Manhattan’s congestion pricing can continue, judge rules
Traffic moves along midtown Manhattan on Feb. 19, 2025, in New York. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge ruled that Manhattan’s congestion pricing program can continue and the Trump administration does not have the authority to kill the program, which is the first of its kind in the nation.
In a 149-page ruling, Judge Lewis Liman said the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke approval for the program was unlawful, handing a victory to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority following a monthslong legal battle.
“It is difficult to imagine more arbitrary and capricious decision-making than that at issue here,” Liman wrote.
The congestion pricing program went into effect last year in an effort to reduce traffic congestion during peak hours and to raise funds for the city’s public transit system. Passenger vehicles are charged $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours.
The extra per-ride surcharge is 75 cents for taxis and black car services, and $1.50 for Ubers and Lyfts. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses will be charged $14.40, while large trucks and tour buses must pay $21.60.
The Trump administration moved to reverse approval of the program last year. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the time that the “scope of this pilot project as approved exceeds the authority authorized by Congress” under the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Pilot Program, calling it “backwards and unfair.”
New York lawmakers pushed back against the decision and challenged the federal government in court.
The federal judge reaffirmed an order from last May upholding the program, but stopped short of completely barring the Trump administration from challenging the program again.
“[Trump] is obviously free to continue to make public statements as well as to ask the Secretary of Transportation to look into whether there are lawful means to end the [Central Business District Tolling Program]. And, as to the Secretary’s statements, he has a right to continue to fight his case and to take an appeal of this Court’s orders,” Liman said.
Overall, the program was the “product of a democratic process” and cannot be arbitrarily revoked, Liman said.
“The [Value Pricing Pilot Program] was passed by Congress. The [Traffic Mobility Act] was passed by democratically elected legislators and signed by a Governor elected by the people of New York. The [Value Pricing Pilot Program] Agreement was authorized by a Secretary nominated by a duly elected President and confirmed by the Senate. The democratic process worked,” the judge wrote.
The program applies for Manhattan south of 60th Street, except for the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel.
People gather in Washington Square Park for a mass snowball fight on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in Manhattan. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A man has been arrested after a viral incident between New Yorkers and NYPD officers during Monday’s blizzard has snowballed into Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first test with the police brass after he appeared to downplay the issue.
Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, has been arrested for “assaulting” police officers earlier this week in Washington Square Park, the New York City Police Department announced Thursday.
“Coulibaly was previously arrested less than three weeks ago for an attempted robbery in the transit system,” according to the NYPD.
With Mamdani capturing attention on the national stage, the progressive mayor is threading the needle carefully to avoid repeating the mistakes some of his predecessors made to ensure he doesn’t lose that critical police support, according to a political expert.
Mamdani came under fire on Tuesday after the president of the Police Benevolent Association — the union representing NYPD officers — accused the mayor of downplaying the severity of an incident. The NYPD said people playing in the snow on Monday in Manhattan were “attacking” officers with snowballs.
“I’ve seen the videos of this snowball fight. I think that it was a snowball fight,” the mayor said during a news conference when asked repeatedly ifanyone should be charged for the incident.
Mamdani echoed his sentiment on Wednesday at another news conference.
“What I saw was a snowball fight that got out of hand and it should be treated accordingly,” he said.
The incident took place Monday afternoon in Washington Square Park when police were called in about parkgoers playing aggressively, according to the NYPD.
Parkgoer Rahul Nag told WABC 7 that it started off as harmless fun but escalated when several young people began tossing snow from the roof of the park’s restrooms. The officers were confronted after they arrived to investigate.
“It wasn’t supposed to be violent. It started out as a very fun thing to do, and then, you know, it just escalated, and there weren’t any older kids or older people out here,” he told the station.
“It was just young kids having fun. And then it kind of became a back-and-forth thing between NYPD and those young kids,” Nag added.
Police say the crowd began throwing snowballs at them and continued to pelt them and their vehicles with snowballs as they left the park. The mayor and NYPD said two officers were treated for minor injuries, including lacerations.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in an X post Tuesday night that the incident was being investigated. The NYPD also released images of the people who allegedly threw the snowballs at the officers.
“The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal,” Tisch said in her post.
No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon.
Although Mamdani did not describe the incident as an attack, he repeatedly has condemned anyone who would antagonize the police, and praised their work during the snowstorms over the last two months.
“I want to say that officers have been on the front line of helping our city respond to this blizzard. They have been keeping New Yorkers safe, and they have also been at the heart of our efforts of digging New Yorkers’ cars out of these kinds of conditions and ensuring that our ambulances, our MTA buses can keep functioning across this city” he told reporters during the Tuesday news conference.
“They and our entire city workforce deserve to be treated with respect. The only person in our city’s workforce who deserves to be treated with a snowball is me,” Mamdani added.
The mayor’s remarks, however, did not sit well with the leaders of the Police Benevolent Association. The union’s president, Patrick Hendry, released a statement Tuesday calling the mayor’s response “a complete failure of leadership.”
“This was disgraceful. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a game. It was a vicious attack,” he said.
Mamdani told reporters Wednesday that he and Tisch are in constant communication but declined to talk more about the investigation into the incident.
Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, told ABC News it was inevitable that Mamdani and the police brass would butt heads, given the mayor’s past criticism of the NYPD and the pushback by Republicans across the country against him and his progressive policies.
“Mamdani is cognizant of that and trying to balance what some people felt was pretty innocuous and the NYPD saw it as a different way,” she said. “He’s also cognizant that there are groups that, frankly, do not want him to succeed.”
Greer noted that Mamdani is taking hard lessons from previous Democratic mayors, especially Bill de Blasio and David Dinkins, who had extremely strained relationships with the NYPD.
Greer said that De Blasio’s relationship with the police seemed to crystalize in 2014 when officers turned their back to him during the funeral for two slain officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. That came weeks after protests broke out over the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died after he was put in a chokehold during an arrest.
“You never want to be in a position where the NYPD turns their back to you and you never regain their trust,” she said.
Greer noted that even though he is extremely early in his tenure, Mamdani has taken smart first steps to show not just the NYPD but also his critics that he cares about his officers. Those moves include apologizing for his previous criticisms and retaining Tisch as his commissioner after his predecessor Eric Adams’ term ended.
Even in his response to the snowball incident, where the mayor repeatedly said that snowballs should be thrown at him, indicated a sense of humility, according to Greer. She said Mamdani is willing to take on New Yorkers’ frustrations, especially over the weather.
“It’s putting the onus on him,” she said. “I think it’s brilliant because it says I’m the one in charge. The NYPD is not in charge, it’s me. It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around, but that’s the truth and a brilliant way to articulate a very real fact.”
Greer said the snowball incident is unlikely to hamper Mamdani’s status or alter his overall “report card” on the local or national level, given fast-paced nature of the city’s politics.
However, she said that the mayor will need to continue to thread the needle with the NYPD for his entire tenure in City Hall, as he is seen as the star figure in the Democratic progressive movement.
“The question behind all of this, really, is can he keep the city safe? That’s not fair to make this situation a real assessment when we’re talking about snowballs and not bullets,” Greer said.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia (R) and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura (L) attend a prayer vigil before he enters a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in Tennessee will hear arguments Thursday over whether the government is being vindictive in pursuing a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The hearing comes after the judge, Waverly Crenshaw Jr., canceled the trial in the case in December and wrote in a court order that there was enough evidence to hold a hearing on the question of vindictive prosecution.
The government is currently blocked from deporting Abrego Garcia, who was released from immigration detention in December. In a separate case last week, a federal judge ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain him because his 90-day detention period had expired and the government lacked a viable plan for his deportation.
The Salvadoran native, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. The Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he and his attorneys deny.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, to which he pleaded not guilty.
After being released into the custody of his brother in Maryland pending trial, he was again detained by immigration authorities before being released in December.
Dayton Webber is seen in this undated booking photo. (Charles County Sheriff’s Office)
(LA PLATA, Md.) — An attorney for a quadruple amputee cornhole champion who has been charged with murder says the Maryland man acted in self-defense when he shot and killed his friend last month.
Dayton James Webber, 27, is accused of fatally shooting the victim during an argument in Webber’s vehicle on March 22 in La Plata, Maryland, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim — 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells, who was sitting in the front seat of the car — was found dead in a yard in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, according to the sheriff’s office.
Webber was later located in a hospital in Virginia and taken into custody, authorities said. He has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, as well as assault and firearm charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
Following Webber’s extradition from Virginia, a judge ordered him held without bond during a hearing in Charles County on Wednesday. Prosecutors argued he was a danger to society and a flight risk, according to WJLA, the ABC affiliate for the Washington, D.C., area.
Two people who were in the back seat of the vehicle witnessed the deadly shooting, the sheriff’s office said. Deputy State’s Attorney Karen Piper Mitchell said Wednesday that, according to the witnesses, a friend of Wells’ allegedly stole a weapon from Webber, and Webber was upset the two were still friends and shot Wells in anger, WJLA reported.
Defense attorney Andrew Jezic claimed that Webber acted in self-defense.
“He was 100% justified in defending his life from an immediate lethal threat,” Jezic told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday. “Dayton was terrified of being killed. Dayton knew that he had to shoot or be killed.”
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 6.
The two witnesses reported the shooting shortly before 10:30 p.m. on March 22, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office. Webber allegedly asked them for their help in disposing of the body, but they refused, got out of the car, left the scene and ultimately flagged down officers with the La Plata Police Department, authorities said.
Nearly two hours later, the victim’s body was found in a yard in Charlotte Hall, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
An officer with the Albemarle County Police Department subsequently located Webber’s vehicle at a gas station in Charlottesville, Virginia, authorities said. The suspect was then found at a nearby hospital seeking treatment for an unspecified medical issue and taken into custody, authorities said.
Webber is a notable professional cornhole player who was profiled by ESPN in 2023. He was crowned the best cornhole player in Maryland in 2020 and competed in the American Cornhole League World Championships the following year, according to ESPN.
Webber called cornhole his “calling” in the ESPN feature. He became a quadruple amputee after contracting a bacterial infection that led to sepsis at 10 months old, according to ESPN.
