CBP Launches $46MM Rail Scanner Replacement Initiative
May 13, 2021
CBP Launches $46MM Rail Scanner Replacement Initiative Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
“Non-intrusive inspection technology is a force multiplier that allows CBP officers to safely and more efficiently process U.S.-bound cargo,” said William A. Ferrara, Executive Assistant Commissioner of the CBP Office of Field Operations.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will install new rail-cargo scanning systems at 12 rail ports of entry on the U.S. southern and northern land borders.
The $46 million initiative is slated to replace aging equipment with scanners that use “linear accelerators to generate X-rays from electricity rather than radioactive isotopes, producing high-quality images that support faster and more secure cargo inspections,” CBP said.
North Country Public Radio Passenger train service between New York City and Vermont is slated to resume later this summer, but North Country residents will have to wait. Amtrak announced that its Ethan Allen Express line between New York City and Rutland, Vermont, will resume service starting July 19. The line was shuttered at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with Amtrak’s Adirondack line between New York and Montreal. All trains heading north from New York City currently stop at Albany, leaving North Country stations from Glens Falls to Rouses Point without passenger service. Gary Prophet with the transit advocacy group Empire State Passenger Association applauded the planned return of daily service to Vermont but cautioned that rail service to the Adirondacks likely will not resume until the border between the U.S. and Canada reopens.
The Vermonter Amtrak train arriving in St. Albans, Vermont in 2009. Photo: Leonora Enking, Creative Commons, some rights reserved
May 04, 2021
Passenger train service between New York City and Vermont is slated to resume later this summer, but North Country residents will have to wait.
Amtrak announced that its Ethan Allen Express line between New York City and Rutland, Vermont will resume service starting July 19th.
The line was shuttered at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with Amtrak s Adirondack line between New York and Montreal.
All trains heading north from New York City currently stop at Albany, leaving North Country stations from Glens Falls to Rouses Point without passenger service.
Hayford Road. (photo: Garret K. Woodward)
Coming to a stop at the end of the off-ramp of Exit 40 along Interstate 87 last Saturday evening, I turned right and headed down the Spellman Road. Entering the small hamlet of Beekmantown, New York, it’s a few miles from the off-ramp to my parents’ farmhouse.
The road is lonely and desolate, more so at night when you’re the only vehicle rolling through the endless cornfields of rural Clinton County. With 104.7 FM on the dial, a faint signal from the Vermont station was picked up by the pickup truck. Lana Del Rey’s “Mariners Apartment Complex” echoed out the speakers, my foot steady on the gas. I wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere. Who is anymore, eh?
Apr 22, 2021
Amy Feiereisel2.3 billion: how the historic NY-2022 budget expands and changes child care
How much and for what?
Cathy Brodeur says the first thing to understand about New York’s 2022 child care budget is that it s a lot of money. Brodeur directs the Jefferson-Lewis Child Care Project.
“It could really change the whole way that child care is done, it could change the child care system going forward.”
At $2.3 billion dollars, it’s three times the size of the typical budget, which has clocked in around $830 million for the last few years. It s badly needed. Advocates say the child care sector has been teetering on the edge of collapse this past year, and a lot of these funds will help to simply stabilize the sector.