‘I smell money’: Eric Adams heads to Las Vegas for Bitcoin conference after NYC crypto summit

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: 🌧️ Cloudy, with evening showers (so much for Manhattanhenge) and highs in the upper 60s.

It's Wednesday in New York City, where First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro is presumably holding things down at City Hall while Mayor Eric Adams is in Las Vegas for a cryptocurrency conference.

Adams, who recently hosted the city's first-ever Crypto Summit at Gracie Mansion, is scheduled to speak later today in a seminar called "The Trust Layer & the Divine Algorithm."

Here's what that means, according to the conference's organizers. 

And here's what else is happening:

• A Trump administration official leading an antisemitism task force that slashed funding for Columbia University told Fox News yesterday he's "ecstatic" about working with his "partner," Mayor Adams.
  • In other mayoral news, Adams' re-election campaign is suing the New York City Campaign Finance Board to overturn its decision to deny him more than $3.4 million in public matching funds.
  • For all of Gothamist's coverage of the mayoral race, plus exclusive political analysis, subscribe to our free Politics Brief newsletter.
• The city's public schools chancellor is encouraging parents to continue sending their children to school after a 20-year-old high-school student from Venezuela was detained by ICE.
• The New York State Senate voted yesterday to "alienate" 50 acres of parking lots surrounding Citi Field, a key step for the proposal to build a massive casino complex across the street.
• The city's parks department yesterday unveiled a list of 44 lots in Brooklyn and Queens — some vacant, others occupied by a Burger King and a Wendy's — that could be turned into little "pocket parks."
• Police said a 1-month-old girl in Queens died yesterday after being mauled by her family’s puppy.
• A Manhattan federal judge yesterday barred the Trump administration from retaliating against the MTA over the agency’s decision to keep charging congestion pricing tolls.
• Want to publicly shame your bad Zoomer roommate? Take them to "Roommate Court," the hot new show on TikTok.

• Andrew Cuomo is pitching a $20-an-hour minimum wage in New York City by 2027. (It's currently $16.50.)
• The city's Memorial Day weekend shooting tally hit a record low this year.
• Seaside Heights recorded three stabbings and some big fights over the holiday weekend, prompting New Jersey state lawmakers to try to ramp up penalties for "inciting a public brawl."
• Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the federal government will no longer recommend COVID-19 shots for kids or pregnant women. Pediatricians and obstetricians say that's a bad idea.
• It now looks like Nikes will get more expensive because of tariffs. 
• Traveling sales reps are the Michael Jordans of knowing where to find a luxurious sort-of-public bathroom anywhere in the country.
• You can buy bear meat in Slovakia.
• One time for tap water.