Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Dozens die in floods in western Europe, others missing

By Wolfgang Rattay and Riham Alkousaa

SCHULD, Germany (Reuters) – At least 33 people have died in Germany and dozens were missing on Thursday as record rainfall in western Europe caused rivers to burst their banks, swept away homes and flooded cellars.

Eighteen people died and dozens were missing around the wine-growing hub of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate state, police said, after the Ahr river that flows into the Rhine rose and brought down half a dozen houses.

Eight people died in the Euskirchen region south of the city of Bonn, authorities said. In Belgium, two men died due to torrential rain and a 15-year-old girl was missing after being swept away by a swollen river.

Hundreds of soldiers were helping police with the rescue efforts, using tanks to clear roads of landslides and fallen trees, while helicopters winched those stranded on rooftops to safety.

The floods have caused Germany’s worst mass loss of life in years. Flooding in 2002 killed 21 people in eastern Germany and over 100 across the wider central European region.

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her dismay.

“I am shocked by the catastrophe that so many people in the flood areas have to endure. My sympathy goes out to the families of the dead and missing.”

Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor at a general election in September and the premier of the hard-hit state of North Rhine Westphalia, rushed to the flooded area and blamed the extreme weather on global warming during a visit to the area.

“We will be faced with such events over and over, and that means we need to speed up climate protection measures, on European, federal and global levels, because climate change isn’t confined to one state,” he said.

Climate and environmental issues are one of the main battlegrounds in the election campaign, in which Laschet is going head-to-head with Social Democrat candidate Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock of the Greens.

One local man fled Ahrweiler after a flood warning was issued at 2 a.m.

“I’ve never experienced a catastrophe where the river burst its banks in such a short space of time,” the 63-year-old man told SWR television.

In Belgium, around 10 houses collapsed in Pepinster after the river Vesdre flooded the eastern town and residents were evacuated from more than 1,000 homes.

The rain also caused severe disruption to public transport, with high-speed Thalys train services to Germany cancelled. Traffic on the river Meuse is also suspended as the major Belgian waterway threatened to breach its banks.

Downstream in the Netherlands, flooding rivers damaged many houses in the southern province of Limburg, where several care homes were evacuated.

In addition to the eight who died in the Euskirchen region, another seven people, including two firefighters, died elsewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia, several of them in flooded cellars.

In the town of Schuld, houses were reduced to piles of debris and broken beams. Roads were blocked by wreckage and fallen trees as flood waters receded on Thursday morning.

‘CATASTROPHE’

“It’s a catastrophe. There are dead, missing and many people still in danger. All of our emergency services are in action round the clock and risking their own lives,” said Malu Dreyer, premier of the Rhineland-Palatinate.

Further down the Rhine river, the heaviest rainfall ever measured over 24 hours caused flooding in cities including Cologne and Hagen, while in Leverkusen 400 people had to be evacuated from a hospital.

In Wuppertal, known for its overhead railway, locals said their cellars had been flooded and power cut off. “I can’t even guess at how much the damage will be,” said Karl-Heinz Sammann, owner of the Kitchen Club discotheque.

Weather experts said that rain in the region over the past 24 hours had been unprecedented, as a near-stationary low-pressure weather system also caused sustained local downpours to the west in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Rainwater draining into the Rhine, where shipping traffic was partly suspended, was expected to test flood defenses along the river, including in Cologne, on the lower Rhine, and Koblenz, where the Rhine and Moselle merge.

More heavy rain was due in southwestern Germany, on the upper reaches of the German Rhine, later on Thursday and Friday, the German Weather Service said.

(Additional reporting by Matthias Inverardi, Bart Meijer in Amsterdam and Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels; Writing by Emma Thomasson and Douglas Busvine; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Raissa Kasolowsky and Alison Williams)

‘If you don’t leave, you’re dead:’ Oregon wildfire forces hundreds from homes

By Deborah Bloom and Sergio Olmos

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (Reuters) – A growing wildfire in a bone-dry Oregon forest had forced hundreds of people from their homes by Wednesday as it charred more than 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares) and showed no signs of slowing, officials said.

