Fight for Melissa Lucio’s exoneration continues after stay of execution granted

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Melissa Lucio was first sentenced to death in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez. After nearly 15 years on death row in Texas, Lucio was granted a stay of her scheduled April 27 execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday.

Calls for a court to review her case and save Lucio’s life grew this week, garnering bipartisan support and inspiring rallies across the country. Rep. Jeff Leach, chair of the Texas House Criminal Justice Reform, Interim Study Committee, was one of several legislators to speak in support of Lucio’s request for clemency.

“I believe so strongly that the system has failed Melissa Lucio at nearly every turn,” Leach said in the committee’s first hearing on April 12, days after visiting Lucio in solitary confinement at Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

“What I want to know more than anything as a citizen of this great state — is that the system can be trusted, that it’s fair, that it’s reliable. And right now, I have, as a policymaker, severe and sincere questions and concerns about whether that’s true,” he said, urging the importance of “pushing the pause button” on Lucio’s execution.

“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said in a statement reacting to the stay. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”

Lucio’s case will now head back to the 138th State District Court in South Texas, where Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz will decide how to retry it. Saenz has the options of taking the case back to trial with a new jury of her peers, offering her a plea deal or dropping the charges. ABC News has reached out to Saenz for comment.

Lucio’s eldest son, John Lucio, addressed the media after an eight-hour visit with his mother on Monday — the longest he’s been allowed since she was incarcerated — saying he would “keep on fighting this fight” until his mother is freed.

“I’ve chosen to fight for my mother because she’s fought for me,” John Lucio told ABC News.

He said the last 15 years have taken a toll on him and his family as they maintain her innocence in a crime that her lawyers said never occurred.

“Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was consistent with an accident,” Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project and one of Melissa Lucio’s attorneys, said in a statement after the stay was issued.

“But for the state’s use of false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of capital murder because no murder occurred,” Potkin said.

Paramedics arrived at Melissa Lucio’s residence in 2007 to find Mariah unresponsive. Lucio told them Mariah had fallen down a steep staircase two days earlier during the family’s move to a new apartment but did not seem injured at the time. Her story came into question, however, when paramedics assessed the scene.

One responder testified he became suspicious of Melissa after observing her single-story apartment and seemingly distant behavior.

“She didn’t act at all like what I would expect of a mother,” he said according to Lucio’s habeas petition.

“The paramedic looked at these three steps that led to their front door and he testified at trial, but he didn’t believe her story. He found it to be suspicious because how could the child have been injured from these few steps?” Potkin said. “But of course, this was a complete misunderstanding, and Melissa was talking about the staircase at their home that they had just moved from.”

According to a clemency petition filed by her lawyers, Lucio asserted her innocence over 100 times during a five-hour interrogation before telling police, “I guess I did it.”

“She didn’t want to say she murdered my sister and she didn’t. I know she did not … But she was basically forced to say she did,” John Lucio said.

Some jurors who initially voted to convict Lucio have expressed doubts about whether the 53-year-old mother was granted a fair trial.

“I was disheartened to learn that there was additional evidence that was not presented at trial. I believe that Ms. Lucio deserves a new trial and for a new jury to hear this evidence,” jury foreperson Melissa Quintanilla stated in her clemency petition declaration. “Knowing what I know now, I don’t think she should be executed.”

Another juror, Johnny Galvan Jr., said he felt “pressured” to agree with the guilty verdict that resulted in Melissa Lucio’s death sentence.

“We made the wrong decision because they gave us the wrong information,” he told ABC News. “There was evidence withheld that was not presented to the jury.”

None of Lucio’s children were called to testify during her original trial, including one who said he saw Mariah fall down the stairs.

“That would have made Melissa’s case a truthful statement that her baby fell. They left it out. They told us to ignore it,” Galvan Jr. said, adding that the jury “got it wrong.”

“We need to learn that the criminal justice system fails sometimes. And we certainly failed,” he added.

Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

(SAN FRANCISCO) — Twitter announced on Monday that Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is acquiring the social media giant for approximately $44 billion.

Per the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 for every share they own.

