NYC NOW - July 28, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Three men are getting compassionate release after a judge accused the FBI of manipulating them of committing a crime after 9/11. Police are investigating the burglary of a Brooklyn yoga studio as a potential hate crime. And lastly, WNYC's David Furst speaks with a reporter from The City to discuss how the the cooling fund for seniors and low income New Yorkers have run out of funds.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, July 28th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Three Hudson Valley men convicted in a post-9-11 terrorism plot are getting compassionate release after judge accused the FBI manipulating them into committing the crimes. Onta Williams, David Williams, and Laguerre Payan are three of the group of four men known as the Newburgh. They were convicted in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes. The judge cut their sentences of 25 years to time served plus 90 days.

A lawyer for two of the men says they had been targeted by the FBI for the race, religion, and working class backgrounds. The fourth man is expected to complete his prison sentence by 2030. Police are investigating a burglary at the Brooklyn Yoga Studio as a hate crime. Police say a man walked into yoga hell Tuesday morning. and Cheapshead Bay, damaged some religious items, drew a swastika on a chalkboard, and stole prayers, papers he ran away, photos of the man show he has tattoos on his arms, short blonde hair, and a mustache. Cooling off, one of New York City's free public swimming areas has become increasingly difficult. Katie Honan is a senior reporter at the City News site.

She says some of the city's public pools are just too old to be able to continue to handle the large crowds. You're in this constant state of renovation and maintenance to meet that demand. The city council says 65% of Manhattan residents are within a 15-minute walk to a public pool compared to 12% of Queens residents. The city's public pools will stay open until 8 p.m. today and tomorrow. 88 with sunshine now, heat advisory through tomorrow night. Sunny and 95 today feeling light 101, and then tomorrow chance of severe thunderstorms. Mostly sunny 93, but feeling like 101.

On WNYC, I'm David First. New Yorkers are living through their first official heat wave of summer, but some are doing so without a potential tool to help them cool off. New York State's cooling assistance fund for seniors and low-income residents is out of money. The state stopped accepting new applications for the low-income home energy assistance program on July 14th, meaning thousands of potentially eligible applicants won't have the means to purchase and install an air conditioner for their homes. Helena Salimon is the science reporter for the Blacklight, the investigative unit of the Amsterdam News. She's been reporting on the story and joins us now. Welcome to WNYC.

Thank you for having me. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. What is it and what services does it provide for eligible applicants? It's a mouthful, right? So the low-income home energy assistance program, or L.I. Heap, it's supposed to provide heating and cooling services for vulnerable New Yorkers. Think low-income households with seniors, young children, people with medical conditions. And it's all meant to make sure they have safe temperatures indoors. Well, we're in the midst of what is projected to be the hottest summer on record worldwide.

Here in New York, we are just at the start of this official heat wave, though the city has already experienced. experienced a spike in heat illness earlier this month. But this state program stopped accepting applications on July 14th. What happened? Yeah. So it's a federally funded program that's administered by the state, but the state basically took applications starting in May, first come, first serve, and have basically allocated it all out. This isn't the first time this has happened well before the season's over. The normal season runs from May 1st to August 31st. And this isn't the first year that we've ended somewhere in the middle of the summer. So that's part of why some environmental groups are saying we need to put more funding there because it demonstrates there's a need. Well, this is a federal program, as you said, that is administered by the state and the city here in New York. It generally provides a one-time installation of an air conditioner, for eligible New Yorkers, but some advocates say the program should go further. How does New York's

administration of this program differ from in other states? Sure. One way it differs is that when it comes to cooling assistance, the state will install, if you are eligible, will install an AC unit for you or a fan, but they don't necessarily provide you funds to help keep that fan or AC on. So States like New Jersey have a flat subsidy that they provide where you get some energy assistance to help pay your bills to keep your ACs on. I would say that's probably the biggest difference. Well, your reporting states that 50% of the program's budget is allocated for heating assistance in the winter, while just 4% is directed towards these cooling services.

Why that big gap? And is there any attempt to address that? There is an attempt to address it. And we should keep in mind that we don't want to take away from heating assistance, right? When it gets very cold on the other side of the year, we want to make sure these services exist there for people too. What I heard from people I talked to for the story is that they just want to see more funding for the cooling assistance program. There's some legislation that's in the Senate, has been introduced to the Senate earlier this year, the Heating and Cooling Relief Act. And that's New York Representative Jamal Bowman and Senator Markey from Massachusetts have co-led

this bill. But it's been a federal issue, like every year to find a way to get more funding for it. The program had less funding this fiscal year compared to last because the American Rescue Plan was able to provide some supplemental funding to help put more aid and services to people. It's been an issue every year to get more funding. there any immediate efforts to get more money into the program right away or before the end of this very hot summer? That's something that when I talked to, We Act for the story. They pointed out that New York City and New York State could still be a stopgap to solving this problem.

If the federal funds do run out for our state, we should look to our own budgets to fund the program and make sure people still get services. But that's something we've been focusing on this summer is reporting on heat. Everybody's feeling it. And it's important for us to know where our resources lie. Helena Salimone is the science reporter for the Blacklight Investigative Unit at the Amsterdam News. Helina, thank you for joining us. Thank you. 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 podcast.

We'll be back this evening.