NYC NOW - September 3, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Police say a 25-year-old man was killed, and four others were injured in a shooting at the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn on Monday. One victim is in critical condition. Meanwhile, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will testify publicly next week about his administration’s COVID-19 response. Also, regular G-train service resumes this Monday. Plus, summer is typically a high season for airline disruptions, with more flights and increasingly common severe weather. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Jason Rabinowitz, an aviation expert and co-host of the podcast AvTalk about the current state of air travel. Finally, with just over 60 days until the November 5th election, an estimated eight million Americans will reach voting age by then. WNYC teamed up with Y Vote to hear from young people eligible to vote in a presidential race for the first time. Meet soon-to-be 18-year-old Shreeya Thakur from Brooklyn.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Tuesday, September 3rd. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. Police say one person died in a shooting yesterday at the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn. The NYPD says the gunfire killed a 25-year-old man. The gunshots hurt four other people, 16 to 69 years old. One is in critical condition.

The shooting happened near Eastern Parkway in Franklin Avenue. at about 2.30 in the afternoon. Violence has plagued the parade and related festivities for years, including shootings and slashings last year. In 2025, people, including a six-year-old boy, were shot. Police are still looking for a suspect in yesterday's shooting. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is set to publicly testify for the first time over his administration's response to COVID. The subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic says Cuomo will appear before Congress one week from today. The committee chair says Cuomo was, quote, shockingly callous when asked to explain discrepancies in nursing home death counts during a previous closed-door interview.

Cuomo's own administration confirmed in 2021 that thousands more nursing home residents died of COVID than previously documented. A spokesperson for Cuomo says a Republican-controlled house is using the Committee for Partisan attacks. The spokesperson cited CDC data that said New York had a lower nursing home death rate than all but 11 states. Gee train riders, the long summer nightmare is over. The MTA has been working on the G-line since late June, upgrading 90-year-old signal systems and replacing tracks along the route, regular service from Court Square in Long Island City to Church Avenue in Kensington. Has resumed as of today. The MTA estimates roughly 160,000 riders take the G train every day.

70 now, maybe 74 this afternoon, and comfortably cool again tonight around 58, sunny and 77, Wednesday, and Thursday. This is WNYC. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC on Michael Hill. We've been talking about train delays a lot this summer here on Morning Edition, but what's the state of the skies this year? Summer is typically high season for airline disruptions, with more planes in the skies and unpredictable weather patterns becoming all the more common.

Jason Rabinowitz is an aviation expert, researcher, and co-host of the Ave Talk podcast. He joins us now to give us a status check. Jason, tell me, how would you describe the state of flying this summer compared to, say, last year, previous years, pre-pandemic? It's a really tough summer in New York, but especially so since COVID with airline employee turnover and record amount of travel, or seemingly every week we get a new record amount of passengers coming through TSA

and the FAA staffing situation. It's all come together to really make flying. especially through New York, really unpleasant this year. I understand air traffic control has a lot to do with this. What's the difference now, say, before the pandemic? So throughout the pandemic, the FAA had a lot of employees retire. Like we saw throughout the airline industry, a lot of controllers that were based in New York, retired.

And at the same time, because of the COVID pandemic protections, training of new FAA air traffic controllers came to a complete halt for a while. And when it did resume, it was at a much lower level than it was pre-COVID. So you have a lot of employees cycling out and very few taking their place. And at the same time, training for the New York area airspace is much more rigorous than it is for elsewhere in the country. Because we have JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Westchester County, Teterborough. It's all very busy within a very tight space. And it takes a special kind of person to be able to handle that stress.

And unfortunately, the failure rate for training for the New York area is very high. So they just haven't been able to get that critical mass of employees to constantly have that level of staffing that would keep things moving. So when you have an angry-looking cloud somewhere over Pennsylvania, in the past, it may not have been an issue. They may have been able to route around that and deal with it. But without that level of staffing, the smallest amount of weather becomes the biggest problem. And how long, Jason, does it take to train an air traffic controller who's ready to go in the the tower? It takes years. So once an FAA controller gets certified, they end up at one of these stations throughout the U.S. And you don't typically see controls immediately getting tossed into

somewhere like New York. They'll start somewhere smaller and they're way up to New York. But these days, the FAA is getting a little more antsy and they might progress someone a little faster. But at the same time, they've actually split up the New York airspace because of staffing constraints. So they've actually moved the airspace around Newark Airport to be controlled out of the Philly Air Traffic Control Center. I guess the thinking is there that maybe it's easier to convince people to live in Philly where the cost of living is a little bit lower than it is out on Long Island. And so far it hasn't proven to be an immediate success, but this is not a kind of situation that fixes overnight. It's going to take years to build staffing back up.

Jason, I have to ask you this. With the issues that you described, such as going to the airport and sitting there for hours, maybe your flight doesn't even leave that day, maybe you have to spend the night at the airport or go back home. What impact is this having on the airlines? It's, there's definitely a stigma coming into this summer that airline passengers, they're not afraid to fly, but they're coming into it prepared with that mindset of knowing it's going to be problematic. I don't think people are booking away from airlines, but they're starting to look at that. I myself actually a couple weeks ago decided to fly to D.C. for the first time in 10 years because I didn't trust Amtrak to get me there on time.

But sure enough, my flight got canceled. So it's kind of you're doomed either way. Either Amtrak's going to cancel on you or the flight will cancel on you. So it's a pick-your-poison situation this summer. Well, we're going to have to check back in with you in the fall and see if the situation improves. Jason Rabinowitz is an aviation expert and researcher. Jason, this has been enlightening. Come back and talk to us again, please.

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. We are now just more than 60 days from the November 5th election, and an estimated 8 million Americans will come of age to vote by that time. WNIC's Community Partnerships Desk recently teamed up with the group, Why Vote, to hear from young people eligible to vote in a presidential raise for the first time this year? This morning, we hear from 17-year-old, soon-to-be 18-year-old Shria Tucker from Brooklyn. What matters to me for, at least for my first time voting, is getting proper information rather than memes.

Kamala Harris was recently put in Jova in this place. And despite focusing more on her accomplishments or downflalled or weaknesses, many of the younger generation have been rooting for her for one simple reason, and that's because she's trending. And one thing I want to hear from candidates, elected officials as well, is honesty. I'd rather just hear their honesty in what they stand for and what they know they can do rather than make-up lies, try and support multiple audiences who might be with or against one another, and just like basically play a facade. My hopes for the country would be let it not run like a joke. It makes no sense to be led by government weak ridicule.

that and also have our own voices heard out as well. Our main idea is to represent people. If we aren't represented, it defeats the entire point of a representative democracy. While I understand why it can be difficult to not get everyone's ideas or representation in it, at least an attempt to do so would be nice. I'm an independent voter as of now, and I'm planning on remaining as such. I don't care which party wins. I just hope that.

They're not like sitting in the White House and then being like, now what? Shrea Talker turns 18 just in time to vote in the November election. She lives in Brooklyn. 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. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.