This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Turns out $6.88 billion is more than bells and whistles for the Gateway Development Commission leaders, it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. The new federal windfall brings the feds’ stake in Gateway to $12 billion, and now it’s full steam ahead for the transformative rail project. With Gateway finally leaving the station, it will be harder for Donald Trump, who has tunnel vision against the project, to derail it should he become president.

State cannabis regulators have weathered lawsuits, probes and resignations. But there was a spark of good news this week when the state Cannabis Control Board’s regulations for homegrown pot went into effect, paving the way for New Yorkers to not only roll their own but grow their own. Board Chair Tremaine Wright called it a significant step for legal weed in New York. Now that the regulations are in effect, cannabis lovers might have something good to say about how the state government handles pot.

After former DCCC head Sean Patrick Maloney lost his congressional seat, he got a nice consolation prize – a cushy ambassador gig in Paris. But his reputation never recovered after he was widely blamed for bigfooting former Rep. Mondaire Jones out of the NY-17 primary. Until this week, that is, when City & State revealed that Maloney had actually called Jones and offered to drop out of the race, only for Jones to decline the offer.

Tough luck for the Greens – and no, we aren’t just talking about the return of House of the Dragon. The state Board of Elections ruled this week that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein won’t appear on the New York ballot this November. The board determined that her campaign only collected about 34,000 valid signatures, leaving her about 10,000 short. As she herself said earlier this spring: “It’s no simple matter” for third-party candidates to get on the ballot..

Collegiate School president David Lourie allegedly called a newly established school task force a “joke,” but Jewish parents were not laughing. In the wake of those comments and a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the task force’s leader, Lourie resigned from the prestigious Manhattan private school. Having possibly realized the depth of his actions, Lourie made one last plea before leaving: “I ask that our community engage with each other with respect and kindness.”

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a controversial revenue raiser was abandoned with little explanation, and no one knows how the lost revenue will be made up. Before leaving Albany, state lawmakers declined to pass an extension of Suffolk County’s red-light camera program. The cameras were unpopular with some residents, but the program provided $8 million in recurring revenue – and now County Executive Ed Romaine must figure out how to address the shortfall. Maybe Gov. Kathy Hochul has some ideas.