Trump administration tells NYC to shut down congestion pricing by March 21
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(NEW YORK) — The Trump administration has instructed New York City to end its congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the nation, by March 21 in a newly released letter.
The Federal Highway Administration said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must stop collecting tolls by that date to allow for an “orderly cessation.”
The letter is dated Feb. 20, a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation said it pulled federal approval of the plan following a review requested by President Donald Trump.
New York officials have said they will not turn off the tolls without a court order.
“We have said that you may have asked for orderly cessation, which was the phrase that came in the letter to us. I will propose something in the alternative — orderly resistance,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during remarks before the MTA board on Wednesday.
The MTA said it is challenging the Trump administration’s reversal in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment that the DOT’s move is not proper.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, charges passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses are charged $14.40 and large trucks and tour buses pay $21.60.
Hochul called the program’s early success “genuine” and “extraordinary” in her remarks to the MTA board.
The toll generated nearly $50 million in revenue in its first month, the MTA said this week.
From Jan. 5 to Jan. 31, tolls from the congestion pricing program generated $48.66 million, with the net revenue for that period $37.5 million when taking into account expenses to run the program, the MTA said.
The program is on track to generate $500 million in net revenue by the end of this year, as initially projected, the MTA said.
Congestion has also “dropped dramatically” since the program went into effect, Hochul said last week.
ABC News’ Clara McMichael contributed to this report.
(SAUK COUNTY, Wis.) — A Wisconsin woman who was missing for over 60 years was discovered to be “alive and well,” according to the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office.
Audrey Backeberg, who was reported missing on July 7, 1962, was found by detectives outside the state of Wisconsin, the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement shared last week.
At the time of her disappearance, Backeberg was residing in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said. The family’s babysitter claimed she and Aubrey — who was 20 at the time — hitchhiked to Madison, Wisconsin, and then took a Greyhound bus to Indianapolis.
The babysitter said Backeberg was last seen “walking around the corner away from the bus stop,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice
Since her disappearance, Backeberg has “never returned home and has not been heard from again,” the Wisconsin Department of Justice said in a missing persons poster.
Throughout the years, investigators “pursued numerous leads in an effort to determine Audrey’s whereabouts,” the sheriff’s office said. Despite all efforts, the case “eventually went cold,” officials said.
But earlier this year, the case was assigned to Sauk County Sheriff’s Detective Isaac Hanson, who reevaluated all the case files, evidence and also re-interviewed witnesses. Through Hanson’s work, he was able to obtain an address from Backeberg’s sister’s online ancestry account, he told Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN.
Hanson called officials at the local sheriff’s department and asked if they could visit the address, and “10 minutes later, she called me and we talked for 45 minutes,” Hanson told WISN.
Backeberg is “alive and well” and currently resides outside of the state of Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said. Officials said her disappearance was “by her own choice and not the result of any criminal activity or foul play.”
Hanson said Backeberg “had her reasons” for disappearing, but an abusive husband may have played a role in her decision to leave, he told WISN. It is still unclear why Backeberg stayed away for over six decades.
“This resolution underscores both the importance of continued work and the dedication of the Sheriff’s Office to providing answers to families and the community,” officials said.
(NEW YORK) — Climate change could threaten the future use of satellites and significantly reduce the number of spacecraft that can safety orbit Earth, according to new research.
Global warming is causing space debris to linger above the planet for longer periods of time, leaving less space for functioning satellites and posing a growing problem for the long-term use of Earth’s orbital space, a study published Monday in Nature Sustainability found.
While increasing levels of human-caused greenhouse gases cause a warming effect on Earth’s lower atmosphere, it has an opposite impact on the upper atmosphere, William Parker, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and author of the study, told ABC News.
The radiation from greenhouse gas emissions is also causing Earth’s upper atmosphere to cool, according to Parker.
“We’re basically losing energy in the upper atmosphere, and that causes the cooling and the contraction,” he said.
The cooling effect has created a long-term contraction of the upper atmosphere — similar to how a balloon shrinks in a freezer, Parker said. Typically, the upper atmosphere slowly pulls space debris out of Earth’s lower orbit. But the cooling and contracting effect is causing less drag in the thermosphere, causing the space junk to linger longer, he explained.
