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Why Asa Hutchinson looked forward (and didn’t mention Trump) in campaign kickoff

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(BENTONVILLE, Ark.) — Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson, on Wednesday formally announced he’s running for the White House — going back to his hometown of Bentonville to kick off his campaign.

“I have been a consistent conservative through my time as leader of the party — in the United States Congress and as governor. And now, I bring that same vigor to another fight and that battle is for the future of our country and the soul of our party,” he told supporters. “Today, I am announcing that I am a candidate for president of the United States.”

“In this campaign for president, I stand alone in terms of my experience, my record, and leadership,” he said, echoing remarks from earlier this month when he first revealed he was running on ABC’s “This Week.”

The day before Wednesday’s event, Hutchinson, who says the Republican Party should not be looking in the rearview mirror, took a a look back himself as he prepared for the formal announcement.

“It’s really exciting to have it in Bentonville,” Hutchinson said in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday. “First of all, it reflects me.”

It was 37 years ago, outside the same county courthouse where Hutchinson had tried his earliest cases as an attorney, that he announced his first campaign for statewide office. It’s where, in the 1970s, he put in the town’s first FM radio station, and where the now 72-year-old raised his four children.

To mark the campaign kickoff, Hutchinson was planning to sprinkle bits of his heritage in the program.

A marching band from Springdale High School, Hutchinson’s alma mater, was to supply music, while cheerleaders from Gravette, a small town where he went to grade school, were going to provide extra pep. His wife of 50 years, Susan, was going to introduce him.

“It reflects the rural roots that are a part of me,” Hutchinson said. “The other part of the story, about Bentonville, is that it tells the story of America, from entrepreneurs that didn’t rely upon the government.”

Naming Sam Walton, Don Tyson and J.B. Hunt, Hutchinson recalled an era that was “just simply America, and now you see the growth, but you still have the same small-town values that made it special.”

Don’t expect to hear ‘Trump’

While Hutchinson has cast himself as a Republican foil to former President Donald Trump, even calling for Trump to drop out of the race following his indictment, ABC News was told not to expect to hear the name “Trump” in his speech.

A source familiar said to expect, instead, a focus on looking forward — as opposed to leaders on both sides looking in the rearview mirror.

“It was a very backward look that Joe Biden gave in his announcement,” Hutchinson said Tuesday, reacting to President Joe Biden’s video announcing his reelection campaign. “It was more about the past and 2020, and I was disappointed there wasn’t more of a forward-looking.”

“We don’t need a replay of 2020. We don’t need a Biden-Trump contest again. It didn’t look pretty in 2020. It will look even worse in 2024. We’ve seen that movie. We don’t need to see it again,” he added. “That’s why President Biden is really focusing on Trump because he would love to have a replay of that.”

For Hutchinson, looking ahead includes a trip to Washington this weekend for the White House Correspondents Dinner before returning to Iowa for several small-scale campaign events.

The race for enthusiasm

Hutchinson made his 2024 bid official earlier this month in an exclusive sit-down interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl — but Wednesday marks his formal launch with supporters in his home state.

The term-limited governor was succeeded after eight years by former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Hutchinson’s campaign pointed out that all three of his Republican predecessors had Democrats succeed them in office, until him.

That executive experience bookended decades of public service including three consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving in the George W. Bush administration as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and later as the nation’s first Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Border Protection.

But his career in public service began in Bentonville, as a city attorney, before President Ronald Reagan appointed him as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas in 1982. He was the youngest U.S. attorney in the nation at the time and notably, prosecuted a white supremacist militia group, the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord.

In his interview with Karl, Hutchinson acknowledged it would take “a lot of hard work and good messaging” to raise his national profile and break through a crowded field.

He’s currently polling in the single digits, well behind some of his other official competitors in the race — Trump, former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — and some thought to be running like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But Hutchinson isn’t fazed by what may be a brutal primary season. He feels called to serve.

