NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: Attorney General Letitia James Vows to Fight Fraud Charges, Domestic Violence Cases Rise in NYC, City Council Reviews Future of Hart Island, and More on the Gateway Tunnel “Termination”

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Attorney General Letitia James says she’s ready to defend herself against fraud charges filed by President Trump’s Justice Department. Meanwhile, domestic violence complaints in New York City have jumped 18 percent since 2019, with advocates warning that arrests alone aren’t solving the problem. Also, the City Council is weighing the future of Hart Island, the city’s public cemetery, where officials say burial space could run out in less than two decades. Plus, on this week’s transit segment, WNYC’s transportation team breaks down what President Trump’s decision to cut funding for the Gateway Tunnel project could mean for rail service between New York and New Jersey.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, October 17th. Here's the morning headlines. I'm Jene Pierre. Attorney General Letitia James says she's prepared to defend herself against fraud charges brought by President Trump's Justice Department. The Brooklyn Democrat is accused of falsely claiming that she intended to live in a home in Virginia, which she got a lower interest rate on her mortgage. The AG says she visits her family in Virginia often.

I will defend these charges, and I want everyone to know that it is completely baseless, and I am totally innocent. James and her allies say the charges are political retribution. She's repeatedly clashed with Trump and his administration in court. The AG is scheduled to be arraigned next week. Domestic violence complaints in New York City have surged over the past five years, and WMYC's Charles Lane reports that increased arrests so far have not been effective. Reports of domestic violence rose 18% since 2019. The city has also been making more arrests,

but Saloni Sethi, with the mayor's office to end domestic violence, says that approach isn't working. I think what this tells us is that tool is not doing enough on its own, right? That we haven't necessarily seen a meaningful decrease in the number of domestic incidents in the past five years. Other major crimes have been. returning to pre-pandemic levels, but inter-partner violence has only increased, according to police data. The NYPD is creating a new unit to handle domestic violence cases from start to finish, rather than having different officers from different units investigate

the same crime. The city council is weighing the future of Hart Island, the city's public cemetery and final resting place for more than a million people. Capacity is at the center of the conversation. At a hearing yesterday, city officials told lawmakers the island had about 18 years left. Melinda Hunt is director of the Heart Island Project, which helps families connect with records in the island's history. She says studies so far haven't accounted for sea level rise. The shoreline restoration will keep water off the surface, but it will not keep water out of the boxes buried eight feet deep. A bill would require the city's social services and parks department to examine current burial practices, estimate remaining capacity,

and recommend changes. It's Friday. That means it's time for our weekly segment of On the Way, covering all things transportation. That's after the break. NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. It's time for On the Way, our weekly segment on all things considered, breaking down the week's transit news. Joining us is WNMIC's transportation reporter Stephen Nesson and Ramsey Caliphay and editor Clayton Gouza.

Okay, President Trump dropped a bit of a bombshell. He said funding for the Gateway Program has been, quote, terminated. That's the project to build the first new Hudson River train tunnels in more than a century before repairing the old ones, which were damaged during Hurricane Sandy way back when. We've spoken up this project a lot of times on this segment. How big of a deal is this? I mean, on the one hand, it's the President of the United States talking, maybe the most mercurial and transactional president in U.S. history. But he's also vowed political payback to his enemies. enemies. So there's always a feeling of maybe he will terminate it. Yeah. But, you know, then there's

Senator Chuck Schumer, who is public enemy number one for Trump right now. And he's the top Democrat in the Senate that's using the filibuster to block the Republican spending bill in the House. Gateway is one of Schumer's pet projects. Probably no other politician has done more to get this project funded and underway. It's also incredibly expensive. You know, it's a $16 billion project. And under President Biden, Schumer helps secure federal funding for about how. of that price tag. But here's Trump speaking yesterday. The project in Manhattan, the project in New York, it's billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It's terminated. Tell him it's terminated.

So, you know, maybe this is just part of a strategy of his to end the government shutdown, threaten something near and dear to Schumer. Here's Schumer's response. Gateway's the most important infrastructure project in America, period. Donald Trump is trying to kill it again in pure spite and with sheer stupidity. It's petty revenge politics. Well, it might be, but with the government shutdown dragging on, it's a new move from the country's top Republican. I mean, the president loves the word terminated. What do the terminators say? I'll be back. I mean, he did come back to the White House after being voted out. But this move kind of comes two weeks after, you know, then coming into the third week of the shutdown. At the first day of

the shutdown, Trump's budget director, Russell, vote. He tried another. gambit to halt many New York projects. He started making all these announcements that the federal government would be cutting funds to projects primarily, almost exclusively, in districts represented by Democrats. In all votes, says he was trying to stop the flow of about $18 billion worth of construction grants earmarked for New York transportation projects, primarily the Gateway Tunnel and the 2nd Avenue subway extension. Those are two of the most expensive transit construction projects on the planet and require two of the largest federal grants ever issued for mass transit expansion in the history of the country, something we're reported on repeatedly. But the question

is really that we've been wrestling with all day is can the White House unilaterally block this funding while it's a little unclear. It was all allocated by Congress. At the same time, it's up to the executive branch to distribute that according to mandates and rules that are also established by Congress. But there are ways that the White House is trying to kind of fiddle with that, most notably on October 1st, the first day of the shutdown, U.S. Department of Transportation puts out this new rule that they want to scrutinize what is a disadvantaged business enterprise, you know, certain rules that certain number of public contracts have to go to minority and women-owned businesses. The U.S. DOT is saying, anyone who takes a grant needs to make sure