The so-called Bootleg Fire, which has spread through the Fremont-Winema National Forest about 250 miles (400 km) south of Portland since July 6, has destroyed 21 homes and threatened 1,926 more, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland.

By Wednesday morning, the fire had left a thick haze over nearby Klamath Falls, where the local fairgrounds were turned into a Red Cross evacuation center.

Tim McCarley, one of the evacuees, told Reuters earlier this week that sheriff’s deputies and state troopers showed up at his home just as “sparks and embers were coming down” and told his family “if you don’t leave, you’re dead.”

“This is my first wildfire and I’m going to tell you, it is scary,” another evacuated resident, Sarah Kose, added this week. “You don’t know if you’re going to be the one that loses your house, or you sit there and you watch your neighbor lose their house, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The Bootleg Fire is the biggest of several wildfires scorching parts of Western states, where a drought and a recent record-setting heat wave have left brush and timber highly flammable.

So far, it has burned more than 212,000 acres (330 square miles), including about 50,000 acres (20,230 hectares) on Monday alone, and crews have managed to put containment lines around only 5% of it.

In all, 60 large fires have consumed more than 1 million acres (404,680 hectares) across 12 states this season, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, a firefighting group combining eight federal agencies.

Last year, numerous late summer wildfires, fueled by gusty winds and hot, dry terrain, killed more than three dozen people and charred more than 10.2 million acres (4.1 million hectares) in California, Oregon and Washington.

Earlier in the week, flames burning along a high-voltage power corridor connecting Oregon’s electricity grid with California’s affected power supplies, prompting the agency that manages California’s power grid to issue temporary conservation alerts. But as the worst of the heat wave abated, the alerts were withdrawn.

(Reporting by Sergio Olmos in Portland, Oregon and Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Deborah Bloom and Mathieu Louis-Rolland in Klamath County, Oregon; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

One dead, hundreds evacuated in German freak floods

BERLIN (Reuters) – A fireman drowned and the army was deployed to help stranded residents on Wednesday after heavy rain triggered once-in-25-year floods in parts of western Germany, disrupting rail, road and river transport in Germany’s most populous region.

The German Weather Service issued an extreme weather warning for parts of three western states, while Hagen, a city of 180,000, declared a state of emergency after the Volme river burst its banks.

With Germans voting in September to choose a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, the extreme weather could heighten awareness of global warming, a topic with which the Greens, running second to Merkel’s conservatives, have so far failed to dominate the agenda.

The city’s crisis team warned that water would reach levels seen not more than four times a century in coming hours and warned everyone who lived near the town’s rivers to move to higher ground immediately, public broadcaster WDR reported.

“We see this kind of situation only in winter ordinarily,” Bernd Mehlig, an environment official from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most affected region, told WDR. “Something like this, with this intensity, is completely unusual in summer.”

Parts of Hagen were described as being isolated by high waters and all but inaccessible. Soldiers had to be sent to clear some areas of the city. Residents were also told to leave one district of regional capital Duesseldorf, a major business center.

One old people’s home in Hagen had to be evacuated, while across the region firemen were busy pumping out hundreds of cellars. In one hospital, floodwaters caused lifts to fail.

The fireman died when he lost his footing in floodwaters and was swept away, authorities told WDR. Two men, aged 53 and 81, were missing elsewhere in the region.

Armin Laschet, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and the conservatives’ candidate to succeed Merkel, was due to visit the region on Thursday.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Protests in France against COVID-19 ‘health pass’ rules

PARIS (Reuters) -Police in Paris clashed with protesters railing against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to require a COVID-19 vaccine certificate or negative PCR test to gain entry to bars, restaurants and cinemas from next month.

Macron this week announced sweeping measures to fight a rapid surge in new coronavirus infections, including the mandatory vaccination of health workers and new health pass rules for the wider public.

In doing so, he went further than most other European nations have done as the highly contagious Delta variant fans a new wave of cases, and other governments are watching carefully to see how the French public responds.