“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” said Bret Taylor, Twitter’s independent board chair, in a statement. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

The transaction, which was unanimously approved by Twitter’s board of directors, is expected to be finalized later this year pending the approval of stockholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. Once completed, the social media giant will become a privately held company.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”

“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk continued.

Supreme Court hears ‘Remain in Mexico’ repeal case

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could have major implications for President Joe Biden’s approach to immigration enforcement at the border, with the justices deciding the legality of a Trump-era policy known as “Remain in Mexico.”

Officially termed the “Migrant Protection Protocols” — or MPP — the policy was created to send unauthorized immigrants, including asylum seekers, back to Mexico while their cases are processed in immigration court. Human rights observers and immigrant advocacy organizations have documented high rates of kidnapping, extortion and violence in the areas migrants were forced to wait.

A University of California San Diego report of more than 600 asylum seekers subjected to the MPP program found about a quarter of them reported receiving violent threats, about half of which resulted in physical violence, beatings and robbery.

After Biden attempted to formally end “Remain in Mexico” last year, a federal court ordered the administration to reinstate it, siding with Texas and Missouri, which sued the government for allegedly violating the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

While the INA says that the Department of Homeland Security “shall” detain unauthorized noncitizens pending immigration proceedings, it also allows for their release on a case-by-case basis. No administration has ever been given enough resources by Congress to detain everyone who has attempted to cross the border without legal documentation.

But Texas and Missouri argue the Biden administration has been indiscriminately releasing migrants without applying the appropriate case-by-case assessment.

As a result, “Remain in Mexico” has continued under court order even though just over 3,000 migrants have been subjected to it since December, according to the DHS.

The number of southwest border encounters recently topped one million since the start of the 2022 budget year — a 20-year record — though that doesn’t mean there is a record number of unauthorized migrants.

The same week the end of Title 42 was announced, administration officials said they were preparing for an influx of migrants at the border that could top a record-breaking 18,000 apprehensions per day. But it’s not clear if those estimations account for repeat offenders.

Under Title 42, migrants are able to make repeat attempts at crossing the border to make a full case for asylum.

The recidivism rate for illegal border crossings continues to remain at an elevated level as it has throughout the implementation of the Title 42 restrictions. Last month, 28% of those who attempted to cross made at least one previous attempt within a year. That means many of those migrants’ attempts were considered multiple “encounters” by Border Patrol.

The year before Title 42 was implemented, the recidivism rate was a fraction of the current trend. Only 7% had attempted to cross more than once.

If the administration drops the use of MPP and Title 42, which it plans to end next month, Republicans and career border enforcement officials say the country will be losing vital tools to deter illegal entries.

Republicans and Biden critics have attributed the attempt to pare down and repeal “Remain in Mexico” to migration surges seen at the border in recent years. However, MPP enrollments dropped significantly at the outset of the global pandemic in early 2020 and its use was essentially superseded by the Trump administration’s implementation of Title 42, which has been used more than 1.8 million times to rapidly return migrants to Mexico.

The Biden administration plans to end the fast-track Title 42 removals on May 23 and instead process all migrants under pre-pandemic rules that allow more access for migrants to file humanitarian protection claims. That move — a return to the same policy employed by the Trump administration prior to the pandemic — is expected to result in more migrants being released into the U.S. with orders to show up at a future court date. GPS ankle monitors and parole-like checkups are often required as conditions for release.

The return to pre-pandemic immigration processing has immigration hard-liners concerned that more migrants will attempt an invalid claim, flooding the administrative adjudication system and stretching federal law enforcement resources beyond capacity.

Looming Ohio primary promises early test of Trump’s endorsement power

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — In one week, Ohio voters head to the polls for the Republican Senate midterm primary election that is set to be the first major test of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement power.

The state has voted increasingly Republican in recent elections, and now, as the race to fill the seat being vacated in November by retiring Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman heats up, many GOP hopefuls are angling to out-Trump one another in hopes of appealing to the former president’s robust base in the state.

Trump upended the race with a late-term endorsement earlier this month, throwing his weight behind venture capitalist J.D. Vance, most well-known for his book Hillbilly Elegy. At a campaign rally in Delaware, Ohio, over the weekend, the former president branded Vance as “an America first warrior.”

