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Allegations of racist comments, threats by county officials prompt calls for resignations

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has called for the resignation of several local officials following the release of a recording that allegedly captured comments he called “hateful rhetoric” that were made at a McCurtain County commissioners’ meeting.

“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Stitt said in a statement. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place.”

According to the recording captured by McCurtain Gazette reporter Chris Willingham, county officials discussed plans to beat, kill and hide the bodies of local newspaper reporters, including Willingham.

Willingham is currently involved in a lawsuit against county investigator Alicia Manning, the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department and the Board of County Commissioners in which he claims Manning defamed him and violated his civil rights, according to the McCurtain Gazette.

In Oklahoma, all meetings of public bodies must be open to its residents. However, according to the Gazette, after the public dispersed following a March 6 public meeting, officials continued to discuss county business not listed on the agenda.

According to Oklahoma law, consent to record is not required to record conversations in public where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. The newspaper said the recording is “legally obtained.”

“I know where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them,” said one official,, according to the Gazette. Another official responds: “I’ve got an excavator.”

“I’ve known two or three hit men, they’re very quiet guys,” said the official believed to be Jennings, according to local reports. “… And would cut no f—ing mercy.”

“If a hair on his wife’s head, Bruce Willingham’s head, or any of those people that really were behind all that, if any hair on their head got touched by anybody, who would be the bad guy?” said an official believed to be county investigator Alicia Manning.

Jennings can allegedly be heard also making racist comments in the recording, saying that “if it was back in the day” when officers “would take a damn Black guy and whoop their a– and throw him in the cell? I’d run for f—ing sheriff.”

He added, “Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.”

The governor said he will be calling on the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations to look into “whether any illegal conduct has occurred.” The OSBI, however, told ABC News it has not yet received a request.

The state Office of the Attorney General is investigating, a spokesperson told ABC News.

Stitt called for the resignation of Manning, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, who are allegedly heard in the recorded conversations, as well as Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix, who is said to have been present.

Residents have begun protesting outside of local government buildings to push for accountability regarding the comments.

Willingham, at the center of the alleged threats, told News9, he was “was completely appalled and frightened, quite frankly” upon hearing the recording.

ABC News has reached out to the Board of County Commissioners for comment.

Prosecutor files 2 felony charges against suspect in Ralph Yarl shooting

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office announced that it filed two criminal charges against a suspect in the April 13 shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri.

Andrew Lester was charged with one count of felony assault in the first degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony, police said Monday.

The 16-year-old Black teenager was shot Thursday night by a homeowner in Kansas City after he accidentally went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings, police said.

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

Texas bill could hand vaccine decisions in schools over to lawmakers

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(AUSTIN, Texas) — A bill described as “anti-vaccine” is moving through the Texas legislature and could give lawmakers the power to make decisions about vaccines in schools rather than doctors or administrators.

SB 1024, which was recently passed by a Senate committee — and will soon be voted on by the Texas Senate and the House — could limit schools and local health departments from being able to require or recommend immunizations.

While the proposed legislation mainly focuses on ending COVID-19 restrictions and barring COVID-19 vaccine requirements, public health experts say it could have implications for any kind of vaccine.

The bill states “every child shall be immunized against diphtheria, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, measles, meningococcal disease, mumps, pertussis, polio, rubella, tetanus, and varicella” but not any other disease.

This language could apply to vaccines that are currently in development or for shots that don’t yet exist.

What’s more, legislators would be able to decide whether to add or remove vaccines that are required for students in kindergarten through 12th grade in Texas.

“This is a very concerning trend because it’s not just about COVID,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “It’s not even just about future pandemics, although that’s worrisome as well.”

“It’s a now thing and it will have immediate potential implications by cherry-picking who gets vaccinated and who gets mandated and how much of the population is protected against diseases.”

Chin-Hong said diseases considered to be eliminated from the United States due to vaccines have cropped up in recent years, including several outbreaks of measles and a recent case of polio identified in New York last year.

Health experts say that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective and that the bill is the most recent example of a trend of anti-vaccine legislation that has swept the country.

“There is no doubt…that the COVID vaccines are an extraordinary triumph,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “They’ve been very effective, particularly in preventing severe disease, a kind that requires hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, and could lead to death.”

