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MBTA needs $24.5 billion to fix system, officials say

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

MBTA officials have long been sounding the alarm about the poor state of the system’s infrastructure and lamenting years of disinvestment, and on Thursday they put an eye-watering new price tag on the myriad issues that have piled up: $24.5 billion.The T published a new analysis of the quality of its trains, tracks, signals, construction equipment and other assets, confirming the dire state of the system that is widely understood but has not been quantified in four years.Nearly two-thirds of all MBTA assets are not in a state of good repair, and it would cost $24.5 billion to fix all of those issues, the agency concluded in its latest assessment. That figure includes the costs only of addressing current problems, not regular maintenance for infrastructure in a state of good repair nor expansions, electrifications and other large-scale projects.The new estimate is nearly two and a half times more expensive than the last capital needs assessment produced in 2019 under the B...

Thousands lose power, roads flood as heavy rain and high winds lash South Florida metro areas

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

(CNN) — Torrential rain and powerful winds knocked out power across South Florida metro areas and prompted school closures on Thursday.Overnight flash flood warnings expired early Thursday, but South Florida could see periodic light rainfall through the day, particularly along the East Coast.Flood watches that affected millions across southeastern Florida have ended but a watch remained in place for nearly 1.5 million people along eastern Florida through the evening. High wind alerts are also in place across southern and eastern Florida, with 60 mph gusts expected in some areas.As of around 7 a.m. Thursday, more than 125,000 homes and businesses were without power in Florida, with Miami-Dade County accounting for more than half of those outages, according to outage tracking website Poweroutage.us.Even though the heaviest rainfall moved off the southeastern coast of Florida Thursday morning rain was still impacting areas where the soil is already saturated.“Drainage wi...

MBTA Police chief says new contract raises will boost competitiveness

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green said the new four-year contract approved by the MBTA Board of Directors on Thursday will boost competitiveness and increase retention at a department that was losing 10 to 12 officers per year.The retroactive agreement between the MBTA and Police Association includes a roughly 18% wage increase over four years, from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2027. The average annual raise is approximately 4.5%, the T said in a statement.Green, a 32-year Transit Police veteran, said the number of people applying to become police officers has declined sharply since he took his exam, from roughly 40-50,000 to 8-9,000.“That pool is being picked out by over 300 police agencies in the state, but with this new contract, what it does is it goes a long way in helping us stabilize our department, as well as to increase the headcount of the MBTA police department,” Green said. “It makes us very competitive with other departments to obtain new hires.”Related ArticlesPolitics | ...

Chris Christie returns to New Hampshire as poll numbers surge

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was back in the Granite State on Thursday for a string of campaign events which come just as his run toward the Republican nomination seems to be gathering some steam.Christie started the day on Main Street in Concord at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage, where he joined a veterans forum hosted and broadcast by the radio program Good Morning New Hampshire. The former federal prosecutor was then scheduled to head toward the seacoast for a business roundtable in Portsmouth, followed by a town hall in Hampton.With Christie just back from a trip to Israel, where he surveyed some of the towns struck by Hamas backed terrorists on October 7, the forum’s conversations touched briefly on the conflict in the Middle East, but focused primarily on the sacrifices made by U.S. service members and the government’s responsibility to veterans.On the subject of service, Christie posed a question he said should be answered “as a gen...

MBTA says it will cost $24.5 billion to bring system into ‘state of good repair’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

The MBTA estimates that it will cost a whopping $24.5 billion to bring its dilapidated system into a “state of good repair,” a price tag that has spiked by $14.5 billion since the agency’s last capital needs analysis was conducted in 2019.The assessment, results of which were released by the T on Thursday, revealed that 64% of capital assets including tracks, trains, signals and equipment are past the end of their useful life, and are thus in need of rehabilitation or replacement.“The MBTA is one of the oldest transit agencies in the country, and while there are a number of contributing factors, it’s clear that years of underinvestment have added to the cost of bringing our system into a state of good repair,” T General Manager Phillip Eng said in a statement.The “sobering” number, as described by MBTA Board of Directors member Thomas McGee, is more than twice the $10 billion state of good repair estimate the T had been operating under for the past four years.The number represents a...