The police fired tear gas on several occasions as pockets of protesters overturned garbage cans and set a mechanical digger alight. Some protesters away from the skirmishes wore badges saying “No to the health pass”.

Some critics of Macron’s plan – which will require shopping malls, cafes, bars and restaurants to check the health passes of all patrons from August – accuse the president of trampling on freedoms and discriminating against those who do not want the COVID shot.

“It’s totally arbitrary and wholly undemocratic,” said one protester who identified himself as Jean-Louis.

Macron says the vaccine is the best way to put France back on the path to normalcy and that he is encouraging as many people as possible to get inoculated.

There were protests in other cities including Nantes, Marseille and Montpellier.

The show of discontent took place on Bastille Day, the anniversary of the 1789 storming of a medieval fortress in Paris which marked the turning point in the French Revolution.

Among other proposals in the government’s draft bill is the mandatory isolation for 10 days of anyone who tests positive, with police making random checks, French media reported. The prime minister’s office did not respond when asked to confirm the detail.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe and Gonzalo Fuentes; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sandra Maler)

Fed’s Powell keeps to script on jobs recovery, feels heat on inflation front

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday pledged “powerful support” to complete the U.S. economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, but faced sharp questions from Republican lawmakers concerned about recent spikes in inflation.

In testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, Powell said he is confident recent price hikes are associated with the country’s post-pandemic reopening and will fade, and that the Fed should stay focused on getting as many people back to work as possible.

Any move to reduce support for the economy, by first slowing the U.S. central bank’s $120 billion in monthly bond purchases, is “still a ways off,” Powell said, with millions of people who were working before the crisis still to be pulled back into the labor force.

“The high inflation readings are for a small group of goods and services directly tied to the reopening,” Powell testified, language that indicated he saw no need to rush the shift towards post-pandemic policy.

Representative Ann Wagner, a Republican from Missouri, challenged that conclusion, relaying what’s likely to be a refrain from lawmakers as long as inflation continues to rise: their constituents are getting worried.

At a prior hearing in February “you reiterated that price spikes were temporary. I can tell you that the families and businesses I represent are not feeling that these price spikes are temporary,” Wagner said.

“The incoming data have been higher than expected and hoped for but are still consistent” with a temporary bout of higher prices, Powell responded.

“It is housing, appliances, food prices, gas,” Wagner retorted, a sign of what could become growing political pressure on the Fed to get tougher on inflation if the spikes in prices continue.

Representative Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican from Ohio, took aim at a new Fed framework that aims to encourage higher employment by letting inflation run “moderately” above the central bank’s 2% target “for some time”

“How long is ‘some time’?” Gonzalez asked, arguing that the Fed’s current policies may be doing little to encourage employment at a time when employers are already posting record numbers of jobs.

“It depends,” Powell said, demonstrating the dilemma he faces if prices continue rising. “Right now inflation is well above 2%. … The question for the (Federal Open Market) Committee will be where does this leave us in six months.”

U.S. Treasury yields fell after the release of Powell’s prepared testimony earlier on Wednesday and remained lower even though prices of factory inputs rose at a higher-than-expected pace in June, an indication markets construed his comments as a sign the monetary taps will stay open.

Powell’s remarks were notable as well for excluding any mention of risks to the recovery from the coronavirus Delta variant, with the Fed chief saying the central bank expects strong upcoming job gains “as public health conditions continue to improve.”

The Fed’s June meeting saw officials begin a move towards post-pandemic policy, with some of them poised to tighten financial conditions sooner to ensure inflation remains contained. Renewed coronavirus-related risks, if they materialize, could push the Fed in the other direction of keeping support for the recovery in place longer in case household and business spending wane amid a rise in new infections.

Falling Treasury bond yields have indicated concern among investors about slowing U.S. economic growth, even as new data on prices this week showed consumers paying appreciably more for an array of goods and services, including appliances, fabric, beef and rent.

In a report to Congress last week, the Fed said that as the “extraordinary circumstances” of the reopening subside, “supply and demand should become better aligned, and inflation is widely expected to move down.”