Schaffner continued, “They’ve been used in millions of people around the world. They’re no longer new. They’re no longer experimental. They’re really very solidly established vaccines.”

He said bills like this cast doubt on public health experts and further erode public trust.

The bill authored by Republican State Senator Lois Kolkhorst, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which just passed the bill.

If the bill is passed and signed into law, it would go into effect Sept. 1, 2023.

Kolkhorst’s office did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment, but this is not the first bill she’s introduced regarding vaccine restrictions.

One bill, SB 1025, prohibits the use of vaccine passports to certify vaccination status and would implement a tracking system for adverse events following the administration of vaccines and booster doses.

Another bill, SB 1026, prevents governments, courts, schools and employers from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination and from discrimination based on COVID-19 vaccination status.

Three Senate Republicans vow to block Feinstein’s Judiciary replacement

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — At least three Republican senators have said they will not support a move to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Senate Judiciary Committee — saying they wouldn’t want to help Democrats advance President Joe Biden’s agenda.

On Monday afternoon, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who sits on the committee, became the most recent Republican to voice his opposition to temporarily replacing Feinstein as she’s proposed while she recovers at home from having shingles, signaling an uphill battle Senate Democrats face in securing a replacement.

“Never, not once, have we allowed temporary substitutes on committees, and now is not the time to start. Republicans are not going to break this precedent in order to bail out Senator Schumer or the Biden administration’s most controversial nominees,” he claimed. “Senator Feinstein has been a mainstay of this body for more than three decades, and I hope to see her back in these halls soon. But until then, President Biden’s most controversial parts partisan judicial nominees will have to wait,” he added later.

With lawmakers returning to Washington on Monday from a two-week recess, Senate Democrats were poised to find a senator to temporarily replace Feinstein on the committee, the first step in freeing up a log-jam of politically important judicial nominations accumulated in her absence.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats hold a mere one-seat majority, as they do in the full chamber, is the first stop for the president’s judicial nominations. With lifetime appointments, judges can deeply shape how the nation’s laws are interpreted.

After the 89-year-old senator said last week she was extending her already six-week absence from the Senate due to complications related to having shingles, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would grant her request to find another Democratic senator to temporarily serve in her place.

But Republicans may not allow for what’s typically a routine move to go forward smoothly.

Any hopes to pass Feinstein’s replacement through a unanimous consent vote were quashed over the weekend, when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a committee member tweeted an op-ed questioning why Republicans would cooperate with Feinstein’s ask, and said, “Republicans should not assist Democrats in confirming Joe Biden’s most radical nominees to the courts.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., also a committee member, joined Cotton on Monday to argue that helping Schumer to replace Feinstein would amount to helping Democrats “pack the court with activist judges.”

“I will not go along with Chuck Schumer’s plan to replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee and pack the court with activist judges,” Blackburn tweeted on Monday. “Joe Biden wants the Senate to rubber stamp his unqualified and controversial judges to radically transform America.”

It will now take at least 60 votes to pass the resolution required to temporarily replace Feinstein on the high-stakes committee, meaning at least 10 Republicans need to join Democrats in the 51-49 chamber under narrow Democratic control.

And with Cornyn adding his voice, it’s unclear how much other opposition Democrats might face.

Schumer, for his part, didn’t appear concerned with the objectors when he returned to the Capitol on Monday and said he planned to bring the matter to the floor later this week.

“We should have a temporary replacement until she returns and we’re hopeful Republicans will join us on that,” he told reporters. “It’s the only right and fair thing to do.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., acknowledged on ABC’s “This Week” that Feinstein’s absence could become a bigger problem for Democrats if it extends into votes on raising the debt ceiling, for instance.

“If this goes on month after month after month, then she’s gonna have to make a decision with her family and her friends about what her future holds, because this isn’t just about California; it’s also about the nation,” Klobuchar said. “So it’s going to become an issue as the months go by. But I’m taking her at her word that she’s going to return.”

Despite at least two House Democrats calling on her to resign, lawmakers might not have to wait much longer for the oldest member of Congress to return.

