Lancaster County Sheriff Chief Deputy Ben Houchin during a press briefing in Lincoln, Nebraska, June 3, 2024. (Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office)
(NEW YORK) — A 74-year-old woman believed to have died while in hospice care was found to be breathing after being transported to a funeral home, authorities in Nebraska said Monday.
The woman had been transported from a nursing home, where she had been declared dead at around 9:44 a.m. local time, to the Butherus-Maser & Love Funeral Home in Lincoln on Monday morning, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities responded to the funeral home after an employee noticed the woman was breathing and “instantly called 911” at approximately 11:44 a.m., according to Lancaster County Chief Deputy Ben Houchin.
Funeral home staff conducted CPR on the woman — identified by authorities as Constance Glantz of Lincoln — and she was transported to a local hospital, where she remains alive, Houchin said. Her family has been notified, he said.
“It’s a very unusual case,” Houchin said during a press briefing on Monday. “Been doing this 31 years and nothing like this has ever gotten to this point before.”
Because this was a case where a death was anticipated and there was nothing suspicious about her supposed death, the nursing home did not have to contact the coroner or local authorities after the woman was declared dead, Houchin said.
The sheriff’s office is investigating and no criminal charges are pending, according to Houchin.
“We have not been able to find any criminal intent by the nursing home but the investigation is ongoing,” Houchin said.
(WASHINGTON) — An elderly woman was killed after a suspect stole the vehicle she was a passenger in and then crashed into a building in Washington, D.C., police said.
The carjacking was reported at Washington Hospital Center Monday afternoon, police said. The elderly victim was sitting in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. The driver had exited the vehicle upon arriving at the hospital when the suspect stole it, police said. The driver reported the vehicle stolen with their elderly parent still inside, police said.
A short time later, an officer on patrol observed the vehicle crash into a building at Sixth and D streets, near the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office downtown, police said. The female suspect attempted to flee the scene but the officer captured and arrested her, police said.
The elderly victim was found unconscious and transported from the scene in life-threatening condition but was pronounced dead, authorities said.
Police determined the crashed vehicle was the one involved in the original carjacking.
Police said they are consulting with the U.S. Attorney’s Office regarding charges.
The incident remains under investigation.
The names of the carjacking victims and suspect have not been released.
The D.C. Fire Department said in a statement that there was only superficial damage to the exterior of the building involved in the crash.
(NEW YORK) – An 83-year-old woman sustained “serious injuries” after being gored by a wild bison at Yellowstone National Park, officials said on Monday.
The woman, from Greenville, South Carolina, was visiting the park on June 1 when a bison came within a few feet of her and lifted her about a foot off the ground with its horns, according to a statement from the National Park Service.
The agency noted that the bison was seemingly “defending its space” during the incident.
Park emergency responders transported the woman to the Lake Medical Clinic, where she was flown by helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
Officials noted that the woman suffered “serious injuries” from the encounter but did not offer more details on her current condition.
The incident happened near the Storm Point Trail at Yellowstone Lake, according to the National Park Service.
The National Park Service advised anyone visiting the area to “move away from wildlife if they approach you,” adding that it’s visitors’ responsibility to “respect safety regulations and view wildlife from a safe distance.”
Individuals should stay more than 25 yards away from all large animals, including bison, elk, bighorn sheep, deer, moose and coyotes, according to officials, who note people should keep 100 yards distance from bears and wolves.
National Park Service said that bison have injured more people in the park than any other animal, calling the bovines “unpredictable” and noting that they can run three times faster than humans.
“Bison are not aggressive animals but will defend their space when threatened,” the agency said.
(BOSTON) — Massachusetts could soon become the new leader in climate and environment technology, as the race to find solutions for sustainability and emissions mitigation heats up around the world.
A $1 billion proposal for Massachusetts to become a global leader in climate technology by Gov. Maura Healey and the emergence of environmental startups and think tanks are among the reasons why The Bay State may emerge as the nation’s climate solution hub in the near future.
But the foundations for seeing environmental initiatives from their inception to public market have long existed in Massachusetts, home to some of the most prestigious research institutions and scientific discoveries in the world, as well as existing infrastructure that allows production to be achieved much faster, according to experts in the state.
