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Mamdani’s Wall Street courtship sparks criticism of anti-billionaire agenda

May 22, 2026 6:00am EDT / Fox News

Business leaders grow uneasy with the socialist mayor’s calls for higher taxes on the wealthy

By Amanda Macias, Fox News

Manhattan Institute expert Adam Lehodey says NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s outreach to Wall Street leaders signals a recognition that New York cannot fund progressive priorities without keeping businesses and wealthy investors in the city.

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Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is courting powerful Wall Street leaders after months of attacking wealthy New Yorkers and pushing for higher taxes on corporations.

Given New York City’s outsized role in U.S. banking, investing and corporate headquarters, business leaders warn financial instability in the Big Apple could reverberate nationwide.

Mamdani’s meetings this week with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon underscored growing concerns that the mayor’s push to tax wealthy individuals and businesses could clash with the financial sector that underpins the city’s economy.

And critics tell Fox News Digital that they view the sit-downs as part of a growing contradiction at the center of his economic agenda in the world’s largest business and finance hub.

BLUE-STATE TAX BURDEN FUELS AMERICANS FLEEING TO REPUBLICAN-LED SOUTHERN STATES

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, met with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in May as the mayor seeks to reassure business leaders amid debate over his proposed tax policies.(Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for America Business Forum)

“The Mamdani administration has come to recognize that so much of their agenda depends on having successful businesses and wealth creators in the city,” Manhattan Institute economic policy expert Adam Lehodey told Fox News Digital.

“Simply alienating them isn’t going to solve any of New York’s problems,” he added.

Lehodey argued the city cannot fund progressive priorities like free childcare and subsidized housing without strong tax revenue and a healthy private sector. He warns that a “tax-the-rich strategy” could worsen the city’s economic challenges because it might discourage investment in New York.

“It’s a good thing that he’s meeting with them, but now he needs to follow up and deliver something substantive,” Lehodey said. “The current tax-the-rich strategy is only going to worsen the problems unless he follows up and says, ‘Let’s look at what we can do to make it easier to invest in New York State and New York City.’”

Mamdani’s outreach has also extended beyond major banking executives.

The socialist mayor recently reached out to Citadel founder Ken Griffin after previously criticizing the billionaire hedge fund manager over his Manhattan penthouse and personal wealth. Mamdani stood outside Griffin’s multimillion-dollar property in the city to tout his proposal for higher taxes on second homes in NYC worth more than $5 million.

CHICAGO KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN KEN GRIFFIN TURNS ON A CITY, NOW MAMDANI MAY FIND OUT

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6393868767112

Citadel told FOX Business that Griffin “welcomes thoughtful, serious conversations about the policies that can grow the city’s economy and create more opportunity for all New Yorkers,” while cautioning that “reckless political theater serves no purpose.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos supported Griffin when on Wednesday he criticized Mamdani’s rhetoric toward wealthy business leaders. The world’s fourth-richest person accused politicians of using an “age-old technique” of “picking a villain and pointing fingers.”

FROM FREE BUSES TO CITY-OWNED GROCERY STORES, HERE ARE MAMDANI’S KEY ECONOMIC PROMISES

“It isn’t right… to stand in front of Ken Griffin’s house and act like he is some kind of villain,” Bezos told CNBC. “Ken Griffin isn’t a villain, he hasn’t hurt anybody, he’s not hurting New York, in fact quite the opposite.”

While Bezos said debates over raising taxes on top earners are legitimate, he criticized what he described as the “vilification” of wealthy Americans and argued that overspending — not insufficient tax revenue — is the root of the nation’s fiscal problems.

The tensions underscore the difficult balancing act facing the mayor of the nation’s financial capital: Wall Street and high-income taxpayers generate a major share of New York City’s tax revenue, even as progressive activists push for a more aggressive redistribution of wealth.

The Citadel founder is clashing with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over taxes targeting the ultra-wealthy and intensifying crime, reviving the same tensions that drove him to pull his business and billions out of Chicago.(Spencer Platt/Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Nicole Huyer, a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, characterized the meetings with Dimon and Solomon as an effort to repair strained ties with New York’s business community after Mamdani’s “tax the rich” campaign rhetoric.

She cautioned that policies perceived as hostile to corporations and wealthy taxpayers could accelerate corporate and capital flight from New York, pointing to Griffin’s relocation to Florida as one example.