“He believes so much in making our country great again, and he’s going to do a job on these horrible people that we’re running against,” Trump told the crowd.

The endorsement is a political risk for Trump, who has tried — to varying degrees of success — to position himself as a GOP kingmaker. In various polling, Vance has lagged behind Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons, who have both run campaigns hawking their own commitments to Trumpian “American First” policies.

Nationally, some of the candidates backed by Trump early in their campaigns have failed to deliver wins for him. Trump went as far as to withdraw his endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks after Brooks lagged in the polls and said it was time to stop focusing on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

A victory for Vance in next week’s primary could show the might of the Trump endorsement. It’s certainly given the candidate a newfound sense of confidence going into the final leg of his primary campaign.

“The endorsement has already given us a ton of momentum,” Vance told ABC News’ Rachel Scott in Ohio on Thursday. “And I think, yeah, it’s my race to lose, but at the end of the day, we still have to do the work. I think we’re in the lead. I think if the election were held tomorrow, we would win.”

Some supporters who lined up to see Vance in Ohio on Saturday said the endorsement from Trump sold them on Vance.

“If Trump supports him, we will too,” Ed Gross said.

“I was kind of between him and another one and when Trump said J.D. Vance, that’s where I’m going,” said Paulette Schwartz, another Trump supporter.

But it’s not clear whether the endorsement will be enough. Some voters who stand with Trump said Trump’s support doesn’t quell concerns they still have about Vance’s previously disparaging comments about the former president, including once calling him “reprehensible” and an “idiot.”

“We didn’t forget that,” said one voter, Justin, who declined to give his full name. Another supporter piled on: “You can’t support Hillary and then turn around and support Trump,” Joby Jeffery said.

Trump tried to get out in front of that criticism during Saturday’s rally.

“He’s a guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump told the crowd of Vance. “But you know what? Every one of the others did also. In fact, if I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.”

Zach McNutt, a voter from Mansfield on his way to the rally on Saturday, refused to take a Vance campaign sticker from a volunteer, blasting Trump’s endorsement as a mistake.

“That is absolutely unfortunate. I think that he really needs to check his inner circle,” McNutt said of Trump.

Candidates who fell short of the Trump endorsement in Ohio are now clinging to voters like McNutt, hoping to paint themselves as the candidate best positioned to advance a Trump-style agenda, even if Trump failed to see it.

GOP hopeful Jane Timken spoke to a room of supporters near Cleveland on Friday, hitting on a variety of Trump talking points including school choice, immigration and the economy. Trump had previously endorsed Timken to lead the state’s party but didn’t back her for the Senate race. She called his endorsement of Vance “disappointing”

“We’ve got a lot of show horses in this race, but I’m the real workhorse and I’ve been in the trenches fighting for the America First policy,” Timken told Scott.

Josh Mandel, former Ohio Treasurer, has been running his campaign through churches, pitching religious conservatives on “Judeo-Christian values” he sees as the bedrock of the “America First” movement. At his event, campaign signs branded Mandel as “Pro-God, Pro-Guns, Pro-Trump.”

When ABC News met up with Mandel in Ohio on Thursday at a Cincinnati church he was joined by a surprise guest: Michael Flynn, Trump’s embattled former national security adviser.

“Let me say it very clear: I believe this election was stolen from Donald Trump,” Mandel said in front of a packed church. Cheers erupted. An elderly man jumped up and shouted something about a “cabal” trying to “take the lives of little babies” — a nod to the far-right Qanon conspiracy theory. Mandel didn’t interrupt, nodding and clapping instead.

The race has been contentious. At one point during a debate, Mandel and Gibbons nearly got into a fistfight. Mandel brushed it off, saying he’s a “fighter” for conservative values, and he pushed back when asked about his rhetoric that includes running a Twitter poll asking his followers which “illegals” commit more crimes — “Muslim Terrorists” or “Mexican Gangbangers.”

But 100 miles away from Mandel’s Cincinnati event, in Grove City, some voters think the party needs to refocus.