Climate tech is any technology and any type of company that’s working to fight against climate change — from solar power, offshore wind, hydropower, as well as fusion and decarbonization of existing processes such as construction — Massachusetts Secretary of Development Yvonne Hao told ABC News.
California and New York often receive the majority of accolades when it comes to climate solutions. There is currently competition among Boston, New York, Texas, California, Europe and Asia in the climate tech domain, Jim Matheson, a professor at the Harvard Business School and expert in climate tech innovation, told ABC News.
Massachusetts is currently No. 3 in the country for the number of climate tech solutions — 340, compared to 1,607 in California and 661 in New York, according to Powerhouse, an environmental solutions firm.
What makes Massachusetts unique is it has a proven track record of taking what is learned in the lab and applying it to real life, Lindi von Mutius, director of Harvard University’s Climate Action Accelerator, an environmental solutions hub, told ABC News. This is especially true when it comes to life sciences innovation, which already has extensive infrastructure in place that can also be applied to climate technology, von Mutius said. Advances in sickle cell studies, research in cell gene therapy and the Moderna Covid vaccine all came out of Massachusetts, Hao said.
“I think we have a really great place where we’ve already proven leadership in one area of tech, innovation and cutting-edge financing for that innovation,” von Mutius said,
A successful tech venture requires what is known as “the capital triangle,” Matheson said: intellectual capital — Massachusetts is home to places like Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; human capital — the individuals running the company; and financial capital — the funds needed to get the startups off the ground.
The ideas and entrepreneurial talent coming out of universities and laboratories around the Boston, Cambridge and New England area combined with financial capital that supports companies from their very early stages all the way to deployment into the public markets, Matheson said.
“The modern venture capital industry started in Boston,” he said, adding that the proximity to New York and Washington, D.C., allows for even more investment and entrepreneurial opportunities.
The biggest difference between Silicon Valley and Boston is the latter’s ability to produce “real, physical things,” opposed to software, Matheson said. Rather than the booms and busts of big tech, climate solutions require longer cycles.
Gov. Healey is “wicked competitive,” which is aiding her ambitious climate agenda, Hao said. Healey’s $1 billion proposal aims to catalyze the economic growth around climate tech by using the successes in life sciences as a template and applying it to climate tech innovation, Hao told ABC News.
The proposal includes return on investments that pay back “multiple-fold,” tax incentives, job creation at a “competitive scale” and an operating budget for the Clean Energy Center, which will ensure the installation of EV charging stations and rollout of green electricity in the future, Hao said.
A startup called Boston Metal is creating decarbonized steel, the traditional production of which is extremely damaging to the environment and one of the biggest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions from the construction sector.
Sparkcharge, also based in Boston, is a startup that created the world’s first mobile EV charging network, an idea borne over a lack of charging stations throughout the U.S., Joshua Aviv, founder of Sparkcharge, told ABC News.
Since its inception in 2018, Sparkcharge has developed a fast charger that could charge an electric vehicle without any connection to the grid, Aviv said.
Sparkcharge is the brainchild of Greentown Labs, the country’s largest incubator for climate tech, located in Somerville, Massachusetts, Julia Travaglini, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Greentown Labs, told ABC News.
Greentown Labs was founded in 2011 among four startups in the MIT ecosystem, making Massachusetts a natural home for the company, Travaglini said.
“Massachusetts is home to more than 80 different academic institutions across the state,” she said. “We’re really this sort of like nexus and melting pot of all the pieces you need to catalyze its climate community.”
Highlighting the economic potential for climate tech will be a main focus at Boston’s inaugural climate conference, titled ClimaTech, taking place from Monday through Wednesday.
“We really wanted to have a gathering of people who are focused on the economic growth aspect around the actual innovation and technology and startups,” Hao said. “How do we solve these big, hard problems in climate tech, but at the same time grow startups and grow jobs and actually help create this acceleration of economic growth from it?”
Global warming is the most existential crisis of our times, the experts said. The competition among the global leaders in innovation will likely lead to more impactful results, Matheson said.
