NY Gov Hochul delays controversial NYC congestion pricing plan ‘indefinitely’
CNN
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday she is indefinitely delaying the implementation of congestion pricing in New York City’s borough of Manhattan just weeks before the plan was set to take effect, dealing a major blow to transportation advocates who have spent decades pushing for the deal and a win for several opponents of the plan who say the toll is a regressive tax on commuters.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday she is indefinitely delaying the implementation of congestion pricing in New York City’s borough of Manhattan just weeks before the plan was set to take effect, dealing a major blow to transportation advocates who have spent decades pushing for the deal and a win for several opponents of the plan who say the toll is a regressive tax on commuters. “After careful consideration I have come to the difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion system risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers at this time,” Hochul said during a video briefing from her office in Manhattan. A source familiar with the Governor’s plan said Hochul pushed for the delay due to concerns about affordability and the potential impact to the city’s post-pandemic economic recovery. New York’s congestion pricing would have been the first of its kind in the United States. Similar programs have been implemented in London and Stockholm. The New York City version has been years in the making and was scheduled to begin June 30th. As part of the plan, drivers would have paid $15 to enter Manhattan south of 60th street, with commercial vehicles and trucks paying steeper tolls. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which approved the plan in March and would have been in charge of implementation, declined to comment. John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union which represents many of the city’s transit workers accused Hochul of political malpractice, telling CNN Hochul bowed to pressure.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the special entity created by President Donald Trump and run by Elon Musk to bring about greater “governmental efficiency and productivity” — has been pressing for authorized access to IRS data systems right in the middle of tax-filing season.
xAI on Monday unveiled its updated Grok 3 artificial intelligence model, as the Elon Musk-led startup works to keep pace with the reasoning and search capabilities in competitors’ models.
Nike is in a slump. Sales are down, its stock has lost more than a quarter of its value over the past year and its new CEO needs some help turning around the aging athletic company. Enter Kim Kardashian.
Poppi and Olipop, watch out: Coca-Cola is entering the “better for you” soda category with a response of its own.
The White House has ordered thousands of government web pages to be taken down over the past month, leaving virtually no trace of some federal agencies’ policies regarding critical topics such as sexual orientation, January 6 cases and discrimination.
Southwest Airlines said Monday it will cut 15% of its corporate workforce, or 1,750 people — the first involuntary layoffs in the company’s history.
The Washington Post scrapped an upcoming print ad from a pair of advocacy groups calling for the firing of Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government and Efficiency.
Argentine lawyers filed fraud complaints against President Javier Milei in criminal court on Sunday for promoting a cryptocurrency on his social media, one of the lawyers told The Associated Press.
Tesla sales are in an unprecedented slide. Competitors are rapidly gaining ground. There’s a lot of bad news for Tesla lately – but it’s unclear if the politics of its polarizing CEO, Elon Musk, are to blame.
Last summer, rule changes from the National Association of Realtors, the powerful real estate trade organization, threatened to upend the way Americans buy and sell homes. Some experts predicted the 6% commission, the unofficial fee for buying or selling a home, would be finished.
Many Americans enjoy a day off on the third Monday of February every year. That’s because it’s Presidents’ Day, officially named Washington’s Birthday in honor of America’s first president, George Washington (his actual birthday is February 22).
Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosted Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and the country’s top tech executives in Beijing on Monday, in a meeting that signals officials could be steering the country to a more business-friendly direction after a yearslong regulatory crackdown.
Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” topped the weekend box office and is projected to finish as one of the highest-grossing Presidents’ Day weekend openers.