“I’m not a Trump fan. I’m a Republican, not a Trump fan,” Don Reed said over coffee and eggs at Lilly’s Kitchen Table.

He said his party is at a crossroads.

“It seems to be a faction of the Trump supporters who are the more outspoken, I call the name-callers ‘the bullier.’ Then you’ve got the other faction where they tried to be conservative, try to be small government without those kinds of tactics,” he added.

Only one candidate in the race is ready to move on from some of Trump’s most controversial positions. State Sen. Matt Dolan was the only candidate to raise his hand on a debate stage earlier this month when the participants were asked if it was time for Trump to move on from the 2020 election.

Dolan said his fellow candidates who are focusing on the 2020 election are taking the “wrong approach.” He wasn’t angling for Trump’s endorsement, he said.

“My entire campaign was about Ohio. I wasn’t running an election to get this endorsement,” Dolan said. “What’s ironic in this whole race, though, is I’m the only one in the race who’s actually executed on Trump policies.”

The Republican candidate who wins next Tuesday’s Senate primary will likely go on to face Democratic frontrunner Tim Ryan in the fall.

North Korea remains unvaccinated two years into pandemic

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea is as of this month one of only two countries, along with Eritrea, that haven’t administered COVID-19 vaccines, despite continuous international efforts to supply the secretive country with vaccines.

Pyongyang last year turned down nearly two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines and nearly three million doses of Sinovac vaccines offered by the international COVAX program. The country had requested that the Sinovac vaccines instead be re-allocated to severely affected nations.

Nearly 250,000 doses of Novavax vaccines allotted for North Korea by COVAX were canceled early this year, apparently due to a lack of response from Pyongyang. Experts say that Pyongyang’s dissatisfaction with the number and type of vaccines offered likely prompted them to turn down the shipments.

“The vaccines offered to North Korea so far are mostly those from AstraZeneca and Sinovac. What Pyongyang wants is U.S.-made vaccines, such as those from Pfizer,” Lee Wootae, director and research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told ABC News.

Another expert pointed out that North Korea turned down the vaccine offer because it didn’t fulfill the quantity the isolated regime wanted.

“It is not unreasonable for Pyongyang to decide that administering such a small amount of doses would have little effect,” Shin Young-jeon, professor at the Hanyang University College of Medicine, told ABC News.

Some believe Pyongyang’s reluctance is primarily affected by political judgment.

“The message that North Korea overcame a medical crisis with the help of U.S.-made vaccines will be difficult for the Kim Jong Un regime to justify, considering its critical stance towards the U.S.,” Lim Eul Chul, a professor at The Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, told ABC News.

The secretive regime may also have taken issue with the possibility of international supervision. The condition for receiving vaccines may not have been a comfortable prospect for Pyongyang, given the country’s state of total seclusion.

“For Pyongyang to accept vaccine offers, it must guarantee a transparent vaccine distribution plan. This means letting international monitors into the country and allowing them to interfere with how the vaccine is being distributed, and to whom,” Lim added.

Russia-Ukraine updates: Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals, Blinken says

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military has now launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, as it attempts to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 25, 6:34 pm
Fate of democracy in Europe being decided in Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned European superpowers that the fate of the continent is being determined by the conflict currently unfolding in Ukraine.

The future of global security and democracy in Europe are currently being decided in Ukraine, Zelenskyy said during his nightly address on Monday.

“The lessons of history are well known,” he said. “If you are going to build a millennial Reich, you lose. If you are going to destroy the neighbors, you lose. If you want to restore the old empire, you lose. And if you go against the Ukrainians, you lose.”

Ukraine Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Monday that Russia is attempting to make it seem like the world is on the brink of World War III because it has lost its “last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine.”

“Thus the talks of ‘real danger’ of WWIII,” Kuleba wrote “This only means Moscow senses a defeat in Ukraine.”

-ABC News’ Max Uzol and Christine Theodorou

Apr 25, 4:59 pm
Russian foreign minister says NATO supplies essentially a proxy war against Russia

In an interview with Russia’s Channel One, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said NATO weapons supplied to Ukraine are essentially a proxy war and that Russian troops will consider the Ukrainian warehouses storing the weapons as legitimate targets.

