What's Going On with Jenna Flanagan & Bob Hennelly
As the nation pauses to mark the solemn anniversary of 9/11, clinicians with the 9/11 WTC Health Program confirmed that more people had died from the toxic air in lower Manhattan than the close to 3,000 that died on the day of the attack.
In the immediate aftermath of that attack, then US EPA Administrator Christie Whitman issued a statement that the air was "safe to breathe" which a subsequent Inspector General report concluded misrepresented the facts and was generated by the Bush White House fixated on Wall Street opening for business.
WTC World Trade Center Health Program is now caring for 145,000 of the 400,000 first responders and survivors who were exposed to the toxic air in lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn.
In our second hour, we hear from Lila Nordstrum, author of "Some Kids Left Behind" and former student at Stuyvesant High School, adjacent to the World Trade Center. She was joined by Joel Kupferman, a veteran public interest lawyer, who did such important work on behalf of the Uniformed Firefighter Association
We also checked in with Lt. Vincent Variale, president of DC 37's Local 3621, which represents FDNY EMS officers. We asked Vinnie about what the phrase Never Forget 9/11 meant to him, in a city where it's not uncommon for 100 FDNY ambulances to sit idle due to the lack of staffing because FDNY EMS pays so poorly.
In the first hour, Bob shared his reporter's notebook from the week that included the City Council testimony from Upper Eastside resident Dan Thomas, whose 92-year old father Charles, died a painful death from Legionnaires' disease in the city's latest wave of the infectious disease that claimed 11 lives.
We also hear this week's press Q & A with Gov. Hochul and Mayor Mamdani blasting President Trump from withholding tens of millions of dollars in federal counter-terrorism funds on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
While Gov. Hochul accused President Trump of "defunding the police", DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Operation Rotten Apple that arrested 2,100 individuals of "the worst criminals of our streets statewide."
Multiple credible news reports have documented that the overwhelming number ofICE detainees had no criminal record.
Meanwhile, as Americans head out for the Labor Day Holiday they will be paying record high prices to fill their gas tank, meanwhile the Guardian is reporting Vice President Vance told reporters that the shooting conflict between Iran and the United States was not a war amid, what the newspaper observed was broader US-Iran that continues with no sign of a lasting peace despite months of stalled negotiations.
The New York Times is reporting that former Labor Secretary Lori-Chavez DeRemer stoked dysfunction and toxicity as well as spent government funds on personal travel and tolerated harassment at the agency, according to an Inspector General's report.
The newspaper reports "Chavez-DeRemer violated department policy repeatedly, including tolerating harassment, spending public money on personal travel and conducting an “inappropriate relationship” with a member of her security detail. Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April after one year in the job.
More than three dozen witnesses described working in the secretary’s office as “toxic, intimidating and humiliating, according to the department’s inspector general.
