NYC NOW - Midday News: Upstate Town Awarded $27 Million in Water Contamination Suit, Rikers Inmate Dies During Hospital Visit, and Zohran Mamdani’s New Supporters

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

The chemical company DuPont is agreeing to pay $27 million dollars to residents of Hoosick, New York whose water supply was contaminated with toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, New York City officials say a man who had been detained at Rikers Island died Wednesday while receiving treatment at Bellevue Hospital. Plus, on this week’s politics segment, WNYC reporters Brigid Bergin and Jimmy Vielkind give us an update on Zohran Mamdani’s new supporters, Andrew Cuomo’s future plans, and the governors race.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, July 10th. Here's the midday news from Veronica DeValle. The chemical company DuPont is agreeing to pay tens of millions of dollars to residents of an upstate New York community whose water supply was contaminated with toxic chemicals. DuPont will pay $27 million to the small town of Hussick, New York. Residents there filed suit in 2016 after high levels of a chemical known as PFOA was detected in the drinking water. PFOA, a forever chemical known that way because it doesn't break down, has been linked to cancer and other health concerns.

Residents had already reached a $65 million settlement with three other manufacturing companies in 2021. This latest settlement must still be approved by a district court judge in Albany. New York City officials say a man who had been detained at Rikers Island died yesterday under treatment in custody at Bellevue Hospital. The man's attorney says 51-year-old Christian Collado had bile duct cancer. The lawyer Judan Maltz says he petitioned the court to dismiss Colado's case this week after getting a doctor's letter, attesting that Colato's death was imminent. And I blame the system there should be a law allowing the lawyers to follow motion. You know, asking for physical examination to see the person physically ate with the stand trial. Colato is the eighth person to die in or shortly after release from City Department of Correction custody this year.

80 and cloudy right now, today afternoon showers and thunderstorms likely, then scattered chances after five at night. Cloudy and 81 tonight. Stay close. There's more after the break. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's time for politics brief, our weekly segment where we break down the news out of City Hall and across New York State. The holiday weekend did not slow down the politicking. To break it down, we're joined by WNYC's Jimmy Veilkind in Albany and WNYC's Bridget Bergen right here in downtown Manhattan.

Bridget, we're going to start with you. Iran-Mamdani is consolidating support after his primary win. But there are some Democrats who are not on board with him. So let's start with who he's gained. Sure. So this week he picked up the endorsement of the United Federation of Teachers, the Teachers Union. They sat out the primary, and this is building on some union support that Mom Dani has gathered since his primary win. He's already been endorsed by 32BJ and the Hotel Trades and Gaming Council. They were among the first unions to come out to support Mom Dani after he won that primary, and they both had supported Cuomo during the primary.

He also won the endorsement of the Manhattan Democratic Party. The chairman, Keith Wright, former assembly member, chair of the party, had also previously endorsed Cuomo. And, of course, that's after the Brooklyn Democratic chair, Assembly member Rednees, Bishott Hermelin, had endorsed Momdani, I think the day after he won the primary. But it's worth noting that that coalescing of some of these major labor unions and very local political figures stands in pretty stark contrast to some of the Democratic establishment that seem to still be searching for ways to thwart their Democratic nominee. Yeah, let's talk about that. Who has not come aboard yet? Yeah, so the bigwigs have not come aboard yet. Democratic figures like Governor Hockel, minority leader Schumer, Senators Gillibrand, and House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, although he's set to meet with Monash. MAMDani next week. There are also some really wealthy people who are concerned about Mammani. One of them is John Katsimatidis. He's a former Democrat who then ran for mayor as a Republican in 2013.

On Monday, he had this press conference with former governor David Patterson, another Democrat. And they were warning that Mammani spelled trouble for Democrats. If he's the cure to ail the party, then cyanide is the cure for a headache. I'm got to be. Listen. The type of policies that he's raising, the type of antagonism that he exhibits when he talks about it, just doesn't strike me as indicative of the mayors who preceded him. Wow. Yeah, now, Sean, I'll note that later in that press conference, part of Patterson's argument was that Mamdani did not speak coherently.

Now, this, again, is coming from Patterson, who had previously endorsed it. Andrew Cuomo and at this press conference was essentially, you know, supporting this plan floated by another independent candidate, Jim Walden, who said that all of the independent, so-called free market candidates should see who in September seemed to be the one that could defeat Mom Dani and then they should all decide to back that person. Interesting. Not exactly coherent either. And not exactly the kind of vote blue no matter who democratic mantra that you've heard a lot in recent years. Yeah. All right. Well, what is Cuomo up to? He still does have the independent line, right? Is he going to campaign on that?

