By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN

New York (CNN) — Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to tackle huge problems in New York City like housing, mass transit and child care.

His starting point? Public bathrooms.

There’s a shortage in New York —just one bathroom for every 8,500 residents. Many are musty and the toilets don’t flush. Some double as shelter for homeless people.

When you can’t find a restroom, “you are made keenly aware of just how few public bathrooms there are and how dependent we have left New Yorkers on either the generosity and kindness of a business owner or a requirement that they pay seven bucks for a coffee,” Mamdani told CNN.

Mamdani is tackling the grimy issue weeks into his tenure to try to prove that government can still solve problems in people’s lives. For the 34-year-old democratic socialist, the dismal state of bathrooms is symbolic of a larger failure to build and sustain public goods in America.

If people are forced to rely on Starbucks or McDonald’s to provide an essential service like bathrooms, they doubt political leaders can take on bigger challenges like the cost-of-living crisis, he said.

“We cannot isolate these incidents where the public loses trust in government’s ability to deliver on their day-to-day needs from the public losing trust in government’s ability to deliver on its most ambitious projects,” he said. “These are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mamdani recently marked the opening of a new bathroom and pledged $4 million of city funding to build 20 to 30 new modular public toilets around the city.

“This has to be the start of showing what competent government can actually look like,” he said. “Every time you deliver on this, you are making the best case for New Yorkers to believe in government’s role as a positive force.”

Disappearing public bathrooms

America’s bathroom access looks more like a developing nation— it has only eight public toilets per 100,000 people, tied for 30th in the world with Botswana.

New York is one of a growing number of city governments trying to address their bathroom void, which creates public health risks and undermines quality of life.

Food delivery workers and street vendors are forced to urinate into bottles. People with bladder and other health conditions struggle to travel around in public. Hepatitis A outbreaks have been linked to poor bathroom access in Philadelphia, San Diego and other places.

The lack of public bathrooms is a “manifestation of economic inequality,” Mamdani said.

The bathroom shortage also costs money. San Francisco has spent tens of millions of dollars annually cleaning up feces off the streets. Shopping districts, parks and other public places lose out when visitors leave because they can’t find a place to do their business.

“We hit the nadir,” said Bryant Simon, a historian at Temple University and author of a forthcoming book on public bathrooms. “There’s now a re-municipalization of public bathrooms because what we have now is unsustainable.”

Local governments are trying to build bathrooms like they did in the middle of the nineteenth century, when health concerns about the spread of disease and the foul stench from people urinating on the streets spurred effor

CNN

By Alexandra Banner, CNN

One mindful step at a time, a group of monks completed a 2,300-mile walk on Wednesday in the hope of spreading peace across the US and beyond. Hundreds of people gathered on the National Mall for the concluding ceremony, marking the end of their extraordinary trek from Texas to Washington, DC.

Here’s what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day.

1⃣ Canada shooting

Canada is grappling with one of its worst school shootings in decades, leaving a remote mountain town in mourning as police search for a motive. Authorities say an 18-year-old female shooter killed at least eight people and wounded dozens at a high school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday. The suspect dropped out of the school about four years ago and officers had visited her residence several times due to mental health concerns, police said. Five students between 12 and 13 years old, as well as the 11-year-old stepbrother of the suspect, were among those killed in the shooting. Such attacks are extremely rare in Canada, which has significantly stricter gun laws than the US.

2⃣ Nancy Guthrie

Investigators in Arizona are searching rugged terrain near the home of Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, after she was reported missing 12 days ago. On Wednesday, a black glove was recovered about 1.5 miles from her residence, the New York Post reported. It’s unclear whether authorities believe it was the same glove worn by the person in the doorbell camera footage captured the night of her disappearance. Law enforcement officials say they have received over 18,000 tips since Guthrie was reported missing and are undergoing an intensive process to work through them.

3⃣ Airspace closure

The FAA on Wednesday announced an unprecedented 10-day airspace shutdown over El Paso, Texas — and new details are emerging about what may have prompted it. Multiple sources told CNN that the Pentagon planned to begin using a high-energy, counter-drone laser in the area without consulting the FAA about the risk to civilian flights. The FAA responded by instituting a temporary flight restriction citing “security concerns,” which was then lifted after about eight hours. This comes as the Trump administration has claimed that a Mexican cartel drone crossing into US airspace is what triggered the flight restriction centered on El Paso International Airport.

