Amtrak fire suspends Penn Station service for NJ Transit commuters
An Amtrak passenger waits for his train at Penn Station April 2, 2004 in New York City. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A fire erupted on Amtrak work trains in a Hudson River tunnel between New York and New Jersey early Friday, suspending Penn Station service for NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road commuters.
LIRR service has since resumed, but the NJ Transit suspension into Penn Station is ongoing.
Two Amtrak work trains collided in the Hudson River tunnel at about 1:25 a.m., impacting the electrical system and igniting a fire, said Janno Lieber, head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
One NJ Transit passenger called the experience “frightening,” telling ABC News, “Someone yelled there was a fire on the track … there was a very loud explosion that shook the train and caused the lights to go out. We didn’t move for maybe 8 to 10 minutes.”
“I rely on NJ Transit to get to work, so I am now deeply concerned about how I will commute safely moving forward,” the New Jersey resident said.
Amtrak service is also impacted. Amtrak said trains south of Penn Station are suspended until at least noon while “lengthy delays” are expected north of Penn Station.
Doug Band, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, is seen with Ghislaine Maxwell in this undated photo. (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — Doug Band, a former close adviser to President Bill Clinton, repeatedly told lawmakers that he could not recall his involvement on several topics related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, multiple sources said following Band’s appearance Tuesday before the House Oversight Committee.
Band, who began his tenure with Clinton as an intern in the mid-1990s, was questioned for four hours by the panel as part of its ongoing probe of the government’s handling of the investigations into Epstein.
Multiple sources familiar with his testimony said Band had no evidence or information that President Clinton ever went to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, despite telling Vanity Fair on the record in 2020 that Clinton had visited the island. Band told the committee that he didn’t remember why he had made that claim to Vanity Fair.
Often described as one of the architects of Clinton’s post-presidential endeavors, including the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, Band was pressed about his own communications with Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, which were made public earlier this year by the Justice Department as part of the release of files mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Emails between Band and Maxwell included talk of meetings with Epstein and numerous exchanges containing suggestive innuendo and cheeky nicknames for each other like “babycakes” and “booboo,” according to files released by the DOJ.
The bulk of the messages were exchanged between 2001-2004, before Epstein first faced criminal charges in Florida in 2006.
Band, according to sources, told committee members that he didn’t recall sending individual emails to Maxwell, but he confirmed that an email address associated with Clinton that was found in the Epstein files was Band’s and that no one else had access to it.
Band stated that he took steps to insulate Clinton from Maxwell as Band became aware of allegations, according to the sources.
Band stated that he never had sexual contact of any kind with Maxwell and didn’t recall ever being introduced to any woman or girl associated with Maxwell, sources said.
Band also said he did not recall ever engaging with Epstein on any of the flights he took with Clinton on Epstein’s private jet, and did not recall having conversations with Epstein, said sources.
“We know that Mr. Band set up several meetings between Clinton and Epstein,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters prior to Band’s appearance. “We know Mr. Band accompanied Mr. Clinton on several flights on Epstein’s jet. We know that Mr. Band also had a lot of communication with Ms. Maxwell, so that’ll be a topic of several questions.”
Band, 54, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. His appearance before the Oversight Committee was voluntary and was not recorded. The committee has typically released transcripts of interviews after they are reviewed for accuracy and redacted to remove any potential references to alleged victims.
Earlier this year, Band told The New York Times that his messages with Maxwell occurred when he was in his 20s and unmarried — and he denied any romantic involvement with Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex-trafficking and other offenses.
“There was absolutely no physical relationship that occurred between us. Ever,” Band said in a statement to the Times, in which he referred to Maxwell as “a monster.”
Records created by Epstein’s pilots made public through civil litigation show Clinton — and an entourage that typically included Band — aboard Epstein’s plane on more than two dozen flight legs in 2002-03, but none of those flights went to the island, according to the pilot’s logs. Clinton, Epstein and Maxwell have all denied that the former president had ever been to Little St. James.
“He never, absolutely never went. And I can be sure of that because there’s no way he would have gone,” Maxwell told then then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a recorded interview last summer.
“I’ve never been to that island,” Clinton said in his own interview with the Oversight Committee in February.
The former president has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to his association with Epstein. He has said he stopped interacting with Epstein before any criminal allegations surfaced and has denied knowledge of any of Epstein’s crimes.
Clinton told the committee that he and Band were once “close,” and that Band had been one of the people he tasked to “operationalize” plans to develop the Clinton Global Initiative in his early post-presidency years.
“He worked for me for years,” Clinton said. “[H]e arranged airplane flights and things like that and was doing work on the first Clinton Global Initiative in 2005. And I know that he knew both Epstein and Maxwell. I do not know to what extent he was in contact with them.”
In her interview with Blanche, Maxwell said she began spending time with Clinton after he left the White House in 2001, as he was forging his post-presidential path through the establishment of the Clinton Foundation and, later, the Clinton Global Initiative.
“I was part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative. And that was something that I helped with and that was me, and Epstein may have helped me help them,” she said, according to a transcript of the July 2025 interview.
“I started spending time with the former president and with Doug and his team,” Maxwell said. “I had no purpose, really, other than I had — obviously offered something. I don’t know, ideas.”