“I spoke to Senator Feinstein, just a few days ago,” Schumer said. “She believes she will return soon.”

Until she does, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, also 89 but three months shy of Feinstein’s age, has the distinction of being the oldest lawmaker in Washington — as of Monday.

ABC News’ Trish Turner and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.

Two Senate Republicans vow to block Feinstein’s Judiciary replacement

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — At least two Republican senators have said they will not support a move to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Senate Judiciary Committee — saying they wouldn’t want to help Democrats advance President Joe Biden’s agenda.

With lawmakers returning to Washington on Monday from a two-week recess, Senate Democrats were poised to find a senator to temporarily replace Feinstein on the committee, the first step in freeing up a log-jam of politically-important judicial nominations accumulated in her absence.

But Republicans may not allow for what’s typically a routine move to go forward smoothly.

Any hopes to pass Feinstein’s replacement through a unanimous consent vote were quashed over the weekend, when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted an op-ed questioning why Republicans would cooperate with Feinstein’s ask, and said, “Republicans should not assist Democrats in confirming Joe Biden’s most radical nominees to the courts.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., joined Cotton on Monday to argue that helping Schumer to replace Feinstein would amount to helping Democrats “pack the court with activist judges.”

Schumer, for his part, didn’t appear concerned with the objectors when he returned to the Capitol on Monday and said he planned to bring the matter to the floor later this week.

“We should have a temporary replacement until she returns and we’re hopeful Republicans will join us on that,” he told reporters. “It’s the only right and fair thing to do.”

Despite at least two House Democrats calling on her to resign, lawmakers might not have to wait much longer for the oldest member of Congress to return.

“I spoke to Senator Feinstein, just a few days ago,” Schumer said. “She believes she will return soon.”

Until she does, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, also 89 but three months shy of Feinstein’s age, has the distinction of being the oldest lawmaker in Washington — as of Monday.

ABC News’ Trish Turner contributed to this report.

Three missing sailors likely encountered 20-foot seas near Mexico: Coast Guard commander

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Three Americans missing off the coast of Mexico likely encountered “significant” weather and waves as they attempted to sail their 41-foot sailboat from Mazatlán to San Diego.

United States and Mexican authorities have been searching for Kerry O’Brien, Frank O’Brien, and William Gross, who have not contacted friends, family, or maritime authorities since April 4.

“When it started to reach into five, six, seven days and we started to get a little more concerned,” Kerry’s brother Mark Argall told ABC News.

U.S. Coast Guard commander Gregory Higgins expressed concern that the weather in that region worsened around April 6, with swells and wind creating waves potentially over 20 feet high. The three were sailing a capable 41-foot fiberglass boat, with similar sailboats successfully circumnavigating the planet. However, the lack of clear information about the sailors location, partially attributable to the lack of GPS tracking and poor cellular service near the Baja peninsula, has left the families of the missing Americans uncertain about their loved ones’ whereabouts.

“We have all been spinning our wheels about the different scenarios that could have happened,” Gross’ daughter Melissa Spicuzza said.

Kerry and Frank O’Brien, a married couple, initially decided to travel to Mexico to sail a 41-foot LaFitte sailboat named “Ocean Bound” to San Diego after the boat underwent repairs near Mazatlán, Mexico, according to Argall.

The couple decided to hire Gross, a mechanic by trade and sailor with more than 50 years of experience, to help navigate the boat from Mazatlán to San Diego. Spicuzza recounted that friends of Gross would compare him to the 1980s fictional television character and improvisational savant MacGyver based on his ability to repair boats.

“Whatever it takes, he’ll get it rigged up. He’ll get it working,” Spicuzza described.

The Coast Guard believes the sailors left their slip (the equivalent of a parking spot for boats) on April 2. They eventually departed Mazatlán on April 4, based on Facebook posts and cellphone usage.

The sailors expected the trip across the Gulf of California to Cabo San Lucas, where they planned to pick up provisions, would take two days. However, the Coast Guard does not believe the sailors ever stopped in Cabo San Lucas. Since April 4, marinas throughout the Baja Peninsula have not contacted the vessel, nor have any search and rescue crews spotted it.

