A decade ago, Obamacare made it possible for Elizabeth and John to build a small business in the Hudson Valley: a fitness center for children and adults that now has 200 students. The husband-wife team was able to give up jobs that came with health insurance and buy "marketplace" insurance with subsidies from the Affordable Care Act. They later switched to the Essential Plan, a generous state program that offers free insurance to 1.7 million low- and middle-income New Yorkers.

Now, changes to the ACA — driven by Washington budget cuts — are expected to drive up John and Elizabeth’s health insurance costs by more than $10,000 a year.

They’re among the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who will face sharply higher premiums in 2026 due to the stalemate in Washington over federal subsidies, the tax and spending plan Republicans passed in July, and Hochul’s plan to minimize damage to the state budget while protecting low income, legal immigrants who will lose federal subsidies.

When New York abruptly backed down this month from its plans to implement a nation-leading ban on gas in new buildings, some legal observers had questions.

Lawmakers passed the All-Electric Buildings Act, which requires most new buildings to have only electric appliances, in 2023 as a step toward reducing pollution from the state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and advancing New York’s legally mandated emissions targets. It was set to take effect in January.

Delaying the law’s implementation past then would cause the state “irreparable harm,” lawyers argued in an October 1 brief. They’d spent two years successfully defending the law against industry opponents.

But the law is now on hold — with the state’s signoff. After Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration agreed, a federal judge finalized a deal last week that will likely suspend New York’s gas ban for at least a year and potentially two or more.

The state’s sudden retreat came after a series of actions from Hochul this year walking back the state’s climate commitments: shelving a promised carbon pricing program and vowing to fight a court ruling to revive it; signing off on a thrice-rejected underwater gas pipeline after talks with President Donald Trump; and granting permits to a gas-powered cryptocurrency mining facility that regulators had long said violated the state’s climate law.

For one western New York man, an ongoing 10-month stint in federal immigration detention began with a suburban ritual: browsing at a mall department store.

On a Saturday evening in February, JMA, as he’s identified in court filings, was looking at belts at a Macy’s in Cheektowaga, outside of Buffalo. A security guard accused him of trying to steal one of the belts; JMA replied that he was shopping and hoping to purchase it, according to a court petition his lawyers filed. The guard called the police, who took him to the station and charged him with petty larceny, a misdemeanor.

A Cheektowaga police officer told JMA, a Cuban citizen, that his supervisor said he had to “call Border Patrol for noncitizens,” according to the petition. JMA has a pending application for permanent residency under a special program for Cubans, but a Border Patrol agent arrested him anyway. JMA’s shoplifting charge was later dismissed, but he has been held in a federal immigration detention center in nearby Batavia since.

JMA is one of at least 15 people taken into federal custody for immigration proceedings this year after Cheektowaga police called Border Patrol, according to documents obtained by New York Focus through public records requests. Five of the immigration arrests started with a call to Cheektowaga police by security guards at the Macy’s, according to incident reports. In several of the 15 cases, those arrested were not charged with crimes.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to resume reviewing protection requests from young immigrants who suffered abuse or neglect, finding it violated federal law when it abruptly stopped doing so earlier this year. But the longer-term future of the program — and of the thousands of young New Yorkers who benefit from it — remain uncertain.

The case concerns the Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a designation available to immigrants who have been abused or neglected by at least one parent and apply before turning 21. The designation opens a pathway to permanent residency, but there’s a tight limit on the visas available to SIJ recipients each year, and they often spend years in limbo. Under President Joe Biden’s administration, they were automatically considered for deferred action, which offers protection from deportation and potential work permits, while they waited to apply for a green card.