Janae Pierre: The Trump administration restores New York's counterterrorism funds, and Five Things with WNYC's Brian Lehrer. This is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. New York State and New York City won't be facing major federal cuts to their counterterrorism budgets after all. President Trump's administration reversed itself Friday, fully restoring the state's share of funding under the Homeland Security grant program.

Governor Kathy Hochul raised the alarm about the cuts earlier this week. She says the Feds were planning on cutting the state's share by about 86%. In a statement, FEMA said it was restoring the full grants to "combat security threats within the Empire State."

New York City is on track for one of its safest traffic years in history. The Department of Transportation says traffic deaths are down 18% compared to this time last year. That includes fewer fatalities among pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists. The DOT credits its Vision Zero efforts, including more protected bike lanes and redesigned streets across the city. In Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, injury rates have dropped sharply after road overhauls that made space for bikes and pedestrians.

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Janae Pierre: It's time now for our monthly segment, Five Things, with WNYC's Brian Lehrer. Hey, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hey, Janae.

Janae Pierre: We're a month away from New York City's mayoral election. There was a big development since we last spoke, you and I. Mayor Adams is no longer in the race. His name will remain on the ballot, but I'm wondering, what do you make of this now three-man race between Zohran Mamdani, Curtis Sliwa, and Andrew Cuomo?

Brian Lehrer: Well, the first thing I want to say in thing number one in this episode of Five Things is it is already Election Day in the mayoral race. Did you know that? Yes?

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Mail-in ballots started arriving at people's homes this week. I saw one. It's real. There are many New Yorkers who can fill in a ballot right now. You don't even need to put a stamp on it. It's prepaid, and cast your vote today. As for Eric Adams, he only had about 10% support in the polls. Many of our listeners know that Mamdani leads Cuomo by more than that in most surveys.

There's a mathematical world in which the mayor dropping out is high drama for him and for us in the media, but completely irrelevant to the outcome. Though I should note that some polls are closer than others, and anything can happen.

Janae Pierre: Right. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: How it might matter to the race is that the voters who did still support Adams tended to be older, Black New Yorkers. We had the Reverend Al Sharpton on the show on Wednesday to discuss how those voters might be comparing Cuomo and Mamdani. Now, remember, Cuomo beat Mamdani among Black voters in the primary. Rev. Sharpton said Cuomo is the name they knew with a record dating back to his father's time as governor, and Andrew has been on the right side of some issues. Sharpton said Mamdani was unfamiliar.

Now, with more campaigning under his belt, Mamdani is leading over Cuomo among Black voters in the polls. We'll see if that holds up. At the policy level, Rev. Sharpton said one issue many will be looking at is gentrification. He said one of the raps that's been put on Mamdani is that his base is in gentrified parts of the city, so now he has to win trust elsewhere on the question, how do we deal with gentrification?

Another issue Sharpton cited was access to capital. Comptroller Brad Lander released a shocking report in 2023 that showed the wealth gap is as large as ever in the city. The average white household had $276,000 in assets. The average Black household, just $19,000. That's a gap of 15 times, unacceptable by any standard.

Janae Pierre: Absolutely. Brian, you're also following that race over the Hudson River. I'm talking about the race for governor of New Jersey. That race has taken some interesting turns lately. What are you watching for?

Brian Lehrer: Right. Thing number two on Five Things today, on the show, we're largely trying to look past the headlines and focus on the real policy issues in our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series as we do. On Thursday and Friday, for example, we compared the candidates on taxation in New Jersey and their plans for NJ Transit, but the headlines intruded because the Trump administration used the federal government shutdown to announce a pause in funding for the Gateway tunnel project between Jersey and Manhattan that had bipartisan support.

That changed the conversation about NJ Transit. The Trump people say they're investigating the construction process for any DEI in the hiring or contracting, and the investigation is shut down until they pass a budget. Now, Republican Jack Ciattarelli is blaming Democrat Mikie Sherrill for voting for the shutdown. Sherrill accuses Ciattarelli of refusing to stand up to Trump.

Another issue is the leak of something from Democrat Mikie Sherrill's time at the Naval Academy. She was denied the privilege of walking at graduation because she didn't report some other students she may have known had been cheating. On the one hand, in this story is that she was denied the graduation walk. On the other hand, questions about a possibly illegal leak for political purposes.

As the story is developing, the leak may have backfired anyway because, ironically, it turned out the records show she was allowed to graduate, just not to walk in the ceremony. The records show she had a spotless Navy career, including a medal for saving someone's life. Now voters, of course, will still have to decide if any of this is relevant, and who's going to have the better housing or property tax policies or approach to the Trump administration, but that leaked record story sure has been the buzz.

