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Goldman Sachs finances $270 million affordable housing project in New York

Goldman Sachs finances $270 million affordable housing project in New York

Reuters5 days ago
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab will finance a $270 million affordable housing project to build 385 apartments in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York Governor Kathy Hochul's office said.
The city's housing crunch and rising rents have become a key focus of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's campaign.
The project financed by Goldman's Urban Investment Group will include commercial space, the governor's office said in a statement.
"This project is helping us fight the housing affordability crisis while also prioritizing improvements that will make the neighborhood more livable for families," Hochul said.
Mamdani aims to invest public dollars to triple the city's production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes – constructing 200,000 new units over the next 10 years, according to his campaign website.
His stunning victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo has drawn concerns from business leaders, including some on Wall Street, about the costs of his proposed policies.
Goldman's Urban Investment Group has invested nearly $11 billion in affordable housing and other development projects across the state and $9 billion in New York City since 2001.
"Our investment is a down payment on East New York's potential, creating thousands of high-quality, affordable homes and essential services that will fuel the economic vitality of the community," said Asahi Pompey, chairman of Goldman's Urban Investment Group.
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Dave Portnoy: WNBA players SHOULD get paid more... it's a sporting scandal that morons are missing
Dave Portnoy: WNBA players SHOULD get paid more... it's a sporting scandal that morons are missing

Daily Mail​

time6 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Dave Portnoy: WNBA players SHOULD get paid more... it's a sporting scandal that morons are missing

Barstool Sports chief Dave Portnoy has taken aim at 'morons' as he weighed in on the WNBA 's pay scandal in a fiery rant. Caitlin Clark and her fellow WNBA stars took a stand during Saturday night's All-Star game when they called out the league with a pointed jibe over its failure to pay them what they believe they deserve. The league's All-Stars took to the court in T-shirts telling league bosses to 'pay us what you owe us' talks over a new collective bargaining agreement stalled in Indianapolis this week. However, the players faced backlash on social media with fans questioning why players should be paid more when the league has been operating at a loss. Yet Portnoy, who has become heavily invested in the WNBA over the past year as a staunch supporter of Clark, fired back as he defended the players over the scandal. 'I see lots of morons trying to act like WNBA players don't deserve more money,' the media mogul, who inked a deal with Fox Sports this week, began in a fiery rant on X. 'They are throwing around this 'lost 50 million' number that nobody even knows where it comes from. The finances of the league are a mess, tied in with NBA and purposely murkey. The owners don't want to say how the league is doing cause then you gotta pay more going into bargaining agreement. 'The league is exploding. Franchise values are exploding. Ticket sales, merch, tv rights all exploding. The players have an opt out in their CBA. Of course they took it. 'It's all about leverage in re-negotiations and for the 1st time in history of league players have power. The players make virtually nothing while the entire league explodes. Of course they deserve more money. 'Just the values of the team pay for it without all the other stuff. If somebody told me I could buy a Boston team for 250 million I would do it without blinking. That's all you got to know about the WNBA finances.' Negotiations between the WNBA and Women's National Basketball Players Association continued in Indianapolis this week but failed to reach a deal and erase the friction between the two sides. In fact, many WNBA players were disappointed in the lack of progress of an in- person session on Thursday that was attended by 40 players. The negotiations certainly didn't narrow the gap between the two sides. 'I think (Thursday's) meeting was good for the fact that we could be in the same room as the league and the Board of Governors,' said Liberty star Breanna Stewart, a union vice president. 'But, I think, to be frank, it was a wasted opportunity.' The dispute began when the players union announced after the 2024 season that they would opt out of the CBA on October 31, 2025. With television revenues on the rise - largely due to the presence of Clark - the players want a larger piece of the financial pie. The Barstool Sports chief shared a lengthy rant to social media about the issue on Sunday The players' top priorities are greatly increased salaries and a revenue sharing plan. In the WNBA, players reportedly only receive 9.3 per cent of league revenue which is way less than athletes in most other sports leagues. But, as a New York Post article in October pointed out, the WNBA was set to lose $40million last season and NBA owners were starting to get frustrated by it. The NBA owns nearly 60 per cent of the league and owners were pressing commissioner Adam Silver for answers on when they can expect a return on their investment. There's a lot of money coming into the league over the next few years with a new 11-year media rights deal worth over $2.2billion, three new expansion teams that each paid $250m in fees and many new sponsors. According to Sports Illustrated, WNBA salaries roughly range from a minimum of $66,000 to a super maximum contract of around $250,000. For reference, Clark will earn $78,000 in the 2025 season while All-Star rival Napheesa Collier has an average annual salary of $184,000. Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings has the highest average annual salary in the WNBA at $241,000. Players can supplement their income through commercial deals and it's thought Clark, the Indiana Fever sensation, earned $11million in 2024. The deadline to reach a new agreement is just three-and-a-half months away. 'Rev sharing is truly transformational,' Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum told reporters. 'We want a piece of the entire pie. Not a piece of part of the pie. We're a resilient group. We know the unity it takes to be able to get the outcome desired.' Chicago Sky second-year forward Angel Reese termed the negotiations as 'disrespectful.' 'Obviously, women's basketball is skyrocketing,' Reese told reporters. 'And it's important for us to get what we want now, not just now, but for the future as well. ... 'It was an eye-opener for me ... hearing the language of things, not things that I was happy to hear. It was disrespectful -- the proposal that we were sent back.' 'We're on a time crunch. No one wants a lockout,' said Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, another vice president of the WNBPA. 'But at the end of the day, we have to stand firm, and we're not going to be moved on certain topics. So hopefully the league comes back quickly so that we can get have more dialog, more conversations and can get the ball rolling.' Collier and Stewart were co-founders of Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league that debuted last offseason. The fact that both players are part of the WNBPA negotiating party while having significant financial investments in a rival league would appear to be a conflict of interest, though Collier has fought back against that narrative. That also is part of the discussions as the WNBA wants its league to be prioritized among the players, some of whom play overseas. Players point out that Unrivaled's pay scale was better for most players than what they receive in WNBA salary. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert described the negotiations as 'very constructive dialog.' Engelbert said she remains optimistic that a deal with get done.

