Midday News: Federal Officials Review Status of Arrested Pro-Palestine Protestors at Columbia University, Woman Sues City for False Arrest, and Pollen Season

Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, May 8th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says federal officials are reviewing the visa status of people arrested yesterday at a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia University. New York City Police say 80 people were taken into custody after protesters occupied a reading room in the school's main library. Columbia's acting president Claire Shipman says she called for police after two campus public safety officers got hurt. Shipman says she's heartbroken and incensed that the action took place as students were preparing for finals.

Claire Shipman: Moreover, I'm deeply disturbed at the idea that at a moment when our international community feels particularly vulnerable, a small group of students would choose to make our institution a target.

Michael Hill: The NYPD has not yet released information on charges. A woman is suing New York City after a car hit her after a protest and police responded by arresting her. WNYC's Ben Feuerherd reports.

Ben Feuerherd: The protest last May was organized by a pro-Palestinian student group at Columbia University. The woman, Maryellen Novak, said she was acting as a safety marshal there. Novak says after the demonstration, her group was crossing the street in the crosswalk. Then an SUV driver turned into the crowd and struck her. After the crash, Novak says on legal papers she and another safety marshal were arrested without cause by NYPD officers. While she was handcuffed, cops took her to a local hospital in two separate police precincts. She was eventually let go about 13 hours later without charges. Novak is seeking unspecified damages for false arrest.

[music]

Michael Hill: 73 with clouds right now. Showers likely with maybe some late-afternoon thunderstorms. Partly sunny, 74 in a calm wind.

Janae Pierre: Stay tuned for more after the break.

Michael Hill: If you're having spring allergies, yes, I am, you might be one of the many people who look to the internet or listen up when Morning Edition gives information on pollen levels. That information usually comes to us through a website, aaaai.org or Quad AI, as it's known, run by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. Despite having 8 million people, probably at least 7 million of whom are sneezing their heads off these days, New York City only has one single person tracking the pollen levels here. One person. That One person is Dr. Guy Robinson, and he joins us now. Doctor, thanks for coming to our studios. You must be busy this time of year.

Dr. Guy Robinson: It has been busy. I was unfortunately having to go out of town toward the end of last month, and it just coincided with some of the highest pollen peaks we've had in a few years.

Michael Hill: How is it that you are the only person doing this work in this city?

Dr. Guy Robinson: Well, it's hard to get people to do this. It takes rather a long time to learn. Quad AI requires certification, which is quite reasonable to be sure that people are actually counting and reporting the pollen data correctly. That takes a while to learn and to be able to pass their test.

Michael Hill: Is this a paid position, or do you volunteer to do this?

Dr. Guy Robinson: I volunteer to do it. In Europe, they have people who are paid, often by government agencies, but here in the United States, it's almost entirely voluntary.

Michael Hill: You won't get rich doing this?

Dr. Guy Robinson: No, that's one thing I warn students when I begin training them. If you enjoy doing it, that's the best thing, because you're not going to get paid very much.

Michael Hill: Walk us through the process, Dr. Robinson, just how you do the pollen count. How do you get to it?

Dr. Guy Robinson: The sampling equipment, it's called a Burkard sampler. It produces a strip of tape on which the pollen is adhered. It's got a kind of adhesive on it, and that makes one turn in seven days. You take the tape off and cut it up into seven strips. That'll make seven microscope slides, one for each 24 hours that have passed. It does need to be stained and prepared with a coverslip and everything. Then it can be put on a microscope and the pollen can be counted.

Michael Hill: What do you see when you look at those strips through a microscope? What do you see?

Dr. Guy Robinson: Well, you see the pollen grains, and you can identify them by their shapes, their sizes, then their particular surface sculpturing. They're about 25 microns in size, which is about maybe a quarter to a fifth of a human hair.

Michael Hill: Are pollen levels getting higher in New York City?

Dr. Guy Robinson: Well, that's not clear yet. It is probably true. If you look at all of the pollen monitoring stations throughout North America, you'll probably find, in fact, we have found that there are significant increases in pollen over, let's say, the last two decades. That's not been the case with our two stations here, the New York City and the Aramark station. We're not yet seeing earlier onset of pollen season and extending later into the fall, which many places in the US are.

Michael Hill: Why do you think that is?

Dr. Guy Robinson: Well, we're not the only outlier in this region. There are a couple of places in, I think, Texas and California that also are not seeing increases, but most of them are. Obviously, we don't know for sure if that's correlating with increased average temperatures. It could also be with increased levels of carbon dioxide because plants have a tendency to grow more when carbon dioxide levels are higher and that extends to their pollen production. I don't actually know why we here are not seeing any significant increases as yet.

Michael Hill: What's the situation like right now, pollen-wise, in the city?

Dr. Guy Robinson: It's declining at the moment because we've had quite a bit of rain and we're also getting-- Even though it's still May, which is typically very high, it's been declining the last few days, I've looked, and that may be because the big ones, the birches and the oaks and the sycamores as well, they're starting to lose their flowers. We'll still be getting quite a bit for the next few days. Then it'll decline a bit more, and then we'll get another peak toward the end of the month of May.

Michael Hill: What are the main offenders here for triggering allergies?

Dr. Guy Robinson: In New York City, it's mostly trees. Now, these are mostly flowering trees, but they're not the kind of flowers that you tend to notice. The big offenders are oak, birch, ash, sycamore. Particularly in the city, sycamore is planted a lot as street trees and park trees. It's otherwise more commonly known as London plane. There's several others I could list.

They're trees that produce what we call catkins. These are flowers, but they're multiple flowers. They're like tassels. You'll see piles of these catkins have fallen from the trees in the last few days, and they often pile up at the edges of the streets and the gutters. There could be like 50 to 100 flowers on each catkin, and they're falling by the thousands right now.

Michael Hill: I've been speaking with Dr. Guy Robinson, a researcher in fossil pollen and New York City's one and only pollen counter. Dr. Robinson, thank you for speaking with us.

Dr. Guy Robinson: Oh, thanks for inviting me down here.

[music]

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.