5:42
House Democrats and a handful of Republicans on Wednesday voted to impeach President Trump for a second time, citing his incitement of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week. WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne has reaction from a few Hudson Valley House members.
First-term Democratic Congressman Mondaire Jones of the 17th district delivered his first speech on the House floor since taking office.
“Who knew that my first speech on the House floor would be in connection with the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump, a lawless, unhinged dangerous president who poses an existential threat to our democracy,” Jones says. “I had hoped maybe I would be speaking about the For the People Act, or the need to pass real COVID-19 relief.”
5:40
A Democratic Congressman from the Hudson Valley has signed onto a resolution to impeach President Trump following the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. First-term Congressman Mondaire Jones spoke with WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne Thursday night.
Jones, who represents New York 17th District, says Wednesday’s events horrified people here and around the world.
“And there must be consequences for the near death of hundreds of members of Congress, myself included, and the violent insurrection and attempt to overthrow our government at the hands of the President of the United States and his sycophants who will do anything that he tells him to do, including take over the Capitol building. There must be consequences for this, we have to signal to this president and his acolytes in the Republican Party, who are watching to see whether he can get away with this, and whether they too in the future can get away with similar conduct,” Jones says.
4:42
Though the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the airwaves most of the year, there were some other significant developments in 2020. WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne highlights a few of them in an abbreviated year in review.
2020 began with finding ways to help the Rockand County community of Monsey following a December 28, 2019 machete attack during a Hannukah celebration at a rabbi’s home. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was in Rockland mid-January to announce funding for security infrastructure.
“I want everyone to know that we have learned from Monsey a painful lesson; we’ve learned from what’s going on; and we will respond and we will react and we will do everything in our power on every level to make sure this horrific act doesn’t happen again,” Cuomo says.
11:23
The $900 billion COVID-19 funding package President Trump signed Sunday contains some $4 billion for the MTA, which includes Metro-North Railroad. Proposed layoffs and drastic service cuts can be shelved, for now. WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne spoke with Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi about what the funding means and more.
First, the Federal Railroad Administration on Tuesday announced there is now full implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) technology on all required freight and passenger routes across the country, meeting a December 31 deadline. Metro-North and Long Island Railroad announced December 23 they had completed full implementation. Through PTC, the trains automatically communicate in real time with central dispatching offices – sharing information on train position, speed and the actions of the train engineer. If a train is traveling too fast, the system automatically takes control of the train to slow it down while alerting