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Prince William, Kate head to Boston: Everything to know about the couple’s first US trip in eight years

November 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — The Prince and Princess of Wales are coming to America.

Prince William and Kate will travel to Boston this week, marking their first visit to the United States since 2014, when they visited New York City and famously shook hands with Beyoncé and Jay-Z at a New York Knicks game.

This will be their first overseas trip since the death of William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September.

The royals will arrive in Boston on Wednesday, two days ahead of the second annual awards ceremony for the Earthshot Prize, an initiative William launched in 2019 to create solutions for environmental problems.

Their itinerary in the city includes everything from meeting Caroline Kennedy to visiting Harvard University.

“The Prince and Princess are looking forward to spending time in Boston, and to learning more about the issues that are affecting local people, as well as to celebrating the incredible climate solutions that will be spotlighted through The Earthshot Prize,” Kensington Palace said in a statement.

Here is what to watch on each day of William and Kate’s three-day visit.

Wednesday: Welcome celebration in Boston

William and Kate will be welcomed to Boston on Nov. 30 in a ceremony at City Hall attended by Kennedy and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who made history last year as the first woman and first person of color to be elected mayor.

In honor of the Earthshot Prize’s focus on the environment, landmarks across the city, including City Hall, will be lit up in the color green.

Thursday: Visiting with high-risk youth

The royal couple will start their second day in Boston with a visit to Greentown Labs, a climate technology start-up incubator, in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts.

According to Kensington Palace, William and Kate will learn during the visit about “climate innovations” being incubated in Boston.

From there, the couple will travel just a few miles to Chelsea, where they will visit Roca, nonprofit organization that focuses on helping high-risk young people between the ages of 16 and 24, according to the palace.

William and Kate will meet with leaders of the organization and with participants in the young mothers’ and young men’s programs.

Friday: Earthshot Awards at MGM Music Hall

Friday’s main event will be the 2022 Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony, which will be held Friday night at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, located close to Fenway Park.

The ceremony, which will air around the world on Dec. 4, will see five winners awarded $1 million grants each to scale their solutions to help repair planet Earth.

The ceremony will also include live performances by Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe.x.Halle, and will feature actors including Rami Malek, Catherine O’Hara, Shailene Woodley and Daniel Dae Kim as hosts and presenters.

Earlier in the day Friday, Kate and William will each attend separate events.

Kate, who has made early childhood education a focus of her royal work, will meet with researchers at The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

William plans to tour the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum along with Caroline Kennedy.

William has said that President John F. Kennedy’s “moonshot” challenge in 1962 to land a man on the moon within 10 years was the inspiration behind his Earthshot Prize, which has a goal to find solutions to repair the planet within the next 10 years.

The John F. Kennedy Foundation partnered with Earthshot Prize to bring this year’s awards ceremony to Boston, according to the organization.

Biden to sign memo to combat conflict-related sexual violence

November 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is poised to sign a memorandum boosting the U.S. government’s opposition to conflict-related sexual violence in an effort to further combat rape as a weapon of war.

Biden is expected to sign the memo, which will clarify that an act of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) may constitute a serious human rights abuse, on Monday, according to the White House.

The memo is intended to give CRSV an “equal consideration alongside other serious human rights abuses in developing designations under existing sanctions authorities,” the White House said.

It also directs the State and Treasury departments, as well as other federal agencies, to use additional tools to hold CRSV offenders accountable.

Biden is releasing the presidential memorandum in conjunction with the United Kingdom’s international ministerial conference on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, “at a time when CRSV persists with impunity around the world, including in Russian-occupied Ukraine and Ethiopia,” the White House said

A report released by the United Nations in October said that Russian troops have committed war crimes, including rape and sexual violence, against Ukrainian civilians.

“You only need to see a snapshot from what is happening in Ukraine to know how important this presidential memorandum can be in focusing on accountability for conflict related sexual violence,” a senior Biden administration official said on a call with reporters Sunday. “It will provide guidance and direction to facilitate targeting the perpetrators of these horrendous acts and bringing them to justice.”

The United Nations estimates that 10 to 20 CRSV cases go undocumented for each one reported in connection with a conflict.

A 2021 report by the U.N. Secretary-General found 3,293 U.N.-verified CRSV cases across 18 countries — 97% of which were targeted toward women and girls.

That number was about 800 more than what was verified by the U.N. in 2020.

The memorandum pledges an additional $400,000, on top of the $1.75 million annual contribution, toward the Office of the U.N. Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, as well as an additional $5.5 million over the next two years to help the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor investigate and document acts of CRSV.

