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Monday, Feb. 2, 2026

Today's SCOOP is brought to you by our members.

Dear New Yorkers,

Some 330,000 households in New York City, primarily in The Bronx and Manhattan, rely on home fuel oil to heat their houses. With temperatures stuck way below freezing, those folks may reasonably expect to see higher bills soon.

But an investigation by the NYCity News Service and THE CITY reveals that there’s another reason for soaring oil bills besides plunging temperatures.

About half of the companies that deliver home heating oil to New Yorkers failed at least one inspection of truck gauges meant to ensure residents get the fuel they pay for, our analysis shows.

Since mid-2023, city inspectors have flunked the gauges on one in every 10 trucks they checked. One company failed more than half of its inspections during that timespan, records show.

Find out which companies flunked the most inspections here.

Weather 🥶

Sunny, with a high near 31 and a low of 8.

MTA 🚇

In Brooklyn, no Coney Island-bound D local trains between DeKalb Avenue and 25 St. Find all the MTA’s planned changes and the latest delays here.

Alternate side parking 🚙

It’s suspended today, Feb. 2 due to snow removal.

By the way…

February kicks off Black History Month, and this year is the 100th anniversary of the Schomburg Center, a New York Public Library archive and research dedicated to Black history and culture.

Our Other Top Stories

It’s 64-foot long, weighs 78 tons and is forged from American steel. If not for the tugboat Shoofly’s efforts, barges carrying heating fuel for thousands of homes Brooklyn and Queens wouldn’t be able to get through the frozen Newtown Creek. In 2024, THE CITY and The Markup revealed that an AI chatbot the Adams administration launched to help businesses understand city rules was instead returning false and damaging information. Last week, the Mamdani administration said it would terminate the malfunctioning bot.  Mayor Mamdani appointed Stanley Richards on Saturday to head the city’s troubled jail system. The first formerly incarcerated person to lead the Correction Department, Richards takes the helm at a pivotal time, with the appointment last week of a federal remediation manager to oversee reforms at Rikers.

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

Monday, Feb. 2: Twenty-foot inflatable dogs celebrating the dogs that New Yorkers live with and love will appear in Midtown during Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show week. People and their pups can mingle and snack together at a dog-lover meet-up with one of the inflatables hosted at Plaza33. Free, starting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 2: Listen to an evening of true tales at The Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series featuring non-fiction writers reading their work at the Niagara Bar in the East Village. Free, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3: Attend a conversation commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò. Free, at 6:00 pm.

THE KICKER: The Dutch settlement New Amsterdam received its municipal rights to become a city on this day in 1653, later to be renamed New York City.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Monday.

Love,

THE CITY

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