In recent weeks the committee has heard from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and two of Epstein’s former assistants, Sarah Kellen and Lesley Groff.
Later this summer, interviews are scheduled with former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Epstein’s former private banker at JPMorgan Chase, Jes Staley.
Comer has indicated that a report on the investigation’s findings will be issued by the end of the year.
Former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama speak with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts at the Obama Presidential Center on June 13, 2026. (Michael Le Brecht IL/ABC News)
(CHICAGO) — For former President Barack Obama and former first Lady Michelle Obama, the opening of the Obama Presidential Center Friday is the culmination of their shared journey from Chicago’s South Side to the White House.
In their first joint network TV interview since leaving office in 2017, the couple reflected on their accomplishments in their eight years in the White House and the hope they have for the country ahead.
“People are a little discouraged right now,” Barack Obama told ABC News’ Robin Roberts in an interview that aired Wednesday on “Good Morning America.” “But, again, I believe that we go through these cycles, and there’s going to be a younger generation that pops up and there are going to be leaders who pop up.”
The former president said since leaving office, he has largely refrained from inserting himself too much into public policy debates as he sees himself these days as less of a “player” and more of a “coach” for the new generation of leaders.
“You pick and choose your spots. I’m not suggesting I’ve done it perfectly,” he said, going on to cite the example of how George Washington stepped away from politics after his time in office.
“He kind of said, ‘All right, I’ve done my stint. And now I’m going, you know, back home,'” Barack Obama said of the nation’s first president. “I think Michelle, you know, very much would prefer a quieter life for us. And on the other hand, there’ve been some folks who would like to see me out every day, right, banging the drum.”
With the Obama Presidential Center, part of the hope, he said, is to “encourage the next generation of leadership.”
The center’s campus encompasses 19 acres in Chicago’s Jackson Park, just steps from the University of Chicago. At a cost of $850 million, it includes 3.7 acres of parkland, offices for the Obama Foundation, an auditorium for public events, public art and athletic facilities, and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library.
In collaboration with the National Archives and Records Administration, the Obama presidential archives are fully digital.
The center’s centerpiece is a four-story museum that places the Obama years within a greater context of social change, starting with the Declaration of Independence and spanning the civil rights and labor movements, as well as the grassroots political movement in Chicago that led to Barack Obama’s political ascent.
Obama on his greatest accomplishment in office When asked by Roberts what he considers the greatest accomplishment of his two terms in office, Barack Obama cited the passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, which expanded Medicaid, provided greater consumer protections, and lowered health insurance costs, especially for households at or below the federal poverty level.
He said the legislation continues to show that his administration represented all of America.
“For all the resistance from our political opposition, the Affordable Care Act has now helped 50, 60 million people, and continues to help people even though the current Congress has tried to weaken it and taken away some of the subsidies that were really helping a lot of working people,” the former president said. “I’m very proud of the message we sent to the country that we’re representing everybody.”
In addition to his legislative accomplishments, museum also tells the story of Barack Obama’s political ascendancy and how the core messages of “hope” and “change” were critical to his campaign for his first term.
Despite the harsh partisanship of today’s political culture, Michelle Obama said those messages are still possible.
“People just have to be fed up enough. They have to want more,” she said. “And I think the presidential center hopefully will remind people of just how close we are to moving this country in the direction that we want to move it in.”
Michelle Obama said an exhibit in the center that reflects on the Obamas’ position as the first Black first family in the history of America reflects that.
“You have one exhibit where people thought that it could never happen, that a Black man, a Black family would never live in the White House. That America would never accept that,” she said. “And lo and behold, the whole country, you know, the vast majority of the country believe differently.”
Amid the museum’s focus on the promise of democracy, Barack Obama said Americans, in times of disagreement, can focus on making their voice heard with their vote.
“The premise of this country is everybody gets a right to say, ‘No, I don’t agree with that. I challenge that. No, Obama, I think you’re making a mistake,’ you know?” he said. “And then we have a conversation about it, and then it gets settled in an election. And if enough people decide I didn’t know what I was doing, then you move on to the next person.”
Tune into the ABC News special “The Obama Legacy: First Joint Interview Post-White House,” streaming Thursday, June 18, on Disney+ and Hulu.
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News.
An Amtrak police officer moves barriers at the scene of a stabbing in Penn Station on June 7, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Five people were stabbed Sunday evening at New York City’s Penn Station by a man experiencing homelessness, sources told ABC News.
The suspect, a man in his 50s who has not been publicly named, was taken into police custody on Sunday, sources said.
“My heart is with everyone who was injured, their loved ones, and all those shaken by this unacceptable violence,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement posted on social media. “I’m wishing each of the victims a full and speedy recovery.”
None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening, sources said.
Mamdani praised the “swift response” by Amtrak police and other first responders, who he said “acted quickly to apprehend the suspect and provide emergency care.”
“There are currently no impacts to Amtrak service,” Mamdani said.
The stabbings unfolded one night before Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, which is directly above Penn Station. President Donald Trump will attend Monday night’s game, prompting massive security protocols and the cancellation of the watch party outside of Madison Square Garden.