“I think the Republican base will see that our best chance of moving forward with conservative principles is through new ideas and new leadership,” he said. “That’s what’s beautiful about our democracy is that you can go retail politics, you can do policy, and that’s what wins votes.”

Taliban unaware it killed alleged planner of Kabul airport bombing that left 13 Americans dead: US official

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — ABC News on Wednesday obtained new details after major questions were left unanswered when Biden administration officials on Tuesday said the Taliban had killed the terrorist allegedly responsible for planning the 2021 Kabul, Afghanistan, airport bombing.

The attack took the lives of 13 U.S. service members and scores of civilians.

ABC News spoke to a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter to get more answers Wednesday morning.

Was the U.S. involved, even in indirect ways, such as intelligence-sharing?

While officials, such as White House spokesman John Kirby and Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, have publicly stated the U.S. had no role in the Taliban operation that they say killed the ISIS-K leader, it was unclear whether the U.S. could have played a subtler indirect part, such as by sharing intelligence.

When ABC News asked the U.S. official whether there was coordination of any kind with the Taliban, the official replied, “None at all.”

While the U.S. also sought to target the ISIS-K terrorist, the Taliban killed him on its own, according to the official.

Why hasn’t the Taliban taken credit?

Another curious aspect of the story is that the Taliban has so far not taken credit for the apparent high-level blow against its ISIS-K nemesis.

The U.S. assesses the reason is that the Taliban did not know it had killed this particular terrorist, according to the official.

How did the U.S. learn of the death, if the Taliban didn’t notify it?

A senior Biden administration official on Tuesday said the U.S. did not learn of the death from the Taliban, but would not elaborate.

The U.S. official on Wednesday went slightly further, saying the U.S. learned of the death through its own intelligence capabilities, according to the official.

Why won’t U.S. officials name the ISIS-K planner?

So far, administration officials have refused to give the name of the planner, with Kirby telling reporters on Wednesday, “I’m just not at liberty to reveal that.”

The U.S. official told ABC News the reluctance to give the name is due to concerns doing so would reveal intelligence sourcing, according to the official.

When did the death occur?

The White House and Pentagon said the Taliban attack that killed the planner took place “in recent weeks.” The U.S. official specified that it occurred in “early April.”

Was there any airstrike involved in the killing of the ISIS-K planner?

The official said the terrorist was killed in a Taliban ground attack.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

Disney sues Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and officials over ‘targeted campaign of government retaliation’

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Disney filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and various Florida officials over a campaign the company alleges was “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star opens up about battle with postpartum anxiety, severe PMS disorder

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — In Camilla Luddington’s role as Dr. Jo Wilson on Grey’s Anatomy, the actress was tasked with portraying a character who experienced mental health struggles, including a stay in a psychiatric facility.

Offscreen, Luddington is opening up about the mental health struggles she has experienced herself, including a battle with postpartum anxiety.

Luddington, a mom of two, said in a new interview with Wondermind , the Selena Gomez-backed mental fitness ecosystem, that she started therapy for the first time.

“I never felt like I needed to [undergo therapy], and then my daughter was born,” Luddington said. “I now look back and realize I had postpartum anxiety, which I didn’t know was a thing. I knew about postpartum depression, and I knew I didn’t have that, but I had so much anxiety.”

Luddington and her husband, actor Matt Alan, announced the birth of their daughter Hayden in April 2017. The couple announced the birth of their second child, a son named Lucas, in August 2020.

While some level of worrying is normal with a newborn, worries that turn irrational and incessant are signs of postpartum anxiety. Around 10% of postpartum women develop anxiety, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Despite its prevalence, there is no category for it in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Postpartum anxiety is most often grouped under postpartum depression, which affects about 1 in 7 women, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Luddington said that for her, anxiety manifests in physical conditions. She said that by working with a therapist, she has learned tools to help her cope.

