Por Chris Isidore, CNN

Una huelga de tres días en el mayor sistema ferroviario suburbano del país terminó después de que maratónicas negociaciones concluyeran el lunes con los sindicatos y el Long Island Rail Road (LIRR, por sus siglas en inglés) alcanzando un acuerdo tentativo.

El acuerdo fue anunciado por la gobernadora de Nueva York, Kathy Hochul, en una publicación en X, quien lo describió como uno que otorga aumentos a los trabajadores mientras protege a los usuarios y a los contribuyentes.

El acuerdo aún necesita ser ratificado por los miembros de base de los cinco sindicatos que se declararon en huelga. Si se rechaza, la huelga podría reanudarse.

Por ahora, 3.500 trabajadores volverán al trabajo el martes. Si bien el servicio no se reanudará a primera hora la mañana, se prevé que el servicio se reanude de forma escalonada al mediodía, dijo Hochul.

La huelga comenzó el sábado después de que fracasaran las conversaciones de última hora entre los sindicatos y la Autoridad Metropolitana de Transporte (MTA, por sus siglas en inglés), que opera el ferrocarril. Ambas partes se reunieron nuevamente el domingo y negociaron, con una breve pausa durante la noche, hasta que alcanzaron un acuerdo.

El LIRR transporta a casi 300.000 pasajeros en el área de la ciudad de Nueva York en un día laborable típico a través de 947 trenes suburbanos. Durante la huelga, la MTA instó a los clientes a trabajar desde casa. Los autobuses directos que transportan trabajadores esenciales a la ciudad solo podían acomodar a una pequeña fracción de la demanda.

Los términos del acuerdo no estuvieron disponibles de inmediato. Los sindicatos habían estado buscando su primer aumento desde 2022. Los últimos años registraron algunos de los mayores incrementos del costo de vida en décadas. Los trabajadores del LIRR viven en una de las regiones más caras del país.

La dirección de la MTA había insistido en que no podía satisfacer las demandas sindicales sin aumentar las tarifas hasta en un 8 % e incrementar el apoyo de los contribuyentes al ferrocarril. Hochul había condenado anteriormente la huelga como “imprudente”.

Pero dos paneles federales solicitados para considerar las posiciones de negociación se habían alineado con la propuesta de contrato del sindicato, dijeron los sindicatos. Los sindicatos culparon a la dirección de la MTA y al estado por la huelga.

El LIRR, como la mayoría de los sistemas de transporte masivo, no ha recuperado los niveles de usuarios que tenía antes de la pandemia. Actualmente, el ferrocarril transporta alrededor del 90 % de los clientes que tenía en 2019.

Los ingresos por tarifas del año pasado fueron de US$ 636 millones, lo que significa que el ferrocarril perdió alrededor de US$ 2 millones por día laborable durante la huelga. A los clientes con abonos mensuales se les reembolsará una parte prorrateada de esas tarifas.

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By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered a blistering critique Monday of the Supreme Court’s handling of a recent high-profile redistricting case, asserting that the court needed to be “really, really careful” in the churn of an election year to avoid appearing political and suggesting it had failed to do so in that case.

“Courts are apolitical, not supposed to be issuing rulings that are in the political realm,” Jackson said at an event in Washington hosted by the American Law Institute. “We have to be scrupulous about sticking to the principles and the rules that we apply in every case and not look as though we’re doing something different in this kind of context.”

Jackson’s remarks followed a series of questions from US District Judge Richard Gergel about the Supreme Court’s decision on May 4 to clear the way for Louisiana to redraw its congressional maps in light of a blockbuster decision days earlier that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act. After winning the larger case, Louisiana — eager to act on the decision ahead of this year’s midterms — urged the Supreme Court to bypass its usual month-long waiting period before finalizing its decision.

In a one-paragraph order, the court agreed to Louisiana’s request. It did so with little explanation and without disclosing how the court voted. Jackson, a member of the court’s liberal wing, was the only justice to note her dissent.

Jackson’s remarks Monday largely tracked with her written dissent. The court’s junior justice stopped short of saying she felt the decision itself was motivated by politics. Instead, she focused on her concern about the perception of the court taking sides in a political dispute.

“I think we have to be very constrained,” she said. “My view was it would be a more neutral way to handle the matter to just stick with the rule that we always apply in situations like this.”

The court’s decision in late April gutting the Voting Rights Act has set off a flurry of redistricting in southern states that has benefited Republicans and that is expected to also reduce the number of Black lawmakers in Congress. Though the decision was long expected, it nevertheless came in the middle of a push by President Donald Trump to eek as much advantage as possible out of redrawn maps in an effort to keep the GOP in control of the House next year.

Jackson, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden in 2022, has been especially critical of the court’s approach to emergency cases during the Trump administration. That was manifested in a remarkable back-and-forth in the same case with Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s conservative wing, who criticized many of Jackson’s points at the time as “insulting,” “trivial” and “baseless.”

“What principle has the court violated?” Alito wrote in his opinion in the Louisiana emergency case. “The principle that we should never take any action that might unjustifiably be criticized as partisan?”

Alito was joined by conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Jackson, who spent most of her talk Monday focused on her background

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) - A first-ever housing summit at Cal Poly Monday afternoon explored the issue of finding the appropriate balance between housing development and preserving agricultural land.

The inaugural "Real Estate Day," was held in partnership between the Orfalea College of Business and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. 

