NYC NOW - April 12, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

New York State will pay $150,000 in attorney's fees for second amendment advocates who filed a lawsuit challenging a ban on guns in places of worship. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is standing firm on his new policy that requires all elected officials to fill out a form before engaging with a city agency. Additionally, the New York State court system is forming an advisory panel to study the potential benefits and risks of artificial intelligence in the judicial process. WNYC’s Catalina Gonella reports. Finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with ‘All of It’ producer Simon Close to get updates on the annual Public Song Project.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. New York State will pay $150,000 in attorney's fees for Second Amendment advocates who filed a lawsuit challenging a ban on guns in places in places of worship. In 2022, state lawmakers passed a bill that prohibited even most permit holders from bringing firearms to certain places, that includes places of worship. This lawsuit challenges that ban, and legislators' old. ultimately decided to make an exception. Now the law states that people responsible for security can bring guns to places where people prey. Mayor Adams is doubling down on his new policy requiring all elected officials to fill out a form before engaging with the city agency,

despite promises by city lawmakers to ignore the new layer of bureaucracy. Speaking on Spectrum News, New York One, Adams was asked about how he plans to address resistance from city council members on the protocol. There's no need for a resolution. There's a policy in place and it's working. But City Council Speaker Adrian Adams has instructed council members not to use the form and has called the process inappropriate. The mayor says so far the city has received between 64 to 70 requests, including one from Congressman Hakeem Jeffrey's office. The New York State court system is forming an advisory panel to study the potential benefits and risks of artificial intelligence in the judicial process. WNMAC's Catalina Ginella reports. The advisory committee on artificial intelligence and the courts will be made up of judges, attorneys, academics, and other experts from around New York.

They'll be charged with looking into how AI could be used to make the judicial process more efficient and develop guardrails to minimize the risks. Areas of focus will include ensuring AI use is equitable and assessing its ethical implications. Among those appointed to the 39-person panel or NYU Law School Director and Professor Jason Schultz and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Up next to end the week, we're taking a look at the annual public song project from WNYC's Olive. That's after the break. There's music in the air here at WNIC with all of its annual public song project in full swing. For a second year in a row, we're asking listeners to put their spin on works released into the public

Maine. My colleague Michael Hill spoke with all of it, producer Simon Close, to give us an update on the public song project and tell us more about how you can get involved. Simon, a lot of folks excited about this. Glad you're back with us. Tell us how this has come along since you were last year. Well, thank you for having me, Michael. I'm excited to be back. It's going along pretty well. We've got a few weeks left. May 12th is the submission end date for people to send in their songs. A quick recap of how the project works. We're inviting anyone to cover a song or make a song adaptation out of a work of art, literature, film that's in the public domain. So if you send that into us by May 12th, you'll have a chance to be featured on

WNYC and get your song played. And your song will be collected into this big compilation of music from other submitters, including listeners and professional musicians too. Now, I understand you have some pretty big news to announce about what comes next for the public song project. Yeah, we've got some things in the works for how we're. putting out all these songs, but I'm able to tease that there's an event in the works for the public song project as part of Lincoln Center's Summer for the City series. Wow. Members of the public, as well as professional musicians, will get to be involved in that.

So stay tuned for more info. Well, congratulations on that. That's exciting. All right, people still have more than a month left to submit to the project, as you said. What advice do you have for folks looking for ways to contribute? One really good place to check out resources is your local library. and we have some links on our homepage, which is WNYC.org slash public song project, to various library systems around New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

So the New York Public Library, for instance, has a recording studio. They also have lots of sheet music that you can check out in the public domain. The Brooklyn Public Library offers a free musical instrument lending library. So you can take out a new musical instrument. That's what one of our winners did last year. Alice Lee picked out a banjo from the Brooklyn Public Library. And in Connecticut, there's the Westport Library. New Jersey has the East Brunswick Public Library, the New York Public Library.

I believe all of those have some kind of recording and mixing studios and other resources to check out. I did not know that, Simon. That's fantastic. Now, we're talking about music, Simon. So give us an idea of some of the contributions that you've received. Sure. I'm going to start with one that the city council speaker, Adrian Adams, has instruct the council members not to use the four. and it's called the process inappropriate.

The mayor says so far, the city has received between 64 to 70 requests, including one from Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. And it was the signature song of Florence Mills, who was a kind of pioneering Black vaudeville performer, and I'm Little Blackbird comes from a musical review that she was a part of later on called Blackbirds. Never had no happiness.

Never felt no one's correct. Just a lonesome beat of humanity Born on a Friday, I guess. Blue as anyone can be. Clouds are all I ever see. If the sun forgets no one, why don't... What a voice, wow. I know. She's amazing.

I'm pretty sure that she had training as an opera singer, And I should mention also that she's a host of ARIA Code with WQXR. Simon, can you tell us about the next song? So this is one that I'm really excited about. They Might Be Giants, joined all of it recently to announce that they were going to put their contribution on Spotify on April 19th. And they'll also be putting it out on a 7-inch vinyl later this year. And their song is Lazy by Irving Berlin. He was a prolific songwriter who did White Christmas, Blue Skies.

God Bless America, even was Irving Berlin. and he did all of that without ever learning how to write or read music. So this song is also from 1924, which happens to be the year that WNYC was founded, and it's called Lazy. Every time I see a puppy on a summer's day, a puppy dog at play, my heart is filled with envy. That's why I'm in such a hurry to pass. Last the time awake that pup I'm living. Oh, that great, too. And I just want to add that that'll be coming out again on Spotify and other streaming platforms on April 19th.

But you can stream both that song and Riannon's song exclusively on WNYC's website in the meantime. That is fantastic. Well, would you remind listeners where they can go to learn more about the project and submit? Sure. That website is WNYC.org slash public song. project. And again, you'll find resources for ways to pick a song, places you can record your song, or just get other resources to help you out, and also more instructions on how to get involved and what will become of your song once you send it. Fantastic. Go ahead. And all I can

say to folks is you have until May 12th to submit your contributions. So get recording right now. Right, Simon? That's right. That's my colleague Michael Hill in conversation with all of it, producer Simon Close. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Can you believe it? It's been a year since our launch, and we'd like to hear from you. What do you like about the show? What would you like to hear more about?

You can even share us your story tips. It is your chance to make NYC Now really work for you. Send us an email at NYC now at WNYC.org. That's NYC now at WNYC.org. Shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Liora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jenae Pierre, and Wayne Schulmeister, with help from the entire WNMIC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck. Our music was composed by Alexis Quadrardo.

I'm Sean Carlson. Have a nice weekend. We'll be back on Monday.