What exactly did the leading trade group for the US chemical industry pay for when it spent a quarter-million dollars backing New York state lawmakers for reelection?

Until now, it wasn’t clear, because the group that ran the effort last fall failed to file campaign mailers with state election officials, as required by law.

New York Focus revealed last week that the American Chemistry Council, which represents major corporations like DuPont, Exxon, and 3M, poured $250,000 into the reelection campaigns of lawmakers across the state, from Long Island to Syracuse.

The next mayor of New York City will have their hands full. To tackle the key issues facing the city, they’ll have to field attacks from an antagonistic federal government and to wheedle the state government in Albany.

New York Focus and Hell Gate, a worker-owned publication covering NYC news and culture, have teamed up to present an evening at the Public Theater with top Democratic mayoral candidates ahead of the June 24 primary election. And we plan to make it interesting.

A tiny storefront in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, has been a lifeline for Marco Ramirez and his family of four.

Three years ago, the 56-year-old began visiting the food pantry operated by Reaching-Out Community Services after his hours as a restaurant cook were cut. Every two weeks, he stops by to select items from a computer kiosk and waits for staff to wheel out his order, free of charge.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Ramirez packed his bags with staples like rice, meat, cooking oil and juice. Without the pantry’s help, he said, his family wouldn’t be able to afford pricey items like eggs.

The pantry is part of a vast network supported by the Food Bank for New York City, which recently lost 75 tractor trailer loads of food — 2.5 million meals — due to cancelled shipments from the US Department of Agriculture following President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of over $1 billion in nutrition funding in March.

For food banks across New York state, the state of emergency that began with the pandemic in 2020 never ended.

In mid-February, 390 school districts around the state received an unwelcome letter from the state Education Department: They were about to lose $25 million combined from their next state aid payments.

Those districts had been overpaid between the 2011-12 and 2017-18 school years, and the state was taking its money back. The payments were for services for special education students.

Another 255 districts learned that they had been underpaid by the state during that same time period — about $11 million total, according to an analysis by the Association of School Business Officials. In fact, New York state owes more than $300 million to schools statewide in outstanding claims.

But those districts won’t receive the money any time soon. That’s because of an accounting practice called “prior year adjustments.”