Popular border crossing reopens to US-bound pedestrians

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

SAN DIEGO (Border Report) -- For the last two months, Esmeralda Hernandez says she has been getting up at 5 every morning before rushing out to the border.Hernandez lives in Tijuana, but like thousands of other south-of-the-border residents, she is employed in the San Diego area.Since September, her morning routine has involved standing in long lines on the east side of the San Ysidro Port of Entry to gain access to the U.S. Because of these long waits, Hernandez has been looking forward to Ped West reopening, something that happened Thursday morning.Esmeralda Hernandez outside Ped West at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)"It means we can get a little bit more sleep, so you’re a little more rested, you’re happier and can spend more time with the kids in the morning. And now, I don't have to pray to God that I can cross before 9 or 9:30 in the morning."Ped West was first closed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. It wasn’t until January...

What to know about grand jury evidence on actor Alec Baldwin and the 2021 fatal film set shooting

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Prosecutors are preparing to present evidence to a grand jury against Alec Baldwin in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie in New Mexico.A grand jury did not take up the case Thursday and a decision on whether to revive criminal charges against Baldwin still could be weeks away. It’s a secretive process without public access, as prosecutors present evidence and witnesses possibly testify without a cross-examination or immediate vetting by defense counsel.Baldwin, lead actor and co-producer of “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the gun fired.Special prosecutors initially dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been...

California scientists seek higher pay in three-day strike drawing thousands of picketers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than 1,000 state scientists in California took to the picket line Thursday on day two of a three-day strike, calling for higher wages for work they say often goes unrecognized in a state that sets environmental policy trends on the national and global stage.The California Association of Professional Scientists, a union representing about 5,200 scientists across more than 50 state departments, decided to strike after three years of stalled contract negotiations, said President Jacqueline Tkac. The push for a better contract began when state scientists were furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic.“We’re not here to settle for anything less than the fair pay and respect that we deserve,” Tkac said. “We hope that the state can recognize the opportunity that we have in front of us.”The strike comes during a big year for labor, one in which health care professionals, Hollywood actors and writers, and auto workers picketed for better pay and working con...

Backpage founder Michael Lacey convicted of 1 money laundering count

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — Backpage.com founder Michael Lacey was convicted Thursday on a single count of money laundering and acquitted on another. But the Arizona jury deadlocked on 84 other counts against him in a case that alleged he participated in a scheme to sell sex ads through the lucrative classified site, leading the federal judge to declare a mistrial.It marked the second time a mistrial has been declared in the case against the founder of the site. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa in Phoenix declared the mistrial after jurors deliberated for six days. Lacey’s first trial in 2021 ended in a mistrial when another judge concluded prosecutors had too many references to child sex trafficking in a case where no one faced such a charge.Lacey, 75, was tried on a total of 86 criminal counts in the case against him and four other Backpage employees.Chief financial officer John Brunst was convicted of one count of conspiracy to violate the Travel Act and more than 30 money laundering counts...

Group asks Michigan Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a ruling in Trump ballot case

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:25:19 GMT

Attorneys for a group of Michigan activists are asking the state Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling that would allow former President Donald Trump’s name on the state’s presidential primary ballot.Filings late Thursday afternoon seek an “immediate and expedited consideration” for appeal and an “emergency application” to bypass the state Appeals Court.The Supreme Court is asked to render a decision by Dec. 1, a reversal of the lower court’s ruling and remanding the lower court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Trump’s eligibility to be placed on the primary ballot.“It is a virtual certainty that any decision by the Court of Appeals will be appealed to this court by the party that does not prevail,” the filing read. “But with the pressing need to finalize and print the ballots for the presidential primary election, there is not time for considered decisions from both the Court of Appeals and this court. Time is therefore of the e...