“Of course, these weapons will be a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces, which operate as part of a special armed operation. And warehouses, including in western Ukraine, have become such targets more than once,” Lavrov said Monday. “If NATO, in fact, goes to war with Russia, through a proxy, and arms this proxy, then in war as in war.”

Lavrov also claimed that “the real position of Ukraine is determined in Washington, London and other Western capitals.”

“Therefore, our political analysts say, why talk with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy]’s team, we need to talk with the Americans, negotiate with them, reach some kind of agreement,” Lavrov said.

-ABC News’ Natalia Shumskaia

Apr 25, 3:01 pm
Russian forces target railways, killing at least 5

Russian forces have carried out five strikes targeting Ukraine railway stations, according to the head of the state-run Ukrainian railways, Oleksandr Kamyshin.

The hardest hit were the towns of Zhmerynka and Kozyatyn, where five people were killed and 18 were injured, according to Serhii Borzov, the head of the Vinnytsia regional military administration.

No casualties were reported in the other railway strikes, which were in the Lviv, Rivne and Zhytomyr regions, officials said.

-ABC News’ Natalya Kushnir, Fidel Pavlenko and Christine Theodorou

Apr 25, 2:14 pm
UN secretary-general heading to Moscow for Lavrov, Putin meetings

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is traveling on Monday to Moscow, where on Tuesday he will have a working meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov followed by a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a deputy spokesperson for the secretary-general said.

On Thursday, Guterres will visit Ukraine where he’ll meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou

Apr 25, 1:25 pm
About 15,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine war

About 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the Ukraine invasion began, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Members of Parliament on Monday, according to the British Press Association.

Russia has lost more than 60 helicopters and fighter jets, and over 2,000 of Russia’s armored vehicles have been destroyed or captured, Wallace added.

Apr 25, 9:25 am
Biden announces nominee for ambassador to Ukraine

President Joe Biden is nominating Bridget Brink to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, he announced Monday.

Brink is currently the U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic and previously served as senior adviser and deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

“Brink spent her twenty-five-year career in the Foreign Service focused on advancing U.S. policy in Europe and Eurasia,” Biden’s statement said.

Apr 25, 6:13 am
Blinken says Russia ‘already failed’ to achieve war goals

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Russian had “already failed” to achieve its stated goals in Ukraine.

“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed,” Blinken told reporters in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. “And Ukraine has already succeeded because the principal aim that President Putin brought to this, in his own words, was to fully subsume Ukraine, back into Russia to take away its sovereignty and independence. And that has not happened and clearly will not happen.”

Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, becoming the highest-level U.S. officials to visit the war-torn country since Russia invaded in February.

Topics discussed during their three-hour meeting included defense assistance, further sanctions on Russia and financial support for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s office.

“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said, according to his office. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position.”

He added, “To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”

Apr 25, 1:03 am
US to provide $322M in additional aid, diplomats to return to Ukraine, officials tell Zelenskyy

The United States will provide Ukraine with $322 million in new aid and some diplomats will return to the war-torn country, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday.

Blinken told Zelenskyy the U.S. would begin returning its diplomats to Ukraine this week, according to the senior State Dept. official. The U.S. will reopen offices in Lviv in western Ukraine, with diplomats traveling there from Poland each day, with the goal to “have our diplomats return to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible.”

President Joe Biden will also formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently serving as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to the senior State Dept. official.

Among the new assistance announced last week, the first of the new Howitzers have arrived in Ukraine, Austin told Zelenskyy, a senior defense official told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Conor Finnegan

Apr 24, 5:23 pm
US secretary of state, defense chief meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv

An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin are meeting with Ukraine’s leader on Sunday in Kyiv.

The adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, said in an interview on Ukrainian TV late Sunday that the talks are going on “right now.”

-ABC News’ Jason Volack

Apr 24, 5:08 pm
More than 2.9M people have fled Ukraine to Poland

More than 2.9 million people have fled Ukraine and sought refuge in Poland since the Russian invasion began in February, the Polish Border Guard said on Sunday.

