The massive blaze broke out at just before midnight at Birch by Romeo Lane, a buzzing bar, restaurant and nightclub in north Goa's Aporna district. Most of the hundreds of guests inside the venue were able to escape but 20 members of staff mostly working in the kitchen area were killed after they were trapped in the basement and suffocated to death.
The Adams administration's much-delayed changes to the way commercial trash is collected aims to rein in the chaotic carting industry by reducing reckless driving and cutting truck mileage. But Lander's office raised serious qualms about how Mayor Adams has overseen the process. "By awarding contracts to bad actors with terrible safety records, the Department of Sanitation is undermining the goals of the program," Lander said in a statement. "The city must ... be willing to hold bad carters to higher standards to ensure this law actually improves the conditions for workers and our environment."