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“Jamie Dimon and David Solomon lead two of the nation’s most influential financial institutions and have enormous influence over the financial sector and labor market,” Huyer told Fox News Digital. “If policies drive major firms or wealthy taxpayers out of New York City, the impact on tax revenue, jobs and broader economic activity could be significant.”

Huyer added that “pitching class warfare and then pivoting to court Wall Street executives risks appearing politically performative.”

Amanda covers the intersection of business and politics for Fox News Digital.

CBS News Radio signs off Friday night after nearly 100 years of broadcasting: “An American institution”

May 22, 2026 / 5:00 AM EDT / CBS News

By Aliza Chasan Digital Content Producer
Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for “60 Minutes” and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

Read Full Bio

CBS News Radio, which provides news programming to an estimated 700 stations spanning the United States, will sign off the air Friday night after nearly a century of broadcasting.

The storied service, launched in September 1927, was home to broadcast legends Edward R. Murrow, Robert Trout, Douglas Edwards, Charles Osgood, Dan Rather and many other familiar and trusted voices over its decades in operation.

“It’s been around for a long time. Really, an American institution is what we’re losing here,” said Steve Kathan, the longtime anchor of the CBS World News Roundup.

“CBS Radio should be remembered for becoming a national institution very important to the development of news other than newspapers,” Rather recently told “CBS Sunday Morning.” “It, for many, many years, was a part, and I would argue not a small part, of what held the country together.”

The decision to shutter the radio news service was announced in March, with the company citing “challenging economic realities.”

In a statement at the time, CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss paid tribute to the historic role of CBS News Radio in covering major events worldwide since the dawn of the broadcasting era.

“For nearly 100 years, CBS News Radio has delivered original reporting to the nation — from Edward R. Murrow’s World War II reports in London to today’s daily White House updates,” they said. “Our signature broadcast, ‘World News Roundup,’ remains the longest-running newscast in the country. CBS News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927.”

CBS News Radio first hit the airwaves just seven years after what’s been widely recognized as the first commercial radio broadcast.

The first broadcast of baseball’s World Series could be heard on CBS News Radio in 1938, and in 1939 it aired an interview with Babe Ruth.

CBS News Radio brought millions of Americans coverage of major events including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the D-Day invasion, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the New York City blackout of 1977, the Gulf War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Murrow’s voice was first heard on air in 1938. As “CBS Sunday Morning” recently recounted, he was in Europe to recruit voices for radio, but after observing how dangerous Hitler was, he sent back a broadcast.

“This is Edward Murrow speaking from Vienna. It’s now nearly 2:30 in the morning, and Herr Hitler has not yet arrived. No one seems to know just when he will get here. But most people expect him sometime after 10 o’clock tomorrow morning,” Murrow said in that report.

He later provided rooftop reports in London during the Blitz and from the Buchenwald concentration camp after the Germans had fled.

“I’m not searching for adjectives to make this sound dramatic,” he said in one wartime report. “I’m just telling you what I’ve seen.”

The legendary broadcaster was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988.

CBS program host and correspondent Allison Keyes covered the news from Lower Manhattan on 9/11.

“People needed to know what was going on that day,” Keyes said, “in real time, no filter, no politics. Here’s what’s happening.”

As the final days of CBS News Radio approached, she and her coleagues reflected on its legacy.

“It leaves a huge gap in the field of news,” Keys said. “I want the listeners to know how proud and honored I am to have worked for this amazing place, with these amazing people.”

不愿削弱对华竞争优势 特朗普暂缓签署国内AI行政令

2026年5月22日 17:33 / 联合早报

2025年7月23日，美国总统特朗普在华盛顿举行的“赢得人工智能竞赛”（Winning the AI Race）峰会上发表讲话。 （路透社）

美国总统特朗普称，他不喜欢一项有关人工智能行政命令中的某些内容，且不希望采取任何可能削弱美国在与中国竞争中优势的措施，因此决定暂缓签署这项行政命令。

特朗普原计划于当地时间星期四（5月22日）下午，在一场有多家AI公司首席执行官出席的仪式上签署这项命令。

路透社报道，包括《华盛顿邮报》在内的多家美国媒体称，美国政府是在世界首富马斯克、Meta创始人兼总裁扎克伯格及特朗普前AI顾问萨克斯（David Sacks）施压后，相关计划才被搁置。

