US Says It's Not Decided Next Steps on NYC's Congestion Pricing
The Trump administration urged a federal judge to refrain from blocking the government from taking any action against New York's congestion pricing program, saying it hasn't actually done anything yet.
In a filing late Friday night, the US Department of Transportation told US District Judge Lewis Liman there's no need for a preliminary injunction, saying the administration hasn't decided on what measures it will take against the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 'scattershot claims.'
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Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Local legislators introduce bill intended to help people get help faster during severe storms
When debilitating storms moved through Aspinwall on April 29, many felt unprepared, including some state representatives. On Wednesday, three of them introduced legislation that aims to improve communication when natural disasters strike. 'I told my out-of-town people, 'get out,' my employees 'get out as fast as you can,' because it turned out to be a lot worse than we imagined,' Debbie McManus said. McManus has owned and operated an Aspinwall business for 37 years. She and others have seen storms and flooding throughout that time, but nothing quite like this spring. 'We had three major issues with high tension wires on the ground for 10 days and nothing was done,' Aspinwall Mayor Joe Noro said. Mayor Noro says getting information during that time was extremely difficult. 'If you can't get information from Allegheny emergency management, that's a problem,' he said. State Rep. Abigail Salisbury (D-34) agrees, which is why she's joined forces with State Reps. Mandy Steele (D-33) and Valerie Gaydos (R-44) to take action. 'I just want to create a system where it's easier for the state reps to help our constituents and to relay that information directly to PEMA,' Salisbury said. On Wednesday, she introduced a bill which would require PEMA to share weather emergency alerts with state legislative offices, creating a direct channel of communication before, during and after natural disasters strike. 'That would enable us to better prepare to be able to deploy and help people in the community,' she said. Salisbury says the bill already has bipartisan support. There are several steps before this bill goes to the governor. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
House Republicans draft competing budget as Senate nears deal with Hobbs
Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror Arizona lawmakers are at odds again, but this time it's the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate who can't agree on how to forge the state budget. Creating the state budget — deciding how much to allocate to departments, projects and initiatives or whether to fund them at all — is the most important job that legislators do each year, and the only thing they are constitutionally required to complete. Before the group of bills that will become the state budget becomes law, it must be approved by a majority in both the Arizona Senate and House — which are both controlled by Republicans — and garner a signature from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. In recent history, budget negotiations in Arizona have occurred behind closed doors among the governor and legislative leaders in the House and Senate. But this year is different, with Hobbs and Republican leaders in the Senate nearing a deal after weeks of negotiations. GOP leaders in the House, who haven't been involved in those talks, have responded by drafting their own budget, which was introduced late Wednesday afternoon. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'This is a sound, disciplined budget that delivers safe communities, strong families, and a government that lives within its means,' House Speaker Steve Montenegro said in a Wednesday evening statement. 'We're raising pay for our state law enforcement officers, reducing tuition at public universities, fully funding school choice, fixing critical infrastructure and roads, and protecting taxpayers. Our budget reins in government and puts it back to work for the people it serves.' But the spending package, which is chock-full of proposals that are unlikely to pass muster with Hobbs, will never become law. Instead, it is better viewed as a way for House Republicans to lay down a marker in order to force Hobbs and the Senate to move closer to the House's proposal. Republican political consultant Barrett Marson said House GOP leaders are hoping to demonstrate that the chamber can pass a spending plan in order to get leverage in the negotiations. 'Sometimes there's just gotta be movement to unstick a sticky situation,' he said. 'The House has an equal voice. And unlike previous years when one or both chambers had a go-it-alone ethos, the House isn't looking to be draconian or anything. They want something more responsible.' Marson said a major point of contention between the House and Senate is what to do with the budget surplus. While the Senate and Hobbs have settled on copying the novel process from 2023, in which each lawmaker was given a pot of money from the surplus that was used to fund whatever initiatives they wanted, the House wants to negotiate all of those details and not surrender control of that money to individual legislators. During a House Rules Committee meeting earlier Wednesday afternoon, House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, of Laveen, said he was disappointed in the way the budgeting process was happening this year. 'We should not be moving forward with a House Republican-only budget that is destined to fail,' he said. 'This will not get signed by the governor. I don't even think it's going to pass out of the Senate.' De Los Santos even questioned whether the proposal would get enough votes to pass through the House, where Republicans hold 33 of the chamber's 60 seats. 'What we do know is that this is not a negotiated, bipartisan deal in good faith,' he said. 'House Democrats are at the table negotiating in a bipartisan way with the executive, with our (Senate) counterparts across the courtyard. That is the way to get things done in shared government.' But Republican Rep. Neal Carter, of San Tan Valley, replied that the work of governing should be done transparently, instead of in private — and that it should allow for input from the public. 'As a Republican, I stand for full transparency and not for back-room deals or negotiated budgets with parties that are somehow outside of this public process,' Carter said. The House Republican budget, introduced by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Livingston, proposes significant changes in how federal money allocated to the state, but not restricted to specific uses, is controlled. The billions in unrestricted federal funds, currently controlled by the governor, would shift to legislative control and could only be spent on essential government services. The House GOP's budget proposal would also place new restrictions and monitoring requirements on entitlement programs, like the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System — the state's Medicaid program — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps. Both programs would be monitored on at least a quarterly basis for participants who don't qualify, to be kicked off. And any participants who win $3,000 or more through gambling or playing the state lottery and don't report those winnings would become ineligible. It would also give the Arizona Department of Economic Security the authority to screen recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for illegal drug use and would ban anyone who tests positive for drugs not prescribed to them from the cash assistance program for a year. House Republicans also intend to increase the percentage of money spent in K-12 classrooms, as opposed to on administration; to decrease tuition for students attending the state's three public universities; and to ban those universities from using public or private money to give scholarships to students without legal immigration status. Hobbs introduced her budget proposal, which includes a much different list of priorities, back in January. Shortly after that, Livingston and Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, panned her proposal for leaving out projected cost increases for programs like AHCCCS. Hobbs spokesman Christian Slater told the Arizona Mirror on Wednesday that Livingston and Gress were to blame for the House's lack of collaboration on the budget. 