“It’s great that there’s competition between the states if that means that there are more people working on climate change,” von Mutius said.
(NEW YORK) — It is hard to imagine 75-year-old Renée Imperato – the tattooed, foul-mouthed New York City trans icon dubbed “Mother” – ever putting on gloves to hide her painted nails out of fear of discrimination.
“You know what happens over the years? You just sort of get tired of that. And now, I’m probably the opposite. I’ll take my gloves off deliberately,” Imperato told ABC News.
For transgender elders like Imperato, today’s world is a stark contrast to the world they once lived in.
Acceptance of the transgender community has grown throughout Imperato’s life, and representation of the community as a whole has risen with it.
However, aging transgender elders are a rare sight – 0.3% of those ages 65 and older identify as transgender compared to 1.4% of those ages 13 to 17, according to one estimate.
Elders say the AIDs epidemic, violence, and fear have contributed to the disparity in population, leaving fewer elders for the younger generation to look up to.
Imperato recalls the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s through memories of the ridicule and violence she and others faced for being a part of the LGBTQ+ community – recollections of broken fingers from fights and echoes of slurs being yelled on the street.
“Just because you get beaten – and I’ve been beaten many times – that doesn’t mean you’ve been defeated,” Imperato said.
Imperato was constantly thinking about her survival in those days: how could she escape or defend herself if someone tried to attack her on the street?
“By the late 80s, you know what I carried in my purse? An ax. Her name was Lucille. I never used it. But I did display it,” said Imperato.
Her family feared for her safety. They’d ask: wasn’t she putting herself at risk, the way she was walking down the street? Why is she presenting herself that way? “You could be killed!” they would say.
“If I present myself as somebody I’m not, they’ve already killed me,” Imperato said.
It was the activism of the older generations that have led the way for the progress seen today, Imperato said. She rattled off names of those she admired and knew: Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Leslie Feinburg, and others who helped teach the community what they know today.
But, Imperato adds, the younger generation’s ongoing fight for equality has, in turn, freed the older trans community.
“When we talk about young people, I feel indebted to them because I think of many older trans people who – they weren’t as out as they are now and it’s because the youth liberated them,” Imperato said.
Meanwhile, some elders are still in the process of finding themselves. Meet Criss Smith, a 63-year-old transgender man, who transitioned just about seven years ago.
He calls himself a “late bloomer,” coming to terms with his identity after years of “hiding.”
Smith was born and raised in Jamaica in a traditional religious household with strict ideas of gender and gender roles.
But he said his grandma recognized early on that it appeared his identity was more aligned with the young boys he hung out with and wouldn’t force him to do things that were traditionally expected of young girls.
Since he was a child, he knew he was different. Growing older, he lived as a cisgender lesbian for many years, but he said he was “miserable” until he came to terms with and had a better understanding of his gender identity.
“Now when I look in the mirror, I see what my grandmother saw,” said Smith. “And the way she treated me then is the way that I wished that everyone treated me throughout my whole life.”
Even when he was working on Wall Street and living comfortably – buying cars, building a home of his own, having whatever material items he wanted – he said he was settling for a life that did not feel like his own.
For Smith, coming out as transgender even at an older age has made him young again.
As an out transgender man, Smith said he sits more comfortably in his chair, feels confident when he looks in the mirror and has naturally cultivated a close-knit chosen family with other LGBTQ+ elders.
“It’s a rebirth, because I almost feel like I’m a teenager most days, because I’ve lived this long life where the mirror did not reflect what I was feeling,” said Smith.
“Sometimes I actually get angry at myself that I didn’t transition earlier,” said Smith.
It’s been disheartening for Smith to watch the growing number of anti-transgender legislation that has been on the rise in recent years. He said the legislation is pushback to the progress that has been made within his lifetime.
“It shows a a pattern politically, where there’s always a group or a segment of population that’s used as a scapegoat,” said Smith.
Still, he doesn’t think the younger generations will stand by as policy continues to turn back the clock on LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S.
“It doesn’t matter how much people try to dehumanize us as a people, as a group, we always come back and say, ‘No, we’re much more than that,'” he said. “I think that’s what’s scaring a lot of people, because they see that the youth are not just laying back and not saying anything.”