Janae Pierre: Hold it right there. We'll have more with WNYC's Brian Lehrer after the break.

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Janae Pierre: We're back with our monthly segment, Five Things, with WNYC's Brian Lehrer. Brian, you mentioned your 30 Issues in 30 Days segment, and I want to bring that back up because you learned something that you didn't know previously. What was that?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I always learn things from our guests, but one of them jumped out at me. This is thing three today from a debate we had on involuntary hospitalization of people with severe mental illness on the streets or the subways as an issue in the mayoral race. There's a recent state law that makes involuntary hospitalization easier, and people debate if it's really in the interest of those being removed from public spaces or just because other people don't like seeing them there.

Well, it turned out that both debaters pointed to a little-known fact that makes the whole question miss an important thing. They both said there are more people on the streets whose core problem is not mental illness, but rather drug addiction, and the state law does not have a provision for removing them just for that. That raises a whole other debate that our show in the city should have to find time to have.

Janae Pierre: You did a segment on President Trump's $100,000 work visas. What's the story there, and who does it affect here in New York?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, thing number four. These are H-1B visas for people from other countries with skills employers say they can't find among Americans. This is a lot of visas. The annual limit of those visas is currently 85,000. That's 85,000 per year, going all the way back to 1990 when the program began. That stat, according to a recent New York Times article. This is very much a local story.

The published stats say, from fiscal 2017 to 2022, for example, the largest number of H-1B petitioners were based in New York City. 372,000 H-1B visa petition approvals. That's 15% of all H-1B visa petition approvals in the country. New Jersey has many thousands as well. Now, the Trump administration argues that these H-1B recipients displace American workers in many cases, especially Americans qualified in usually high-paying fields like software engineering and research.

I'll tell you, Janae, we had no trouble getting calls from Americans who felt they were passed over in favor of foreign workers who would come and work for less money, but we heard arguments the other way as well. One is that the tech giants like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Meta can afford the $100,000 price tag for people they still want to bring in. Many smaller companies can't. That'll concentrate power and profits even more in the hands of those giants and also possibly hurt innovation. I will add to all of that that it's another Trump policy likely to wind up in the courts, so we'll see if it stands.

Janae Pierre: Yes, we'll see what happens. Let's switch gears here. The owner of the Mets, Steve Cohen, he won one and lost one this week. Talking about winning one, the Yankees are looking good, okay? They are hyped right now after beating the Red Sox in a Wild Card Series. In fact, Brian, I think I may be turning into a baseball fan. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Ooh. Classic Yankees-Red Sox rivalry postseason series may have gotten you, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Yes. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: I love it. We'll talk second about why Yankee fans may literally be jazzed, but as thing number five is our sports page today, what a weird week for Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager owner of the Mets. He splurged on baseball's highest payroll ever and wooed Juan Soto away from the Yankees, but the team collapsed down the stretch of the regular season and didn't make the playoffs after losing their last game on Sunday. They could have made it if they won, but they didn't even score one run in that game. Arguably the biggest epic fail in Mets history.

Janae Pierre: [chuckles] Wow. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: That was the Steve Cohen headline Monday morning. The next day, he was back in the news as one of only four winners in the latest round of bids to build casinos in Downstate New York. His would be right by Citi Field. A state panel will choose up to three before the end of the year. What a weird week for Steve Cohen. Epic fail headline on Monday, big winner headline on Tuesday.

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, we had that classic Yankees-Red Sox playoff series in the Bronx. Great outcome for New York as the Yanks move on to the next round. I especially enjoyed some of the great fielding and awesome base running by their second baseman, Jazz Chisholm Jr., after they didn't play him in Game 1. A headline on the New York Times sports site, The Athletic, even read how Jazz Chisholm Jr. cleared his head after getting benched and saved the Yankees' season. A footnote to that series was a New York versus Boston mini-scandal. What I think you call in the newsroom a low-stakes debate.

Janae Pierre: Very low stakes. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Very low stakes. The Yankees set their ticket sales website to bar anyone from Massachusetts from buying tickets. What? I guess they didn't want too many people who are not there to root for the home team.

Janae Pierre: You're right.

Brian Lehrer: Turns out, it's not the only time a team has done that kind of thing, but the Red Sox don't do it. It got some pretty bad press and online trolling in Boston-

Janae Pierre: Of course.

Brian Lehrer: -and maybe fair enough, usually, fans get to pick their favorite team. This time, the team got to pick their favorite fans.

Janae Pierre: Yes. Exciting times for the Yankees and for fans and for New York City. That's WNYC's Brian Lehrer. Brian, thanks so much.

Brian Lehrer: Always a pleasure.

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. Have a great weekend.

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