What the culture war over Superman gets wrong
What the culture war over Superman gets wrong

The Guardian

time9 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

What the culture war over Superman gets wrong

We've entered the era of the superhero movie as sermon. No longer content with saving the world, spandex saviors are now being used to explain, moralize and therapize it. And a being from Krypton has shown up once again in a debate about real life; about borders, race and who gets to belong. Superman. Of all symbols. I've read reactionary thinkpieces, rage-filled quote tweets and screeds about the legal status of a fictional alien – enough to lose count. This particular episode of American Fragility kicked off because James Gunn had the audacity to call Superman 'the story of America'. An immigrant, by definition, as he was always meant to be. What set things off wasn't just the sentiment – it was who said it, and how plainly. Gunn, now headlining DC's cinematic future, told the Sunday Times that Superman was 'an immigrant who came from other places and populated the country'. He spoke of Superman's inherent kindness as a political statement in itself, noting that the film would play differently in some parts of America before adding, bluntly, that 'there are some jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness'. 'But screw them,' he added. It was that line – less the immigrant metaphor, more the unapologetic framing – that sent the usual outrage machine into motion. Enter Dean Cain, a former TV Superman. Cain accused Gunn of politicizing the character, which is remarkably foolish, considering Superman's been swatting at fascism since 1941. Meanwhile, over at Fox News, it's been a full meltdown over the idea that Superman, canonically not of this Earth, might be played as … not of this Earth. Liberal brainwashing, they suggested. Identity politics in a cape. But have they actually looked at David Corenswet? The man looks like he was made to sell oat milk in a Ralph Lauren ad. All cheekbones and cleft chin. If this is the foreign body in question, no wonder middle America has historically shrugged over Supes being an immigrant by definition. Even still, there's something telling about any collective gasp over a white, blue-eyed man with an immigrant backstory. The scramble to defend him says more than intended. For all the hand-wringing over Superman's alienness, what rarely gets named is how meticulously his story was crafted to cushion the unease of the topic at hand: otherness itself – the very thing people pretend was always central to his character. There are plenty of ways to frame the ridiculousness of this argument, clever ways to connect the dots, but the real fracture in Superman's myth hits, oddly enough, during a quiet scene in Tarantino's meditation on vengeance, Kill Bill: Vol. 2. In the scene, the villain, Bill (David Carradine) unpacks what makes Superman different from every other hero. 'What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that's the costume,' Bill says. 'That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us.' It's one hell of a tell – the kind of observation that pulls back the curtain on how Superman was engineered to understand the world, and how the world, in turn, reinforced how he should fit within it. From the start, Superman was never meant to be an outsider. His creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – sons of Jewish immigrants – didn't craft him as a symbol of difference but as a projection of pure Americanness. They gave him a midwestern upbringing, an Anglo name in Clark Kent, and that square-jawed charm. Siegel and Shuster were working against the backdrop of unchecked antisemitism, at a time when Jewish immigrants faced hostility. But instead of exploring immigrant 'otherness', the artists imagined a version of America where that alienness could be easily discarded via an outfit change. Superman wasn't an outsider – he was the ideal immigrant, effortlessly slipping into a world that required no resistance. His story wasn't about struggling to belong, but about the fantasy of belonging, with the privilege of choosing whether or not to fight for it. That projection of safe, silent Americanness hasn't remained confined to the pages of comic books. Today's immigration politics run on the same fantasy. The myth of the 'good' immigrant – quiet, grateful, easy to assimilate – still runs wild. It's the same story that fuels the strange spectacle of politicians praising white South African farmers as victims of racial persecution, all while demonizing migrants from Latin America, the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa. The notion of who deserves to stay has always been racialized, selective and violent. