While pest populations soar in the city, kids’ venue mascots face accusations of discrimination
There’s the heat, the smell, and the lingering risk of Covid, but the real menace of summer in New York City this year is the twin plague of rats and lantern flies. Let’s start with the rats. During early lockdown, the city’s rat population had to adapt to survive, as garbage-based food options dwindled. The rats of New York, never known for their modesty, became “more brazen”, as the New York Times put it this week – swaggering across the pavement in the middle of the day to grab at a rare piece of pizza. When restrictions ended, the brazenness remained and now the rat population is booming.