“I can feel myself physically getting anxious, which is a vicious circle [because] it gives me more anxiety to feel the anxiety,” Luddington said. “I feel anxiety, for example, in my feet. My feet start to tingle — that’s how I know I’m starting to get anxious. There are different parts of my body that I then start honing in on, like my heart racing.”

“[My therapist] tells me to find a place in my body that feels neutral, and, the funny thing is, I always think of my butt. My butt is never racing like my heart or tingling like my feet or hands,” she continued, laughing. “And actually honing in on that part of my body, or any part of [my] body that is not feeling the anxiety, is something that, in the moment, can kind of cool me down. … I know it [might] sound funny to some people, but figuring out an area of my body that is not manifesting that physical anxiety really helps me.”

After the birth of her second child in 2020, Luddington said she experienced another condition, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which she said she did not know about before it happened to her.

“I never really had PMS growing up. … I hadn’t suffered from depression before [either], so I didn’t really understand what was going on. I just felt like there were times when, for a few days, I was just sad. Just depressed,” Luddington said. “My son was born during COVID in August 2020, so I kind of chalked it up to, ‘This is hard, this year’s hard, there are a lot of sad things happening in the world, and I’m just having one of those days.'”

Luddington said she began to notice that her bouts of irritability and depression coincided with the start of her menstrual cycle, which prompted her to go her doctor for help.

“When I went to go see my [doctor], I said, ‘I’m kind of noticing this happening every month,'” Luddington recalled. “I described my symptoms, and she said, ‘Well, that’s PMDD.’ And I had never even heard of that before.”

What to know about PMDD

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder affects as many as 5% of women of childbearing age, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

It is described as a condition similar to PMS but more severe in the symptoms it brings, including depression, thoughts of suicide, irritability, fatigue, anxiety and tension. Physical symptoms may include headaches, cramps, bloating, joint and muscle pain, insomnia and binge eating or food cravings.

PMDD happens in the week or two before a woman’s period starts, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

Exactly why PMDD occurs is not yet known, though it is suspected to have to do with hormonal changes. Serotonin levels, which also change during the menstrual cycle, may also play a role.

People who have a family history of depression, postpartum depression or other mood disorders may be more at risk for PMDD, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

When diagnosing PMDD, health care providers look for five or more PMDD symptoms, including a mood-related symptom, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

PMDD can be treated, which is why it is important to seek medical help.

Treatments can include everything from antidepressants and hormonal birth control to lifestyle changes like diet, exercise and stress-management tools, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Luddington said that for her, starting on a prescription antidepressant was helpful, after meeting with a psychiatrist.

“I went on Zoloft for the first time this year, which I think is important to talk about because I feel like there’s still a stigma about medication,” Luddington said. “I was nervous about going on it because I was like, I’m an actress. Can I still be in touch with my feelings? Will I be able to cry on camera? Will I feel different? Will I seem out of it? [But] honestly, it has been super amazing for me, and this is the first time I’m talking about it.”

She added, “It definitely took away my PMDD, so I don’t have that dip every month. But then, also, it just helped any general anxiety I have. I feel like I’m a lot less anxious.”

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, substance use or other mental health crises, please call or text the new three digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Multiple casualties after missile hits Ukrainian museum

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.

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

Apr 26, 12:50 PM EDT
Zelenskyy has 1st call with China’s Xi Jinping since war began

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping in what was the two leaders’ first official contact since January 2022, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Xi announced that he will send a special envoy to visit Ukraine and “other countries” to work on a political solution.

“I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on Twitter.

The Chinese government’s official position still refuses to call the war an “invasion.”

The call between the two leaders is said to have lasted an hour, according to Zelenskyy’s office.

“Before the full-scale Russian invasion, China was Ukraine’s number one trading partner. I believe that our conversation today will give a powerful impetus to the return, preservation and development of this dynamic at all levels,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.

-ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Cindy Smith and Will Gretsky

Apr 25, 1:03 PM EDT
At least 2 dead, 10 injured in strike that hit Ukrainian museum

At least two people were killed and 10 injured after a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian museum Tuesday, officials said.