4⃣ Funding impasse

Facing a Friday deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said negotiators are making progress on proposed changes to ICE. Democrats have signaled they will not support the funding measure unless it includes significant changes to immigration enforcement policy. Republicans, meanwhile, are urging Pres

By Alexandra Banner, CNN

One mindful step at a time, a group of monks completed a 2,300-mile walk on Wednesday in the hope of spreading peace across the US and beyond. Hundreds of people gathered on the National Mall for the concluding ceremony, marking the end of their extraordinary trek from Texas to Washington, DC.

Here’s what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day.

1⃣ Canada shooting

Canada is grappling with one of its worst school shootings in decades, leaving a remote mountain town in mourning as police search for a motive. Authorities say an 18-year-old female shooter killed at least eight people and wounded dozens at a high school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday. The suspect dropped out of the school about four years ago and officers had visited her residence several times due to mental health concerns, police said. Five students between 12 and 13 years old, as well as the 11-year-old stepbrother of the suspect, were among those killed in the shooting. Such attacks are extremely rare in Canada, which has significantly stricter gun laws than the US.

2⃣ Nancy Guthrie

Investigators in Arizona are searching rugged terrain near the home of Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, after she was reported missing 12 days ago. On Wednesday, a black glove was recovered about 1.5 miles from her residence, the New York Post reported. It’s unclear whether authorities believe it was the same glove worn by the person in the doorbell camera footage captured the night of her disappearance. Law enforcement officials say they have received over 18,000 tips since Guthrie was reported missing and are undergoing an intensive process to work through them.

3⃣ Airspace closure

The FAA on Wednesday announced an unprecedented 10-day airspace shutdown over El Paso, Texas — and new details are emerging about what may have prompted it. Multiple sources told CNN that the Pentagon planned to begin using a high-energy, counter-drone laser in the area without consulting the FAA about the risk to civilian flights. The FAA responded by instituting a temporary flight restriction citing “security concerns,” which was then lifted after about eight hours. This comes as the Trump administration has claimed that a Mexican cartel drone crossing into US airspace is what triggered the flight restriction centered on El Paso International Airport.

4⃣ Funding impasse

Facing a Friday deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said negotiators are making progress on proposed changes to ICE. Democrats have signaled they will not support the funding measure unless it includes significant changes to immigration enforcement policy. Republicans, meanwhile, are urging President Trump to stand firm against Democrats’ DHS demands as the clock ticks toward another shutdown. Separately, the head of Customs and Border Protection said this week that several investigations are underway into allegations of misconduct by federal officers during Trump’s immigration enforcement su

By Leah Dolan, CNN

(CNN) — To stand even a chance at enjoying Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” you must let it wash over you. Every split egg yolk, every inch of snail mucus, every glistening raindrop on screen — it’s all designed to sit slickly on the surface, never going more than skin deep.

The British writer and director’s third film, to be released Friday, has polarized audiences since the first trailer. Like most of the directors who have attempted to bring author Emily Brontë’s wild English moors to screen, Fennell decided to adapt only the first half of the gothic novel: cutting it off at the knees before the romance sours into a study of generational trauma. Fennell’s version has probably 50% less plot line and characters, but 100% more fingers thrust in mouths, masturbation scenes and sex.

In some ways it was set up to fail from the moment those infamous quotation marks around the title were revealed; an attempt by Fennell to get ahead of the very criticisms that have been published this week. “I can’t say I’m making Wuthering Heights, it’s not possible,” the director said during the movie’s extensive press tour. “What I can say is I’m making a version of it.”

Those quotation marks didn’t just signal subjectivity, they were a reference in themselves. In the mid-20th century, film titles regularly appeared in trailers encased in quotation marks — either to differentiate the name of the movie inside a text-crowded poster, or as a stylistic hangover from the silent film era. This cinematic standard had largely fallen away by the 1960s, but in reviving it Fennell was indicating to audiences that her film has more to do with cinematic history than it does with the Brontë parsonage.

In fact, director William Wyler’s 1939 Hollywood adaptation — with its ostentatious outfits and romantic focus — feels like a better companion piece than the original literary source material. For the 2026 reimagining, Fennell worked with costume designer Jacqueline Durran to create dozens of costumes (Cathy alone, played by Margot Robbie, had 50) that were heavily inspired by the extravagant, unselfconscious and campy outfits of the mid-century. While making the film, Fennell passed around a book inches-thick with visual references that spanned Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” (1939) to “Donkey Skin” (1970). If it wasn’t already obvious, period accuracy is a concept Fennell simply does not buy into. Period.

