NEW YORK — After being lured to New York two years ago to help revive the city’s subway, Andy Byford earned praise from riders and mass transit advocates for bringing about improvements on an antiquated system that had been undermined by breakdowns, delays and mismanagement.
But as Byford rose in stature, even earning the nickname “Train Daddy” among rail enthusiasts, he increasingly clashed with the one official who has the final say over the subways: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who considers himself something of a modern-day master builder.
On Thursday, Byford resigned, sowing doubt about the future of extensive plans that are intended to modernize the nation’s largest subway system. Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, responded with one word on Twitter: “DEVASTATED.”
Byford suggested in his resignation letter that he had chafed over a plan supported by the governor to scale back his duties as part of a reorganization for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the subways and is controlled by Cuomo.
Byford’s new role would “focus solely on day-to-day-running of service,” instead of more ambitious projects, Byford wrote. There were other leaders, he said, who could “perform this important, but reduced, service delivery role.”
Interviews with transit officials and lawmakers and others indicate that Byford’s departure capped months of escalating tension between the two men.
Republican senator attacks National Security Council aide who testified in impeachment probe
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn spent hours attacking Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key National Security Council aide who testified before Congress on the Ukraine scandal, on Twitter Thursday, including questioning the Purple Heart recipient's patriotism.
Over a series of tweets, Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, made the unfounded claim that leaked knowledge of President Donald Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian President to the whistleblower whose complaint initially prompted the investigation, called him "vindictive" and said he wasn't a patriot.
"Adam Schiff is hailing Alexander Vindman as an American patriot," Blackburn's Twitter account posted on Thursday. "How patriotic is it to badmouth and ridicule our great nation in front of Russia, America's greatest enemy?
Later, she added, "It makes sense that Alexander Vindman leaked the July 25th phone call to his friend (aka the 'whistleblower'). They both have lots in common." CNN is not identifying the whistleblower, but there is no evidence that Vindman or the whistleblower knew each other or held any political motivations.
The Tennessee Republican accused both individuals of having "held the same NSC job," being "liberals who worked under Obama" and having "wanted to take out Trump."
It is unclear whether Blackburn or her staff sent the tweet as it posted during oral arguments in the Senate impeachment trial, which bans members from using electronics.
Emails of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell were hacked, her lawyer says
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged socialite madam, said that Maxwell’s private email server was hacked after her email address was inadvertently revealed in a cache of court documents unsealed last August by a New York federal court.
Those documents, from a lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, shone a light on Epstein’s alleged trafficking of young women around the world and included the names of numerous high-powered businessmen and politicians who were part of his constellation of associates.
Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska is set to decide in the coming months on whether to release an even larger trove of documents — 8,600 pages according to Maxwell’s lawyer, Ty Gee.
In a December letter, first reported by the Telegraph, the lawyer reiterated Maxwell’s concern that she be given a chance to review the documents for redactions before they are released.
Those additional documents could provide even more information about Epstein’s trafficking scheme and Maxwell’s connection to it, as well as the names of more prominent men who may have been a party to or aware of his behavior.
So, too, could Maxwell’s emails if they were, indeed, accessed by hackers.
Maxwell reportedly kept her emails on a private server, and her lawyer wrote that soon after her email address, “linked to her own domain name,” was published, “hackers breached the host computer.”
Trump promised his mileage standards would make cars cheaper and safer. New documents raise doubts about that.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump has said his plan to weaken federal mileage standards would make cars cheaper and “substantially safer.” But the administration’s latest proposal could end up costing consumers more in the long run and do little to make the nation’s roads markedly safer.
The revised Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule, which has not been released publicly, would require automakers to increase the average fuel efficiency of the nation’s fleets by 1.5 percent a year between Model Year 2021 and 2026. Rules put in place by the Obama administration, by comparison, require a nearly 5 percent annual increase.
Two people familiar with the proposal, which is being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, spoke about it on the condition of anonymity because it has yet to be completed.
Also in the nation …
President Donald Trump signaled this week that he's open to cutting federal entitlements to reduce the federal deficit, despite previously campaigning on protecting Medicare and Social Security. … Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leads in New Hampshire, continuing to widen his top position, according to a new WBUR poll conducted by MassInc. out Thursday.
First Published: January 24, 2020, 7:15 a.m.