The memo also aims to deliver services and support for survivors of gender-based violence in emergency and conflict settings, as well as increase access to justice, protection, and services to survivors of gender-based violence, according to the White House.

“Together with today’s Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Accountability for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, these initiatives signal President Biden’s ongoing commitment to confront gender-based violence — in all of its forms — around the world,” the White House said.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.

First lady Jill Biden to unveil 2022 White House holiday theme and decorations

November 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden will unveil this year’s White House holiday theme and seasonal decor on Monday morning.

She will be joined by members and leadership of the National Guard along with their families, as part of her Joining Forces initiative to support and promote the sacrifices and needs of military families, according to the office of the first lady.

After previewing the holiday decorations, the first lady — who holds a doctorate in education — will join National Guard families and state adjutants generals for a roundtable discussion on education for military-connected children at 11:30 a.m. ET.

“As a fellow National Guard mother, Dr. Biden wanted to show appreciation for, and honor, the special role the National Guard plays in serving our country,” the office of the first lady said in a statement.

The first lady will then deliver remarks at 12:30 p.m. ET “to offer a holiday message of unity and hope and thank the volunteers from across the country who helped decorate the White House for the 2022 season,” according to her office.

Last year’s holiday theme was “Gifts from the Heart,” intended to honor those who have persevered through hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100 volunteers decorated the White House with approximately 25 wreaths, 41 Christmas trees, 300 candles, 6,000 feet of ribbon, 10,000 ornaments and nearly 80,000 holiday lights, according to the office of the first lady.

Two rescued from small plane after striking high-tension power lines

November 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md.) — Two people have been rescued from a small private plane after it struck and got lodged in a high-tension power line tower in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Chief Scott Goldstein confirmed both the pilot and passenger were transported to local area trauma centers with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

“There’s some hypothermia issues,” Goldstein said. “They’ve been out there very anxious, but very happy to be down. They were communicating with us the entire time.”

The plane struck the tower at about 5:30 Sunday evening, Goldstein said.

However, rescue work was being delayed until the plane could be secured to the tower and the tower was confirmed to be grounded, according to Goldstein.

The plane, which was stuck about 100 feet off the ground, is “not going to be stable until it’s chained and strapped in place,” said Goldstein, adding that heavy fog in the area could make the task difficult.

About 85,000 Montgomery County customers were without power as a result of the crash, officials with the local power company said on Twitter.

Goldstein said that most of the power in the county has been restored by Pepco.

FAA officials said the plane had departed from Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board said they will investigate the incident.

Montgomery County Public Schools announced earlier that MCPS schools and offices will be closed Monday, Nov. 28 “due to a widespread power outage and its impact on safety and school operations.” There has been no update since most of the power has been restored.

16-year-old confesses over Instagram to fatal shooting, Pennsylvania police say

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BENSALEM, Penn.) — A Pennsylvania teen has been charged with murder after he allegedly confessed over Instagram to fatally shooting another child, according to police.

The Bensalem Police Department received a 911 call Friday afternoon about a possible homicide, with the caller detailing an Instagram video chat she received from a friend, according to a police press release.

In the chat, the teen stated that he “had just killed someone” before flipping the camera around and showing the legs and feet of someone covered in blood, police said. He then asked for assistance with disposing the body, according to police.

The caller told police that the teen who sent the message lived at the Top of the Ridge trailer park in Bensalem, the release states. When officers arrived, the teen ran out of the back of a trailer, and he was later arrested about a mile away on Newport Mews Drive and Groton Drive, police said.

Officers who entered the trailer observed a girl on the floor of the bathroom dead from an apparent gunshot wound, according to authorities. There were also “substantial steps” taken to clean up the crime scene, investigators said.

The victim’s identity and age have not been released, other than that she is a juvenile.

The suspect, 16-year-old Joshua Cooper, is being charged as an adult for criminal homicide, possessing instruments of crime and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, police said.

He attended a preliminary arraignment Friday night where he was denied bail, online court records show. It is unclear whether he entered a plea.

Cooper is being held at the Edison Juvenile Detention Center, police said. His arraignment has been scheduled for Dec. 7, according to online records.

An attorney for the teen was not listed on online court records. Instagram did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Investigators are asking anyone with more information on the case to call the Bensalem Police Department.

Hero who helped thwart Colorado Springs gunman: ‘I would shield everyone I could’

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — One of the two men credited as heroes for stopping the Colorado Springs gunman as he searched for more victims, has spoken from his hospital bed.

