NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Mahmoud Khalil Misses Son’s Birth, Hochul Gains Support from Voters, Bedford Public Library Reopens and Earth Day

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

The wife of Mahmoud Khalil says immigration officials prevented her husband from being able to attend the birth of their first child. Plus, a new poll indicates that Gov. Hochul's standing with New York State voters is improving. Also, Brooklyn's Bedford public library is officially reopening this week following substantial renovations over the past few years. And finally, we’re celebrating Earth Day with New York's climate and clean energy goals in mind.

Mamu Khalil misses his son's birth after ICE denied his request to attend. Governor Hokel gained support from New York voters. The Bedford Public Library reopens and it's Earth Day. From WMYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. The wife of a recent Columbia University grad student held in detention says immigration officials prevented her husband from being able to attend the birth of their first child. Mamu Khalil's wife, Nora Abdullah, delivered their son Monday in New York.

She accuses ICE of denying Khalil a temporary release in order to make the family suffer. Kalil is a legal permanent U.S. resident who led pro-Palestinian protest at Colombia last year. He's been in federal detention in Louisiana since shortly after his arrest in March. A U.S. immigration judge ruled earlier this month to allow the Trump administration to deport him. Khalil's lawyers have until Wednesday to file an appeal. A new poll indicates Governor Kathy Hokel's standing with New York State voters is improving. WMYC's Jimmy Vilkine has more. The Democratic governor's job approval rating is above water for the first time since last February,

with 48 percent of voters surveyed this month offering a positive view. It comes as Hokel pushes to bar students from having cell phones in schools and restrict wearing face masks in public. Sienna College pollster Stephen Greenberg says these policies are popular with Democrats, Republicans, and independents. The governor's out there talking about these issues. These are issues that the voters are with her on, and right now that's rubbing off on her. Hockel wants to enact those policies as part of the state budget.

The $252 billion spending plan is now three weeks late. Brooklyn's Bedford Public Library is a full. officially reopening this week, following substantial renovations over the past few years. The improved branch at Franklin Avenue and Hancock Street in Bedstead debuts, debuts, this Thursday. During the closure, the library received energy efficiency upgrades, including a new HVAC system, as well as new floors and dozens of new windows. It's the oldest branch in Brooklyn Public Library's portfolio, and originally opened back in 1897.

It's also home to one of BPL's five adult learning centers, which offer free programs and connections to social services. We're celebrating Earth Day. After the break, a conversation on New York's climate and clean energy goals. Stick around. It's Earth Day, and we're going to spend the rest of this episode talking about climate and clean energy. Let's start with your light switch. When you flip it on, electricity flows and lights turn on.

But where did that electricity come from? For answers, we turn to Lulu Miller, host of Terrestrials. That's Radio Lab's Nature Show for families. Where does electricity come from? Well, it just kind of is. It's all around us, a part of nature. But specifically electricity happens when electrons, tiny negatively charged particles, start to move from one atom to another.

That movement, that's electricity. You've probably seen it happen out in the world when ice crystals bump around in clouds, charges build up, and then lightning. a flash of electrons, electricity. But humans wanted to control to harness the electricity all around us. And that's when things got spinny. Back in the 1800s, scientists figured out

that if you spin magnets around coils of copper wire, you can make electrons flow. For some reason, electrons are just looser, more willing to break free of their atoms in copper. And that spin trick? Spinning magnets around copper wire or copper wire around magnets to jostle electrons loose and create an electric current? Well, that is what's going on inside most power plants. Whether it's wind, spinning a turbine, water, spinning a turbine, or coal, natural gas or nuclear fission making steam to spin a turbine. That mysterious magnet and copper wire spin trick is how it all starts. Then, the resulting flow of electrons travel through transformers and a vast web of power lines, some above ground, some buried, to your home.

When you flip on a light switch, say, it's almost like you are smashing a dam and allowing that flow of electrons to rush into your home and power on your light bulb. Speaking of dams, if you're listening in New York City, when you power on a light switch, there is a small chance that some of those electrons could have come all the way from a hydroelectric dam in Quebec, where rushing water spun turbines that got magnets going around copper and set electrons in motion. Those electrons then traveled hundreds of miles underground and underwater before joining the city's grid and making their way to your room. That's Lulu Miller, host of Terrestrials. Stories like the one you just heard, listen to the new season of the podcast on the Radio Lab for Kids Feed.

Now on to policy. Last week, the Trump administration directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to stop construction on New York's Empire Wind Project. Trump suggested the plan was rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis. But stopping the project could be a huge blow to New York State's climate and clean energy goals, which are already behind. New York State is doing okay, not horribly, but it's definitely not on track. That's Emily Ponticover with HeatMap News. In 2019, we passed a big climate law, and that law said that we had to get 70% of our electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2030. And right now, we get maybe a third of our electricity from renewable sources.

And a lot of that energy is actually from the hydroelectric power plants at U.S. Upstate New York that have been operating for many decades. So this isn't new renewable energy development. And recently, New York officials concluded that we're not going to be able to meet that 70% goal, that we're too far behind and we probably won't be able to meet it until 2033. Offshore wind is supposed to be a path to moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. Emily says upstate New York has a lot of land available and capacity to build wind and solar farms the power areas where the bulk of electricity demand comes from, like New York City and the greater metropolitan area.

And right now, there's not enough power lines to bring that power from upstate to downstate. And so offshore wind, you know, it would be very close to New York City where all the demand is. And so it would have been a huge boon to New York cleaning up its grid. In the Trump administration hasn't cited anything specifically that was wrong with the permitting process. But the developer behind the project, Equinor, has already kind of signal that it will try to sue the Trump administration if it does pull the permits. Supporters of New York's Empire Wind projects say consumers could see both climate and economic benefits if the project comes to fruition. It'll reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It will reduce air pollution that comes from those natural gas power plants.

And it also is a more affordable form electricity. it has a potential to bring down people's energy bills compared to what they might be if we continue to rely on fossil fuels. That's Emily Ponticova with HeatMAP News. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.