When Mariel Posner’s daughter was born three years ago, the New York City pre-K teacher faced a difficult decision: devote nearly half her salary to child care, as she’d done with her older son, or take an unpaid leave from work to stay home with her. After crunching the numbers with her husband, she settled on the latter.

School district policy requires Posner to return to work once her child turns 4 next year, a transition that should theoretically be easy, thanks to the city’s universal pre-K program that roughly 90 percent of eligible children attend. But Posner lives in Westchester County, where her children’s school district, Byram Hills, does not offer universal pre-K.

As a result, Posner is weighing whether to resign.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pitching state lawmakers on a smaller corporate tax increase that his aides hope could stand a better chance in Albany, alongside new proposals to tax expensive homes and to shrink a tax credit for pass-through business owners.

The new plan circulated by Mamdani’s administration in recent days would generate about $1.75 billion a year through tax increases on the city’s corporations and unincorporated businesses. That’s a significant change from the statewide corporate tax hike that Mamdani campaigned on, which he estimated would unlock $5 billion in new annual revenue.

The new asks are more specific to companies that do business in New York City, more tailored to certain industries, and smaller.

Mamdani’s aides believe the new version may be more politically viable as they work to persuade a skeptical Governor Kathy Hochul and win the backing of legislative leaders, according to state lawmakers who were briefed on the proposals.

Early Wednesday morning, 60-year-old Manuela “Mannie” Morgado was found dead in her unit at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in an apparent suicide, according to people incarcerated with her and local advocates.

A New York state lawmaker wants to accelerate the state’s transition to a more flexible electric grid.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles, of Ithaca, introduced legislation last week that would require the state’s major electric utilities to create “virtual power plants” — networks of home batteries, smart thermostats, electric vehicles, and other devices that companies can draw on to keep the lights on at peak times. It aims to rapidly scale up the programs by creating new incentives for customers to participate.

The idea behind the bill is gaining traction among energy experts as states contend with rising electricity demand and soaring energy bills, as New York Focus recently reported.