and review and come back to us and show that, hey, we don't want you saying that people are disadvantage just because the company is run by, based on race or based on gender. So it's the most kind of legal, tangible, toothful mechanism that they've come out with so far beyond this presidential fiat. So we're going to kind of see how this plays out over the coming months. But in the meantime, he's saying that the gateway project is terminated. Yeah. But, you know, the bottom line is the project is well underway. There's construction at five sites in New York and New Jersey. If you go to the high line, walk to the end, look down, you'll see a massive trench in the ground. That's where the new tunnel is going to be.

Look out into the Hudson River right now. There's a barge out there that's getting the riverbed ready for this giant tube that's going to be placed there in a couple of years. There's contract signed and there's this work underway. And experts say it might actually be kind of tricky to stop the project of this point. And also, on the other hand, why would Trump, who's supported by the building trades generally, kill a bunch of building trade jobs and leave these holes in the ground? Anything goes in the political fight of a shutdown, right? Yeah, sure does, yeah. I feel like, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong here,

but I feel like infrastructure used to be a pretty bipartisan thing, right? But it doesn't seem so these days. It looks like the federal government is using transportation projects as another pawn in basically the culture war. Yeah, I think you're right, Sean. The public fight around gayway is just like the latest of a project that's being scrutinized by the federal government. I mean, just this year. There was first, of course, Trump's declaration that he has killed congestion pricing early this year. and there was the ensuing legal battle between the MTA and the federal DOT over that.

Trump and code then announced that Amtrak, the federally funded railroad corporation, would take control of the redesign of Penn Station away from the MTA. We're also seeing fights here between Amtrak and the MTA over strategies of construction with the Penn Access Project. The MTA says Amtrak isn't giving them enough outages to do work on the Hellgate line, and Amtrak says that the MTA is just spreading misinformation. There's also the Department of Homeland Security. they tried to withhold a transit security grant to the MTA.

That was about $34 million. But just today, a judge ruled that that's illegal. So from the last nine months alone, transportation and infrastructure projects have really become a hot button issue. Of course, you know, we covered all this during the first Trump administration where he also kind of meddled in New York City

transportation issues, most famously holding up congestion pricing, and that held up the next phase of the Second Avenue subway. And as soon as Biden took office, congestion pricing passed, Gateway got fully funded and Second Avenue subway move forward. Now he's trying to roll it all back. Let's not forget he's tried to revoke approval for congestion pricing and failed.

The difference is congestion pricing didn't require any federal money. These projects required the distribution of federal funds. Speaking of money, a report this week found the MTA could have a major hole in its budget due to unreimbursed FEMA funds from COVID. Stephen, what's going on? How bad is that? Well, I learned this week, Sean, unbelievably, that the MTA has never been reimbursed for COVID expenses. from FEMA. This is for things like supplies, equipment, and workers who clean the subways during those darkest days of the pandemic. Remember when former Governor Cuomo shut down the transit

system for the first time, kicking homeless people off the trains and disinfecting trains? Well, none of those funds have been reimbursed. And this is all to say the MTA was expecting to receive that money. They put it in their budget. They assumed they were going to get $300 million this year, $300 million next year. And really, it just looks like that money isn't going to come. didn't come during the Biden administration either, we should add. And, you know, we just spoke about all the Trump meddling in New York business. Do you really think that administration is going to send us $600 million now? Yeah, I mean, Stephen Harris made the point that it feels like waiting for Godot.

They've been sitting around for years waiting for money that simply isn't going to arrive. But the MTA board has to pass a balanced budget, according to state law, by the end of the year. Next month, they're going to come out with our financial plan. they're looking at this $300 million gap and they have limited options. They're already raising fares. That's already accounted for. That doesn't apply to this $300 million. They can find some money under the cushions.

They can find some efficiencies. They don't have time to go ask the state for more tax money. They can cut some jobs. They can cut service. It kind of puts them in a pinch that could legitimately affect riders. But even a point about this $300 million and $600 million, they got a lot of money in COVID relief. But this $360,600 million that they're talking about, 300 million a year, dates back to these emergency contracts that were issued under emergency

order during COVID. And a lot of those contracts came under scrutiny because a lot of the workers that were hired to pay the subway, to pay to clean subway cars overnight during the overnight shutdown during the pandemic. They were underpaid. It prompted a lawsuit from the city comptroller. It really kind of boiled down to a lot of scrutiny and the MTA asking the feds to reimburse them for those costs. And now we're at a time where ridership has gone back. So the MTA is hovering around 80% pre-pandemic levels and they've boasted that they're bringing in more service. Ultimately, the question now becomes, how do they continue to maintain this level of service with a looming deficit approaching? And the feds don't reimburse that money. Well, thank you so much to WMIC Stephen Nesson,

Ramsey, Kleefe and Clayton Goosey. You can stay in the know on all things transit or ask a question of your own by signing up for our weekly newsletter at gotthmus.com slash on the way. My friends again, action-packed week. Thanks so much. Thank you. 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. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.