NYC NOW - July 25, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here’s all the local news you need to start your day: New York City health officials report spotting mosquitoes with the West Nile virus earlier than usual due to hot and humid weather. Meanwhile, New York City's competitive housing market is prompting new crowdsourced listing services to help renters find available units faster. Plus, New York State's Labor Department is investigating claims from two dozen migrant workers that local construction companies cheated them out of more than $100,000 in wages.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, July 25th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. Hot, humid weather makes for lots of happy mosquitoes. And where there are mosquitoes, there are mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus. Double NIC's Jacqueline, Jacqueline, Wienski, has the latest data. New York City health officials spend the warm months scoop

oping mosquitoes out of puddles and testing them for West Nile virus. This year, they found their first disease-carrying bugs on June 5th. That's the earliest they've ever been detected. Since then, West Nile has been spotted in mosquitoes across the city, especially in Queens and Staten Island. Experts say climate change is causing the mosquito season to start earlier and last longer. The city hasn't yet recorded any symptomatic cases of West Nile virus in humans this year. Symptoms can include a fever.

and a rash. New York City's cutthroat housing market is spawning new crowd-sourced listing services to help renters get a jump on available units and maybe even avoid thousands of dollars in upfront costs. Tech worker Eric Lee says he studied how tenants and landlords use social media to connect with one another before starting his own housing network on LinkedIn. There were a lot more scammers, a lot more spammers, a lot more bots on Facebook groups, but the concept of itself works. LinkedIn usually is used for job searches and self-promotion, but Lee says it's a good tool for bringing tenants and landlords together

because users have to post their true identities and verifiable information. Lee's LinkedIn Housing Group now has nearly 6,000 apartment hunters and property owners. One of the main rules, no broker fees. New York State's Labor Department says it's investigating two dozen migrant workers' claims that local construction companies cheated them at more than $100,000 in wages. Some workers could be in line for deferred action at federal protection that spares claimants from deportation and grants them work permits. Immigration lawyer Isabel Niurada says the protection can be life-altering for workers,

lacking legal status. I think it makes a huge difference in the individual's lives for them to be able to be employed legally and for them to know that they won't be deported just because they're speaking up and fighting for the rights. The State Labor Department confirmed it's looking into the claims from the migrant workers. The agency says it's recommended 135 workers for deferred action since last year. Mid-70s now, 86 today and mostly cloudy. 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.