NYC launches mosquito spraying in Brooklyn, Manhattan to combat West Nile virus

As late summer heat sustains the conditions mosquitoes thrive in, New York City has escalated its response to a West Nile virus outbreak now confirmed across four of its five boroughs, deploying pesticide crews into Brooklyn and Manhattan neighborhoods. The Health Department's move from routine surveillance to broad residential spraying reflects a city reckoning with the limits of incremental intervention — a familiar tension between urban density and the ancient rhythms of disease transmission. In the final weeks of summer, when the boundary between human life and the natural world grows thin