RISING DELTA

While each month of high inflation makes it harder to stick to that conviction, Powell for now is keeping to the Fed’s core narrative of a job market that still needs massive help from the central bank to restore it to its pre-pandemic health and minimize the long-term damage from a historic, virus-driven calamity.

The Fed has said it will not reduce its bond-buying program absent “substantial further progress” in regaining the roughly 7.5 million jobs still missing since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, a threshold policymakers feel will likely be met later this year.

That hinges, however, on continued reopening of the economy, recovery in the travel, leisure and other “social” industries devastated by the health crisis, and the willingness of currently unemployed or homebound individuals to fill the record number of jobs on offer.

When Powell last spoke about the economy at a news briefing after the end of the June 15-16 policy meeting, new daily coronavirus infections were falling toward recent lows, and the Fed dropped language from its policy statement that the pandemic “continues to weigh on the economy.”

Since then the Delta variant has pushed the seven-day moving average of cases from 11,000 to above 21,000, and health officials are concerned about the spread of the variant in parts of the country where vaccination rates are low. The numbers are more ominous globally.

Powell is scheduled to appear before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Thursday.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns, Andrea Ricci and Paul Simao)

Turkey and Israel want to improve ties after presidents’ call – Turkish ruling party

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey and Israel have agreed to work towards improving their strained relations after a rare phone call between their presidents, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AK Party said on Wednesday.

The two countries expelled ambassadors in 2018 after a bitter falling-out. Ankara has condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians, while Israel has called on Turkey to drop support for the militant Palestinian group Hamas which rules Gaza.

Both sides say the other must move first for any rapprochement.

President Tayyip Erdogan called Israel’s new president, Isaac Herzog, on Monday to congratulate him on taking office. Israel’s presidency is a largely ceremonial office.

“A framework emerged after this call under which advances should be made on several issues where improvements can be made, and where steps towards solving problematic areas should be taken,” spokesman Omer Celik said after an AK Party meeting.

Celik singled out the Palestinians as one of many issues Turkey wants to discuss with Israel, adding that areas such as tourism and trade should be a “win-win” for both nations. Bilateral trade has remained strong amid the political disputes.

During the call, which came a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited Ankara, Erdogan told Herzog he valued maintaining dialogue and said Turkish-Israeli relations were key for regional stability.

Erdogan also reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding “positive steps” would also help Turkey’s ties with Israel, his office said.

In May, Erdogan called Israel a “terror state” after Israeli police shot rubber bullets and stun grenades towards Palestinian youths at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque.

Israel accuses Turkey of aiding members of Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and its Western allies.

Turkey has also recently been trying to repair its frayed ties with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Monday’s call came a month after Naftali Bennett became Israeli prime minister, replacing Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Erdogan had frequently traded barbs.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Daren Butler; Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. to start evacuating some under-threat Afghan visa applicants

By Jonathan Landay and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States this month will begin evacuating from Afghanistan special immigration visa applicants whose lives are at risk because they worked for the U.S. government as translators and in other roles, the White House said on Wednesday.

The evacuation, dubbed Operation Allies Refuge, is set to start during the last week of July, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. Fighting between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and the Taliban has surged in recent weeks, with the militants gaining territory and capturing border crossings.

“The reason that we are taking these steps is because these are courageous individuals. We want to make sure we recognize and value the role they’ve played over the last several years,” Psaki said.

President Joe Biden has set a formal end to the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan for Aug. 31. The U.S. general leading the mission, Austin Miller, relinquished command at a ceremony on Monday, a symbolic end to America’s longest war.

Psaki said she could not provide specifics on the numbers of Afghans who will be in the initial evacuation flights “for operational and security reasons.”

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initial evacuation will include about 2,500 people and that they likely will be housed in U.S. military facilities while their visa applications are processed. A final decision has not been made on the specific bases to be used, the official said.

The Special Immigrant Visa program is available to people who worked with the U.S. government or the American-led military force during the Afghanistan war that began in 2001. A similar program was available for Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government in that country after the 2003 American-led invasion, but no applications were accepted after September 2014.

The news of the new Afghanistan operation was first reported by Reuters.

