NYPD will send drones to respond to 911 calls in 5 precincts

Plus: The RBC Brooklyn Half is tomorrow [View this email in a browser.]( Gothamist relies on your support to make local news available to all. Not yet a member? [Consider donating and join today.]( [NYPD will deploy drones to respond to 911 calls in 5 NYC precincts, officials say]( [first image]( [Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay]( Weather: ⛅ Mostly cloudy, highs in the mid 70s. It's Friday in New York City, where the NYPD plans to use "drones as first responders" in Central Park, as well as three precincts in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. Police didn't specify which types of 911 calls would get drone responses under the pilot program, but officers previously gave Gothamist an exclusive demonstration of how drone cameras can zoom in on people and objects from the air, clearly showing details like someone’s face. [Here's what we know](. And here's what else is happening: - A new City Council bill would require each of the NYPD's 77 precincts to have a licensed social worker on staff. The hard part: [finding qualified social workers to do the job](. - Central Brooklyn homeless shelters run by the nonprofit Win plan to [give 100 families monthly cash payments for two years]( to help them move out of shelters faster. - An FBI agent on Thursday gave jurors an exhaustive account of the June 2022 raid on New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s home, [describing how he uncovered so much cash]( he had to call for more agents and two cash-counting machines for help. - A new watchdog report found that when NYCHA looked into reports of cloudy water at a housing complex in 2022, the agency's lack of trained staff and established procedures led to [an incorrect assessment that the water contained arsenic]( ultimately costing NYCHA $500,000 dollars in unnecessary expenses — and causing residents unneeded grief. - Police this week arrested an assistant principal at an Ozone Park high school for [allegedly showing porn to a student](. - The New York Court of Appeals’ controversial decision to overturn Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and grant him another trial is giving new life to a bill in Albany that would [allow judges to admit evidence of a defendants’ past sexual crimes at trial]( even if those crimes are not directly related to the case at hand. - It's Bike to Work Day [in New York City]( Wear a helmet! - Meet the citizen tree enthusiasts who've trained to get [rare licenses to prune the city's trees](. - The city's transportation department is auctioning off a Staten Island Ferry boat that [infamously crashed into a pier in 2003]( causing 11 deaths and dozens of injuries. - Donald Trump's legal team has been [eating lunch](. - Does anyone want to be the president of New York City Transit [for longer than a couple years]( - Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied outside City Hall yesterday to protest Mayor Eric Adams' proposed [$80 million budget cut for senior centers](. - Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. blamed his wife for flying an upside down flag outside their Virginia house two weeks after the Jan. 6 riot, explaining that the flag positioning — widely associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement — [had to do with Mrs. Alito's beef with a neighbor](. - ChatGPT [got flirty]( and no one likes it. - What on earth does this emoji — 💁 ♀️ — [mean]( [“We were originally told not to seize cash, but to photograph serial numbers. But then I saw so much cash, I thought it was evidence of a crime and decided to seize it.”]( - FBI SPECIAL AGENT Aristolelis Kousemitros on [THE RAID OF SEN. BOB MENENDEZ'S HOUSE]( More from Gothamist [second image]( [NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon is this Saturday. Here's what you need to know.]( The RBC Brooklyn Half, not to be confused with the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Half that happened last month, starts by the Brooklyn Museum and ends on the Coney Island Boardwalk. [New York’s $90M tax break for local news outlets leaves out TV and nonprofits]( As crafted, the law largely excludes many local news outlets it purports to support — aside from for-profit print newspapers — due to a crush of last-minute negotiations in the days before the state budget passed. [We Rely On Your Support]( [Mayor Adams’ budget cuts raise concerns about NYC school food]( Officials are not only trying to save a broad range of education programs supported by federal dollars after the pandemic; they're also scrambling to keep French toast sticks on the menu. [Yalta for rats: Mayor Adams convenes first NYC 'Rat Summit' this fall]( Councilmember Shaun Abreu, who chairs the sanitation and solid waste committee, said the summit can lead to more humanitarian methods of dealing with the rat crisis. 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