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One New York City politician is pushing a law that would “fully legalize” bodega cats in the five boroughs.

City Council member Keith Powers — who is running for Manhattan borough president — unveiled a bill to tweak the city health code to allow the ubiquitous, but surprisingly illegal, pets.

“There are a lot of things that come to mind when you think of New York City, but bodegas – and the cats that live in them – are one of the iconic parts of our city,” Powers said.

“Bodega cats embody the New York spirit: friendly, welcoming, and anti-rat. I’m proud that my legislation will codify them into city law and provide resources to keep them healthy,” he added.

Bodega cats are not allowed under the city and state health codes, and therefore are entirely unregulated – leaving the door open for abuse and neglect, The Post previously reported.

“The state also has a role to play here,” a rep for Powers told The Post, “but this legislation takes care of the city issue, by amending the city health code to specifically allow bodega cats. It paves the way for the state to make the necessary changes on their end to fully legalize bodega cats.”

The legislation, set to be introduced in the coming weeks, also aims to create a free vaccination program for the four-legged deli managers.

The bill was inspired by a grassroots petition to provide bodega owners critical veterinary resources, which blasted “outdated health codes and inconsistent care practices” for leaving cats at risk and burdening owners with “unfair fines.”

The petition’s creator, Bodega Cats of New York founder Dan Rimada, called the legislation a “huge moment” both for bodega cats and the people who love them.

“While the bill is still being finalized, this is the first formal step toward creating city policy that recognizes what we’ve always known,” Rimada said, “bodega cats belong here.”

Here’s something worthy of a toast.

The bourbon-based cocktail crowned Food 52’s “drink of the year” is finally getting its moment in the spotlight two decades after its creator mixed it the first time in a Big Apple bar.

The pink-hued “Paper Plane,” first crafted at what is now Attaboy on the Lower East Side, has reached new heights due to its ability to balance “the Holy Trinity of bitter, sweet and sour,” creator Sam Ross, 42, told The Post.

“If you can balance all that, it has a weird, amazing sort of pleasantry to it.”

The tangy, bright beverage’s versatility and ease to make has allowed it to gradually take flight across generations, genders and experience level, he added — and has gotten so popular in the last year that it’s been canned for home bars across the US as of last year.

“It’s the sum of its parts, It doesn’t taste like any one ingredient individually,” the Australian-born New York bartender said. “Once you get it into the glass, you actually realize you’re tasting something very unique and different.”

Ross first crafted the concoction in 2007 at his tucked-away bar – formerly called Milk & Honey – while he was tasked with creating a signature drink for a bar out in Chicago called The Violet Hour.

The drink was inspired by a bottle of Amaro Nonino gifted to Ross by a friend, he said, and aptly named his creation for M.I.A.’s indie-rap hit “Paper Planes.” Aside from equal parts bourbon and the Italian liqueur, the spirit-forward cocktail also features Aperol and lemon juice.

“I just fell in love with it immediately,” Ross said. “I created this drink because I wanted people to experience Amaro Nonino.”

And despite it first appearing on a Chicago bar’s menu, the beverage “definitely holds a New York immigration card,” the bartender stated.

The resulting cocktail helped Ross – also known for inventing the Penicillin – land on the map of modern cocktail tastemakers, but it also helped the 127-year-old Amaro brand stick the landing in cocktail scenes around the world, according to sixth-generation distiller Francesca Bardelli Nonino.

“The United States sets the trend for [not only] movies and TV shows, but also for cocktails,” Bardelli Nonino, 35, said — adding she’s toasted with Amaro lovers in Japan, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom thanks to the success of the Paper Plane. “In Italy, most of the time you first start to appreciate a product by itself and then in a cocktail, but in the United States you first appreciate it in a cocktail.”

To Bardelli Nonino, the celebration is personal, as the grappa-based liqueur traces its roots back to her great-grandfather’s recipe from Friuli, Italy.

“The paper plane put together Italian culture and American culture – and I think people realized then, ‘this is delicious, I want to know more about the other ingredients,'” she said, raising a glass at an inaugural Paper Plane Week event at Attaboy.

Ross added that the drink is a crowd pleaser as it’s easy to make given its equal parts recipe only requires four ingredients and is “self-policing” – in that it’s immediately apparent if it was made incorrectly because of its signature pink hue and ample froth.

“All the ‘modern classics’ have to be somewhat simple to make – we’re not talking about strange infusions or crazy techniques that take a long time,” Ross said. “If you want to be able to be made, especially at home bars it has to be things that are very approachable … and I think it’s just straight up delicious.”

Ross credits the dawn of the Facebook age for the Paper Plane’s initial popularity among bartenders in the late aughts, but he believes the drink’s versatility has been able to keep its humble profile steadily gliding over the years.

The Attaboy co-owner notes he’s pushing a newer take on the cocktail — dubbed a Mosquito with mezcal, Campari, fresh ginger and lemon — that he hopes to be met with similar fanfare.

“It kind of startles me, each year it seems to get more and more popular,” Ross said of his Paper Plane. “It doesn’t have a singular market.

“When you think of a whiskey cocktail, you’re automatically going to be thinking whiskey sours, Manhattans, old fashioneds,” he added. “These are powerful, potent drinks — and this one isn’t that.”

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- If you take the subway or the bus and tap to ride, you may have noticed multiple transactions in your credit card statements.

Many commuters are saying they're being billed for trips they didn't take, and some are claiming they've been billed two or even three times just for one ride.

The MTA is telling riders not to worry.

Now that the system is contactless and pay-as-you-go, you may not see a single report of $2.90. The MTA says what may be reflected as a charge reported is only pending authorizations, and no MTA customer is being billed for rides you do not take.