For these transgender elders, aging has brought out a youthful viewpoint on life – one filled with friendship, joy and learning.
When Imperato walks into the SAGE LGBTQ elder community center in New York City, the center is filled with a rush of energy.
Imperato is bombarded with hugs, kissed and laughter, as she takes in the calendar of events for the seniors and preparations for dinner service as she chats with old friends.
Imperato – somewhat of a celebrity in the community for her activism, acting and modeling – lives life with a filled with long nights and scandalous adventures not suitable for print.
“I like to think of myself as someone who is old, but ain’t obsolete,” she said.
Smith is part of a trans social group that meets weekly on Zoom or in the SAGE centers. The crew goes out for a night on the town together at least once a month – seeing plays, hosting parties and attending other events together.
“Several times, I will pick up my phone and there’s a message ‘Hey, Chris, just just want to say I love you,'” Smith recalls, laughing.
“There are so many people to meet and have an adventure with. There’s always someone new that’s joining the group.”
Darcy Connors, executive director of the center’s SAGEServe program, said these older adults have and continue to live through challenging circumstances — AIDS, COVID-19, discrimination — and that systemic work needs to be done to give them access to services and care as they grow old.
“It’s so important to give them space and community that provides competent [care], but also the cultural safety of having similar communities, especially for our transgender elders, as they age,” said Connors.
For some trans elders, including Smith’s friend Pearl Love, the camaraderie in old age has been a lifeline.
Pearl, a transgender woman of color, told ABC News she fell into a depression during her transition due to backlash and discrimination she faced day-to-day.
But finding SAGE and the community of LGBTQ+ elders it cultivates made not just transitioning easier, but it also made aging easier, Pearl said. It’s how she met Smith.
“I met those elders over there that are aging and they are crazy! They are in their 70s and then they wear makeup and wear sequins and they’re shaking it and they are rocking it!”
She continued, “I would say SAGE sisters actually saved my life.”
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, departs the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building and United States Courthouse on July 26, 2023 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Mark M
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is on trial in Delaware on three felony charges related to his efforts to obtain a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs.
The son of a sitting president has never before faced a criminal trial.
The frequency of updates may be limited due to federal court restrictions.
Jun 03, 10:26 AM President Biden says he has ‘boundless love’ for his son
President Joe Biden said in a statement issued this morning that he has “boundless love” for his son.
“I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Hunter’s resilience in the face of adversity and the strength he has brought to his recovery are inspiring to us,” Biden said in the statement as jury selection got underway.
“A lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction and know what we mean,” the president said.
“As the President, I don’t and won’t comment on pending federal cases, but as a Dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength,” he said. “Our family has been through a lot together, and Jill and I are going to continue to be there for Hunter and our family with our love and support.”
Jun 03, 10:10 AM Jurors face individual questioning as Jill Biden looks on
After filling out the jury questionnaire, the first panel of prospective jurors are being brought into the court room one-by-one to face individual questioning from the judge and both parties. As of about 9:45 a.m. ET, the court had made it through the questioning of just six jurors.
The prospective jurors so far have include a woman who worked with the Secret Service for over two decades and whose husband was a uniformed officer in Washington, D.C., at locations including the White House.
One prospective juror who volunteered for Hilary Clinton’s 2008 campaign prompted the first mention of President Joe Biden — though not by name.
Judge Norieka asked that prospective juror if her work volunteering and donating to Democratic campaigns would prevent her from being fair in a case that involved “the son of the Democratic president of the United States.”
She said it would not.
The exchange occurred as first lady Jill Biden sat in the front row of the gallery, watching intently as each juror answered their questions. The first lady is sitting next to Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa.
Earlier, a prospective juror was struck for cause because of his firm views on guns, after he told the judge he thought gun ownership was a “God-given right.” He said he would not be able to be impartial in a case where someone was prevented from buying a gun due to federal law.
Jun 03, 9:39 AM 1st batch of 50 jurors sworn in
Hunter Biden’s arrival through the front entrance of the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building this morning means he would have passed an enormous portrait of his father, which hangs in every federal courthouse in the country.
