These NYC pools kept closing last summer after people pooped in them

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ⛅ Partly sunny, highs around 80.

It's Thursday in New York City, where parks officials are reminding New Yorkers not to poop in the pool.

Data obtained by Gothamist through a freedom of information request reveals that last summer, in 203 incidents across 44 of the city's 52 public pools, a solid (level 1) or liquid (level 2) bowel movement caused a pool to shut down for cleaning. (It's also technically against city rules to pee in the pool.)

Here's how these incidents erased hundreds of hours of available public swimming time — which had already been cut due to an ongoing lifeguard shortage.

And here's what else is happening:

• Mayor Eric Adams' reelection campaign recently hired (and has since fired) a prominent consultant who'd been accused of strangling his girlfriend in an upscale Manhattan hotel.
  • Mayor Adams went on Fox News yesterday and accused Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee, of being "a snake oil salesman." 
• During his victory lap yesterday, Mamdani called for Democratic unity, arguing that his message resonated even with voters who supported President Donald Trump in 2024.
  • 📻 Hear Mamdani's full interview from yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show.
• Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo also held Democratic primaries this week — and turnout was exceptionally low, likely due to the heat. Here are some notable results. 
• New York City emergency rooms this week have been treating an influx of patients for heat-related illnesses. 
• Sen. Chuck Schumer was briefly hospitalized for dehydration yesterday after working out in the Senate gym, according to his office.
• New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver, who's facing federal charges for allegedly getting physical with law enforcement during a protest at an ICE facility in Newark, said during a rally yesterday that it won't "stop me from doing my job."
• They're saying it was a rough "June-cember" at New York City public schools. Here's what happened.

• An interesting stat: Mamdani won at least 432,305 first-choice votes in this year's Democratic mayoral primary, while Adams won 289,403 first-choice votes in the 2021 primary.
• Even Hudson Yards swung for Mamdani.
• Hell Gate asked India Walton — the left-leaning politician who won Buffalo's Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, then faced stiff opposition from the party establishment and lost the general election — how she thinks Mamdani should handle the next few months.
• Al Sharpton is backing the proposal for a Times Square casino.
• Tony-nominated "Boop! The Musical" is closing next month due to low ticket sales.
• An Asbury Park beach lifeguard was hospitalized yesterday after an umbrella got swept up in the wind and impaled her in the chest.
• Diddy yesterday thanked the judge in his trial for "doing an excellent job."
• Is Guinness and tonic the drink of the summer?