NYC NOW - Midday News: NY Education Commissioner Says Schools Want a Say in Phone Ban, Brooklyn Is the Mulch-iest Borough, Hoboken PATH Station Closes, and Menendez Sentenced to 11 Years

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa says local school districts should have a say in enforcing New York’s proposed “bell to bell” ban on student cell phone use. Meanwhile, Brooklyn led all boroughs in NYC Parks’ annual MulchFest, where thousands of holiday trees are chipped into mulch for city parks. Also, Hoboken’s PATH station will close Thursday night for 25 days. Plus, former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison. WNYC’s Nancy Solomon talks through the case.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, January 30th. Here's the midday news. I'm Junae Pierre. State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa says local school districts should have a strong say as the state pushes for a, quote, bell-to-bell ban on students using cell phones at school.

We totally, as a department, believe in the local control. and we believe in the fact that individual districts have been doing a great job in addressing these issues. Governor Kathy Hokel is pushing for a phone ban in the state budget and wants the policy in place by the start of the next school year. Lawmakers should adopt the state budget by April 1st. New York City's Parks Department is out with its breakdown of how many holiday trees it chipped during its annual Mouche Fest event, and Brooklyn was the Mouciest Borough. WMYC Sean Carlson has more on the numbers. City Park says 19,000 Brooklynites brought their trees to sites around the borough between December 26th and January 12th.

Moulch Fest lets residents take home a bag of mulch for themselves, but most of it goes to parks and gardens throughout the city. Park says they chipped more than 52,000 trees into mulch during this year's Mouch Fest. It's the second most tree since the program began more than 20 years ago. They beat last year's total of 42,000 trees, Citywide. wide. Hoboken's Path Station closes tonight at midnight for 25 days, shuttering a critical transit point between Manhattan and New Jersey for hundreds of thousands of monthly riders. Other transit options, including New York Waterway, other path stations, and New Jersey transit's light rail and bus lines are expanding service to accommodate riders in the meantime. The Port Authority does not

usually shut down transit hubs for extended periods, but officials say trying to do repairs to tracks, switches and the station piecemeal would have meant more than a year of interruptions and scheduled changes. The Hoboken station should reopen February 5th. We've got a breakdown of alternate transit options at our new site, Gothamist. 30 degrees, mostly sunny today with a high around 37. It'll be cloudy tonight with a low around 32, and rain will move into the area overnight, making for a rainy Friday with cloudy skies and a high around 42 degrees. Stay close.

There's more after the break. Longtime New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Last year, Menendez was convicted of using his position at the helm of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in exchange for nearly half a million dollars in bribes. It marks a stunning downfall for Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants who worked his way up through local politics in Union City and Hudson County to become one. one of the most powerful Democrats in the country. WMYC's Nancy Solomon has covered the case and joins me now. Nancy, lawyers for Bob Menendez had asked for two years in prison time, and clearly the judge just wasn't having it. No, he definitely wasn't. As soon as he had sentenced the two businessmen connected of bribing the senator to seven and eight years respectively, and that came before Menendez came up for his sentencing.

It was clear that the senator who had violated his oath of office in a pretty grievous way was going to get in the bribers. So his lawyer began his statement to the judge by acknowledging the sentences the judge had already given and changed the request to eight years from two to eight. Also, the two businessmen hadn't really shown any remorse. And Menendez and his attorney took a very different posture. Menendez's first sentence was, Your Honor, you have before you a chastened man. And then he broke down and cried. And he asked the judge to take into account all that he had done in his career. And for that, the judge did actually knock off a few years. And that's really significant considering that Menendez is 71 years old. Now, remind us what Menendez's case was all about. Right, so he was convicted on all 16 counts in the case. To boil it down, he starts dating Nadine Arslanian, who he would eventually marry. She introduces him to an Egyptian American who crafts a deal with the Egyptian government to get a monopoly on halal meat certification. Egypt got help from Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to obtain weapons from the U.S. The halal monopoly was extremely lucrative, allowing for nearly half a million dollars in cash and gold bars to be given to Menendez.

And there were several other counts that involved Menendez trying to get both state and federal prosecutors to drop charges involving his bribers. Federal prosecutors said in court yesterday that it was a grave breach of trust. And the judge told Menendez that despite all he had done for most of his career, he had lost his way, and that, quote, working for the public good became working for your good. You know, Nancy, previously you mentioned that Menendez cried addressing the judge during his sentencing. Tell me more about how Menendez conducted himself at the sentencing. Right. So, you know, the man that said he was chastened was not. the man who walked out of the courtroom and faced a bank of news cameras. And we have some tape of that. That's when defiant Menendez returned.

President Trump is right. This process is political and it's corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system. Sounds like he's angling for a part in there. Is that the only thing left between Menendez and a prison cell right now? Yeah, pardon from Trump would do the trick. But Menendez is also appealing the verdict, and his lawyers indicated that they would be filing a motion also to keep him out of prison until he exhausts all of his appeals. After hearing what the judge had to say about this case during the sentencing, though, I would be really surprised if he allows any of the defendants to remain free while they appeal. But the Supreme Court has made it much more difficult for prosecutors to obtain corruption, prosecution, so it wouldn't be that surprising if Menendez was able to win an appeal.

Really quickly, Nancy, we haven't talked about his wife, Nadine Menendez. She has yet to go on trial. Where does her case stand? Yeah, it's been delayed several times. She's under treatment for breast cancer. It's now scheduled for March 16th, and it's expected to go nine weeks. Bob Menendez will remain free until June so that he can attend the trial. That's WMYC's Nancy Solomon. Thanks for talking with us. Thanks to me. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. 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 evening.