In recent days, however, the number of people crossing the border into Poland has fallen, while the number of refugees going back into Ukraine has risen, according to the border guard.

On Saturday, about 21,100 people entered Ukraine from Poland, while 15,100 fled to Poland from Ukraine, the agency said on Twitter.

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia attempts to encircle Ukrainian positions in east, UK says

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 26, 6:08 am
Russia attempts to encircle Ukrainian positions in east, UK says

Russian forces appeared to be moving to encircle “heavily fortified” Ukrainian positions in the east, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.

“The city of Kreminna has reportedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium, as Russian forces attempt to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east,” the ministry said in its latest intelligence update.

Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia were preparing for an attack from the south, the ministry said.

Marjorie Taylor Greene discussed martial law to keep Trump in power, text messages show

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested in a text message sent three days before Joe Biden was sworn in as president that some of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies wanted to declare martial law to keep Trump in power.

“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic],” Greene texted Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote.

The messages were revealed Monday by CNN, which said it obtained all 2,319 text messages that Meadows selectively handed over to the House select Jan. 6 committee in late 2021 before he decided not to cooperate with the panel.

The authenticity of the messages was confirmed to ABC News by people who have seen them.

“I don’t know on those things,” Greene continued in her exchange with Meadows. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”

Last Friday, Green became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Capitol attack. When asked specifically about martial law and whether or not she discussed the idea of using it to keep Trump in power with either the former president, his chief of staff, or anyone else in the administration, Greene repeatedly said, “I don’t recall.”

Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first to advocate for martial law. The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Flynn in November, requesting documents and testimony in reference to a Dec. 18, 2020 meeting he reportedly attended with Trump in the Oval Office, where seizing voting machines used in the 2020 election was discussed.

One day before meeting with Trump, Flynn told the conservative news outlet Newsmax that Trump “could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.”

Trump denied reports he was considering attempting to impose martial law, tweeting “Martial law = Fake News.”

In addition to Meadows’ texts with Greene, the trove of messages published by CNN includes texts Meadows exchanged with other members of Congress, with members of the Trump family, with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and with various reporters — including texts exchanged on Jan. 6 while the Capitol attack was taking place.

“Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything,” Greene texted Meadows during the attack, according to the collection of messages.

“Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?” then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney texted Meadows.

“They have breached the Capitol,” texted Rep. Barry Loudermilk, to which Meadows replied, “POTUS is engaging.”

“Thanks. This doesn’t help our cause,” Loudermilk responded.

France’s Macron wins reelection, but Le Pen rises, analysts say

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(PARIS) — French President Emmanuel Macron comfortably won a second term in office on Sunday, defeating far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in a closely watched runoff election.

Final results released by the French Ministry of the Interior on Monday show the centrist incumbent secured a decisive 58.54% of the vote, while Le Pen garnered 41.46%. Macron, 44, is the first sitting French president to be reelected in 20 years. He and Le Pen, 53, emerged as the top candidates in the 2022 French presidential election after a first-round vote on April 10. Sunday’s runoff was a rematch of the 2017 presidential election, in which Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.

This year, however, Macron’s victory was marred by low voter turnout and Le Pen’s ever-rising popularity. According to official figures, approximately 28% of registered voters in France did not vote in Sunday’s presidential election, the highest amount in the past two decades. French voters can also show their dissatisfaction with both candidates by voting “blanc.” Blank ballots represented 6.35% of the votes on Sunday.

While Le Pen conceded defeat on Sunday night, she told her supporters that the “result represents in itself a dazzling victory” because the amount of votes she won was the highest by a far-right candidate in France’s modern history.

Henri Wallard, the chairman of French polling institute Ipsos in Paris and its global deputy CEO, said the outcome of the 2022 presidential election showed that Le Pen’s “‘de-demonization’ has partially worked.”

“A Le Pen vote is increasingly seen as a credible alternative and not just a protest vote,” Wallard told ABC News on Monday.

Douglas Yates, a professor of international relations and diplomacy at the American Graduate School in Paris, said Macron was triumphant “less because the French support his programs and more because they did not support Le Pen’s.”