According to Higgins, the weather worsened around April 6, with winds of 30 knots, strong swells, and waves making navigation more challenging. Spicuzza added that the sail from Mexico to California is inherently tricky since sailors need to navigate against the wind and current.

“From the tip of Baja all the way back up to Alaska, you’re going against wind and current, so it’s a more difficult, exhausting sail, but of course, doable with the experience that’s on board,” Spicuzza.

Spicuzza added that the group’s initially planned 10-day journey was likely unrealistic. Sailing against the wind and current would require the sailors to tack frequently, essentially zig-zag to make progress despite sailing into the wind, which could extend the journey to two and half weeks.

Moreover, according to the Coast Guard, the boat lacks trackable GPS navigation, such as a satellite phone or a tracking beacon. The limited cellular service in that region of Mexico also makes triangulating the cell position difficult.

Robert H. Perry, the designer of the 41-foot sailboat, noted that their boat was likely manufactured in Taiwan 35 years ago. Despite its age, the fiberglass sailboat itself was a time-tested, ocean-navigating boat.

The travel circumstances have left family members uncertain about the status of their loved ones. Based on the timing, it appears possible they are “just going to roll into San Diego like nothing happened in maybe about a week,” Spicuzza suggested, with the radio silence attributable to some electronic issue. Alternatively, the Coast Guard has worked on plotting where their life raft might have drifted under current weather conditions.

“It’s just been a roller coaster of emotions the last several days; I want my dad home, I want him safe, [and] I want the O’Brien’s home safe,” Spicuzza said. “I’m very much looking forward to sitting around a table with all of them and joking about the time they got lost at sea – that is the hope.”

ABC News’ Elisha Asif, Helena Skinner, Zohreen Shah, and Amantha.Chery contributed to this report.

Manhattan DA asks judge to look into Trump attorney’s potential conflict of interest

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors in New York City on Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional information from one of Trump’s attorneys who they believe may have a potential conflict of interest in the case.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign. Trump has denied all charges.

Trump’s defense team includes Joe Tacopina, a lawyer Daniels once considered hiring as her attorney, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tacopina’s representations so far are insufficient.

“[T]he People request that the Court make certain additional inquiries of Mr. Tacopina and conduct a Gomberg inquiry of the defendant,” executive assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger wrote in a letter to the court, referring to a hearing that would establish that Trump knowingly opts to continue with Tacopina as his attorney notwithstanding any conflict.

Trump affirmed at his arraignment he wanted to move forward with Tacopina on his legal team, but Hoffinger said a full hearing would be needed.

She has asked the judge order Tacopina to turn over any records of his firm’s communications with Daniels, and to disclose the extent to which he may have shared any information from Daniels with Trump.

The potential conflict was raised by Daniels’ current attorney, Clark Brewster, who said in a letter to the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Daniels had a 2018 conversation with Tacopina and attorneys at his firm about them potentially representing her.

Tacopina has said he never spoke to Daniels and he told the judge his firm refused to represent her.

Family of Ralph Yarl, teenager shot after going to wrong house to pick up his siblings, demands justice

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(KANSAS City, Mo.) — A 16-year-old Black teenager was shot on Thursday night by a homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, after he accidentally went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings, police said.

Kansas City police told reporters on Sunday that the teenager, Ralph Yarl, meant to go to a house on Northeast 115th Terrace, but he went to 115th Street instead. They said he was taken to the hospital and was in stable condition as of Sunday evening.

The teenager was identified as Ralph Yarl by his family. Attorney Lee Merritt confirmed to ABC News on Sunday that he and attorney Ben Crump have been retained to represent Ralph’s family.

Merritt and Crump said in a statement on Sunday that Ralph was shot in the head and the arm and “despite the severity of his injuries,” the teenager is “alive and recovering.”

Merritt told ABC News on Monday that Ralph was released from the hospital on Saturday and is in the care of his doctors at home.

The identity of the shooter has not been released.

Amid questions over the suspect’s identity, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department told ABC News Monday afternoon “the name of a suspect in a crime only becomes public upon charges being filed by the prosecutor.”