The first batch of 50 jurors were sworn in by Judge Noreika, who instructed them not to discuss the case with anyone, including family, or to conduct any research on the case or to read any news about it.
Reporters monitoring the proceedings from the overflow room could not hear most of Noreika’s statement due to technical difficulties. As technicians tried to fix the issue, they turned on a TV that happened to be playing an attack ad against Joe Biden.
Jun 03, 8:58 AM Hunter Biden, first lady Jill Biden arrive at courthouse
Hunter Biden has arrived at the courthouse for the start of his federal gun trial this morning.
His mother, first lady Jill Biden, is also attending.
Jun 03, 7:46 AM Prospective jurors will be asked about president
Two hundred and fifty Delaware residents have been summoned to the courthouse in downtown Wilmington, where they will face typical questions about their fitness to serve as jurors.
But because this is the trial of the son of a sitting president, there will be some novel topics covered during the jury selection process known as “voir dire.”
Among the questions jurors will be asked: “If you were eligible to vote in any election(s) in which Joseph R. Biden was a candidate, would that fact prevent you from maintaining an open, impartial mind until all of the evidence is presented, and the instructions of the Court are given?”
And “Do you believe Robert Hunter Biden is being prosecuted in this case because his father is the President of the United States and a candidate for President?”
Jun 03, 7:20 AM Judge rules annotated form can’t be used as evidence
On the eve of trial, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika threw a wrench in one of the key arguments attorneys for Hunter Biden were planning to advance, ruling that an annotated copy of the federal form Hunter Biden is accused of lying on would be excluded from evidence.
The original document, called an ATF Form 4473, was created in 2018 when Hunter Biden purchased the firearm. But in 2021, gun store employees made a copy that included some handwritten notes. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell contended that employees had “tampered with” the document, and that it raised questions about “who wrote what on the form, and when.”
Lowell hoped his argument would undermine the credibility of some key government witnesses — the people who sold Biden the gun — and potentially create a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden was the one who actually checked that box.
Attorneys for special counsel David Weiss’ office have said the gun shop employees merely “annotated” the form and urged Noreika to prevent Lowell from introducing it into evidence.
Late Sunday, Noreika sided with Weiss.
Jun 03, 6:50 AM Jury selection set to get underway
Jury selection is scheduled to get underway today in the federal gun trial of Hunter Biden, who authorities say broke the law when he purchased a Colt revolver in 2018.
President Joe Biden’s son faces two counts of making false statements while purchasing the firearm and a third count of illegally obtaining it while addicted to drugs.
Although the charges together carry a possible sentence of up to 25 years, legal experts say that, as a first-time and nonviolent offender, Hunter Biden would not likely serve time if convicted.
The trial, in Delaware federal court, is expected to last two to three weeks.
(NEW YORK) — A dangerous and possibly record-breaking heat wave is heading toward the West this week, impacting California, Arizona and southern Nevada, including Las Vegas.
An excessive heat warning begins on Tuesday for the California Valley region, with temperatures up to 108 degrees possible from Redding to Sacramento to Fresno to Bakersfield.
On Wednesday, an excessive heat warning will reach from Las Vegas to the Lake Havasu City, Arizona, region.
By Thursday or Friday, the temperature is forecast to skyrocket to 112 degrees in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Palm Springs, California.
If Las Vegas surpasses 110 degrees on Thursday, it’ll be the earliest in June the city has ever been so hot.
And if Phoenix tops 111 degrees on Thursday, the city will break a daily record set in 2016.
Reno, Nevada, and Fresno, California, will also near daily records on Thursday.
This weather is considered a major heat risk; overexposure can cause heat cramps and heat exhaustion to develop and, without intervention, this can lead to heat stroke.
Further north, temperatures could hit the mid-90s in Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho.
Click here for what to know about staying safe in the heat.
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, departs the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building and United States Courthouse on July 26, 2023 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Mark M
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is on trial in Delaware on three felony charges related to his efforts to obtain a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs.
The son of a sitting president has never before faced a criminal trial.
The frequency of updates may be limited due to federal court restrictions.