I think it's still to be decided. You know, it's going to be very, it's a very crowded field. His spokesperson, Rich Osseparty, put out a statement backing that Walden plan that I described. But we learned that Cuomo has been making his own outreach, even called Mayor Eric Adams this week and was pushing him to drop out of the race. and Adams was not having it. This is what he said during the interview this week. I said, Andrew, are you that level of arrogance? I'm the city mayor. I'm the city of New York. And you expect for me to step aside

when you just lost to Zohan by 12 points. Wow. Yeah, we may have won by a margin, but apparently Eric Adams can't pronounce the name of the Democratic mayor nominee at this point. You know, Bridgett. I watched that clip on CNBC's Squawk Box. And before that portion, Adams noted that Andrew Cuomo has done this before.

He has a history, particularly when it comes to black people and trying to elbow them out of the way when they are perhaps in his way for ambitions. So one example cited by Adams was 2002 when during a Democratic primary for governor against George Pataki, who was running for a third. term. Of course, George Pataki was first elected in 1994. He defeated Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo's father. And Andrew Cuomo waged a very bitter divisive primary against Carl McCall. Carl McCall ended up winning that primary. And Andrew kind of stayed in the race as a spoiler. And Bataki was elected to a third term. A much more recent example, of course, came in 2010. That's when David Patterson was the governor. He was poised to be the first black candidate elected governor, but Andrew worked behind the scenes to sort of get him out of the way. So there's a whole lot of history here.

It's interesting that David Patterson is kind of on all sides of this history. David Patterson, you know, our very own Forrest Gump of New York politics. And so we'll we'll see if it's going to work this time. We should note, a quick side note before we move on. We had Curtis Leva on the show a couple of days ago, the Republican in the race here, Guardian Angels founder. And we asked him about this whole independent situation. He's like, whatever, man. He's like, it doesn't affect me.

I have the GOP line. So, you know, the independence of the race don't really matter to me. He also did say he was like, all this talk about all these independents. He's like, we're not talking about the issues is what he said when we're talking about the people who are going to drop out or not or whatever. So for what it's worth, that is Curtis Lee was take on the situation. Moving on, Jimmy, you mentioned governor and racist war governor. You did some reporting about how Republicans are already jockeying about who will get nominated.

What's going on with that? Yeah, we're still more than 18 months away. Voters are going to go to the polls in November of 2026 to choose the next governor. And, of course, the primary among Republicans, Democrats, or whomever will be in June of next year. But there's kind of this staring match going on between two Republican members of Congress, Elise Stefonic, who represents the North Country, and Mike Lawler from the lower Hudson Valley. Now, Lawler has been making waves. He's been out. He's moving around, being very clear that he's been considering one for governor. He started doing that last year. Stefanic is a little bit more of a

newcomer. She dipped her toe in after her nomination to become United Nations ambassador went kaput. But the thing is, Stefanik seems to be the bigger fish here. She's got more money. She's got more name recognition. She's got more of a national profile and holds show that she wins by a healthy margin when put up against Lawler among Republican voters. But at the same time, some Republicans are arguing to me that Lawler is the more moderate candidate, that he would be able to expand on the party's base, and especially in a place like New York, where there are twice as many enrolled Democrats as Republicans. Many political operatives say that is your key to victory. And so they say Lawler is more moderate. It might do better in a general election.

Jimmy, I mean, what I wonder about is they have to make this decision. When are they going to make it? Because there are huge implications also for the midterms. There is just a line of people who want to challenge Lawler, Democrats that are vying for that Hudson Valley congressional seat. So it seems like some important decisions need to be made pretty quickly. That's right. So Stefanik says she's looking toward the end of the year, according to people who are familiar with her thinking to announce, that will let her see the results of elections in New Jersey, let her see the New York City memorial results. Loller, as you said, Bridget is in a competitive seat. So he's got to figure this out now. If Republicans want to try and hold that seat, Lawler is their best horse. So he's getting pressure

from Republicans on high to maybe stay put. He said, when I spoke with him earlier today, his decision would come, quote, in short order. Okay. Well, we're going to check back in in short order. That was WNYC's Bridget Bergen in Manhattan and Jimmy Feel Kind from Albany. My friends, thank you. As always, it's getting pretty busy out there, so keep on keeping on. 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.

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