NYC NOW - Midday News: Subway Stabbing in Manhattan, Local Attorney Indicted for Sexual Assault, Local Churches Honor Late Pope Francis, and New York’s Climate Goals Under Scrutiny

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

A manhunt is underway after a deadly stabbing on a Manhattan subway platform during Friday morning’s rush hour. Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is urging more survivors to come forward after a finance attorney was indicted on more than 100 counts of sexual assault. Also, Catholic churches across New York City are holding Masses Friday night to honor the late Pope Francis, whose funeral is Saturday. Plus, as we wrap up coverage of Earth Week, we examine New York’s progress and setbacks on its ambitious climate goals with Columbia University’s Michael Gerrard.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, April 25th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Police say someone stabbed and killed a man after an argument on a Manhattan subway platform in this morning's rush hour. Officials say it happened at 8.40 this morning on the southbound platform of the 456 lines at the Brooklyn Bridge City Hall Station. in lower Manhattan. The NYPD says it's looking for a man in his 30s who ran from the station wearing a black jacket. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is asking any other

survivors to come forward after a grand jury indicted an attorney with a background in finance yesterday for allegedly raping and abusing six women in his Midtown apartment. Prosecutors have charged 43-year-old Ryan Hemphill with more than a hundred counts of sexual assault and predatory abuse. They say he drugged the women and recorded the abuse with cameras over several months starting last October. Hemphill has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail without bail. Some local Catholic churches are holding mass tonight in honor of the late Pope Francis. St. Ignatius Loyola on the Upper East Side is holding one at 7 and St. Bartholomew in Elmhurst, Queens is having one at 630. Brooklyn and Queens Bishop, Robert Brennan, will lead the

Mass in English and in Spanish at a live stream on the parish's Facebook page. Pope Francis died early Monday at the age of 88. His funeral is at the Vatican tomorrow starting at 4 o'clock of the morning. Our time. 70 and sunny right now in the city, partly sunny today and 77 for a high. Tomorrow showers and possibly a thunderstorm, a high near 74 and gusty. We cool off on Sunday, partly sunny, windy and gusty. Stay close. There's more after the break.

We're celebrating Earth Week with a series of conversations on New York's climate and clean energy goals. The state has set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050, but with only 25 years left ago, deadlines are piling up. With us now is Michael Gerard, faculty director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Michael, thank you very much for joining us. Good to be with you. So the Sabin Center maintains a very detailed tracker on the state's progress. How's it looking? Not so well.

They started off well. The law required them to come up with a very detailed plan to implement the law. They did that on time, but they're falling way behind in some of the most important deadlines set under the law. And so is that what's included in your climate backtracker, which identifies how the Trump administration is scaling back federal climate measures? That's right. When Trump was first inaugurated, we launched our climate deregulation tracker. When Biden came in, we renamed it the climate re-regulation tracker.

Now it's the climate backtracker, and we're having to add new items several times a day. One of them was the shutting down of this offshore wind project that was already under construction, had gotten its permits, was going to employ thousands of workers, in Brooklyn and around the region, but they've stopped it. Now, Michael, New York has some of the most ambitious climate policies in the nation at the state level. How far is the federal government able to go in making changes and, I guess, slowing down this progress that you'd like to see made? The biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in New York State is transportation. and the motor vehicle standards, the emission standards for cars, are set by the federal government, and state law is preempted.

New York can't go stronger what the federal government allows. The Trump administration has signaled that they're going to roll back the requirements that have been set under the Biden administration, and they're going to greatly stand in the way of the conversion to electric vehicles. So that's putting a big hole right off the start in New York's efforts to cut back on our greenhouse gas emissions. New York had planned to fund initiatives through a plan called cap and invest. Would you explain what that is, Michael? The idea is to impose a fee on fuel sales, on emissions from fossil fuels and other activities. And the money would then be plowed back into actually.

to prepare for climate change, to switch to a clean energy economy, and very importantly to relieve the burden that these higher costs might impose on low-income and middle-income consumers. The program was moving forward in January. The state agencies seemed poised to issue the regulations, but Governor Hokel halted it. She's now been sued by a couple of environmental organizations. said that the state law required moving forward with capital invest. So that issue is now in the courts. The Sabin Center also attracts climate-related lawsuits worldwide. What's coming out of New York, Michael? So the legislature passed and Governor Hockel signed a law called the

Climate Superfund law, which would assess a charge on the major fossil fuel companies to help pay for adaptation to climate change. That law and a similar one recently passed in Vermont have been challenged by industry groups in the federal courts. Also, New York City has a very important law called Local 97, which is going to require large buildings in New York City to be retrofit to have lower greenhouse gas emissions. That law was halted by an appellate court in New York on the grounds that it was preempted by state law. That case was argued just two weeks ago before the High Court of New York, the Court of Appeals, and we're waiting for that decision. Michael, are we going to regret at some point, perhaps in the near future,

the scaling back and the foot dragging on getting these projects done and turning more reliably on renewable energy? We should already regret it. We need to build up very substantial momentum in order to meet these goals, to contribute our part toward meeting the Paris climate commitments. The Trump administration is leading to a tremendous loss of momentum. It's going to slow us down. We're already facing serious climate-related events, unprecedented heat waves, and extreme weather events.

And this is just going to make it harder to improve the situation. So it's the last day of Earth Week. and there are probably a lot of listeners who feel compelled to act in this moment. What leverage do individuals have, Michael, to move things along more quickly? Well, I think through our elected officials, more pressure on members of Congress, making sure that the state legislature and the city council holds their course. The elected officials we have have a great deal of influence over what happens, and they listen to citizens who speak up clearly and loudly.

Our guest has been Michael Gerard. He's the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Michael, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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