The Trump administration is restricting cities from using road safety grants for automated cameras that enforce speed limits or other traffic laws, part of a shift away from safety measures that might slow or otherwise inconvenience car travel.
The letters to city officials went out in December, saying that “for consistency with Administration priorities,” traffic cameras outside of school or work zones will not get approval under the Safe Streets and Roads for All program. The program was created by the 2021 infrastructure law and funds projects aimed at eliminating traffic deaths.
“This Administration will not allow critical safety dollars to subsidize the purchase of speed cameras so governments can pursue unfair revenue schemes,” U.S. Department of Transportation spokesman Nathaniel Sizemore said in a statement.
Proposals to extend sidewalk curbs farther into a roadway are also barred, although the number of exceptions is greater: transit stops, roundabouts, school zones, on-street parking and curb extensions that don’t take away lanes of traffic, according to the letters from the U.S. Department of Transportation. As with other administration grants, the language also says any “equity analysis” is disqualifying.
The cities had been awarded grants but did not yet have a signed agreement with the White House for their implementation. Until that happens, funds can be clawed back. The Trump administration has previously said grants that include “reducing lane capacity for vehicles” with bike lanes or pedestrian infrastructure are “hostile” to cars and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”
Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy has signaled his enthusiasm for driving in various ways. He has tried to stop congestion pricing in New York, has encouraged Americans to take road trips and on Friday announced plans to host an IndyCar street race around the capital in August, saying, “Freedom doesn’t ring, it revs!”
Alex Engel, a spokesman for the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a nonprofit coalition, said the change is an unwarranted restriction on “proven, lifesaving tools,” and that “limiting speed and red-light enforcement to construction and school zones leaves many of the most dangerous city streets unaddressed.”
Research indicates that speed, red-light and stop sign cameras are effective at reducing crashes and fatalities and popular with the public. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls them a “proven safety countermeasure” in a 2023 report and noted that “support appears highest in jurisdictions that have implemented red-light or speed cameras.”
Advocates say merely cutting federal funding is unlikely to slow the growth of camera programs because they generally pay for themselves with fines.
“I don’t see it as a huge barrier, given that that’s not usually where the funding comes from,” said Leah Shahum, who leads a Vision Zero Network that offers support to cities and counties trying to end road deaths. “It’s still consequential for those that have applied, and I would worry a little bit that it may send a message, that in some places it would slow enthusiasm.”
In-person traffic enforcement has collapsed across the country in the past six years, and more communities are turning to cameras to fill the gap. But there are vocal opponents who argue that it isn’t fair to enforce traffic laws without the discretion of a human officer and that cameras are used to fine people for speed limits that are too low.
Last month, Politico reported that the administration suggested stripping funding for the District of Columbia unless the city eliminates its many traffic cameras. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) pushed back, saying doing so “would endanger people in our community” and “mean cuts to everyday services.” Cameras bring in more than $100 million a year through ticket revenue.
Several House Republicans are adamantly opposed to traffic cameras and have pushed for legislation banning them both in D.C. and nationwide. According to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, officials at the Federal Highway Administration have also been gathering information on the city’s bike lanes and whether they took space away from cars and caused congestion.
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
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New York City’s transit system, the largest in the US, is creating a new unit to steer a $12 billion effort to replace decades-old trains and modernize its bus fleet.
Jessie Lazarus, who led the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s shift from the MetroCard to the tap-and-go OMNY fare system, will head the agency’s new Rolling Stock Program. The group, which will include about 10 staff members, will focus on performance-based specifications for manufacturers rather than being overly prescriptive on design, she said.
Given the scale of its procurement needs, the MTA aims to broaden the domestic manufacturing base and boost competition among suppliers, Lazarus said in an interview, describing the agency as “truly the market maker” that must be strategic about capital deployment and rail production capacity.
“This is one of the largest investments in manufacturing that’s happening in America,” Lazarus said. “And we should think about our power to structure policies that can stabilize the supplier base for the benefit of domestic public transit.”
The MTA plans to buy about 1,500 subway cars, more than 500 commuter-rail cars and roughly 2,200 buses under its 2025–2029 capital program. The rolling stock initiative accounts for nearly 20% of the agency’s $65.4 billion capital plan through 2029.