U.S. Navy Petty Officer, Second Class, Thomas James helped U.S. Army veteran Richard Fierro subdue the alleged gunman, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, after Aldrich stormed LGBTQ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs on Nov. 19. The mass shooting claimed the lives of five people and injured more than a dozen, according to law enforcement.

After Fierro confronted Aldrich, yanking him from behind and causing him to fall, James aided in fighting with Aldrich to make sure he could not reach the firearms he had dropped, Fierro told ABC News last week.

“At that moment, me, Thomas, … we’re all trying to keep everybody alive,” Fierro said. “… everybody was a hero that day.”

As of Sunday, James was still recovering from his injures at the Centura Penrose Hospital in stable condition.

In a statement released from the hospital, James said during the chaos of the shooting he “simply wanted to save the family I found.”

“If I had my way, I would shield everyone I could from the nonsensical acts of hate in the world, but I am only one person,” he said.

James continued, saying that he and his community have come “a long way from Stonewall,” the New York City bar that was the site of the 1969 riots that launched the Gay Rights Movement.

“Bullies aren’t invincible,” James said.

James said his thoughts are with those who were killed and injured at Club Q, adding that “pain and loss have been all too common these past few years.”

“To the youth I say be brave,” he said. “Your family is out there. You are loved and valued. So when you come out of the closet, come out swinging.”

One of the club’s regulars who was injured in the shooting, Ed Sanders, told ABC News from his hospital bed last week that he looks forward to returning to the club after he recovers, describing it as a place he called home for a long time.

Another club regular who was near the DJ booth when he heard the gunshots and subsequent screams, told ABC News that Club Q is a “safe space” for the LGBTQ community.

“Coming here, this is one of the first places that I felt accepted to be who I am,” he said. “…It’s supposed to be a safe space and the community shouldn’t have to go through something like this.”

ABC News’ Vera Drymon contributed to this report.

After Colorado Springs mass shooting, Gov. Polis considers changes to strengthen ‘red flag’ law

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(DENVER) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Sunday that he is considering reforms to his state’s “red flag” law after this month’s mass shooting in Colorado Springs at Club Q, an LGBTQ venue.

The alleged shooter’s access to an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle has been thrust into the spotlight after it was revealed that the suspect, who is 22, was arrested last year and accused of threatening their mother with explosives.

Still, the state’s red flag law, which allows for family or law enforcement to petition a judge to revoke an individual’s access to firearms, was not used, Polis said.

“We’re certainly going to take a hard look at why [the] red flag law wasn’t used … what can be used to better publicize, make available, add different parties to make sure that it’s used when it should be used,” Polis said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The governor, a Democrat, defended the legislation, which some conservatives have criticized as ineffective and vulnerable to abuse by the government.

“That law was successfully used several 100 times. And I know that it’s prevented self-harm and violence in our state. And we need to make sure more people are aware of what it can do,” Polis added on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Among the changes being considered is expanding who can petition a judge under the law, Polis said.

“What I think we’re going to look at in Colorado is potentially expanding that, for instance, so [district attorneys] can also seek extreme risk protection orders,” Polis said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

He said that in last year’s case, involving the suspect’s mother, neither she nor the local sheriff pursued an order under the red flag law.

The suspect in the Nov. 19 shooting, which killed 5 people at the LGBTQ club and injured many others, legally purchased the rifle before the attack, authorities have said.

Patrons of the club tackled the suspected shooter before law enforcement arrived.

Appearing on “Face the Nation,” Polis said there had been some media reports that one of the suspect’s firearms was a so-called “ghost gun,” referring to privately made weapons that aren’t tracked by a serial number.

“All of these facts will emerge in the coming days and weeks. Obviously, right now our heart is with the victims, five people who lost their lives, their families, dozens of others injured and, of course, many traumatized,” Polis said.

The suspect is facing five counts of murder and five counts of bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, which is Colorado’s hate crime law. The suspect has not yet entered a plea.

The mass shooting has reignited calls for stricter gun laws, including President Joe Biden’s push for what he called an assault weapons ban, which faces an uphill climb in gaining the necessary support to pass through Congress.

Polis said Sunday that the response to the shooting needs to be “national,” noting fewer laws in neighboring states, and indicated he’s open to measures beyond gun legislation.

“Of course it’s about mental health. Of course it’s about gun policy. Of course it’s about anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. It’s about all these things,” he said on “Meet the Press.”

Asked directly on “Face the Nation” if he would back Biden’s latest call for a ban, Polis said there needed to be a wide-ranging discussion — on mental health, discrimination, red flag and ghost gun laws and more.

