NYC NOW - May 28, 2024: Morning Headlines

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: New York City is planning a $22 million program to help migrants leave city-funded hotel shelters in Buffalo, find apartments, apply for asylum, and secure jobs. In other news, the New York City Department of Transportation will shut down a section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in June. WNYC's Catalina Gonella reports. Plus, the FDNY is using drones as part of its robo-lifeguard initiative to patrol city beach shorelines for swimmers in distress, rip tides, and other unsafe conditions.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, May 28th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. New York City is planning a novel $22 million program to help migrants leave city-funded hotel shelters in Buffalo. Under this tentative deal, officials in Buffalo and New York City say a local nonprofit will work to relocate. more than 500 migrants living in Buffalo hotels and help them find apartments, apply for asylum, and find jobs.

New York City is housing roughly 2,000 migrants in upstate communities. That includes Buffalo. State Senator Sean Ryan of Buffalo helped broker this deal. We had hoped that this would have been adopted earlier, and it would have been used as a demonstration to show how to efficiently and humanely relocate people, but we're still optimistic that this could be, a model. Mayor Adams' office confirmed the tentative deal but would not comment on whether it would replicate the arrangement elsewhere. The New York City Department of Transportation is shutting down

a section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in June. WNIC's Catalina Gonella reports. The DOT says the Queensbound side of the BQE will be fully closed from the Atlantic Avenue entrance ramp to the Manhattan Bridge exit from early Saturday, June 1st to early Monday, June 3rd. Officials are, quote, strongly encouraging drivers to avoid the BQE and to expect extended travel times over the weekend. The city says there will be an abundance of signs around the detours and electronic message boards will be posted throughout Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. The DOT says the closures are necessary to complete construction critical to the expressway's longevity. They also expect it will be the last round of planned closures for the year. If you're swimming in the ocean this beach season in spite of drone flying overhead, it may be the FDNY's new Robo Lifeguard Initiative, Frank Montana's with the fire department's robotics unit.

If we happen to come across the swimmer in distress, we're able to drop flotation devices from the drone right to that person. It should automatically inflate once it comes in contact with the water. If not, there's a pull cord. You pull rip the cord, now you have a flotation device for that person. person to grab onto. The drones will fly along the shorelines of city beaches looking for swimmers in distress, rip tides, or any other unsafe conditions. 66 and partly sunny now, sunny and 83 for a high on this Tuesday.

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. See you this afternoon.