Jun 03, 7:20 AM Judge rules annotated form can’t be used as evidence
On the eve of trial, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika threw a wrench in one of the key arguments attorneys for Hunter Biden were planning to advance, ruling that an annotated copy of the federal form Hunter Biden is accused of lying on would be excluded from evidence.
The original document, called an ATF Form 4473, was created in 2018 when Hunter Biden purchased the firearm. But in 2021, gun store employees made a copy that included some handwritten notes. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell contended that employees had “tampered with” the document, and that it raised questions about “who wrote what on the form, and when.”
Lowell hoped his argument would undermine the credibility of some key government witnesses — the people who sold Biden the gun — and potentially create a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden was the one who actually checked that box.
Attorneys for special counsel David Weiss’ office have said the gun shop employees merely “annotated” the form and urged Noreika to prevent Lowell from introducing it into evidence.
Late Sunday, Noreika sided with Weiss.
Jun 03, 6:50 AM Jury selection set to get underway
Jury selection is scheduled to get underway today in the federal gun trial of Hunter Biden, who authorities say broke the law when he purchased a Colt revolver in 2018.
President Joe Biden’s son faces two counts of making false statements while purchasing the firearm and a third count of illegally obtaining it while addicted to drugs.
Although the charges together carry a possible sentence of up to 25 years, legal experts say that, as a first-time and nonviolent offender, Hunter Biden would not likely serve time if convicted.
The trial, in Delaware federal court, is expected to last two to three weeks.
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — Federal prosecutors pursuing a conviction of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on three felony gun charges have characterized their upcoming trial as “a simple case” — and the facts presented in charging documents certainly appear to support that claim.
According to special counsel David Weiss’ office, in October of 2018, Hunter Biden knowingly lied on a federal form about his drug use in order to procure a Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver — conduct that, at face value, would constitute a federal crime. He is charged with two counts related to false statements in purchasing the firearm and a third count of illegally obtaining a firearm while addicted to drugs.
But Hunter Biden’s legal team believes it can throw a wrench in Weiss’ tidy narrative. At a recent pretrial hearing, an attorney for Biden suggested the firearm form at the heart of the case was “much more complicated than [the] special counsel indicates it is.”
Jury selection for the trial is set to begin on Monday. And if 12 Delaware residents accept the government’s story, the president’s only living son could face a prison sentence.
The task of fighting that outcome falls to Abbe Lowell, a veteran defense attorney who has represented several other high-profile figures, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
How Lowell plans to fight the charges remains somewhat unclear. He has signaled to U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika that the contours of his case would depend in large part on how prosecutors proceed at trial.
But in court records and at pretrial hearings, he has offered some tea leaves — and suggested he will attempt to cast doubt on some of the government’s most crucial evidence and witnesses.
‘Tampered’ or ‘annotated’?
Lowell has, for example, latched onto revelations in court that two copies exist of the federal gun form at the heart of the case, called an ATF Form 4473. A shop employee created the original document when Hunter Biden purchased the firearm in 2018. It lists Biden’s passport as the ID he presented to the shop employee.
Years later, however, a copy was made. The copy included a handwritten note, “DE Vehicle Registration,” on a line left blank for “Supplemental Government Issued Documentation.” Store employees did so in 2021 to rectify a requirement that gun buyers present a form of ID that includes an address, which passports do not.
Lowell contends that gun store employees “tampered with” the document, and that it raises questions about “who wrote what on the form, and when.”
Weiss’ office has said the gun shop employees merely “annotated” the document. But they took Lowell’s argument seriously enough to re-interview the gun store owner, Ronald Palimere, on May 16.
During the interview, according to notes filed on the case docket, Palimere said Hunter Biden’s legal tribulations were becoming “a big scandal and there was intense attention on the incident,” and that employees at the store “were all scared to death.”
Palimere “felt it was necessary to annotate the Form 4473 because he felt they were going to get in trouble just for going up against Biden,” according to the notes.
If jurors are persuaded by Lowell’s tack, the argument could undermine the credibility of some key government witnesses — the people who sold Biden the gun — and potentially create a reasonable doubt that Hunter Biden was the one who actually checked that box.
At least two gun store employees, including Palimere, are expected to testify at the trial.