'This is DDD all over again,' Slater said via email, referring to a fight earlier this year over funding for the Department of Developmental Disabilities. 'It's another circus led by the Speaker, David Livingston, and Matt Gress where they have refused to participate with any caucuses, including their Republican counterparts in the Senate, in a meaningful manner and are once again just trying to score some political points even though they know their plan is going absolutely nowhere.' Livingston and Gress, a former budget director for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, were both key players in the fight over an extra $122 million in emergency funding for DDD that put vital services for the developmentally disabled in jeopardy. 'Rather than being productive, the House Republican leadership continues to show they are in over their head and unserious about governing,' Slater said. The House Appropriations Committee is set to discuss the proposal Thursday morning. The Senate Republicans have not introduced their budget proposal. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Associated Press
39 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Dozens of LA-area mayors demand the Trump administration stop intensified immigration raids
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dozens of mayors from across the Los Angeles region banded together Wednesday to demand that the Trump administration stop the stepped-up immigration raids that have spread fear across their cities and sparked protests across the U.S. But there were no signs President Donald Trump would heed their pleas. About 500 of the National Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, the commander in charge said Wednesday. And while some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it's too early to say if that will continue even after the protests die down. 'We are expecting a ramp-up,' said Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, noting that protests across the nation were being discussed. 'I'm focused right here in LA, what's going on right here. But you know, I think we're, we're very concerned.' Hours later, a demonstration in Los Angeles' civic center just before start of the second night of the city's downtown curfew briefly turned chaotic when police in riot gear — many on horseback — charged at a group, striking them with wooden rods and later fired crowd control projectiles, including one that struck a woman who writhed in pain on the ground. After the curfew went into effect, a handful of arrests were made before the area cleared out and the evening quieted down. The LA-area mayors and city council members urged Trump to stop using armed military troops alongside immigration agents. 'I'm asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents,' said Brenda Olmos, vice mayor of Paramount, who said she was hit by rubber bullets over the weekend. 'You need to stop these raids.' Speaking alongside the other mayors at a news conference, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the raids spread fear at the behest of the White House. The city's nightly curfew will remain in effect as long as necessary. It covers a 1-square-mile (2.5-square-kilometer) section of downtown where the protests have been concentrated in the city that encompasses roughly 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers). 'If there are raids that continue, if there are soldiers marching up and down our streets, I would imagine that the curfew will continue,' Bass said. Those who have been caught up in the nationwide raids include asylum seekers, people who overstayed their visas and migrants awaiting their day in immigration court. The administration has cited the protests in its decision to deploy the military. Governor asks court to step in California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has asked a federal court to put an emergency stop to the military helping immigration agents in the nation's second-largest city. This week, guardsmen began standing protectively around agents as they carry out arrests. A judge set a hearing for Thursday. The Trump administration called the lawsuit a 'crass political stunt endangering American lives' in its official response on Wednesday. The military is now closer to engaging in law enforcement actions such as deportations, as Trump has promised in his crackdown. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement. The president posted on the Truth Social platform that the city 'would be burning to the ground' if he had not sent in the military. Some 2,000 National Guard soldiers are in Los Angeles and are soon to be joined by 2,000 more along with about 700 Marines, Sherman said. Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and ABC, Sherman initially said National Guard troops had already temporarily detained civilians in the Los Angeles protests over immigration raids. He later said he based his comments on photos and footage he had seen that turned out not to be a representation of Guard members in Los Angeles. Curfew continues in downtown LA Police detained more than 20 people, mostly on curfew violations, on the first night of the curfew and used crowd-control projectiles to break up hundreds of protesters. But officers were more aggressive in controlling demonstrators Wednesday evening and as the curfew took effect, police were beginning to make arrests. Los Angeles police have made nearly 400 arrests and detentions since Saturday, the vast majority of which were for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement, according to the police department. There have been a handful of more serious charges, including for assault against police officers and for possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine police officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injures. Some were transported to a hospital and released. Protests have spread nationwide Demonstrations have also spread to other cities nationwide, including Dallas and Austin in Texas, and Chicago and New York, where thousands rallied and more arrests were made. In New York City, police said they took 86 people into custody during protests in lower Manhattan that lasted into Wednesday morning. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the majority of demonstrators were peaceful. A 66-year-old woman in Chicago was injured when she was struck by a car during downtown protests Tuesday evening, police said. Video showed a car speeding down a street where people were protesting. In Texas, where police in Austin used chemical irritants to disperse several hundred demonstrators Monday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's office said Texas National Guard troops were 'on standby' in areas where demonstrations are planned. Guard members were sent to San Antonio, but Police Chief William McManus said he had not been told how many troops were deployed or their role ahead of planned protests Wednesday night and Saturday. Officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety said the Texas National Guard was present at a protest downtown. The protests began Friday after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. ___ Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego, Jesse Bedayn in Denver, and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