The local history museum is located in the city center of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.

“The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media while sharing a video that showed the damaged building. “Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”

Apr 24, 5:48 AM EDT
Russian passports pushed on occupied Ukraine

Russian officials have warned Ukrainians in occupied Kherson that they may be “deported” if they don’t accept Russian passports, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said Monday.

“Russia is using passports as a tool in the ‘Russification’ of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion,” the ministry on Twitter.

Residents of Kherson have been warned of penalties for those who don’t accept Russian passports by June 1. Some may be removed from the territory or may have their property seized, according to the U.K.

Apr 23, 11:42 PM EDT
Russia says US has denied journalist visas, vows it ‘will not forgive’

Russia said Sunday that the U.S. has denied visas to Russian journalists who wanted to cover Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to New York.

Lavrov promised that the decision will not be forgotten by their side.

“The country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, most free, fairest has chickened out, has done a silly thing and shown what its sworn assurances on protecting freedom of speech, access to information and so on are worth,” he told reporters at the airport before his flight to New York.

“Most importantly, you can be sure: we will not forget, we will not forgive this,” the minister told the pool of journalists who have not been granted U.S. visas.

The journalists had planned to cover Lavrov’s appearance at the United Nations to mark Russia’s chairmanship of the Security Council.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the U.S.’s decision “outrageous” on Sunday, Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported.

-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Edward Szekeres, Natalia Shumskaia

Apr 21, 3:35 PM EDT
Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the EU so far

Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained in the European Union, Josep Borrell, an EU representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Friday.

The EU has delivered over $600 million of ammunition and missiles to Ukraine, according to Borrell.

-ABC News’ Oleksiy Pshemyskiy

Apr 20, 7:08 PM EDT
Russian warplane accidentally fires weapon into Russian city of Belgorod: Defense ministry

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that ammunition from a Russian Su-34 military aircraft fell in Belgorod, a city in the southern region of Russia.

“On the evening of April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of an aviation munition occurred,” the agency said.

The ministry claimed buildings were damaged but there were no immediate reports of victims. An investigation is underway, according to the agency.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 5:18 PM EDT
Ukraine’s ‘rightful place’ is in NATO: Secretary-General

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, to highlight the more than €150 billion of support to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

“Allies are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles, and NATO’s Ukraine fund is providing urgent support,” he said in a statement. “All of this is making a real difference on the battlefield today.”

While in Ukraine, the secretary-general visited Bucha and paid his respects to the victims of Russian atrocities.

He also laid a wreath at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine, paying tribute to all those who have lost lives or suffered wounds in defense of their homeland.

“Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help to make this possible,” Stoltenberg said.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 4:13 PM EDT
Russian athletes will not be accepted in 2024 Olympics if war goes on: Paris mayor

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, which is hosting the 2024 summer Olympics, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russian athletes “cannot be accepted in Paris,” if the war with Ukraine is still ongoing when the games begin.

“Paris is the capital of human rights,” Hidalgo said in a statement. “We are trying to convince athletes, international federations and countries. We stand with you.”

Hidalgo and Vasco Cordeiro, the president of the European Committee of the Regions, met with Zelenskyy as part of the International Summit of Cities and Regions Thursday.

Zelenskyy thanked Hidalgo for her support and presented her with Ukraine’s “Rescuer City” honorary award.

-ABC News’ Max Uzol and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

New bill would require Supreme Court to create a code of conduct amid recent controversies

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Two Senate lawmakers have unveiled bipartisan legislation to require the Supreme Court create a code of conduct amid recent controversies surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas.

The high court is the only branch of government that operates without a code of conduct. Senators Angus King, I-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Wednesday introduced a bill to change that.

“A healthy democracy requires trust: trust in systems, trust in institutions, and trust in leaders. Americans deserve to have confidence that every part of their government — especially the highest court in the land — is acting in an ethical manner,” King said in a statement.

Murkowski, too, said it’s “critical the public has full faith that their institutions are functioning, including the judicial branch.”

