Currents News Staff
The MTA is getting over $6 billion dollars in COVID relief money that’s being designated for New York City subways, LIRR and the Metro-North railroad.
Senator Chuck Schumer made the announcement along with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The money was requested by city officials to help close funding gaps created by the pandemic. ridership in the city dropped dramatically when COVID hit.
The relief dollars will be used to prevent fare hikes, layoffs and service cuts, for now.
Currents News Staff
The Senate has passed a bi-partisan bill to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to Emmett Till.
The 14-year-old Black teen from Chicago was visiting family in Mississippi in 1955 when he was accused of propositioning a white woman. Till was brutally murdered by white supremacists.
The recognition comes more than a month after the Justice Department officially closed its investigation into the infamous killing.
Currents News Staff
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan visited the first parish assignment of Blessed Father Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus. His eminence pointed out that it was his work at St. Mary’s Parish in New Haven, Connecticut would lead Father McGivney to form the fraternal organization.
Cardinal Dolan says during his visit, he was able to pray at Father McGivney’s tomb and offer Mass.
By Jessica Easthope
It’s not the scene of an explosion or garbage spill – but the scene of a crime.
The Union Pacific train tracks in downtown Los Angeles were just cleaned last month but once again they’re littered with thousands of boxes.
Broken down boxes are all that’s left of packages belonging to people from all over the country who might be wanting to wrap up the holiday season – with gifts still missing. Police say when these trains stop to unload they’re being raided by thieves.
The locks to the train can be easily cut and robbers tear open the boxes, take what they want and leave what they don’t, like home COVID tests that many could be desperately waiting for.
You might ask what police are doing to pump the brakes on this operation – well their hands are tied. The LAPD can’t intervene unless Union Pacific asks them for help – which they say is rare.
And it’s been happening for months and in broad daylight, people can be seen running off with bags, and Union Pacific police officers chasing down people who were rifling through the packages. USC campus police also arrested one of the suspected thieves last month, his car was filled with stolen goods from the tracks.
In a statement, Union Pacific Railroad said, “These rail crimes pose a serious safety threat to the public, our employees and local law enforcement officers. We have increased the number of Union Pacific special agents on patrol, and we have utilized and explored additional technologies to help us combat this criminal activity.”
But local law enforcement who work around these tracks say they don’t see thieves shipping off any time soon.
Pro-life leaders are reacting to a New York Times investigation that found some blood tests pregnant women take to find out about genetic disorders are often wrong.
Community leaders are speaking out today at the scene of that deadly fire in the Bronx. They say more needs to be done for the residents of that apartment building and others, to keep people safe.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan took a road trip to Connecticut yesterday. He went to St. Mary’s Church in New Haven to celebrate Mass, where blessed Father Michael McGivney served as a priest.
Currents News Staff
Voting Rights are front and center on Capitol Hill with two bills President Joe Biden is pushing.
“I’m tired of being quiet!” the president said.
The “Freedom To Vote Act” looks to make it easier to vote:
– Election day would be a public holiday
– You could register the same day as an election
– There’s a guarantee you could vote by mail
– People with past felony convictions would be able to vote in federal elections again.
It would also limit changes to Congressional voting districts and keep track of money given to groups looking to influence elections. The second bill is focused on bolstering the 1965 Voting Rights Act, forbidding racial discrimination in voting quietly brokered between President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.
In fact, the new bill is named after a civil rights icon: the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” which looks to regulate voting rule changes and redistricting in states with a history of voting rights violations.
The previous requirements were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.
For Democrats, the bills push back against new voting laws around the country that limit access to voting. But Republicans say it’s federal overreach and getting these bills through the House is one thing, but advancing them in the gridlocked Senate isn’t likely even if there’s a push by Democrats to change the rules to make it happen.
All of it: expected to take days to play out.
By Jessica Easthope
Debbie Gleeson watches her son Shane smile big on his graduation day, but she still thinks back in horror to the first thing her doctor said about him.
“I never believed in abortion and to this day I don’t believe in abortion but at that moment they’re telling me there’s no option because he’s going to die anyway,” she said.
Debbie was told, without a doubt, Shane would have Trisomy 13, a rare genetic disorder that causes severe intellectual and physical disabilities and that he wouldn’t live beyond a week.
“They said you need to think about not only yourself but what about your daughter, that’s not fair to her to bring her brother into her life and then a week later he’s dead,” Debbie remembers her doctor saying.
But Debbie’s case isn’t rare. An analysis done by the New York Times of noninvasive prenatal tests show they’re wrong 85 percent of the time.
“As your risk of carrying a baby with Down Syndrome goes down, your risk of having a false positive goes up and that’s the data they’re not presenting,” said Dr. Tara Sander Lee, the director of life sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Sander Lee says every day thousands of women across the globe get these false results – prompting them to seek out an abortion.
“If I would have listened to them because of a test to end his life, a test that wasn’t even true,” said Debbie.
“If the test is positive they are often pressured to abort this child and are given the worst possible scenario,” Sander Lee said.
She calls this a modern form of eugenics.
“This is a whole other layer to the abortion industry that is deceptive that at the heart of it wants to get rid of people who look and act differently,” said Sander Lee.
The tests are screenings, not a diagnosis. In Iceland close to one hundred percent of women who get positive results for down syndrome, terminate their pregnancies.
“They made it seem like he wasn’t even a human like oh you don’t want that,” said Debbie.
Currently more than a dozen states prohibit discrimination abortions based on prenatal screenings, New York is not one of them.
Currents News Staff
More than 100 people gathered in the Bronx for a candlelight vigil for the victims of that apartment building fire that killed 17 people including 8 children.
The smoky fire also injured dozens and some remain hospitalized in critical condition. New York State Attorney General Letitia James attended the Tuesday night vigil, Jan. 11 – vowing to get to the bottom of this fire.
She told the crowd that there’s a lesson to be learned about the neglect of government and a lesson to be learned about why this continues to happen in this corner of the Bronx – which has a large population of people of color.
Currents News Staff
Barbie is honoring famed black journalist Ida B. Wells with this doll. It’s part of the company’s “Inspiring Women” series.
Wells was born into slavery in 1862 and went on to write about racism and the horrors of lynching. The doll features a dress that reflects that time period. It’s set to go on sale Monday.
Currents News Staff
The body of former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid lies in state Wednesday, Jan. 12, in the Capitol rotunda.
His former congressional colleagues including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy paid tribute to the senator from Nevada. He was remembered as a political force and a pragmatic dealmaker.
Reid – who had been treated for pancreatic cancer – died last month at the age of 82.