NYC NOW - December 15, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Many are of course wondering why the electricity briefly went out around the boroughs just before midnight last Thursday. Con Ed says a power surge took place at a DUMBO substation while a transmission line was being restored. Also, Mayor Adams' plan to curb spending on migrants is showing some gains -- at least on paper. The Independent Budget Office predicts the city will spend six to eight billion dollars on migrants' care the next two years, which is much less than the mayor’s office estimate in August of nearly eleven billion. And the GOP has picked Nassau county legislator Mazi Pilip as their candidate to replace former congressman George Santos. Lastly, WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with the student journalists of Forest Hills High School in Queens behind the newly reformed student paper "The Beacon"

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. While it wasn't the most dramatic in New York City's history as far as power outages go, many are of course wondering why the electricity briefly went out around the boroughs just before midnight last Thursday. Con Ed says a power surge took place at a Dumbo substation while a transmission line was being restored. Police say nobody was hurt and the MTA says subways were not affected. But both the MTA and FDNY say that some people had to be rescued from stuck elevators. Mayor Adams says he was still up when it happened and joked about how that illustrates is work ethic.

Well, I think the most important aspect of it, I saw the lights flickers while I was working. And it happened around 12 o'clock. It just goes to show you, I'm working all the time, man. Mayor Adams' plan to curb spending on migrants is showing some gains, at least on paper. Independent Budget Office predicts the city will spend six to nearly $8 billion on migrant care over the next two years. That is well shy of the nearly $11 billion estimated by the mayor's office in August. The agency predicts there will be fewer migrants and shelters and lower per diem cause. The administration's implementing new 30 and 60-day stay limits on migrants and city shelters,

resulting in savings not accounted for in earlier cost estimates. But IDO analysts Claire Salant says it's not all a positive picture. Reducing the population via exits is not a pure cost saver, and there's going to be other costs from that. So it's a complicated way from him to try to reduce costs. The city says it's caring for some 65,000 migrants. The race to replace former Congressmember George Santos is heating up. Republicans have picked Nassau County legislator Mazi Pillup as their candidate after Democrats chose former Congressmember Tom Swazi. While Pillup currently serves as a Republican in the Nassau County,

County Legislature. She is a registered Democrat. WIC's Bridget Bergen reports Republicans say she's still the best candidate for the seat. Pelop was first elected in 2021 and reelected just this November. She was born in Ethiopia and fled to Israel to avoid religious persecution in the 90s and later served in the Israeli defense forces. Pelop's nomination comes nearly two weeks after Governor Hokel set February 13th as the date for the special election. Republicans said they were vetting candidates to avoid another Santos, who lied extensively about his biography and was ousted from Congress for ethical and potentially criminal violations. Stay close. There's more after the break.

High school is hard enough, right? The classes, the friends, the grades, you name it. But the students at Forest Hills High School in Queens have spent the last year making it a little more complicated. They've been reviving a school new school. paper that had not published an edition in 10 years. The student journalist behind the newly reformed student paper, The Beacon, joined Morning Edition host Michael Hill to talk about their ambitious project. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Hill. This morning, we'll talk to three members of the Beacon staff, Senior Salma Baxh, is the paper's editor-in-chief, Junior Athena Vichudan is the assistant editor-in-chief, and senior Jackson O'Brien is the news editor. Saman, let's start with you. How did you decide to bring back the paper in the first place? Well, it wasn't my idea to bring back the paper. Actually, a group of students in the year prior to me had spoken to

administration asking to bring it back. So that resulted in the journalism elective being brought back, and it was open to students, so I signed up for it. You told the Queen's Eagle there was nothing to work off of while rebuilding the beacon. What bits of institution of knowledge did you wish you had while undertaking this process? I wish that we had a mentor, firstly, which is something that we do have the privilege of having this year through press pass, but a mentor that would show us how to assign deadlines that would walk us through how to write a news article,

how to publish one, what editing looks like, especially since news writing is a lot different from essay writing that happens in traditional English classes. graphic design, just even some smaller questions like, how should I cite this picture? Very nitty-gritty stuff. What is PressPass, you mentioned? Press Pass is an organization that provides funding, materials, and mentorship for public high schools that want to restart or make their student newspapers better. Athena, what were going into putting together that first edition of the new paper? The first edition of this year, we were assigning our beats to other students.

So Selma and other colleagues of ours, we created a Google sheet and we did it that way. And then, you know, we did our interviews. And it was just a really interesting process because this year is my first time being in the beacon. And it was really interesting just to see how people worked together. I mean, it was all new people, you know, seniors and juniors coming together. And in this very first issue of 2023, we worked together and figured out how to write together, how to interview, and how to assign beats where people would be actually interested in writing things. What kind of beats are we talking about? So we had reviews for our entertainment and lifestyle, like reviews of the coffee drinks at Dunkin, Donuts, reviews of shows like Loki, our flag means death.

we had things that would interest our student body, so we had to be careful because we can't do anything too serious because then, you know, that attention goes away. So things like interviewing teachers, we did a recap and interview with one of our librarians that had left, and she was beloved, so that really caught the attention of a lot of our students. Have you published something that kind of rocks the boat that's a little, create some controversy, some dispute? So a article that Salma and I worked on together about our librarian that had left for another job, we talked a little bit about censorship and books, and it did rock the boat a little bit with school administration,

but we were able to smooth things out and make a compromise. But it's just an insight into how some things that you might not even think would affect certain people or affect the way that they read things, it's just really interesting to see how certain things might be able to, I guess you could say, rock the boat a bit. Jackson, let me move on. Why do you think journalism is important at the school level?

And how is it different from other kinds of reporting? So I think that journalism is really important, especially for high school students, because a lot of times, you know, nobody really reads printed paper in the morning anymore. Back when my parents were growing up, they used to read the newspaper while eating their breakfast and then they would go to school, even in high school.

But kids are age, a lot of times they find themselves finding news on social media. And so I think that by having a school paper, it provides like a more reputable source to see even just school-wide news. You know, like there are certainly social media accounts that aren't necessarily like school affiliated. They're ran by students. And they can be inaccurate with what's going on in the school sometimes. And so by having.

our paper, it provides like a more reputable and accurate source for our students to access information on what's going on in the school. Salma, the beacon is four editions in at this point. What has the reception been from your fellow students? Students are less vocal about their support, but we have received comments. I think teachers are really excited to have the paper back. And I think that touches on an issue of engagement because, I mean, as Jackson said, Most of our peers are on Instagram. They're on social media. So we're trying to shift the paper onto Instagram in some ways,

try to get people to read articles through our Instagram because that's where they are. We have a website this year which has increased our engagement. However, it would be unwise to ignore the influence that Instagram has on our generation. We're approaching the first anniversary of the paper's rebirth. In the last year, what stories are staff most proud of? and which ones are the most excited to tackle as the beacon continues to grow? I feel like anything that a writer is passionate about themselves always ends up being a great article, and it captures the attention of the student body.

I know from our staff, they always love writing about reviews and about what's going on in, like, Hollywood, or what's going on at the school. And I feel like we try to do that in every single issue that we write, and in every single article that we write, because once that feeling is there, the student body responds with a very positive interaction. That was Helma Baxch, Athena Vichard & Ann, and Jackson O'Brien from the Forest Hills High School Beacon, back after a 10-year hiatus. You can read it at the beacon fh-h-h-S.org.

Class dismissed. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Quick shout out to our production team and include Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey, Audrey Cooper, Liora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jene Pierre, and Wayne Schallmeister, with help from the entire WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Electric Quadrardo. I'm Sean Carlson. Have a great weekend.