The Biden administration has been under pressure from lawmakers of both U.S. political parties and advocacy groups to begin evacuating thousands of special immigration visa applicants – and their families – who risk retaliation because they worked for the U.S. government.

That concern has been increased by the Taliban’s rapid territorial gains and deadlocked peace talks.

Psaki said the objective is to get “individuals who are eligible relocated out of the country” in advance of the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of August.

It is expected that the initial evacuation will be carried out by civilian chartered aircraft and will include Afghans who are waiting for their Special Immigrant Visa applications to be processed, according to sources familiar with the issue.

James Miervaldis, chairman of a group called No One Left Behind that has been pressing for the evacuation of U.S.-affiliated Afghans, called the start of the evacuation operation “a very positive development.”

Miervaldis said the move is still not enough as there are potentially tens of thousands of Afghans who may want to leave the country while they await their visa process.

A State Department unit coordinating the evacuations will be run by veteran ambassador Tracey Jacobson and include representatives from the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, Psaki said.

White House Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Russ Travers will coordinate an interagency policy process related to the evacuations.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Idrees Ali, Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Will Dunham and Howard Goller)

Over 10,000 species risk extinction in Amazon, says landmark report

By Stephen Eisenhammer and Oliver Griffin

SAO PAULO/BOGOTA (Reuters) – More than 10,000 species of plants and animals are at high risk of extinction due to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest – 35% of which has already been deforested or degraded, according to the draft of a landmark scientific report published on Wednesday.

Produced by the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), the report brings together research on the world’s largest rainforest from 200 scientists from across the globe. It is the most detailed assessment of the state of the forest to date and both makes clear the vital role the Amazon plays in global climate and the profound risks it is facing.

Cutting deforestation and forest degradation to zero in less than a decade “is critical,” the report said, also calling for massive restoration of already destroyed areas.

The rainforest is a vital bulwark against climate change both for the carbon it absorbs and what it stores.

According to the report, the soil and vegetation of the Amazon hold about 200 billion tonnes of carbon, more than five times the whole world’s annual CO2 emissions.

Furthermore the continued destruction caused by human interference in the Amazon puts more than 8,000 endemic plants and 2,300 animals at high risk of extinction, the report added.

Science shows humans face potentially irreversible and catastrophic risks due to multiple crises, including climate change and biodiversity decline, said University of Brasilia professor Mercedes Bustamante in a statement published by the SPA.

“There is a narrow window of opportunity to change this trajectory,” Bustamante said. “The fate of Amazon is central to the solution to the global crises.”

In Brazil, deforestation has surged since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, reaching a 12-year high last year and drawing international outcry from foreign governments and the public.

Bolsonaro has called for mining and agriculture in protected areas of the Amazon and has weakened environmental enforcement agencies, which environmentalists and scientists say has directly resulted in the rising destruction.

Neighboring Colombia a week ago reported that deforestation rose 8% in 2020 versus the previous year to 171,685 hectares (424,000 acres), with nearly 64% of the destruction taking place in the country’s Amazon region.

Of its original size, 18% of the Amazon basin has already been deforested, according to the report – mostly for agriculture and illegal timber. Another 17% has been degraded.

The destruction may threaten the very ability of the rainforest to function as a carbon sink, with potentially devastating results for the global climate change.

A separate study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday showed that some parts of the Amazon are emitting more carbon than they absorb, based on measurements of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide taken from above the rainforest between 2010 and 2018.

Lead author Luciana Gatti, a scientist at Brazil’s Inpe space research agency, suggests the increased carbon emissions in southeastern Amazonia – where deforestation is fierce – is not only the result of fires and direct destruction, but also due to rising tree mortality as severe drought and higher temperatures become more common.

(Additional reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by Sandra Maler)

U.S. Senate Democrats roll out draft bill to legalize weed

By Arathy S Nair and Shariq Khan

(Reuters) -Three top U.S. Democratic senators on Wednesday unveiled a discussion draft of a bill that aims to legalize cannabis, a move that would allow adult Americans to buy and possess up to 10 ounces of marijuana without facing criminal penalties.