The legislation would force the court to create a code of conduct, post it publicly online and appoint an individual tasked with handling any complaints of potential violations.

However, it doesn’t lay out what those rules should be — instead giving the court the power to enact its own guidelines.

The court is facing fresh scrutiny over Justice Thomas’ ties to wealthy Republican donor Harlan Crow. ProPublica reported Thomas for years has accepted luxury trips and private travel from the donor and didn’t report it on his annual financial disclosure filings.

Thomas has said it’s been his understanding that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

The revelation was met with swift condemnation from Democrats.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing next week regarding the ethical rules that govern the nine justices and possible reforms to those rules.

Durbin invited Chief Justice John Roberts to testify, warning Roberts the “status quo is no longer tenable.”

Roberts on Tuesday declined the invitation, stating such a scenario would be “exceedingly rare.”

The chief justice also sent Durbin a five-page statement signed by all nine justices detailing the court’s ethics and practices. Roberts said they all adhere to it, despite there being no independent enforcement of such rules.

In the statement, the justices wrote they aimed to provide clarity on how they address ethical issues, stating they look to “judicial opinions, treatises, scholarly articles, disciplinary decisions, and the historical practice of the court and the federal judiciary” or advice from colleagues.

It’s unclear if King and Murkowski’s bill will gain traction in Congress, as Republicans have been less critical of the Thomas controversies. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last week he had “total confidence” in Roberts to handle any internal issues that arise at the court.

‘Trump raped me,’ E. Jean Carroll testifies in battery, defamation case

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, on the first day of testimony in her civil defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump, told the jury that Trump had raped her.

Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room.

She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.

“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” she testified Wednesday. “And when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. And I’m here to try and get my life back.”

Earlier Wednesday, the jury heard from the former general manager at the Bergdorf Goodman women’s store.

Cheryl Beal, who worked for the department store in the mid-1990s, testified regarding the store’s layout, including the sixth floor where lingerie, couture brands and designer sportswear were sold, and where Carroll said Trump raped her in a dressing room while few, if any, people were around.

“It wasn’t one of our busiest floors,” Beal said.

Before the jury entered the courtroom, Carroll’s attorney read aloud parts of two social media posts by Donald Trump that she said violated the judge’s orders.

On Truth Social Wednesday morning, Trump posted that Carroll’s legal team is being “financed by a big political donor that they said didn’t exist, only to get caught lying about that.”

He also posted regarding Carroll, “She said there was a dress, using the ol’ Monica Lewinsky ‘stuff,’ then she didn’t want to produce it.”

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the posts violated the court’s orders against “comments about lawyers and one about DNA.”

“These are out-of-court comments obviously,” said defense attorney Joe Tacopina, but Judge Lewis Kaplan cut him off, saying, “…where for two years he refused to give a DNA sample, and now wants it in the case.”

“What you’re trying to do is to get away from a statement by your client, a public statement, that on the face of it seems entirely inappropriate,” Kaplan told Tacopina.

Tacopina said he would address the posts with Trump.

“I will speak to my client and ask him to refrain from any posts about this case,” Tacopina said.

Kaplan said he hoped the lawyer was successful.

“We’re getting into an area in which your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability, and I think you know what I mean,” Kaplan said.

It remains unclear if Trump will testify himself at any point. The judge demanded to know this week whether Trump will appear, telling the defense that it was time to “fish or cut bait.”

The trial is expected to last about five days.

During opening statements Tuesday, Carroll’s attorney told the jury that Trump “banged the door closed and lunged at” Carroll as she recounted what Carroll said happened in a dressing room of the department store.

“Ms. Carroll will tell you she was shocked,” Crowley said.

In 2019, when Carroll decided to write about the alleged encounter, Crowley said that “Donald Trump’s response was explosive.”

“Suddenly Ms. Carroll was all over the headlines. The most powerful person in the world … had branded her a liar.”