"In this economy, I am pinching pennies and I can't afford and after the two rides that I haven't taken," Kat Agostin said.

Kat Agostin say her commute, which is a train from Queens to midtown and the bus home, has become really confusing and she blames the OMNY payment system.

She said the contactless kiosk is now her only choice to purchase rides where she gets on in Jamaica.

"It's just very complicated. It charges you for transfers. It delays the payment, and sometimes it won't scan, you'll get denied by the reader," Agostin said.

The comic book store employee recently expressed her frustration in an email to the MTA.

"I was charged for every single swipe but only the transfers went through the rest were rejected. Some of us live paycheck to paycheck and six dollars a day is all I have for my commute," the email said in part.

The MTA responded to their customer's email with a detailed explanation.

"We did not receive authorization from your bank to collect and process the fare, even though we did not collect, the system allowed you to ride and as a result your account was declared negative," the agency said.

"The next time you tap the same communication occurs but an attempt is made to first collect on the previously uncollected trip. The charge in question was to recover the previously uncollected fare and clear the negative balance," it continued.

7 On Your Side's Nina Pineda asked the MTA to examine Agoarin charges.

A spokesperson said she only paid for the rides she took. They pulled her card and said she only rode the subway, and took an express bus and by the time she tried to swipe again, she only had $.40 left.

Customers could be seeing multiple charges in a single day.

The MTA says riders should be aware. A certain amount is authorized, but the cards are not actually charged.

Those are authorizations only as in pending charges which will go through as you ride.

They added, "We are not aware of a single person being overcharged."

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A City Council member from Queens is urging her constituents to arm themselves following a terrifying home invasion in which robbers posing as Amazon drivers tied up a family and snatched thousands of dollars in cash, according to cops.

Republican Vickie Paladino offered to help residents in her district — which covers Whitestone, where the ordeal took place — obtain gun permits in light of the break-in Monday morning.

“I want to remind my constituents that New Yorkers have a constitutional right to protect themselves,” Paladino said in a statement.

“I urge my constituents to avail themselves of their rights under the Second Amendment; my office is always available to assist constituents with obtaining firearm permits for premises or concealed carry,” she said Tuesday.

The conservative pol’s call to arms came as the NYPD on Wednesday released surveillance footage of the pair of wanted perps wearing baseball caps, with one of them carrying an Amazon box and the other wearing a bright-yellow vest, walking on the quiet residential block.

The masked thieves pushed their way into the home at around 9 a.m., tying up the family living there, including three children, duct-taping their mouths — and then making off with the cash and jewelry, cops said.

“The NYPD has indicated that this was a targeted incident and there is no ongoing threat to the community,” Paladino said.

“Let me be absolutely clear – violence has no place in Whitestone or anywhere in our district.”

Neighbors said home invasions were not uncommon in the area — with at least two telling The Post they had recently been robbed.

A 37-year-old Whitestone resident who declined to give her name said money and jewelry were taken from her house six months ago, but luckily no one was home at the time.

“I don’t think it was random. I think people are scoping out the area,” she said.

“This neighborhood has been a little crazy. The same thing that happened to them happened to us.”

Another neighbor, a 25-year-old man, said his house had been broken into about six months ago as well.

“When that happened, we got prepared. You gotta protect yourself. All that matters is your life. The bad people, they never get caught,” he told the Post.

The 109th precinct, which encompasses Whitestone, has reported 99 robberies so far in 2025.

The NYPD is still searching for the suspects in the latest heist.

“The safety of our neighborhoods is my top priority – and I will not sit quietly while violence threatens our neighborhoods,” Paladino said.

The newspaper will have two restaurant critics covering the country

Following Pete Wells’ departure from the New York Times restaurant critic role that he held for 12 years, there has been much speculation about who would replace him. Now, we have the answer: Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao are the publication’s new restaurant critics. The appointment of Mishan and Rao, both longtime Times employees, marks a departure from how criticism was handled. It is an acknowledgment of the country’s vastness and the sensitivity and thoughtfulness required to convey a picture of such a dynamic landscape. Mishan will focus on New York City, as well as occasionally file restaurant reviews outside the city. Rao will take a more national look at restaurants, per the announcement.

Both of the new critics are unmasked; a video announcement today provides more information about their reasoning behind the decision to become public figures, distinct from Wells. “Audiences want to know who’s making their recommendations, to put faces to names, to get a sense of their tastes and who they are. We hope these videos will do so, and help bring a new level of transparency and immediacy to our criticism,” the announcement states.

After Wells departed from his restaurant critic title in 2024, his column was split into two, with reviews filed by Melissa Clark and Priya Krishna. The duo, alongside editor Brian Gallagher, just completed their version of the 100 Best Restaurants in New York City, focusing more on affordability and, notably, choosing to rank only the top 10 — a move that was different from its two previous editions.

Up until recently, Mishan was a columnist for the New York Times Magazine and wrote for T Magazine. Lately, her stories have included one on chawanmushi, “a Japanese half-custard half-flan;” a new era of West African fine dining; and a collective of creatives working to preserve Chinatown. Previous to that, she ran the “Hungry City” restaurant column for the Times, from 2012 to 2020, a companion column to Wells’ reviews that often focused on mom-and-pop ventures in neighborhoods less covered, outside of Manhattan.

Rao has been based in California as the food section’s critic-at-large, writing on topics that often thread the needle of food and culture, in reports such as one about the booming business of Kit Kats; how restaurant workers showed up for Los Angeles fire victims; and the history of California’s hippie sandwiches. Outside of Los Angeles, she has already had a hand in national restaurant service content, such as the 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now.