不过马斯克在社媒平台X平台回应时说：“这是假的。”他还说：“我至今仍不知道那份行政命令里写了什么，而且总统是在决定不签署（行政令）后才与我交谈的。”

报道称，特朗普在白宫对媒体说，他认为这项行政令会造成阻碍。“我们领先中国，也领先所有人，我不想做任何可能妨碍这种优势的事情。”

延伸阅读
北京证实中美元首同意就人工智能开展政府间对话

两名消息人士星期三（20日）向路透社透露，这项行政令原拟建立一套自愿性框架，要求AI开发商在向公众发布先进AI模型之前，先与美国政府沟通。

特朗普并未说明他反对行政令中的哪些具体内容。

科技行业人士担忧，如果相关条例拖慢新模型推出速度，或迫使AI企业为了回应安全顾虑而调整模型表现，可能损害行业利润。

Exclusive: Trump officials tried to ban half of U.S. voting machines, citing conspiracy theories

2026-05-22T10:03:22.622Z / Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s election-security czar last year sought to ban voting machines used in more than half of U.S. states by asking whether the Commerce Department could declare their components national-security risks, according to two ​people with direct knowledge of the matter.

White House adviser Kurt Olsen, a lawyer Trump has tasked with proving widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories, pushed the plan to target Dominion Voting Systems machines. The idea emerged, the sources said, as Olsen and other ‌officials brainstormed about how the federal government could take control over elections from U.S. states, an idea publicly aired by Trump.

Olsen wanted a national system of hand-counted paper ballots, the sources said, a frequent Trump demand some election-security experts say would be less accurate and potentially riskier than the current system of machines with auditable paper trails that almost all cities and states use.

The plan to exclude the machines, reported here first, got far enough that in September, Commerce Department officials began exploring what grounds could be invoked to execute it, three additional sources said. It eventually collapsed, however, because Olsen and other administration staffers working with him failed to provide evidence to justify such a move, two ​of the sources said.

The episode is part of a far-reaching Trump administration push to encroach on state and local governments’ authority to run elections – which is granted to them in the U.S. Constitution to prevent the executive branch from seizing power. Olsen is working with the ​nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement agencies to chase voting-rigging claims.

A Reuters investigation earlier this month found administration officials and investigators in at least eight states have sought confidential records, pressed for access to voting equipment ⁠and re-examined voter-fraud cases that courts and bipartisan reviews have rejected. Trump and Republican allies are also pursuing unprecedented plans to redraw election districts earlier than usual to secure advantages in the November midterm congressional elections.

Olsen, who Democratic senators are seeking to remove from his post, aimed to invalidate Dominion ​voting machines before the midterms, the two sources said.

Others involved in the deliberations included Paul McNamara, a senior aide of Trump’s spy chief Tulsi Gabbard, and Brian Sikma, a special assistant to Trump who works on his Domestic Policy Council, according to one of the two sources with direct knowledge ​of the matter. Olsen has worked closely with Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Early last summer, McNamara asked officials in the Commerce Department to consider the potential designation of Dominion chips and software as a national security risk, the two sources said.

At the time, McNamara headed an ODNI task force that worked with officials across the administration to investigate vulnerabilities in the nation’s voting machines. The two sources said McNamara spoke about the issue to senior officials at the U.S. Commerce Department, which is run by Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Reuters could not determine whether Lutnick was involved in or aware of those discussions.

A Commerce Department spokesperson said Lutnick never met or discussed election-integrity ​issues with McNamara and did not “engage in the topic at all.” The spokesperson declined to comment on whether Lutnick’s office or other officials were involved.

Olsen, McNamara and Sikma did not respond to requests for interviews.

WORRIES ABOUT MORE ELECTION CHAOS

Democrats and election-integrity experts worry that, with Republicans expected to suffer ​losses in the midterms, the administration aims to suppress voting and pave the way to challenge losses with more baseless claims of election fraud.

More than 98% of U.S. election jurisdictions already produce a paper record for every vote, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission said last year. Those votes are mostly cast on machines that ‌print a paper record, ⁠or hand-marked but counted by electronic readers. Election-security experts broadly support the current combination of technology and paper ballots, which provides a voter-verified trail for post-election audits.

Proponents of hand-marked, hand-counted ballots argue they eliminate hacking concerns. But they pose different risks, said Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer-science professor, including counting mistakes and ballot-box stuffing.

