Evening Roundup: LIRR Service Returns After Fire at Grand Central Madison, Nadine Menendez Calls for New Trial, Audit Finds Vacant Apartments Amid NYC’s Affo...

Janae Pierre: The fire is out and train service is back at Grand Central Madison. Nadine Menendez calls for a new trial. An audit finds plenty of vacant apartments amid New York City's affordable housing crisis. President Trump's travel ban and former Representative Rangel lies in state this week. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre.

Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker: Heavy, heavy smoke condition for the fire department when we were down there. Finally located the fire after cutting a roll-down gate.

Janae Pierre: Long Island Railroad service is back to normal after a fire at Grand Central Madison. The FDNY says three firefighters and one other person were injured, although they are expected to survive. FDNY Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker says it took more than 100 firefighters to put the fire out. It was 15 stories below 42nd Street. Melanie Guzman works at Damselfly Flowers in Grand Central. She says shortly after the fire broke out, police told her it wasn't safe to be in that part of the station.

Melanie Guzman: He basically said, "You shouldn't be here. There's toxins that you're smelling." We put on our masks and then we just started closing up quickly, but it was making us nauseous.

Janae Pierre: Officials believe it was an electrical fire, but the cause is still under investigation. The wife of former US Senator Bob Menendez is asking a federal judge to throw out her bribery conviction from earlier this year. Nadine Menendez argues she's entitled to a new trial because she hadn't been able to work with her first choice attorney who was a potential witness. Because the attorney was never called to the stand, her current legal counsel says it's a violation of her Sixth Amendment rights.

Prosecutors say Nadine Menendez worked with her husband to trade his political influence for gold, cash, and other goods. Nadine Menendez is scheduled to be sentenced in September. Her husband was convicted last year and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

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Janae Pierre: Even as New York City renters face a historic housing shortage, a new audit by the state comptroller's office finds some affordable apartments are sitting empty for up to seven years. WNYC's David Brand has more.

David Brand: Comptroller Tom DiNapoli reviewed conditions and practices across four Mitchell-Lama developments regulated by the state's housing agency. The Mitchell-Lama program was introduced in the 1950s and takes its name from the lawmakers who created it. It's meant to preserve affordable options and even a path to ownership for low and middle-income New Yorkers.

Jamie Towers is a co-op in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx. That's the exact type of neighborhood State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and Assemblymember Alfred Lama had in mind when they established their namesake program. According to Furman Center statistics, a quarter of neighborhood residents live below the poverty line, and about a third spend half or more of their income on housing. The comptroller's report finds that 1 in every 10 units in Jamie Towers is empty. DiNapoli spokesperson Mary Mueller says that's a problem.

Mary Mueller: It completely undermines the Mitchell-Lama program's goals of getting affordable housing to those in need.

David Brand: Residents say they're being hit with huge annual cost increases. Jamie Towers resident Phyllis Gray says the development is losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Phyllis Gray: Why do we have so many vacancies? Why don't we go after the money? That is a source of our revenue.

David Brand: Jamie Tower's property manager blames some of the vacancies on roof damage that led to leaks and mold blooms. Other complexes cited in the report include Findlay House in the Bronx, Cathedral Parkway Towers in Manhattan, and 753 Classon Avenue Housing Company in Brooklyn. The state's housing agency is pushing back against DiNapoli's criticisms. Officials say the developments are privately owned and managed. They say they provide guidance and oversight, but they don't control day-to-day operations. They also say DiNapoli cherry-picked buildings with the most problems for the report.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's David Brand. Stay close. There's more after the break.

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Announcer: NYC Now.

Janae Pierre: Immigrant communities in New York City and beyond are navigating a changed travel landscape for their loved ones abroad. President Trump's travel ban excluding citizens of 12 countries from entering the country began at the stroke of midnight Monday. WNYC's Arun Venugopal lists the countries impacted.

Arun Venugopal: Haiti, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya.

Janae Pierre: Arun emphasizes that the ban affects citizens of those countries, not US Citizens who are originally from those places.

Arun Venugopal: It also doesn't apply to people who are already in the US or who have green cards, which is to say permanent resident status in the US. It also exempts international athletes who might want to travel here for a competition. For the vast majority of people from those countries, it makes it really hard to come here.

Janae Pierre: In addition to those 12 countries Arun mentioned, there are also restrictions against citizens of seven other countries.

Arun Venugopal: This list of country includes Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Cuba. Now, citizens of those countries could be denied student or tourist visas. They'll also be forbidden from securing green cards here.

Janae Pierre: Immigrant rights activists plan to fight against the travel ban, but Arun says right now activists are really worried about the impact this will have on communities of color in New York City.

Arun Venugopal: In New York, the biggest community to be affected by this is the Haitian community. Elsie Saint Louis is the executive director of Haitian Americans United for Progress, and this is what she had to say.

Elsie Saint Louis: That list is highly, highly upsetting. It's only Black and brown communities on that list. To label, and I mean, I'm talking about my community, to label us as a threat, this whole thing is wrong in so many ways and so upsetting.

Arun Venugopal: She says the travel ban and its implication that people from all these countries are dangerous, it really demonizes people from those nationalities. In the case of Haitians, she says this is just the latest way the president has done this. You might recall in the run-up to the election last November, he amplified a fake story that Haitians were eating dogs in Ohio. Saint Louis says this is just the latest blow to the community.

Janae Pierre: Arun says this latest blow may evoke some memories for New Yorkers. In 2017, a similar ban was passed by the first Trump administration. Arun recalls that time.

Arun Venugopal: Eight years ago, the travel ban was implemented in the very first days of the first Trump era, prompted a massive backlash nationwide. Critics said was a de facto Muslim ban because all seven of the countries at that time were Muslim-majority countries. New Yorkers might recall there were big crowds that demonstrated at JFK and there were thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets downtown. Critics struck down the first versions of that travel ban. In 2018, a revised version of the ban was implemented. That included North Koreans and included Venezuela as well. It was ruled constitutional lawful by the Supreme Court, although President Biden did later revoke it.

Janae Pierre: Arun talked with a couple scholars, and he says they all expect this latest travel ban to withstand legal challenges. Stephen Yale-Loehr is a retired professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School. Here's what he had to say.

Stephen Yale-Loehr: The Supreme Court held that all presidents have wide discretion when it comes to immigration because it deals with foreign affairs, particularly when that immigration effort deals with national security.

Arun Venugopal: Now, Stephen Yale-Loehr says this one is on much stronger ground, in part because it takes into account a variety of factors. This includes the visa overstay rates for each of these countries, the lack of screening or vetting capabilities that they have, and whether each of these countries has what the Trump administration calls a significant terrorist presence within its territory.

Muzaffar Chishti, someone else I spoke to, he's a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. He told me all these factors collectively help present the case that this isn't a "Muslim ban." He also says the fact that it's coming on the heels of so many other actions sends a signal to the world that the US is no longer a welcoming country.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Arun Venugopal. Before we go, New Yorkers are commemorating the life of former Congressman Charles Rangel this week. Public viewings are now underway for the man known as the Lion of Lenox Avenue, who died last month at the age of 94. The public can pay homage to Rangel at St. Aloysius Church in Harlem where he once served as an altar boy. He'll then lie in state at City Hall until Friday. That's when his family will hold a funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Representative Rangel spent nearly five decades in Washington and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was also the last surviving member of the famed Harlem political coalition known as the Gang of Four. RIP, Mr. Rangel.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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