New Jersey Transit has made great progress towards installing positive train control (PTC), a rail safety system. Now the Department of Transportation has announced that NJ Transit will receive over $6,550,000 in grants to continue PTC implementation. My statement: https://bit.ly/2T3rfK6
In pulling our armed forces out of Syria, the President flies in the face of the Pentagon’s advice and hands an easy win to the Iranian, Russian, and Syrian regimes. Our country cannot abandon our allies, including the Kurds, who are courageously fighting against ISIS and providing a safe-haven for religious minorities in the region. My statement: bit.ly/2SU4yb8
Jamal Khashoggi’s tragic murder is sadly part of a disturbing international trend. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the number of journalists killed in reprisal for their work nearly doubled in 2018.
It is clear to us all that global press freedom is under attack.
In Mexico alone, four journalists were murdered this past year. Just last week, the Nicaraguan government raided press offices that have criticized President Ortega’s oppressive regime. My collea...gues and I on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee are committed to working with our international partners to address this crisis.
Any society committed to justice must recognize the importance of a free press. In 2019, Congress must fight to protect journalists and press institutions here at home and abroad – our freedoms depend on it.
More information on the Committee to Protect Journalists report can be found here: bit.ly/2BtSo1n
Yesterday, I joined Governor Murphy and other state officials to mark a milestone in NJ Transit’s ongoing safety upgrades. NJ Transit has successfully fitted Positive Train Control (PTC) hardware on its locomotives, installed hundreds of miles of PTC software-adjacent equipment, and has begun training its employees on using this life-saving technology. PTC is crucial to preventing train-to-train collisions or derailments like the 2016 accident that took one life and injured over one hundred people in Hoboken.
This is good progress for NJ Transit and great news for commuters, and it deserves to be celebrated. I will keep working in Congress to provide NJ Transit with the tools it needs to finish the job. Fully installing and implementing PTC technology is essential to keeping our commuters safe.
The United States, along with the international community, will not let the Guatemalan government steamroll justice. The visa revocation of 11 CICIG officers – who just so happen to be working on critical anti-corruption investigations – is crudely apparent in its intentions. We will continue to defend CICIG’s important work and support a free, transparent government for Guatemala.