fpslem

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily barred the Trump administration from cutting funding from the MTA and New York state over their repeated refusals to shut down congestion pricing.

The ruling from the U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan federal court came one day before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had warned that the federal government could begin implementing “compliance actions” to delay approvals or withhold funding on key projects in New York state.

Liman spoke out in favor of state sovereignty before issuing a temporary restraining order that, until June 9, is supposed to stop the Trump administration from engaging in any punitive actions against the Manhattan vehicle-tolling program that the feds have repeatedly tried to terminate.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28804484

A 12-person jury has been seated in the federal corruption trial of former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his ex-chief of staff Cade Cothren.

Lawyers late into the afternoon April 23 were still debating alternates for the jury, but the trial is expected to move forward April 24 with opening statements.

Casada and Cothren each face up to 20 years in prison for charges including bribery and money laundering tied to an alleged kickback scheme involving a fake political mailer company.

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Andrew Cuomo Still Doesn’t Get Why His Workplace Harassment Was Offensive

On Monday, New York Magazine dropped a new Andrew Cuomo profile that details a purported (and partial) “reinvention” during his campaign for New York City Mayor. Earlier this month, writer David Freedlander followed the disgraced former Governor of New York, Zionist, accused sex pest, and proponent of a police state, on a series of campaign stops in Harlem. The takeaways? According to Cuomo, progressive ideology is the most pressing problem in the city, and he still thinks saying “ciao bella” to his female employees is molto bene.

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If Adams was troubled by the unit’s actions, he hasn’t shown it. Instead, for more than two years, the mayor has repeatedly championed the CRT and his allies who run it, even as NYPD officials have warned its policing has been too aggressive.

In 2023, for example, Pontillo wrote a scathing internal audit after finding that some CRT officers were wrongfully stopping New Yorkers and failing to document the incidents. Weeks later, the mayor took to Instagram to boost the unit. “Turning out with the team,” he wrote, showing a photo of him wearing a wide smile and khaki pants, CRT’s official uniform.

The mayor has been so closely connected to the unit, former senior officials said, that at one point he had special access to a livestream of the team’s body-worn cameras.

“The unit effectively reported directly to City Hall,” recalled a former top NYPD official with direct knowledge of the interactions, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. “If you raised concerns, they would go directly to the mayor. All the time. It was insanity.”

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An actual, good-ol'-fashioned train robbery!

New Yorkers are getting a new area code.

The new all-services overlay area code, 465, will be rolled out across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Marble Hill, the New York State Public Service Commission said in a statement on Thursday. The agency announced the change earlier this year, citing an increased demand for phone numbers in the region.

The region’s existing area codes — 347, 718, 917 and 929 — are expected to be exhausted by the end of 2026, at which point the new numbers will start being assigned.

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The top Manhattan federal prosecutor ordered to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams has quit, a spokesperson said Thursday.

Danielle Sassoon, a career prosecutor and Republican, was appointed last month to run the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York until President Donald Trump's nominee Jay Clayton could be confirmed by the Senate.

Her departure, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes three days after the Department of Justice told her in a memo to dismiss the five-count indictment, which includes charges of bribery, soliciting illegal donations, wire fraud and conspiracy.

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In a sign of increasing cooperation with Donald Trump’s anti-immigration plans, New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, is weighing whether to allow the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) to re-establish an office at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail.

An Ice office there closed in 2015 under sanctuary laws that severely limit the city’s involvement with federal immigration enforcement. Having a facility at the jail would make it easier for federal agents to deport people held there before they can be released on to the streets.

In addition, Adams has enraged immigration advocates by issuing guidance to all city agencies making it easier for Ice officers to go into what had previously been designated as sensitive locations, such as schools, migrant shelters, churches and hospitals.

Under current law, signed by the former mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City police and corrections officers do not usually cooperate with Ice enforcement, and Ice is prohibited from many locations except when they have a warrant signed by a judge that alleges a serious crime has been committed.

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