Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City, from WNYC. It's Tuesday, April 1st. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Luigi Mangione could face the most serious punishment of all if he's convicted. US Attorney General Pam Bondi says she directing federal prosecutors in New York to seek the death penalty against Mangione, accused of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Midtown hotel last December. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal charges.

The death penalty is no longer an option in New York State courts, but it's still allowed under federal law, and the Trump administration has promised to ramp up executions. A spokesperson for Mangione's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A former FDNY chief who pleaded guilty to corruption has received a 20-month prison sentence. WNYC's Catalina Gonella reports.

Catalina Gonella: Brian Cordasco admitted in court that he accepted cash in exchange for fast-tracking fire safety inspections and reviews. He told the judge at his sentencing he's thought about his actions and how they hurt his family. He also recognized the harm he caused the employees at the FDNY's Bureau of Fire Prevention. He said that office was upended due to his betrayal. Federal Judge Lewis Liman said the sentence reflected the seriousness of the crime and sent a message that corruption won't be tolerated. Cordasco was also ordered to forfeit $57,000, the amount he profited from the scheme, and pay a $100,000 fine.

Michael Hill: Taking a look at your forecast, 47 with sunshine now, sunny today in the high mid-50s and gusty. Then tomorrow, mostly sunny, cooler. A high in the upper 40s. Then on Thursday here come those warm temperatures, low 70s again.

Janae Pierre: Stay close. There's more after the break.

Michael Hill: Last weekend's deadly traffic crash on Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway is renewing calls to crack down on serial speeders. The NYPD says the driver in the Midwood crash had a suspended license, made an illegal turn, and killed a woman and her two young daughters. A website that tracks moving violations shows she already had been ticketed for multiple moving violations, including speeding through school zones. State Senator Andrew Gounardes represents parts of western Brooklyn. In Albany, he sponsored legislation to require the installation of speed limiters in the vehicles of people with multiple speeding offenses. He joins us now. Senator, thanks for joining us. Tell us about your bill, please.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Good morning, Mike. Thanks for having me. What our bill does is simply copy what we already do for drivers who get caught driving under the influence of alcohol. If you get caught driving under influence of alcohol, you have to get an ignition lock installed on your car to show that when you get behind the wheel of your vehicle, you are able to operate it safely.

The speed limiter does the exact same thing. We say that anyone that has six or more speeding tickets in a year, which is the worst, 4% of drivers, so 96% of drivers would not be impacted by this, would have to have a speed limiter device installed in their car by a court order, and that would physically prevent their car from traveling above the speed limit, making sure that drivers could not behave as recklessly as this driver did this weekend, mowing over this family.

Michael Hill: Now, you said not above the speed limit, but would that work, then, in school zones, or would it work just on the highway or on the street? How would that work?

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: It works everywhere. The technology's gotten really great. I actually tested this out last year. The technology knows exactly what the posted speed limit is on all the roads based on GPS, and it changes with you. If you were going from a street where the speed limit, let's say, was 25 miles an hour, onto a highway ramp, it would automatically accelerate you up to the legal limit of the highway. Then if you're getting off the highway again, it would automatically decelerate you back to what the local speed limit is. That's how advanced the technology is.

This answers the critics who say, "Oh, you can't suspend license, you can't suspend registration, you can't fine people, you can't take away licenses, you can't take away my car." No, we're going to physically make your car impossible to become a deadly weapon that puts other people's lives in jeopardy.

Michael Hill: Now, this is not the first time you sponsored a bill like this, but previous bills have died in committee without getting a vote. Why hasn't there been more appetite for this from your colleagues?

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: I think this is one of those things that is novel for people. I think I was actually the first legislator in the country to propose this in any jurisdiction. it was the time a fairly novel concept, even though over in Europe, this is much more mainstream technology. I think it takes time to educate people, explain to them how this works, have them take a test drive, have them see the technology for themselves. We've been doing that work little by little to build awareness and support for this.

Then, unfortunately, tragedy like this, what happened this past weekend, kind of accelerates or acts as a catalyst of momentum and really helps put the issue at the forefront, which is what we're seeing now. A lot of my colleagues have been reaching out with incredible interest about this as a way to help save lives.

Michael Hill: Senator, as you've been speaking about momentum, The Washington Post reports Virginia is about to become the first state in the country to pass a similar law. Does that also change momentum for your bill?

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: It certainly does. I believe Virginia just passed theirs last week. The governor is slated to sign it imminently. Now we have proof of concept. Now we know that we're not the first. We're not the first ones to dip our toes into the water here. The state of Washington is also considering similar legislation. They just held a hearing on it yesterday. The District of Columbia, in fact, passed a law last year authorizing this. This is becoming more and more mainstream.

I should also mention that the city of New York operated a pilot program on 500 municipal vehicles, city vehicles, and found it to be an overwhelming success that they now recommending it for full fleet adoption. This is the way that the technology is moving. This is the way the street safety industry is moving. I think it's time for New York to follow that lead.

Michael Hill: Senator, tell us, where does your bill stand? What happens next for this bill, and should people expect this to pass this time?

