Early Addition: Mayor Sliwa would ditch the beret
July 29, 2025, 10 a.m.
Because the Republican nominee said he'd take his hat off if he wins, here are your early links: Pencil Factory closed, Andrew Cuomo's Brian Lehrer interview, Labubu pride and more.

Good Tuesday morning in New York City, where working outside in this heat is brutal.
Here's what else is happening:
- More than 100 legal weed shops — mostly in New York City — may be forced to close because regulators accidentally allowed them to open too close to schools.
- The city's Campaign Finance Board said 222 recent donations to Mayor Adams' reelection campaign don't qualify for public matching funds because officials couldn't verify the true source of the money.
- The mayor yesterday unveiled renderings of 3,000 apartments and some parkland set to be built on the marshy site of an abandoned airport in Flushing.
- Andrew Cuomo told Brian Lehrer yesterday that he "wasn’t in charge of building affordable housing in New York [City]" while he was governor. Pro-development critics disagree with that view.
- Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa said that if he wins in November, he'll stop wearing the beret.
- Pencil Factory, a Greenpoint dive bar once beloved by musicians that became frattier in recent years, is closing.
- The Chinese government is very proud of Labubus for being homegrown intellectual property that gained a global following.
- SEE IT: Monkeys at a temple in Bali steal tourists' iPhones and trade them for mangoes.
- And finally, chillaxed:
Living the best life.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/hlDfvERLy3
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 28, 2025