The chairman and CEO of New York City's transit system is bound to be a busy man: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority carries millions of people every day, often via outdated infrastructure in a constantly-evolving city.
But that man, Joe Lhota, is even busier than one might expect, because he also has a handful of other jobs. Lhota's position as chief of staff at a major hospital network, along with his seats on eight different boards and additional lobbying work on the side make for potential conflicts of interest, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Lhota has run the MTA since 2017, but delegates much of the work while he juggles his other leadership positions. The Times explains that Lhota's influence in the city has continued to expand, but the amount of time he spends on the troubled subway system has decreased. Lhota is chief of staff at NYU Langone Health, a network of 230 hospitals and clinics. He has reportedly lobbied for NYU Langone while also running the MTA. He is also a paid board member at Madison Square Garden, a major facility tied to MTA decisions about the adjacent Penn Station.
His work at NYU Langone and on eight transportation-related boards earned Lhota $2.5 million last year, while he forfeited his MTA salary to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Lhota vowed to spend 40 hours a week working for the MTA, but records show he has been spending closer to 22 hours. Lhota denied that his multiple jobs represented any conflicts in his role as MTA chief. Read more at The New York Times. Summer Meza
Late Tuesday, Los Angeles teachers approved a contract deal and agreed to return to the classrooms on Wednesday after a six-day strike in the nation's second-largest school district. The votes of the 30,000 teachers union members were still being counted Tuesday night, but "a vast supermajority are voting yes for the agreement that we made," said union president Alex Caputo-Pearl. "Those are preliminary results but they're so overwhelming that we know what the results are going to be."
The deal, finalized early Tuesday, gives teachers a 6 percent raise, reduces class sizes incrementally over the next few years, and increases the number of support staff, including teachers and librarians. The Board of Education is expected to ratify the deal in short order. Caputo-Pearl called the agreement a "historic victory" for "educators, students, and parents" achieved through "unity, our action, and our shared sacrifice." Peter Weber
Pitcher Mariano Rivera made history on Tuesday, becoming the first player unanimously voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rivera, who played for the New York Yankees for 19 seasons, received a vote on all 425 ballots cast. Edgar Martinez, Roy Halladay, and Mike Mussina were also elected on Tuesday. In December, the Today's Game Era Committee picked Harold Baines and Lee Smith for induction. They will be honored during a ceremony July 21 in Cooperstown, New York.
With Rivera as a closer, the Yankees won five World Series titles. The 13-time All-Star was also named the MVP of the 1999 World Series. Before Rivera, Ken Griffey Jr. came the closest to being unanimously elected, receiving 99.3 percent of the vote three years ago. This was the first year Halladay, who died in a plane crash in November 2017, was on the ballot. The last player to be elected on the first ballot posthumously was Christy Mathewson in 1936, the Los Angeles Times reports. Catherine Garcia
A former Trump campaign aide told CNN on Tuesday that when he was interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team, investigators asked him about how the National Rifle Association forged a relationship with the campaign.
Sam Nunberg said he was also questioned about President Trump's speech at the NRA's annual meeting in 2015, and how that opportunity came up. Nunberg was interviewed in February 2018, but CNN reports that as recently as a month ago, investigators were asking about ties between the NRA and the campaign.
The NRA spent $30 million to support Trump's candidacy, more than the organization spent on presidential, House, and Senate races combined in 2008 and 2012. People familiar with the matter told CNN that Mueller did not ask Trump about the NRA in the written questions he sent him.
Last month, Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring against the United States, and has acknowledged forming friendships with prominent NRA members in order to gain access to GOP political circles. She said she was working under the direction of Alexander Torshin, a former Russian central banker and lifetime member of the NRA. Catherine Garcia
On Friday, three men and a juvenile were arrested in connection with an alleged plot to attack a predominately Muslim community in upstate New York, police in Greece, New York, announced Tuesday.
Islamberg is home to about 200 people, and was settled by followers of Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarik Gilani. During a press conference, Greece Police Chief Patrick D. Phelan said a 16-year-old at Greece Odyssey Academy showed a classmate a photo during lunch, and said the person looked "like the next school shooter." Police were tipped off, and during an interview with the teen, learned he was allegedly planning on attacking the Islamberg community, along with three men. At that point, "our investigation took us to this plot that we had no idea about," Phelan said.
Police arrested Brian Colaneri, 20, Vincent Vetromile, 19, Andrew Crysel, 18, and the 16-year-old on Friday. They discovered three improvised explosive devices at the juvenile's home, and through search warrants, found 23 legally owned shotguns and rifles. Phelan said the suspects began planning the attack about a month ago, and on Saturday, the adults were each charged with three counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree and one count of conspiracy in the fourth degree. Due to the teenager's age, police did not release any information on his charges. Catherine Garcia
A judge in North Carolina on Tuesday rejected Republican candidate Mark Harris' request to certify the results of the state's disputed 9th congressional district race.
The final tally from the November election has Harris leading Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. The state's election board said it could not certify the results because it is investigating allegations that a man working on behalf of a firm hired by Harris illegally collected absentee ballots. To make things even more complicated, the election board that launched the investigation was ruled unconstitutional and dissolved, The News Observer reports, and the next board won't be created until Jan. 31 or later.
During the hearing, Wake County Superior Court Paul Ridgeway said "this is an extremely unusual situation, with no board in place, and asking this court to step in and exert extraordinary power in declaring the winner of an election, when that is clearly the purview of another branch of government." Harris and McCready did not attend the hearing, but afterwards, a spokesman for McCready said "the most important thing is that people get the answer they deserve," and he believes "both sides agree that it's important that the people of North Carolina have a voice in Washington." Catherine Garcia
In an affidavit filed as part of her divorce proceedings, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said that in July 2016, she was interviewed to be then-candidate Donald Trump's vice president, but turned down his offer because it "wasn't the right thing for me or my family."
Last August, Ernst announced she was divorcing her husband of 26 years, Gail Ernst. Their divorce was finalized this month, and under Iowa law, the court records were automatically made public. In the affidavit, which was submitted in October, Ernst said her former husband was not only verbally and mentally abusive, but also physically assaulted her when she confronted him about his relationship with their daughter's babysitter, The Des Moines Register reports.
Gail Ernst was "very cruel," the senator said, and often belittled her and didn't want to see her succeed. When describing how she turned down the offer to be vice president, she said she "continued to make sacrifices and not soar out of concern for Gail and our family." Ernst is the first woman elected in Iowa to represent the state in Congress, and has said she'll run for a second term in 2020. Catherine Garcia