Many of the MTA’s rail cars date back to the 1980s and are nearing the end of their useful life. Older trains break down about six times as often as newer models, according to the agency. Roughly 40% of the bus fleet will also be eligible for replacement in the coming years.
Lazarus joined the MTA in 2023 after working at Carmera Inc., an artificial-intelligence company acquired by Toyota Motor Corp. in 2021. She previously served as New York City’s chief digital officer from 2014 to 2016. Lazarus holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College.
(c) 2026, Bloomberg
Despite repeated assurances by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority would have any role in a technocratic body overseeing Gaza, developments on the ground suggest otherwise, Arutz Sheva reports.
Reporting on i24NEWS, Amichai Stein disclosed that the newly unveiled emblem of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) incorporates the official insignia of the Palestinian Authority, raising questions about the committee’s true affiliations.
Beyond the logo itself, the composition of the 12-member panel further underscores those concerns. The committee, headed by Dr. Ali Shaath, is largely made up of individuals identified with the Fatah movement and the Palestinian Authority, including several who previously held positions within PA government frameworks or public institutions.
The roster includes Sami Nasman, who once served as a senior figure in Palestinian General Intelligence and was later imprisoned by Hamas while in Gaza. Another member is Hanaa’ Al-Tarazi, the sole woman on the committee, a Christian attorney whose professional focus is Islamic law.
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NEW DELHI – The United States and India have finalized a trade agreement, President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday, putting an end to rancorous, months-long negotiations and steadying a relationship that had plummeted to its lowest point in decades.
The agreement calls for Washington to lower its 25 percent tariff on goods imported from India to 18 percent, with India reducing its tariffs on U.S. goods to zero, according to Trump. It is unclear whether the additional 25 percent tariff Trump levied on New Delhi for its purchases of Russian oil in August will remain, though the president wrote that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also agreed to “stop buying Russian Oil.”
“Our amazing relationship with India will be even stronger going forward,” Trump said.
In a post on X, Modi thanked Trump “for this wonderful announcement” and said that “when two large economies and the world’s largest democracies work together, it benefits our people and unlocks immense opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation.”
The long-sought agreement between Washington and New Delhi was reached just days after India signed a sweeping trade deal with the European Union, part of the country’s efforts to diversity its global partnerships amid tensions with the White House.
Trump, in his Truth Social post, said India would also purchase more than $500 billion of U.S. energy, technology, agriculture and coal products.
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
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Top Justice Department officials have stripped Ed Martin of the bulk of his expansive responsibilities, leaving the staunch ally of President Donald Trump on the sidelines of many of the controversial investigations he has championed, according to two people familiar with the personnel move.
As a result of the changes, Martin will no longer chair the department’s Weaponization Working Group, which was tasked with reviewing special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump and other perceived examples of “prosecutorial abuse,” according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move that has not been made public.
Martin will continue to serve as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney but will no longer work at Justice Department headquarters. Instead, his office will be located in another DOJ building in Northeast Washington, pulling him away from the attorney general and the most powerful figures in the department, according to a person familiar with the move. The pardon office is in that Northeast Washington building.
“President Trump appointed Ed Martin as pardon attorney, and Ed continues to do a great job in that role,” a Justice Department spokesperson said.
Martin is a longtime antiabortion activist who helped plan and finance the rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump first named Martin to serve as the U.S. attorney for D.C.
Martin, who had no previous trial or prosecutorial experience, served in that role for 15 weeks on an interim basis, with his tenure marked by his threats to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and firings and demotions of career prosecutors who handled cases involving the president and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump pulled the nomination because Martin did not have enough Senate support and instead gave him a senior Justice Department role, which did not require Senate confirmation.
As leader of the Weaponization Working Group, Martin has played an important role in the largely unsuccessful prosecutions of Trump’s political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI director James B. Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).
In November, The Washington Post reported that federal prosecutors appeared to be questioning a witness in the Schiff mortgage fraud investigation about her contact with Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
The questioning suggested that investigators were looking at whether Martin and Pulte used inappropriate tactics to launch probes of Schiff and others, questioning whether the two Trump officials divulged information about the Schiff investigation to people who were not authorized to be a part of it.
(c) 2026, The Washington Post
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