The debris also poses a threat to every active satellite, Parker added.
“As long as it’s up there, it’s a persistent hazard,” Parker said.
There is currently “tons of debris” in Earth’s low orbit, said Parker, who has been researching the dynamics of spacecraft close to the Earth. That debris has been created by collisions, explosions between satellites and anti-satellite weapons tests that have occurred over the last several decades. Thousands of pieces of space debris are in orbit, but the number grows to the millions when counting smaller fragments measuring less than 10 centimeters, Parker said.
The longer the space debris remains in the upper atmosphere, the more crowded the space becomes, Parker said. And Earth’s orbital space is limited.
“It’s a complicated operating environment today,” Parker said.
Rising greenhouse gas emissions could reduce the total number of satellites that can safely orbit Earth by up to 66% by the end of the century under a high emissions scenario — equivalent to 25 million to 40 million satellites, according to the researchers.
Entities that operate in space may need to increasingly conduct active debris removal, which can cost tens of millions of dollars for a single operation and involve sending up a satellite to remove debris, Parker said.
In 2022, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission passed a rule that every satellite that’s launched from the U.S. has to be able to remove itself from orbit five years after the end of its mission.
A drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will be necessary to prevent further complications with space operations, Parker said.
“An upside there is that reducing greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t just help us on Earth, it also has the potential to protect us from long-term sustainability issues in space,” he noted.
Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, in San Vicente, El Salvador/ Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York and another federal judge in Texas on Wednesday temporarily blocked the deportation of several purported Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that migrants being held in the Southern District of New York could not be deported without them first receiving notice and an opportunity for a hearing.
Hellerstein suggested his decision was meant to define the parameters set by Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion that allowed the Trump administration to remove Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act — but not without due process.
“Given the history, it seems to me people need to be protected,” Hellerstein said.
The Trump administration last month invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 200 alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from removing three men in Texas and “any other person that Respondents claim are subject to removal under the Proclamation” from the El Valle Detention Center there.
“In the present matter, the Court finds that the removal of J.A.V, J.G.G., W.G.H., or any other individual subject to the Proclamation, by the United States would cause immediate and irreparable injury to the removed individuals, as they would be unable to seek habeas relief,” Judge Rodriguez wrote, noting the ” substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned to the United States” if they are deported.
Judge Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, set a hearing for Friday to consider extending his order, which expires on April 23.
Judge Hellerstein’s ruling came in the case of two plaintiffs identified by their initials, G.F.F. and J.G.O, who were pulled off planes to El Salvador and transferred back to New York from Texas, where they were initially detained on suspicion of alignment with Tren de Aragua.
Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, said the men were entitled to a hearing to determine whether they are actual gang members, but he stopped short of deciding whether the Alien Enemies Act was the appropriate authority to deport them.
“Whether or not you’re a gang member, the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used under these circumstances,” argued Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It is a military authority. It is not supposed to be used in peace time against a gang.”
The relief Hellerstein granted is limited to approximately a dozen accused gang members currently detained in a several New York counties. The judge set a hearing for April 22.
ACLU lawyers representing the two migrants had argued that authorities “seek to move Petitioners in secret, without due process, to a prison in El Salvador known for dire conditions, torture, and other forms of physical abuse — possibly for life.”
“This has already borne out for over 130 individuals on March 15 who have lost all contact with their attorneys, family, and the world,” the attorneys wrote in a filing.
According to lawyers with the ACLU, one of the men is a 21-year-old Venezuelan national who entered the United States in 2024 to seek asylum, fleeing threats from Tren de Aragua and potential persecution from the Maduro regime based on his sexual orientation.
The other plaintiff is a 32-year-old Venezuelan national who filed an asylum application after entering the United States in 2022, claiming he feared torture and imprisonment based on his protests of the Maduro regime.
The ACLU argued that the Alien Enemies Act was improperly invoked by the Trump to target a criminal organization — not a state actor — and that it was invoked outside of a war or an invasion.
“The AEA has only ever been a power invoked in time of war, and plainly only applies to warlike actions: it cannot be used here against nationals of a country — Venezuela — with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States, and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States,” the lawyers argued.