Held in the university's on campus Swanson Center of Effort Conference Hall on campus, the event was themed "Agricultural Land and Community Growth: Balancing Housing Needs, Agricultural Value and Open Space."

"Real Estate Day is trying to become a platform for our community to get together and discuss topics that matters for our community and hearing from different stakeholders," said Hamed Ghoddusi, Cal Poly Real Estate Initiative Director. "We think Cal Poly can be a neutral platform to host topics, which are based on facts, data, research, and then invite people from the community, from local government, from developers, from planners, consultants, citizens, agriculture community who sit around the table and discuss and offer their insights and help us understand the problems better and think about better solutions for the problems that our community is facing." 

Over the course of four hours, those who attended heard from a panel of speakers from a wide variety of pertinent industries connected to either planning, housing development and the agriculture business, who each brought their unique perspectives on different approaches to housing, including rezoning farmland for residential development. 

"We can see arguments on both sides," said Ghoddusi. "People see a lot of value in agricultural production and the need for food. People also see value of open space for all the ecosystem benefits that all the green space is bringing to us. People also see the issue with housing affordability and the need for our region to grow, and to cut the commuting time of the members of the community, so we want to sit together and discuss and the trade offs between all these desirable goals and see what's the optimum point."

Ghoddusi added he is already planning on next year's second annual Real Estate Day, which he said will be focused on development and technology.

"It would be about data centers, battery storage technologies, distribution centers," said Ghoddusi. "That is one of the other hottest topics in real estate and is one our area is also dealing with."

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By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — A three-day strike on the nation’s largest commuter rail system ended after marathon negotiations concluded Monday with the unions and Long Island Rail Road reaching a tentative deal.

The deal was announced by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in a post on X, who described it as delivering raises for workers while protecting riders and taxpayers.

The deal still needs to be ratified by the rank-and-file members of the five unions that went on strike. If rejected, the strike could resume.

For now, 3,500 workers are set to return to work on Tuesday. While service will not resume in time for the morning rush hour, phased service is due to resume at noon, Hochul said.

The deal will allow Long Island fans to take the the train to and from Game 1 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals Tuesday night between the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers, Hochul said at a press conference.

The strike started early Saturday after 11th-hour talks failed between the unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the railway. Both sides met again on Sunday and negotiated, with a brief break overnight, until they reached an agreement.

The LIRR carries nearly 300,000 passengers in the New York City area on a typical weekday across 947 commuter trains. During the strike, the MTA urged customers to work from home. Shuttle buses into the city for essential workers could only accommodate a small fraction of ridership.

Terms of the deal were not immediately available. The unions had been seeking their first raise since 2022. The past few years saw some of the highest cost-of-living increases in decades. LIRR workers live in one of the nation’s most expensive regions.

MTA management had insisted it could not meet union demands without raising fares as much as 8% and increasing taxpayer support for the railroad. Hochul had earlier condemned the strike as “reckless.”

Monday she praised the union leaders and the rank-and-file members who will now be voting on the deal.

“This contract will ensure that 3,500 Long Island Railroad employees will be paid fairly for their labor,” she said. “I deeply value and respect the hard work they do.”

“We stood firm for a deal that would not require any additional fare increases or tax increases. Period. Full stop,” she said at a press conference Monday night.

But two federal panels requested to consider the negotiating positions had sided with the union’s contract proposal, the unions said. The unions blamed MTA management and the state for the strike.

The LIRR, like most mass transit systems, hasn’t recovered the ridership levels it had before the pandemic. The railway currently transports about 90% of the customers it did in 2019.

Last year’s fare revenue was $636 million, which means the railroad lost about $2 million per weekday during the strike. Customers with m

Por Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

El Gobierno de Trump propuso aumentar el límite de admisiones de refugiados para el año fiscal 2026 a 17.500 para sudafricanos blancos, según una determinación de emergencia enviada al Congreso y obtenida por CNN.

El año pasado, la administración restringió el número de refugiados autorizados a ingresar al país anualmente a 7.500, con un enfoque en sudafricanos blancos, recortando el límite del año anterior de 125.000 y excluyendo a algunas de las poblaciones más vulnerables del mundo.

El presidente de EE.UU. Donald Trump ha justificado la decisión de su Gobierno de reasentar a afrikáners en Estados Unidos citando afirmaciones de que “se está produciendo un genocidio” en Sudáfrica, diciendo que “los agricultores blancos están siendo brutalmente asesinados y sus tierras confiscadas”.

Las autoridades sudafricanas han negado enérgicamente tales afirmaciones. CNN ha investigado las afirmaciones de “genocidio” blanco en Sudáfrica y no ha encontrado pruebas que las respalden.

La determinación de emergencia citó comentarios del presidente de Sudáfrica y un incidente el año pasado cuando el Gobierno sudafricano interrogó a personal estadounidense destinado en el país.

“Esta hostilidad creciente incrementa los riesgos para los afrikáners en Sudáfrica, quienes ya están sujetos a una discriminación racial de amplio alcance patrocinada por el Gobierno”, señala el informe. “Por estas razones, un límite revisado de 17.500 se justifica por graves preocupaciones humanitarias y en el interés nacional, tal como se detalla en la E.O. 14204, y promoverá los intereses de política exterior de Estados Unidos descritos en esa orden”.

CNN se puso en contacto con la Casa Blanca y el Departamento de Estado para solicitar comentarios.

Según la ley estadounidense, la administración debe consultar con el Congreso sobre el límite anual de refugiados.

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