“Changing to hand counting would be chaotic,” he said, “and it might facilitate cheating.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle characterized the reporting for this story as selectively leaked and called it misinformation.

Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s agency, said the story contained “inaccuracies and false descriptions” of the agency’s work on election security, without elaborating.

SCOURING VOTING MACHINES FOR TRACES OF ‘FOREIGN ADVERSARIES’

U.S. supply chain rules give the commerce secretary powers to restrict transactions with technology companies from nations designated “foreign adversaries,” including China, Russia, and, specifically, the government of Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro, who the U.S. military unseated from power in ​January.

A main focus of Olsen’s efforts to find evidence of foreign hacking ​is the debunked theory that Dominion machines were infected with code ⁠controlled by Venezuelans to steal the 2020 election from Trump, the two sources said.

Repeated investigations and lawsuits since 2020 have produced no evidence Dominion machines were hacked. In 2023, Fox News paid Dominion $787 million in a defamation case over false election-rigging claims.

In 2024, at least 27 states used Dominion machines, similar to the number in 2020. Denver-based Dominion was purchased last October by Liberty Vote USA of Colorado.

Yet Trump continues to repeat the allegations, most ​recently on May 12 when he reposted a six-year-old clip of a host on the far-right One America News network making the false claim that Dominion machines deleted millions of votes.

In May, 2025, Olsen helped ​lead a federal mission that seized Dominion ⁠machines that Puerto Rico used in its 2024 gubernatorial election. An analysis of the machines by cyber contractor Mojave Research Inc. produced later that summer found some known-about vulnerabilities, but no Venezuelan-origin code or evidence of hacking.

Around the time McNamara’s conversation took place with Commerce Department officials, Olsen’s team took apart some of the Puerto Rico machines, believing that they would find components manufactured by countries designated as foreign adversaries, the two sources said.

The team found one chip packaged in China by U.S. company Intel. Such chips are not generally considered a threat to U.S. national security. Other chips were packaged in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, ⁠the two sources said. ​Olsen’s report on the teardown, they said, described the chips as ‘East Asian,’ which they believe was intended to obscure the failure to find any security risks.

A September White House ​meeting convened to discuss the machines included cyber experts at the National Security Council, two of the sources said. The group, which included Olsen’s team, discussed whether Dominion’s equipment contained traces of Venezuelan code, one of the sources said.

Following the meeting, a Commerce Department political appointee asked the department’s office that assesses foreign national-security risks to tech supply chains to consider ​options to address any risks posed by voting machines, according to the three additional sources.

The office considered the matter but took no action, two of the sources said.

Reporting by Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay and Alexandra Alper in Washington; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Don Durfee

美国前副总统哈里斯去年11月1日在洛杉矶会议中心举行的集会上发表讲话。 （路透社档案照片）

美国民主党全国委员会周四发布2024年总统大选分析报告，将前副总统、民主党总统候选人哈里斯败给共和党对手特朗普的责任归咎于时任总统拜登。

星期四（5月21日）发布的这份近200页的报告称，在哈里斯担任副总统期间，拜登政府没有帮助哈里斯提高支持率。“如果白宫在执政初期就探索和评估如何扩大哈里斯的影响力，或可以提高她的地位，肯定有助于她做好竞选的准备。”

报告还对民主党的竞选策略提出质疑，认为民主党仅在大选期间强调特朗普“不可接受”，却没有充分阐明特朗普不应重返白宫的理由，无法说服选民投票给哈里斯。

这份报告由民主党顾问里维拉（Paul Rivera）撰写，去年就已经完成，但直到现在才正式发布。

民主党全国委员会主席马丁在一份声明中说，民主党在去年11月的多场地方选举中获胜后，他担心这份报告的内容会分散社会各界的注意力，因此决定推迟发布。

周四发布的这份报告也承认，民主党内部缺乏凝聚力，导致其失去了美国选民的信任。

里维拉写道：“令人遗憾的是，由于信息传递不一致和计划不周，民主党在各个层面都节节败退，即便民主党推行的政策仍在选民投票中持续获得支持。”

这份报告令全国民主党人感到不安。在支持率持续低迷之际，共和党特朗普的支持率也不断下滑。

US temporarily moving immigration lawyers to DOJ to speed up citizenship crackdown, Axios reports

2026-05-22 09:32 UTC / Reuters

The Department of Justice (DOJ) building in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 28, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

May 22 (Reuters) – The Trump administration is temporarily moving immigration lawyers to the Justice Department to speed up efforts to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans, Axios reported on Friday.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. Sign up here.

Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru Editing by Tomasz Janowski

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美民主党分析哈里斯败选原因 错都在拜登

2026年5月22日 17:06 / 联合早报

美国前副总统哈里斯去年11月1日在洛杉矶会议中心举行的集会上发表讲话。 （路透社档案照片）

美国民主党全国委员会周四发布2024年总统大选分析报告，将前副总统、民主党总统候选人哈里斯败给共和党对手特朗普的责任归咎于时任总统拜登。

星期四（5月21日）发布的这份近200页的报告称，在哈里斯担任副总统期间，拜登政府没有帮助哈里斯提高支持率。“如果白宫在执政初期就探索和评估如何扩大哈里斯的影响力，或可以提高她的地位，肯定有助于她做好竞选的准备。”

报告还对民主党的竞选策略提出质疑，认为民主党仅在大选期间强调特朗普“不可接受”，却没有充分阐明特朗普不应重返白宫的理由，无法说服选民投票给哈里斯。

这份报告由民主党顾问里维拉（Paul Rivera）撰写，去年就已经完成，但直到现在才正式发布。

民主党全国委员会主席马丁在一份声明中说，民主党在去年11月的多场地方选举中获胜后，他担心这份报告的内容会分散社会各界的注意力，因此决定推迟发布。

周四发布的这份报告也承认，民主党内部缺乏凝聚力，导致其失去了美国选民的信任。

里维拉写道：“令人遗憾的是，由于信息传递不一致和计划不周，民主党在各个层面都节节败退，即便民主党推行的政策仍在选民投票中持续获得支持。”

这份报告令全国民主党人感到不安。在支持率持续低迷之际，共和党特朗普的支持率也不断下滑。

美众院外委会主席警告鲁比奥 阿根廷水道招标存在中国风险

2026年5月22日 16:27 / 联合早报

美国国务卿鲁比奥收到美众院外委会主席信函，指出阿根廷水道招标存在中国风险。图为鲁比奥星期四（5月21日）在登机前回应媒体询问，他将飞赴瑞典出席北约外长会。 （法新社）

美国国务卿鲁比奥收到众议院外交事务委员会主席马斯特（Brian Mast）信函，马斯特在信中警告称，一个与中国保持联系的财团，可能在阿根廷总统米莱的关键水道升级招标中胜出。

彭博新闻社看到的信件副本显示，马斯特4月23日致函鲁比奥，提醒他注意“有关中国恶意影响力、令人担忧不安的发展”。在这项为期25年的招标项目中，中标方将需投资100亿美元（128亿新元），因此成为米莱政府最重要的招标项目之一。

马斯特未提供具体细节，但指控比利时疏浚公司杨德诺（Jan de Nul NV）通过阿根廷合作伙伴Servimagnus SA，与中国国有企业保持着“深厚且持续的联系”。杨德诺自1990年代以来一直负责阿根廷巴拉那河的维护工作。

Servimagnus说，尽管公司过去曾与中交上海航道局有限公司有过合作，但目前与中交上海航道局或其他中国国有实体没有联系。

杨德诺在声明中称，公司标书已明确指出，如果中标，将采用美国技术；有关公司与中国存在联系的指控“完全虚假且恶意”。

杨德诺称，公司在这次招标中的最大竞争对手、比利时疏浚公司德梅集团（DEME Group NV），在安防摄像头方面纳入了一家中国供应商。

杨德诺在声明中强调，“公开招标程序是透明的，并设有对程序提出异议的机制。据我们所知，截至目前，没有任何参与方提出任何这类异议。”

特朗普特使：加沙分裂局面或永久化

2026年5月22日 17:29 / 联合早报

加沙停火已超过七个月，但当地人道主义局势依然严峻。由于物资运送持续受限，加沙无法重建，许多人继续被迫在帐篷栖身。 （法新社）

（纽约综合电）美国总统特朗普设立的和平委员会加沙首席特使姆拉德诺夫警告，除非加沙地带停火，否则当前的分裂局面可能永久化，到时将迫使200多万人在加沙不到一半的领土栖身。

