (like having it take effect in 2024 rather than immediately, for instance). So it is not analogous to this.