The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act floated by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Finance Chairman Ron Wyden and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, would expunge federal non-violent marijuana crimes, further medical research and allow cannabis companies access to essential financial services.

While adult use of cannabis is legal in 18 states, and allowed medically in 37 states, it remains illegal under U.S. federal law, deterring banks and others from dealing with companies that sell marijuana or related products.

The draft set the minimum age required to buy cannabis at 21 and limited retail sales transactions at the state level to 10 ounces of cannabis at a time or the equivalent amount of any cannabis derivative.

The draft also states that a new definition of cannabis would be established and proposes moving cannabis oversight to the Food and Drug Administration and regulators that overlook alcohol and tobacco, away from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

States will control the possession, production, or distribution of cannabis, the draft says, while shipping marijuana into states that have not legalized it will be prohibited. However, such states can not stop shipments going to other legalized regions through their borders.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said “This new bill puts the cart before the horse.” He added that marijuana use needs more research.

A final legislative draft will be introduced later and feedback on the discussion draft can be provided until Sept. 1.

To become a law, the measure will have to pass both the Democratic-controlled Senate and House of Representatives and be signed by President Joe Biden.

“It is hard to see how this can pass, but nonetheless it is positive to see progress and momentum,” said Greg Hayman, founder of cannabis investment firm Beehouse partners.

A major cannabis banking reform bill that was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in April has failed to make any progress in the Senate.

“Our main concern over this current legislation (Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act) is around the ability to get it passed in the Senate,” private equity firm Poseidon Managing Director Michael Boniello said, adding it may hinder other federal cannabis reforms, including the banking act, from being passed in 2021.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Bernard Orr)

Commission proposes $117 billion to remake U.S. train corridor, cut travel times

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. government commission on Wednesday proposed a $117 billion plan to remake the Northeast Corridor – the Boston-to-Washington train route that is the nation’s busiest – by 2035, potentially cutting travel times and boosting capacity.

The route, which runs through major Northeastern cities including New York and Philadelphia, carried about 800,000 passengers a day before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Northeast Corridor Commission said in a statement.

Advocates argue the plan can help take more private cars off clogged American roads and eliminate some airplane trips, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

The commission – comprised of state, federal and Amtrak national passenger rail officials – said it had only identified $17 billion of the funding needed. It said the $100 billion in unmet costs would be shared between the federal government and states the route runs through.

The panel, created by Congress, said Northeastern state governments, the federal government, eight commuter rail agencies, and Amtrak worked “to develop a detailed and efficient sequencing of infrastructure investments covering 150 projects.”

The improvements would include repairs or upgrades to rail track, tunnels, bridges and stations and allow for a big jump in train service.

Much of the infrastructure along the heavily used corridor is aging and needs replacement. The crucial 111-year-old Hudson Tunnel, also known as the North River Tunnel, connecting New York and New Jersey, was damaged in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy.

By 2035, the proposed work would cut nearly half an hour from an average trip of nearly three hours on high-speed Acela trains from Washington to New York and from a little over 3-1/2 hours from New York to Boston. Amtrak also runs slower Northeast Regional trains along the corridor with lower-cost tickets.

The upgrades along the 457-mile (735-km) Northeast Corridor would allow trains to travel at 160 miles per hour (258 km) on 132 miles, up from the current 32 route miles (52 km) that can travel at 150 mph (240 kph).

The plan “supports new travel patterns as our economy returns to full strength,” said Amit Bose, deputy administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration and commission co-chair.

President Joe Biden – once dubbed “Amtrak Joe” for his custom of commuting from his home state of Delaware to Washington by train – has called for $80 billion in new spending on high-speed rail projects across the United States.

A bipartisan infrastructure deal being considered by Congress calls for $66 billion for passenger and freight rail to repair and expand existing rail networks, including the corridor.

Amtrak in April asked for $31 billion from Congress over five years to overhaul the Northeast Corridor.

Amtrak wants to expand across the country and by 2035 add as many as 39 new corridor routes and 166 cities.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)