By PHILIP MARCELO, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A potential strike has been averted that could have shut down the nation’s largest commuter rail system this week.

Unionized workers for the Long Island Railroad announced they voted overwhelmingly Monday to authorize their labor leaders to call a strike if an agreement on a new contract isn’t reached.

But officials representing locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and other train workers said they’ve also asked President Donald Trump to intercede by forming an emergency board that delays the potential for a strike at least for a few more months.

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Union leaders said the earliest a strike could happen is in January while the Presidential Emergency Board, once formed, reviews the contract dispute and presents its recommendations.

A strike, which could have happened as early as Thursday under federal rules, would have impacted some 250,000 riders who ride the LIRR to work each day to and from New York City and its eastern suburbs.

A work stoppage would have also thrown a wrench in the Ryder Cup, which begins Sept. 26. The three-day men’s golf tournament between players from the U.S. and Europe is expected to bring 225,000 spectators to Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale on Long Island.

“This action does not mean a strike won’t happen, but it does mean it won’t happen now,” said Gil Lang, general chairman for the union representing LIRR locomotive engineers, at a news conference at the union’s office in Manhattan on Monday.

“We will continue to be the adults in the room,” he added. “A strike is the last thing we want, and we’ll do everything we can to avoid that.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the LIRR and other area transit systems, dismissed the union’s announcement as a “cynical delay” that “serves no one.”

“If these unions wanted to put riders first, they would either settle or agree to binding arbitration,” spokesperson John J. McCarthy said in a statement. “And if they don’t want to strike, they should say so — and finally show up to the negotiating table.”

The agency and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had resisted calling for an emergency board even though they have the power to do so.

Instead, the MTA announced plans last week to provide commuters with free shuttle buses to take them from some LIRR train stations to subway stops in the New York City borough of Queens in the case of a strike.

Hochul, a Democrat, has also blamed the Trump administration in recent days for the prospect of a strike, even as she’s called on both sides to resume negotiations.

Spokespersons for the White House and the U.S. Department of Transportation didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The last LIRR worker strike happened more than three decades ago and lasted about two days in 1994. Workers nearly walked out in 2014 before then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal with unions.

In this most recent contract dispute, five labor unions representing about half the train system’s workforce are seeking a 16% raise over four years. The MTA has proposed a 9.5% wage increase over three years.

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press

McDonald’s said Monday it plans to invest $200 million over the next seven years to promote regenerative agriculture practices on cattle ranches.

The Chicago burger giant said the investment was its largest to date in support of regenerative agriculture in the U.S. The company has also funded regenerative projects on potato farms in Canada and Europe.

“As a brand that serves more than 90% of Americans every year, we recognize the responsibility we have to help safeguard our food systems for long-term vitality,” Cesar Piña, McDonald’s chief supply chain officer for North America, said in a statement.

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Regenerative techniques aim to conserve water, enhance soil health and reduce the need for synthetic chemicals and fertilizers. Other big companies, including General Mills, Nestle, Walmart and PepsiCo, have also been investing in regenerative farming projects in recent years.

On cattle ranches, ranchers practicing regenerative agriculture move cattle frequently and let the land recover for weeks or months. That helps produce more grass with deeper roots, which take more carbon from the air to help improve soil.

McDonald’s said its investment will help accelerate regenerative grazing and water and wildlife conservation on ranches spanning 4 million acres in up to 38 states.

McDonald’s is working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which will independently award competitive grants to organizations that will assist participating ranchers. The company said some of its suppliers, including Cargill, Golden State Foods and Coca-Cola, are also providing funding to the foundation.

Jeff Trandahl, the executive director and CEO of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, said regenerative practices can ultimately improve the productivity of grasslands and increase ranches’ profitability. The foundation expects the first round of awards will be announced in January.

By GARY FIELDS and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to once again federalize Washington, D.C.’s police force, in what he suggested could come in response to the city’s mayor’s stated refusal to cooperate with immigration enforcement.

Trump’s emergency order, which took over the local police force, expired last week. Hours before it elapsed, Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the city would not cooperate with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement in their continued operations in the nation’s capital. Earlier, she had said the city would work with other federal agencies even after the emergency order expired.

In an early-morning social media post on Monday, Trump said his intervention into the D.C.’s law enforcement had improved crime in the city, a claim Bowser has backed up, though, data shows crime was already falling in Washington before the law enforcement surge began.

Trump said crime could increase if cooperation on immigration enforcement ceases, in which case he would “call a National Emergency, and Federalize, if necessary!!!”

The mayor’s office declined to comment.

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The White House did not say if Trump would follow through on his threat. It also did not say whether the president had considered trying to extend his previous order that placed the city’s police force under federal control. The order was not renewed by Congress and lapsed Sept. 11.

Bowser issued an order Sept. 2, setting up how the local police will continue working with the federal law enforcement agencies that continue working in the city. The order listed a number of federal agencies she anticipated working cooperatively with the MPD, the local police, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Secret Service, among other agencies. Absent was ICE.

Speaking Sept. 10 at a ribbon cutting ceremony, the mayor said “immigration enforcement is not what MPD does,” referring to the local police department. She added that when the emergency order ends, “it won’t be what MPD does in the future.”

Data analyzed by the Associated Press during the emergency period showed that more than 40% of arrests were immigration related, highlighting that the Trump administration continued to advance its hardline immigration policies as it sought to fight crime in the nation’s capital.

Federal law enforcement agencies and National Guard units from D.C. and seven states are continuing operations in the city.

Trump’s threat comes the same day that the House Committee on Rules is taking up several D.C.-related bills, including a proposal to lower the age at which juveniles can be tried to 14 from 16 for certain serious crimes, as well as restricting the district’s authority over its sentencing laws and its role in selecting judges.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a similar hearing last week.

The district is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed in 1973, but federal political leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C council.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Monday hosted the radio program of Charlie Kirk, the influential conservative activist who was assassinated last week, telling listeners that the best way he knows how to honor his friend is to be a better husband and father.

Vance hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show” from his ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. The livestream of the two-hour program was broadcast in the White House press briefing room and featured a series of appearances by White House and administration officials who knew the 31-year-old Kirk.

Vance, who transported Kirk’s body home to Arizona aboard Air Force Two last week, opened by saying he was “filling in for somebody who cannot be filled in for, but I’ll do my best.”

The Republican vice president, 41, was especially close to Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, one of the nation’s largest political organizations with chapters on high school and college campuses. The two began a friendship nearly a decade ago, and Kirk advocated for Vance to be Republican Donald Trump’s choice for vice president last year.

Vance spoke Monday about sitting with Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, and being at a loss for words. But he said she told him something he’ll never forget, which was that her husband had never raised his voice to her and was never “cross or mean-spirited to her.”

Vance allowed that he could not say the same about himself.

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“I took from that moment that I needed to be a better husband and I needed to be a better father,” the vice president said on the program, which was streamed on Rumble. “That is the way I’m going to honor my friend.”

After Kirk was fatally shot last Wednesday at Utah Valley University, Vance tore up his schedule for the next day — he was scheduled Thursday to attend the 24th annual observance in New York of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — to fly instead to Orem, Utah, with his wife, second lady Usha Vance.

The two accompanied Erika Kirk and Charlie Kirk’s casket to Arizona aboard Air Force Two.