加沙的面积只有365平方公里。由于哈马斯拒绝放下武器，以色列仍在加沙约六成的地区驻军。

姆拉德诺夫周四（5月21日）告诉联合国安全理事会，目前的风险是加沙分裂的现状可能永久化，加沙人民将依赖人道援助生活，无法重建加沙。这既无法保障以色列安全，也无法为巴勒斯坦建国提供可行路径。

他说：“这是以色列人、巴勒斯坦人和中东所有人都应感到恐惧，并且要极力避免的未来。”

乐施会、救助儿童会和国际难民组织周四说，联合国批准加沙和平计划六个多月后，当地人道主义局势依然严峻。

他们指出，以色列继续拒绝多数援助团体运送基本物资、持续对加沙发动袭击，超过60万名孩童也将连续第三年失学。

加沙停火协议去年10月10日生效。停火协议第一阶段双方交换以色列人质和被以方拘留的巴勒斯坦人。至于第二阶段的进程，包括哈马斯解除武装和以色列军队逐步撤出加沙，则陷入停滞。

New site aims to track $12.5 billion in air traffic control system upgrades

May 22, 2026 6:00 AM EDT / CBS News

By Kris Van Cleave

Emmy Award-winning journalist Kris Van Cleave is the senior transportation correspondent for CBS News based in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as a national correspondent reporting for all CBS News broadcasts and platforms.

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Just as the TSA expects to screen more than 18 million flyers for Memorial Day weekend, the Department of Transportation is rolling out a new website tracking the $12.5 billion effort to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system.

The Modern Skies website aims to highlight more than 10,000 projects underway nationwide and will include summaries of key projects and a progress tracker, updated monthly, with the status of work completed and projects still underway. Also part of the site is an interactive map that breaks down projects by city, state, airport, ZIP code or congressional district, showing completed projects and work that’s upcoming in the next month.

“One of the reasons past air traffic control modernization efforts failed was a lack of transparency. We’re taking a different approach — letting every American get a front row view of how President Trump is revolutionizing our skies,” Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in a statement to CBS News.

“We’re forecasting 5.4 million flights from Memorial Day through Labor Day weekend,” Duffy added. “That surging demand underscores why the work we’re doing is so important.”

With funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the FAA is working to replace aging infrastructure with new radar systems, radios, fiber-optic cables and upgraded aircraft tracking technology for when planes are moving around on the ground at airports and in the air.

Duffy has pledged to complete significant upgrades to the nation’s aviation system by 2028. Plans include:

• Replacing copper wire telecommunications connections;
• 27,000 new radios;
• 450 new digital voice switches;
• 612 new radar systems;
• Surface awareness surveillance systems to monitor planes on the ground at over 200 airports;
• Upgrading hundreds of control towers.

“The FAA is undertaking the most significant transformation of America’s air traffic control system in generations, and we are committed to being transparent and accountable every step of the way,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement. “The American people deserve a clear view of how these investments are being executed and the progress being made to modernize our skies. Now, we’re sharing that directly with the flying public as we start the busy summer travel season.”

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Bedford testified about the growing strain on air traffic control.

“With more than 18 million flights managed and over one billion passenger movements traveling across our skies annually, our current system has reached its limits,” he said. “Without a doubt, the U.S. aviation system is recognized as the largest and most complex aviation system in the world. However, now we face the additional demands of drones, advanced air mobility, supersonic operations, and a near daily cadence of space launches.”

He urged Congress to provide “critical funding” needed to get the work done.

“The build is happening,” Duffy told CBS News in April as he marked the first anniversary of his effort to upgrade the system. “We have a two-and-a-half-year window, and we’re going to accomplish what we promised.”

The new website says the work to replace copper wiring is 51% complete, as are 18% of the radio conversions. Among the upcoming projects in the next month are efforts to install new surface awareness systems at two airports and deploying a new radar system.

Duffy and Bedford are now asking Congress for billions more dollars to build a suite of AI software tools they believe will improve efficiency and safety in the skies.

“This software will say, We can see this 45 days out. Let’s manage that before it actually happens. Let’s move some of those flights a little bit later — 5, 7, 10 minutes later, or 5, 7, 10 minutes earlier — and we can resolve the issue. And so then you are not delayed,” Duffy told CBS News in April.

Kathryn Krupnik and Sarah Ploss contributed to this report.