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Long Island Rail Road strike ends as MTA, unions reach tentative deal

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Long Island Rail Road strike ends as MTA, unions reach tentative deal

The Long Island Rail Road strike is over after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and unions reached a tentative agreement Monday to end the three-day work stoppage.  

“Tonight, the MTA reached a fair deal with the five LIRR unions that delivers raises for workers while protecting riders and taxpayers. I’m pleased to announce that phased LIRR service will resume beginning tomorrow at noon,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X.   

The deal between five LIRR labor unions and the MTA was announced just before 9 p.m. after negotiations all day and over the weekend, bringing service back to the largest commuter rail in the U.S. 

The LIRR, which serves roughly 300,000 commuters daily, has been paralyzed since midnight Saturday, when the 3,500 unionized workers walked off the job.

LIRR service to resume Tuesday

MTA CEO Janno Lieber said the strike would officially end at midnight Tuesday, but train service will not be available for the morning commute. 

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“The strike is going to be over and there are people who are reporting to work in this hour and in the hours to come to resume service,” Lieber said at a news conference outside MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan. 

LIRR President Robert Free said service will resume Tuesday at noon, with hourly service on the Port Washington, Huntington, Ronkonkoma and Babylon branches, followed by full peak service for the afternoon and evening rush hour. 

“Once the rush hour begins, about 4 p.m., we’ll have service on all branches … normal weekday schedule,” said Free, who noted shuttle buses will be available in the morning. 

The MTA said it needs time to conduct mandatory inspections and call employees back to work before regular service restarts. 

More details are available on the MTA’s website here. 

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No tax or fair hikes, Hochul says

Full details of the agreement were not immediately provided, but Hochul said at the MTA news conference that it does not raise taxes or fares.

“At a time when everything is going up, we all know the story, I was not going to allow taxes or fares to go up,” the governor said. 

The National Mediation Board summoned union leaders and MTA management to a meeting to resume bargaining Sunday evening and both sides picked up the talks Monday.    

“Due to the nature of the negotiations, we cannot discuss the specifics,” Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said at a separate news conference. “What we can say is that we are looking forward to our members getting back to work and doing what they do best, which is serving the region.” 

“The whole point was that we needed to find ways that we could give people fair raises, but also structure it in a way that didn’t blow the MTA budget. We got it done,” Lieber said. 

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The deal must still be ratified by the five labor unions. The conductors and maintenance workers had been working without a contract for two and a half years.    

This was the first LIRR strike since June 1994, when conductors and maintenance workers walked off after two and a half years without a contract. Then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and his administration had to step in and impose a contract settlement.       

Commuters take shuttle buses

The MTA’s strike contingency plan, with replacement shuttle buses, will remain in use Tuesday morning to bring commuters to the New York City subway. Buses will run from 4:30 a.m. – 9 a.m. 

More than 2,100 commuters who couldn’t drive Monday morning went to one of the six Long Island pickup locations and boarded buses to stations in Queens, according to the MTA, which had capacity for 13,000. 

In the afternoon, MTA workers guided commuters off the subway and toward their buses to get home. 

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LIRR strike shuttle bus service map

Travel times were up, and so were some riders’ frustrations at the Howard Beach-JFK station. 

“Hell, it cost me $100 in the Uber to get to Queens and now I got to ride a two-hour bus,” said Kevin Pierre-Louis, of Bayshore. “I know everybody wants money and they want to get the pay they deserve, but it’s inconveniencing a lot of people.” 

Pierre-Louis said he’ll work from home Tuesday to avoid the hassle, but others won’t have that option. 

“Two hours to go to Manhattan,” said Marcia Russell, of Hempstead, who works at Harlem Hospital. “I have to go to work.” 

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“I left at 7:30 and I punched in at 11:23,” said Josephine Pantell, of Seaford. “It’s just so frustrating.” 

Jamaica-179th Street was also a shuttle location. 

Staffy Chavis, of St. Albans, waited at Jamaica-179th Street to board a shuttle bus to get to Fire Island for her 8 p.m. work shift. 

“It’s chaotic, but this looks organized,” Chavis said. “Just a really big inconvenience.” 

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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