“Investigators are diligently gathering evidence and investigating as we speak in the hopes to submit a case file to the prosecutors as soon as possible,” the spokesperson told ABC News. “Our next anticipated update is when we send the case file to the prosecutors for their review and determination of applicable charges. That has not happened yet. We will update the media and the public once that has happened.”

Asked if video of the incident is available, police said, “any video would be closed record at this stage of the ongoing investigation. Detectives will routinely canvass for video, witness accounts and anything else that would give them a better idea of what led up to the incident.”

Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said during a press conference Sunday evening that after the shooting, the individual who shot the teenager was taken into police custody and placed on a 24-hour investigative hold but has since been released while police investigate and present evidence to the prosecutor’s office.

“After consulting with the Clay County prosecutor’s office, the homeowner was released pending further investigation due to the need to obtain a formal statement from the victim, forensic evidence and compile additional information for a case file to be presented,” Graves said.

The suspect’s release prompted protests in the city, according to ABC News affiliate in Kansas City, KMBC, with hundreds of people taking to the streets on Sunday to demand justice for Ralph.

Merritt and Crump said in a statement on Sunday the family is demanding “swift action from the Clay County prosecutors and law enforcement to identify, arrest and prosecute to the full extent of the law the man responsible for this horrendous and unjustifiable shooting.”

Graves told reporters on Sunday that police “recognize the frustration” the suspect’s release “can cause in the entire criminal justice process,” but that the Kansas City police are working “expeditiously” and “thoroughly” to present the case to the Clay County prosecutor’s office to “ensure the criminal justice process continues to advance as quickly as all involved and our community deserve.”

Asked if the shooting was “racially motivated,” Graves said there’s “no indication,” but added it’s “still an active investigation” and “as a chief of police, I do recognize the racial components of this case.”

The Clay County, Missouri prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Monday that they “have not yet received a criminal referral from the Kansas City Police Department regarding this case.”

“However, we are actively working with law enforcement in an attempt to speed up that process so that we can review the file when it is submitted and determine whether criminal charges are appropriate,” the statement said. “As always, it is our mission to ensure that justice is fully pursued and that the rights of all people in Clay County are protected and upheld by law.”

ABC News has reached out to the prosecutor’s office for further comment.

Police said they plan to get a formal statement from the teenager once his medical condition allows for him to speak with law enforcement.

“I believe that he’s stable, and we’re looking forward to have an opportunity to go ahead and take a statement from him,” Graves said.

Asked why speaking Ralph is necessary to determine charges, police told ABC News on Monday that “Prosecutors require a sworn statement from victims of crimes when they are living to attest to the actions of the suspect before making an informed decision of charges.”

Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, said during the press conference on Sunday that there will be a “thorough review” of the incident by the prosecutor’s office to determine if any charges will be filed.

“As with every case that comes through Kansas City, we will make sure we do all we can to be fair, to make sure that we’re as expeditious as possible, and more than anything to make sure that everyone no matter their background, knows that justice can be obtained here in Kansas City,” Lucas said.

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

‘Something’s got to change’: Experts sound alarm on dangers of US maternity care shortage

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Early on in her pregnancy, Tori Wapsheli made plans to deliver her second child in the same hospital where she had her first — Astria Toppenish Hospital on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington State.

But with just three months left in her pregnancy, the hospital suddenly shut down its Family Maternity Center, leaving Wapsheli and others in the community scrambling. In a news release, the hospital cited higher costs, reduction of Medicaid reimbursement from 150% to 100%, inability to recruit enough staff and a 50% decrease in deliveries as the reason for the closure.

“Just being so far out here, Toppenish was the place that would have worked easier,” Ciera Wheeler, who was more than 7 ½ months along when the pregnancy ward closed, told ABC News.

Patients in active labor who come to Astria Toppenish when there’s no time to stabilize and transfer them before delivery will now have their babies delivered in the emergency room and then, after being stabilized, transferred by ambulance to another hospital, the release said.

For Wheeler, the closest hospital with a maternity ward was now 45 minutes away, she said.

Options for maternity care on the reservation, which spans more than a million acres, have gone from bad to worse. Pregnant women looking for care are often forced to travel roads that can become dangerous in poor weather, according to the women ABC News spoke to on the reservation.