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, has said that a person's physical appearance could be a factor in the decision to question them. He later said it could not be 'the sole reason'. But in April, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a US-born citizen from Georgia, was detained in Florida even after his mother showed authorities his birth certificate. In New York, Elzon Lemus, an electrician, was stopped because he 'looked like someone' agents were after. Maybe he didn't wear his suit and glasses that day. Superman, the immigrant who makes people comfortable, has never been just a comic book character. He's been a metaphor and living testament to the kind of 'other' that wealthy nations have always preferred: those who blend in, assimilate and rarely challenge the systems that demand their silence. If you're still not convinced that Superman's assimilationist fantasy is alive and well, just look at a White House meme from 10 July 2025: Trump dressed as Superman, with the words 'Truth. Justice. The American Way.' It's a glaring example of how cultural symbols are repurposed – hijacked, really – to serve a narrow and self-congratulatory vision of America. That's the trick of Superman: he's been a blank canvas of a both-sides heroism, which makes everyone feel seen. You don't even need to like or dislike Superman for the Maga debate to pull you in, as it was always meant to. The culture war still appointed a celebrity to govern the most powerful nation on Earth. It still turned a corporate diversity initiative into a national crisis. And it took a serious conversation about immigration and made a polished, all-American character its face. The culture war distorts, and it continues, relentless as ever. Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer

Ice secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card
Ice secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card

The Guardian

time31 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Ice secretly deported Pennsylvania grandfather, 82, after he lost green card

An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead. According to Morning Call, which first reported the story, long-time Allentown resident Luis Leon – who was granted political asylum in the US in 1987 after being tortured under the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – lost his wallet containing the physical card that confirmed his legal residency. So he and wife booked an appointment to get it replaced. When he arrived at the office on 20 June, however, he was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who led him away from his wife without explanation, she said. She herself was kept in the building for 10 hours until relatives picked her up. The family said they made efforts to find any information on his whereabouts but learned nothing. Then, sometime after Leon was detained, a woman purporting to be an immigration lawyer called the family, claiming she could help – but did not disclose how she knew about the case, or where Leon was. On 9 July, according to Leon's granddaughter, the same woman called them again, claiming Leon had died. A week later, however, they discovered from a relative in Chile that Leon was alive after all – but now in a hospital in Guatemala, a country to which he has no connection. According to Morning Call, the relative said Leon had first been sent to an immigration detention center in Minnesota before being deported to Guatemala – despite not appearing on any Ice detention deportation lists. A recent supreme court decision ruled the Trump administration could deport immigrants to other countries beside their country of origin. In his nearly 40 years living in the US, Leon spent his career working in a leather manufacturing plant, and raised a family. He had since retired. His condition at the hospital in Guatemala is unknown. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition, according to his family, who said they are planning to fly to Guatemala to see him. An Ice official told the Morning Call it was investigating the matter.

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