But Tacopina told the jury in his opening statement that Carroll’s defamation and battery claims are an “affront to justice,” accusing the writer of taking Trump to court “for money, for political reasons and for status.”

Tacopina told jurors that “you can hate Donald Trump” — but that the appropriate place to express those feelings is at the ballot box and not in a court of law.

Tacopina said Carroll “falsely alleged that he raped her,” and that’s why Trump publicly attacked her.

The nine-member jury of six men and three women is weighing Carroll’s defamation and battery claims and deciding potential monetary damages.

This week’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in the Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.

Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.

Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.

If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.

E. Jean Carroll, testifying in civil case, says she can’t recall date of alleged Trump attack

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — E. Jean Carroll, on the first day of testimony in her civil defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump, told the jury that she first met Trump in 1987 — but she struggled to pinpoint the year that she alleges he raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store.

She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.

“When do you believe Donald Trump assaulted you?” her attorney, Mike Ferrara, asked Carroll during her testimony Wednesday.

“This question, the when, the when, the date, has been something I’ve constantly trying to pin down,” Carroll said.

At first she said she thought it was 1994 or 1995, but she said her friend Lisa Birnbach published an article about Trump for New York magazine in February 1996.

“Lisa never would have gone down to Mar-a-Lago … if she knew what Donald Trump had done to me,” Carroll said, leading her to believe the alleged attack occurred in 1996.

In her opening statement, Carroll attorney Shawn Crowley suggested the lack of specificity doesn’t matter.

“While Ms. Carroll doesn’t remember exactly when this happened, she remembers almost every detail of what happened, and her testimony alone will be enough for you to find Donald Trump liable in this case,” Crowley said.

The defense told the jury those details matter.

“She can’t tell you the date that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the month that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the season. She can’t even tell you the year that she claims to have been raped by Donald Trump,” defense attorney Joe Tacopina said during his opening statement.

“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” Carroll said at the start of her testimony. “And when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. And I’m here to try and get my life back.”

Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.

Earlier Wednesday, the jury heard from the former general manager at the Bergdorf Goodman women’s store.

“It wasn’t one of our busiest floors,” Beal said.

Before the jury entered the courtroom, Carroll’s attorney read aloud parts of two social media posts by Trump that she said violated the judge’s orders.

On Truth Social Wednesday morning, Trump posted that Carroll’s legal team is being “financed by a big political donor that they said didn’t exist, only to get caught lying about that.”

He also posted regarding Carroll, “She said there was a dress, using the ol’ Monica Lewinsky ‘stuff,’ then she didn’t want to produce it.”

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the posts violated the court’s orders against “comments about lawyers and one about DNA.”

“What you’re trying to do is to get away from a statement by your client, a public statement, that on the face of it seems entirely inappropriate,” Kaplan told Tacopina.

Tacopina said he would address the posts with Trump.

“I will speak to my client and ask him to refrain from any posts about this case,” Tacopina said.

Kaplan said he hoped the lawyer was successful.

“We’re getting into an area in which your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability, and I think you know what I mean,” Kaplan said.

It remains unclear if Trump will testify himself at any point. The judge demanded to know this week whether Trump will appear, telling the defense that it was time to “fish or cut bait.”

The trial is expected to last about five days. The nine-member jury of six men and three women is weighing Carroll’s defamation and battery claims and deciding potential monetary damages.

Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.

Dozens dead, hundreds missing in Kenya starvation cult case

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — An ongoing investigation into a suspected religious cult in southeastern Kenya whose followers were allegedly told to starve themselves has led to the discovery of dozens of bodies.

The death toll reached 90 on Tuesday after Kenyan police exhumed more remains from mass graves on an 800-acre forest in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal town of Malindi.

“This is as of now,” Kenyan Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said during a press conference on Tuesday while visiting the site. “The process continues for the rest of the day and we don’t know how many more graves, how many more bodies we are likely to discover.”

More than 200 people have been reported missing in the area in the wake of the grim findings, according to a press release from the Kenya Red Cross Society.