“This area is very rural. It is isolated. So the traveling distance plus the resources that are needed to get quality care not there,” said Jessica Whitehawk, who founded the Ttáwaxt Birth Justice Center with the help of fellow advocates Leslie Swan and Semone Dittentholer.

The Yakama Indian Reservation is just one of many U.S. communities dealing with a shortage of obstetric care.

Over a third of all U.S. counties are what’s known as maternity care deserts, which translates to more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age and 146,000 babies born in areas without obstetric providers, hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric care, according to a recent March of Dimes report.

It’s an issue that’s contributing to the high U.S. maternal death rate, said March of Dimes chief medical officer Dr. Elizabeth Cherot.

In 2021, there was a 40% increase in the death rate from maternal causes compared to the year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After a spike during the pandemic, preliminary data suggests the number of maternal deaths began dropping in 2022, but numbers are still higher than experts would advise.

One of the states with the highest number of maternal deaths, according to the CDC, is Mississippi, where Byron Stribling lost his pregnant wife, Harmony, and their unborn child while on the way to the hospital in July 2021.

“We don’t have a hospital. We don’t have an emergency room. The nearest hospital was about 15, 20 miles away, give or take,” Stribling told ABC News.

Harmony was five days away from delivering her baby when she developed complications from preeclampsia. On the drive to the hospital, Stribling pulled over to perform CPR as directed by a 911 dispatcher. By the time first responders arrived around 15 minutes later, she and their unborn child were dead. They were about three minutes from the hospital, according to Stribling. Stribling believes that if there had been an emergency room or hospital in closer proximity to their home, his wife or child might have been saved.

There are no obstetric providers in more than 50 counties in Mississippi, according to Rachael Morris, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She and her team have been trying to fill the gap by training hundreds of first responders in parts of the state that lack maternal care on what to do if there’s an emergency.

“We teach you how to intubate a baby. We teach you how to deliver a baby,” Morris said.

Morris said that almost 90% of the mortalities they’ve had over a 2-year period were deemed preventable.

“It’s frightening. Something’s got to change,” Morris said.

According to the CDC, the maternal mortality rate for Black women is three times higher than non-Hispanic white women, although all ethnicities saw an increase in 2021. For women over the age of 40, the mortality rate is seven times higher than for women under the age of 25.

At 38 years old, Dominique Armour is considered to be of advanced maternal age. She’s 8 months pregnant with her tenth child, putting her in a high-risk category. She told ABC News this will be her fourth time driving across state lines, from Arkansas to Mississippi, to give birth because of limited options.

“My last baby, I almost had on the side of the road,” Armour said.

The only hospital in Armour’s county hasn’t had a delivering physician in more than five years, according to Armour. Access to prenatal care is also limited, she said, and the last time she was able to see a doctor was months ago.

“It was hard. I had to go by myself. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t,” Armour said in tears.

Alice Rogers Johnson of the Arkansas Birthing Project says she is exploring options like the March of Dimes mobile clinic to get women in the area access to more care.

“A lot of women do miss appointments because they don’t have transportation,” Johnson said.

Back at the Ttáwaxt Birth Justice Center, the founders are working to expand their services, hoping that one day they can build a new birthing facility on the Yakama Nation grounds.

“We’re trying to rebuild our kinship, our nationhood, our family strength, providing a safe place for our families and women and children to come to have more options, to be cared for and to heal,” Whitehawk said.

Santos announces reelection bid amid multiple scandals

April 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Embattled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., launched his reelection bid Monday despite being mired in several scandals over past lies over his biography and questions over his campaign finances.

In a press release announcing his reelection bid, Santos made no mention of the various investigations into the scandals, instead casting himself as a fighter for his Long Island district.

“As a first-generation American, I am no stranger to the issues affecting my district,” he said, saying he’d tackle immigration, the cost of living, crime and other policy issues.

“Since the Left is pushing radical agendas, the economy is struggling, and Washington is incapable of solving anything, we need a fighter who knows the district and can serve the people fearlessly, and independent of local or national party influence. Good isn’t good enough, and I’m not shy about doing what it takes to get the job done. I’m proud to announce my candidacy to run for re-election and continue to serve the people of NY-3,” he added.

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

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