5 Stories You Need to Pay Attention to This Week

NEW YORK, NY — Frankly, the only story people will probably be talking about all week is Monday's presidential debate. If you haven't noticed, there have been countdown clocks on every news channel for a week.

But we do try to find a few other things to talk about in what will be a very crowded week for news.

1. Sept. 26: Debate time — Like we said, this is story No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (and probably 6) this week. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off in the first presidential debate of the campaign. And no, you aren't imagining that this campaign has been going on for two years, it really has. But this is the first time Clinton and Trump will sit down with each other and intelligently debate the political issues affecting our country today. Just kidding, it'll be a total circus. The debate does have a local connection, as it will be held at Hofstra University on Long Island. The show begins at 9 p.m. and will be broadcast on every channel except ESPN (pretty much). We'll be live-blogging it on Patch, and you can compensate properly throughout with our Debate Drinking Game.
2. Sept. 26: Levine rallies for tenants — Council Member Mark Levine, who represents the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights and West Harlem, will be holding a rally at 9:30 a.m. on the steps of City Hall prior to introducing a bill which would provide legal counsel for low-income tenants who are being forced out of their homes. According to Levine, only about 20 percent of tenants have a lawyer representing them, while 100 percent of landlords do. Obviously, this creates an inequality. The New York Times has already endorsed the bill, which will have its hearing at 10 a.m. inside City Hall.
3. Sept. 26: Limiting buses — Care to guess how many sight-seeing buses there are in the city? As of September 2014, there were 299 of them. (It only seems like there were a million.) Well, City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Financial District, and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer are pushing to introduce a bill to limit the number of sight-seeing buses in the city to 225. Currently, there are no caps on how many can operate. They introduced the bill last October and the City Council Committee on Transportation will hold a hearing on Monday at 1 p.m. (250 Broadway, 14th Floor). If it gets out of committee it could come up in the stated meeting. Speaking of ...
4. Sept. 28: City Council stated — The City Council will hold its stated meeting — that's the entire council — on Wednesday. They won't have an agenda until the committees meet heading into the meeting, but some of the topics that could be on table (in addition to the two mentioned above) include regulations on idling vehicles (another city plague), creating an Inspector General for the Department of Corrections (to serve as a watchdog for city prisons), and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito's bill to allow prisoners to ditch prison jumpsuits in court in favor of civilian clothes.
5. Oct. 2: End of the road — The baseball season ends on Sunday, which means this week is the last one to desperately claw for the postseason. The Mets are in pretty good shape despite a season plagued by major injuries. However, all six of their remaining games are on the road, and against division opponents. They entered Monday with an 83-73 record and a one-game lead in the National League wild-card race. The problem is there are three teams within a game of each other — Mets, Giants and Cardinals — and one of those three teams will not make the playoffs. The news is not so good for the crosstown Yankees. Against all odds, they rode a youth movement to playoff contention in early September. Late September hasn't been as kind. They were 2-8 in their last 10 games entering Monday, and have fallen 5 1/2 games back in the American League wild card. They have seven games left entering Monday, including six at home, but they realistically will need to go at least 6-1 and cross their fingers for a bunch of teams (Tigers, Mariners, Astros) to falter.

Photo Credit: Citysightsnyc via Wikimedia Commons