“We all think we’re making a period drama to a point, and then it just looks like the ‘90s or whenever it was made,” she said, speaking alongside Durran at a Q&A session at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum recently. “We are making costumes. We’re making a film. That’s a suspension of disbelief that is important to acknowledge.”

Cathy’s costumes in Fennell’s film veer into Wyler territory often: she teases fellow character Isabella Linton about her doomed crush on Heathcliff in the Thrushcross Grange manor, while wearing a white tulle frock with velvet appliqué vines that looks strikingly similar to a dress actress Merle Oberon wore on-screen in 1939. Then there is the blood-red, velvet hooded cape and white fur hand-warmer Robbie wears when Cathy visits Wuthering Heights for the first time since marrying Edgar Linton. Oberon, too, donned a velvet, fur-trimmed hood and fur handwarmer in Wyler’s version. The number of jewels adorned on Robbie don’t look as out of place when you see Oberon wearing a near-identical tiara, drop earrings and floral diamond necklace some 87 years earlier.

“When I’m asked about why the costumes are a particular way, I find that really difficult to answer,” designer Durran said in London. “It’s a kind of instinctive, emotional reason.” Fennell agreed: “It’s not connected to the period, it’s connected to the emotional truth

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — Laura Kotting figured her home heating bill would be higher than usual because of the recent polar temperatures. But she was not prepared for the latest monthly tab to jump nearly 30% to $200 compared to last year.

“My first thought was ‘I’m not going shopping. I’m going to live on what’s in this house’,” said Kotting, 67, a retiree who lives in a 100-year-old home in Clarkston, Michigan. That means eating pasta, spaghetti sauce, sweet potatoes, frozen fruit and yogurt, while forgoing items like clementines and fresh vegetables.

Kotting, who is also trying to absorb higher Medicare premiums and grocery prices, was hoping to keep her natural gas bills down this winter by sealing two upstairs bedrooms and leaving them unheated. She also shuts her curtains and covered her fireplace and windows with plastic to keep out drafts. Plus she bought fleece-lined leggings so she’s more comfortable at home, since she sets the thermostat at 64 degrees during the day and 62 degrees at night.

“I know I’m not the only senior citizen wondering how they’re going to make ends meet,” said Kotting, who sold custom closets before being let go during the pandemic.

Rising prices for natural gas, electricity and home heating oil, combined with sustained frigid temperatures in much of the country, are burning yet another hole in many Americans’ wallets.

Home heating costs are expected to jump 11% this winter season, which runs from November to March, according to a revised estimate by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Earlier in the season, the group projected a 9.2% increase, but swiftly rising energy prices led it to bump up its forecast.

The vast majority of Americans heat their homes with electricity and natural gas, and their costs are forecast to soar by 14% to $1,242 and by 9.5% to $712, respectively, according to the association. Heating oil customers will see a 4.6% increase to $1,587, while the cost for propane users will edge up 1.1% to $1,339.

“It’s now part of the affordability discussion,” said Mark Wolfe, the association’s executive director.

Electric and natural gas prices will likely keep rising for the next few years, Wolfe said. Utilities are spending billions of dollars upgrading their aging infrastructure, while data centers are prompting a surge in demand for electricity. Meanwhile, the growth in natural gas exports is driving up that fuel’s prices.

The higher heating bills will likely leave more Americans behind on their utility bills. Already, one in six families are in arrears, Wolfe said, noting the association’s preliminary review shows that household utility debt climbed to roughly $25 billion at the end of last year, up from about $23 billion the prior year.

“As winter shutoff moratoriums begin to expire at the end of March, many households will face disconnection risk,” he said.

Trying to cut costs

The higher costs are forcing many Americans to find yet another way to pinch pennies.

Keith Green was in shock when he received a $540 electric bill for December, and he’s bracing for a $504 bill for January. The lumber yard manager typically pays in the $300 range to heat his 1,500-square-foot house in Cincinnati, Ohio. He thought putting plastic film on the windows and redoing the seals and trim on his exterior doors would help keep price hikes in check.

What’s particularly troubling Green is that his utility company gave him no warning or expl