“He must keep this in mind,” Yates told ABC News on Monday. “She promised domestic programs that would be popular, things that help them fight the cost of living. He should take out his checkbook and write them some checks if he wants to keep his majority in the upcoming legislative elections.”

Macron was all but absent from the campaign trail as he moderated talks between Putin and Western countries, which ultimately failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Many French citizens were feeling disenfranchised by Macron’s stringent COVID-19 policies and unpopular plans to raise the legal retirement age amid widespread inflation and soaring gas prices.

Nevertheless, the election outcome proved that “there still was an anti-Le Pen front in large urban constituencies,” according to Wallard.

During his victory speech in front of Paris’ Eiffel Tower on Sunday night, Macron vowed to unite his divided country.

“An answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right,” Macron told his supporters. “It will be my responsibility and that of those around me.”

Although Le Pen’s far-right French political party National Rally has performed poorly in previous legislative elections, Yates said the party’s strongholds in the south, east and north of France “might give them seats” when voters return to the polls in June.

Le Pen, known for her vociferous rhetoric, sought to soften her image as the leader of the National Rally during this year’s election. The former lawyer was no longer directly calling for France to leave the European Union and abandon the euro currency.

However, she was likened to former U.S. President Donald Trump with her hard-line policies on Islam and immigration. If elected, she vowed to ban Muslim headscarves in public and give French citizens priority over foreigners for housing and job benefits.

Le Pen was also criticized for her history of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. She called Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine “unacceptable” and said she’s in favor of sanctions, but she publicly opposed restrictions on Russian energy imports, citing concerns about the rising cost of living in France. She also pledged to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command, which could undermine support for Ukraine’s fight. Le Pen previously spoke out in favor of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Ahead of the vote, French street artist Jaeraymie created distorted versions of Le Pen’s campaign posters in an effort to call out extremism. In one of his posters seen in Paris, Le Pen is depicted wearing a hijab, a Muslim headscarf, with the words: “Don’t submit to a thinly veiled extreme right.”

“She wants to ban the hijab in public spaces in France,” Jaeraymie told ABC News earlier this month. “So I found it interesting to tell her: ‘Why not imagine what it’s like to be a hijabi woman in France?'”

A passerby at the time was amused by the large poster, telling ABC News: “It’s quite funny to put into question their ideas.”

Teen’s death after fall from Florida amusement park ride ‘could’ve been prevented,’ family says

April 26, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The family of the teenager who died after falling from an amusement park ride in Florida told ABC News’ Good Morning America that his death was preventable.

“This could’ve been prevented … it should’ve been prevented,” Nekia Dodd, the mother of Tyre Sampson, told GMA. “So as an operator, you have a job to check those rides, you know. The video I saw, that was not done. And if it was done, it should’ve been done more than once, you know.”

Sampson, 14, died after falling from a ride at ICON Park in Orlando on March 24. His parents filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit on Monday.

Dodd and Tyre Sampson’s father, Yarnell Sampson, filed the lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, accusing ICON Park in Orlando and other defendants, including the manufacturer and the operator of the FreeFall thrill ride, of negligence.

“Tyre had a long and prosperous life in front of him that was cut short by this tragic event,” the lawsuit states.

“Orlando Slingshot continues to fully cooperate with the State during its investigation, and we will continue to do so until it has officially concluded,” Trevor Arnold, attorney for Orlando Slingshot, said in a statement to ABC News. “We reiterate that all protocols, procedures and safety measures provided by the manufacturer of the ride were followed. We look forward to working with the Florida legislature to implement change in the industry and we are also supportive of the concepts outlined by State Representative Geraldine Thompson to make changes to state law through the ‘Tyre Sampson Bill’ to prevent a tragic accident like this from ever happening again.”

Last week, officials listed operator error as the primary suspected cause in the death of Sampson, who slipped out of his seat on a drop-tower ride and fell more than 100 feet to the pavement.

Sampson’s parents are scheduled to hold a news conference with their attorneys Tuesday to discuss the legal action.

You can watch the full interview with Dodd Tuesday morning on GMA.

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