NYC NOW - July 12, 2023: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: U.S. Representative Pat Ryan pushes for rapid federal disaster assistance and FEMA funding as Hudson Valley begins recovery from Sunday’s storm. Meanwhile, a new method for monitoring New York City police activity emerges from researchers at Cornell Tech.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, July 12th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. 75 and sunny, a hot one today all the way up to 93 under sunshine. Residents in the Hudson Valley continue to recover from Sunday storm as officials begin the process of securing federal disaster assistance and FEMA aid. Congressman Pat Ryan represents much of the region in Washington.

Ryan says getting money from the Fed should be a relatively quick process. First we're assessing the full scope of the damage. Then the governor of New York, Governor Hockel, will request a federal disaster declaration and the president will make that declaration hopefully very soon. Governor Hockel says the state should easily reach the $37 million threshold in storm damage to qualify for federal reimbursement of damaged infrastructure. Ryan says he expects repairs to take months and in some cases years. Researchers at Cornell Tech have found a way to monitor New York City police activity.

WNYC's Neil META has more. The NYPD doesn't release data about where it deploys police officers, so the team at Cornell Tech decided to figure it out themselves. The team gathered nearly 25 million photos of New York City streets taken from car dashboard cameras, like the ones you might find in an Uber or a Lyft. They then used an artificial intelligence computer model to determine whether each of the photos had a police car in it. They found that in residential areas,

black and Hispanic residents faced higher than average police deployment, while white and Asian residents faced less. The researchers say they want to give people a new way to keep an eye on police deployment and to call for the police to release better data themselves. The NYPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an air quality health advisory for the city for today, all the way through 11 tonight. Active children and adults and people with respiratory problems such as asthma should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion outdoors.

The websiteairnail.gov rates the air as moderate, but that's expected to get significantly worse during the day as vehicle exhaust. levels rise. 75 and sunny right now, a hot one a day, sunny and 93. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.