The definition of ‘is’
Lowell may also advance the argument that Hunter Biden may have been confused by the language on the ATF Form 4473. The box he checked “no” asked of the buyer, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to” various narcotics.
“The issue here is Mr. Biden’s understanding of the question, which asks in the present tense if he ‘is’ a user or addict,” Lowell wrote in court papers.
“The terms ‘user’ or ‘addict’ are not defined on the form and were not explained to him,” he continued. “Someone like Mr. Biden, who had just completed an 11-day rehabilitation program and lived with a sober companion after that, could surely believe he was not a present tense user or addict.”
Finally, Lowell has raised “an issue of chain of custody” with a leather pouch that allegedly held the revolver Hunter Biden purchased. In court documents filed earlier this year, prosecutors said this pouch had cocaine residue on it.
After purchasing the firearm in 2018, Hunter Biden possessed it for less than two weeks before his then-romantic partner, Hallie Biden – who is also the widow of his brother, Beau – discovered the weapon and the pouch, discarded them in a dumpster.
The gun was soon recovered by the authorities, but the pouch was not tested for drug residue until five years later, in 2023. Lowell said at the pretrial hearing that he wants to question witnesses about what happened to the pouch during those five years when it was in police custody to see if it was “tampered with.”
One of the witnesses Lowell plans to call for the defense is a chemical residue expert.
The government’s case
Prosecutors hope these arguments fall flat, and that jurors rely on the voluminous evidence they plan to present to find Hunter Biden guilty of committing the three felony charges he faces.
Prosecutors seem poised to use Hunter Biden’s own words against him — excerpts from his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” and text messages he exchanged around the time of the gun purchase — to demonstrate that he was in fact a drug user when he filled out the ATF Form 4473 and procured the weapon.
In one text message prosecutors included in court filings, Hunter Biden wrote two days after allegedly purchasing the gun: “I was sleeping on a car smoking crack on 4th Street and Rodney,” referring to an intersection in Wilmington.
Weiss’ office also plans to show jurors the original ATF Form 4473, in which Biden represented that “he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance” — despite allegedly knowing it not to be true.
Prosecutors indicated that they plan to call as many as 12 witnesses, including Hallie Biden and Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle.
Lowell has not yet decided whether Hunter Biden will testify in his own defense.
The trial begins on Monday and is expected to last two to three weeks. If he’s found guilty, Biden could face a prison sentence of up to 25 years, though legal experts suggest that, as a first-time and nonviolent offender, he would not likely serve time.
Weiss’ office also charged Hunter Biden in December with nine felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from his failure to pay $1.4 million in taxes for three years during a time when he was in the throes of addiction. The back taxes and penalties were eventually paid in full by a third party, identified by ABC News as Hunter Biden’s attorney and confidant, Kevin Morris. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The trial in that case was scheduled to begin on June 20 in California, but Lowell successfully petitioned the judge to postpone it until Sept. 5 — raising the likelihood that a jury could be deliberating whether to convict the president’s son on several felony counts in the waning weeks of the 2024 election.
Two firefighters were injured and evacuation orders were issued as a wildfire spread to 12,500 acres in Northern California, officials said.
The Corral Fire is burning in San Joaquin County, close to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is about 50 miles outside San Francisco, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“Areas west of the California Aqueduct, south of Corral Hollow Creek, west to Alameda County and south to Stanislaus County should leave now,” San Joaquin emergency officials said late Saturday.
Two firefighters have been injured in the blaze, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira said in an interview with Sacramento ABC affiliate KXTV. One had minor injuries and the other had moderate injuries, he said, adding that both were expected to survive.
The fire ignited Saturday around 2:30 p.m. PT near Interstate 580 on the western edge of Tracy and quickly spread by midnight to about 11,047 acres, with about 13% contained, officials said.
Cal Fire Officials increased that figure Sunday morning, saying the fire had grown to 12,500 acres and that strong winds and dry grass “have made it difficult to contain.”
The blaze moved quickly through the tall dry grass in the area, Silveira said.
“With these winds, it was growing very quickly,” he said. “The fire was moving faster than we could post updates.”