Most of the dead have been recovered from shallow graves, while some were found alive but later died. Another 34 people who were rescued from the property have survived, Kindiki said.

The victims are all believed to be followers of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and his self-proclaimed Good News International Church. Mackenzie, who owns the land, is accused of luring his followers there and instructing them to “observe fasting till death in order to meet their maker,” according to a statement from Kenya’s Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome.

Mackenzie surrendered to police on April 14 after they raided his property, Koome said. He remains in custody.

Mackenzie has a criminal record dating back to 2017. He was arrested last month in connection with the starvation deaths of two children but he was subsequently released on bail of 10,000 Kenyan shillings (about $75), according to Koome.

A preliminary probe indicates that Mackenzie and other potential suspects could be charged with murder and terrorism, according to a press release from Kenya’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which described the scene in Shakahola as “shocking to the human conscience.”

Meanwhile, the interior minister has hinted at the possibility of charging Mackenzie with genocide. He said investigators are also looking into another suspected cult in the same county.

“We have cast the net wider to another religious organization here in Kilifi,” Kindiki told reporters on Tuesday. “We have opened a formal inquiry on this religious group and we are getting crucial leads that perhaps what was being done by Mackenzie is a tip of the iceberg.”

After investigating abuse in prison system, senators propose new oversight law

April 26, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Bipartisan legislation set to be introduced Wednesday aims to provide more oversight of federal prisons as part of a renewed push to address reports of scandal and abuse.

The bill would create a hotline for prisoners to report misconduct to an accountability office. It would also mandate federal watchdog inspections, congressional reporting requirements and response plans from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Titled the Federal Prison Oversight Act, the proposal builds on similar efforts last year and follows multiple investigations led by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia that spotlighted misconduct and sexual abuse of inmates at the hands of prison guards.

“My bipartisan investigations of corruption, abuse, and misconduct in the Federal prison system revealed an urgent need to overhaul federal prison oversight,” Ossoff said as his office prepared to introduce the bill on Wednesday. “I am bringing Republicans and Democrats together to crack down on corruption, strengthen public safety, and protect civil rights.”

If the legislation passes through the divided Congress and is signed into law, the Justice Department’s inspector general would also be directed to conduct risk assessments of the 122 federal prison facilities run by the Bureau of Prisons. Investigators would then score the level of risk at each penitentiary, with higher-risk facilities receiving more scrutiny.

The bill is cosponsored by Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana and Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Today’s bill is the latest step in support of that mission to improve oversight and fulfill one of the fundamental purposes of the prison system: to provide safe and humane conditions of confinement and ensure the successful return of incarcerated individuals to the community,” Durbin said.

In December, former federal prison inmates testified about the abuses they faced while incarcerated. The testimony and accompanying Senate investigation laid the groundwork for the new bill, which takes a more expansive view of sexual misconduct to identify abusive behavior by prison staff.

Briane Moore told lawmakers in December that she was raped by an officer at a federal facility in West Virginia. She said the officer would take her to private areas of the facility to abuse her out of sight of surveillance cameras.

“I knew he had the power to prevent me from being transferred to a prison closer to my family closer to my daughter,” Moore said. “He was a captain with total control over me. I had no choice but to obey.”

Through more independent accountability protections, the new oversight bill aims to curb the potential for prison guards to wield their power over inmates in abusive ways. The legislation has broad support from prison reform and management stakeholders, including a prison workers union which represents 30,000 correctional officers, the American Civil Liberties Union and the prison reform group Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

“There is a crisis in our nation’s prisons and jails,” FAMM President Kevin Ring said in a statement. “Families with incarcerated loved ones and correctional officers have known about this crisis for years – and now Congress is on notice.”

Federal authorities have identified other concerning problems, beyond what the Senate highlighted. A February report from the Justice Department’s inspector general found the Bureau of Prisons “has not been able to identify the prevalence and scope of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment,” which particularly affects female officers.

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