Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, January 23rd. Here's the morning headlines. I'm Janae Pierre. City officials are planning a brand new residential neighborhood across a swath of Midtown Manhattan where housing is currently banned. Mayor Adams' administration kicked off the approval process to rezone 42 commercial blocks south of 40th street earlier this week. City Planning Director Dan Garodnick says the plan is long overdue.

Dan Garodnick: It's unfathomable that in an area this central, with a housing crisis this dire, that if you wanted to build housing here, our own rules would simply not allow it.

Janae Pierre: Garodnick says the proposal would make way for nearly 10,000 new apartments and condos. The council will vote on the plan later this year. A man is pleading not guilty to charges he shoved a stranger onto the subway tracks on New year's Eve. Here's WNYC's Samantha Max with the details.

Samantha Max: Prosecutors say Kamel Hawkins pushed a man onto the tracks as a train was pulling into the 18th Street subway station that afternoon. They say the man survived, but suffered multiple injuries, including broken ribs, a fractured skull, and a ruptured spleen. The shoving capped off a series of violent crimes on the subway in the final days of 2024. Transit crime fell overall last year, but some types of crimes, including homicides and felony assaults, did increase. Court records show Hawkins is being held in jail without bail while he awaits trial.

Janae Pierre: The defense attorney for Hawkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment. New Yorkers who get food help under the SNAP benefits program are urged to be on the lookout for scammers now that a federal reimbursement fund for theft victims has ended. Jill Berry is first deputy commissioner of the city's Department of Social Services. She says recipients need to monitor their accounts.

Jill Berry: We want people to remain very vigilant, monitor your benefits, make sure that all the transactions are ones that you recognize, change your PIN regularly.

Janae Pierre: The reimbursement program ended last month. It returned $40 million in stolen benefits to New Yorkers through September of last year. Thieves use skimming devices to capture shoppers data when they swipe their EBT cards. State legislation is pending to upgrade the cards to use more secure chip technology. It's 15 degrees and it's cold. 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, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this afternoon.

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