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Well, I'm always an optimist. I have to in this line of work. I'm hopeful that we will get this passed this year. Right now, the bill sits in the Transportation Committee in both the Senate and the Assembly. It's my hope that once we finish wrapping up the state budget in a couple of days, we'll be able to get back to our regular legislative business, and we can move this through committee in both chambers, setting us up for a vote on the floor by the end of the legislative session in June.

Like I said, I've gotten a lot of interest from colleagues just in the last couple of days about this. Community folks, advocates, stakeholders are all reaching out because what happened this weekend was just so senseless, and people just can't understand it. We have an answer here. We have a way to prevent this from happening. I'm hopeful that we will be successful.

We're going to need everyone who supports this idea to weigh in with their legislators as well. Call your state senator, call your state assemblymember, tell them this is important to you. Tell them that you want them to support this because it's not just the injuries or fatalities that should be on our mind when these things happen. It's everyone who pushes the stroller down the street, everyone who walks and tries to cross the street themselves. This could have been any of us. It could happen at any time.

Michael Hill: State Senator Andrew Gounardes. Senator, thank you very much.

State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Thank you, Michael. Have a great day.

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Michael Hill: Composting is the law in New York City. Since October, the sanitation department has required every single resident across the five boroughs to separate their organic waste from the rest of their trash. Data show very few people are actually complying. Many New Yorkers are still figuring out just how to make composting part of their routines. Starting today, the city is issuing fines to buildings that break the new rules. Here to talk about how to compost and avoid fines is WNYC's Parks and Sanitation reporter, Liam Quigley. Liam, in New York City, we've thrown food straight into the garbage for decades and decades. Explain what's changed for people who've never composted anything.

Liam Quigley: Yes, definitely. This is anything that came from planet Earth, basically, now goes in a separate bin in your kitchen that then gets set out to the curb once a week on the day that your recycling is collected. That's food scraps, organic waste from your kitchen, a dead plant in your house. All that stuff is going to be composted.

Michael Hill: You've reported a lot of people aren't actually composting. What is this city doing about it?

Liam Quigley: This system exists of the citywide curbside composting that's been around since October. That means the crews are out there looking for composting on the same day that crews are looking for recycling to pick up. We're spending money on the system. It's there for us to use. The sanitation department says they made it super easy to use. A lot of people are not participating despite outreach and talking about the program. That's one of the reasons the fines are starting to get people in compliance and to get the numbers of people participating in this program up.

Michael Hill: Is the city just relying on thousands of tickets to get everyone to follow the rules, or is there a campaign or something on the way to inform people, "Hey, we got a compost"?

Liam Quigley: Yes, the tickets that start at $25 for smaller buildings, $100 for bigger buildings, that's one mechanism. That's the new thing that's starting today. There has been a lot of outreach. Millions of flyers going out, the sanitation officials visiting every community board and just telling people what this is. Despite that, I've walked down blocks in Brooklyn as recently as a couple of weeks ago where people, they don't know what composting is, but they say they'll do it. They just didn't know it was a thing.

Michael Hill: Now, you've talked to someone about this, haven't you?

Liam Quigley: Yes, I actually talked to Andrew Hargis, who runs a composting supply company, and he says, "Look, you might not want to summon a city inspector right away to deal with this problem. You might talk to your neighbors, talk to your super."

Andrew Hargis: It's one thing if one person in the building is saying, "Hey, I think we should compost." It's another if 19 out of the 20 apartment units are saying, "Hey, we would love to do this."

Liam Quigley: He's talking about the idea of getting buy-in from your building to get this set up, because supers have a lot to deal with, and it's going to be different in every building.

Michael Hill: Liam, how does the sanitation department know if I'm actually composting? I mean, it's not like they have people going through the trash, or do they?

Liam Quigley: Michael, that's exactly what they do. They've done that for years to enforce recycling rules. Look, it's not going to be an army of sanitation inspectors on every block in the city, but they will check your garbage bags to see if there's organic waste that should be composted being put in that waste stream. That's kind of how they enforced this for decades.

Michael Hill: How about on the individual level? If I live in a high-rise apartment and I'm dutifully composting, but my neighbor is not?

Liam Quigley: Yes, that's the challenge of the program. Remember, your landlord is the one on the hook for the fines if a sanitation inspector identifies organic waste in the trash bags. It's going to be a learning curve. It took a long time to get recycling numbers up in the city. Yes, that's definitely a challenge.

Michael Hill: Liam, there are going to be people listening to this and going to say, what's the whole point of getting these organics out of landfills?

Liam Quigley: This is not all just a big scam where the compost is just thrown in the trash anyway and the city makes money from $25 tickets to ruin everybody's lives. There are real environmental benefits to composting. You turn the compost into finished compost, which the sanitation department will give out, and some of it gets converted into energy. There are real benefits to composting.

Michael Hill: Now, you mentioned in your own building that there could be an issue there because they're not really composting. Does that mean that the landlord is subject to fines?

Liam Quigley: Yes, exactly. That's something where I'm ready to compost. I've never done it before, but I'm ready to do it. There's just no space in my building. I have to find the super and talk to him. That means today, my building could start getting tickets for it.

Michael Hill: That's WNYC reporter Liam Quigley. Liam, thanks for joining us on this.

Liam Quigley: Thank you very much.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.

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