How a deadly apartment fire fueled anti-zero-COVID protests across China: ANALYSIS

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(HONG KONG) — Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing the greatest challenge to his signature zero-COVID strategy as unprecedented anti-lockdown protests have spread across the country over the weekend, popping up in major cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and even the capital Beijing.

Anger stemming from a deadly apartment fire Thursday night in the far western city of Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang region that killed 10, including a 3-year-old child, have brought Chinese citizens out to the streets calling for an end to lockdowns. Some are even crying for the Communist Party and Xi himself to step down.

According to local officials, the deadly fire was caused by a faulty power strip that caught fire on the 15th floor of a high-rise apartment, but it took the fire department over three hours to put out the flames.

Videos of the blaze went viral on Chinese social media, showing firetrucks unable to get close to the flames. Many across the city questioned whether COVID restrictions had gotten in the way of first responders and left people trapped inside unable to flee.

The authorities denied this, but anger was already brewing as much of Xinjiang, including its regional capital Urumqi, had been under lockdown for over 100 days, since August.

On Friday night, videos emerged of hundreds Urumqi citizens pushing through the lockdowns around their residential compounds and marching towards the local government, demanding them to lift the lockdown. Social media videos showed crowds, wrapping themselves in patriotism as protection, marching through the frigid night alternatively singing the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” and the socialist hymn “The Internationale.”

Hours after the crowds confronted the city officials, the Urumqi city government suddenly announced they would finally lift lockdowns in “low-risk” neighborhoods and restart public transportation Monday.

While Urumqi residents may have gotten some of their demands met, the deadly fire set something off across China, becoming a focal point of public anger towards the harsh COVID restrictions.

The late-Chinese leader Mao Zedong famously said, “a single spark can start a prairie fire.” The “spark” of the Urumqi fire spread beyond the Chinese internet faster than censors could catch up, and by Saturday night, spontaneous protests and vigils popped up across the countries in college campuses and major cities.

This was prominent in Shanghai, where many residents still harbor fresh memories of their messy two-month lockdown earlier this year.

Hundreds of angry Shanghai residents gathered on consecutive nights over the weekend symbolically on Middle Urumqi Road in the tony former French Concession neighborhood, lighting candles and cursing zero-tolerance COVID measures with some openly daring to chant, “Communist Party step down” and “Step down, Xi Jinping, step down.”

Police officers mostly let the crowd disperse Saturday night but made arrests in early morning hours of some of the remaining protesters.

On Sunday, the protests spread to more cities including Beijing, which was entering a de-facto lockdown dealing with a fresh outbreak.

Hundreds of students gathered outside the main dining hall of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University, which happens to be Xi’s alma mater, raising blank sheets of paper to decry the growing censorship and calling for “freedom of speech.” It was scene unseen on college campuses in China since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

The blank-sheet protests were seen again near the Liangmaqiao diplomatic district, close to the U.S. and South Korean embassies in Beijing Sunday night, accompanied with cries of “no PCR tests, only freedom.”

The scenes were repeated across the country from the first COVID epicenter of Wuhan to the tech center of Hangzhou to the far-flung and usually laidback backpacker hub of Dali in southwestern China.

Adding to the national frustration, many across the country have been glued to the Qatar World Cup games on China’s state broadcaster, complete with cutaways of the raucous maskless crowds, leading to sarcastic discussions online whether China was “not the same planet” as Qatar.

By Sunday’s game between Japan and Costa Rica, CCTV Sports stayed on close-up shots of the players, referees and coaches when the ball was not in play instead of showing the maskless fans in the stands.

On Nov. 11, Beijing had issued new guidelines to improve COVID measures, promising to lessen the impact of their restrictions. It was initially taken to be a signal that Beijing was laying the groundwork to open up.

Record outbreaks across the country, however, have snapped many cities shut again. Most local jurisdictions are in charge of their own COVID enforcement and the officials’ jobs are on the line if they mismanage an outbreak, leading them to err on the side of harsher measures no matter the effect on residents.

For nearly three full years, China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” strategy meant one infection is too much.

By Sunday night, some city governments were tweaking their restrictions in real time. As the protesters gathered in Liangmaqiao, Beijing officials said they lifted lockdowns on 75 neighborhoods and announced new guidelines for enforcement that included no snap-lockdown lasting more than 24 hours.

While China’s record daily case numbers are not high by international standards, running 39,906 cases Sunday with no new deaths, the Japanese investment bank Nomura estimates that more than 21.1% of China’s total GDP is under lockdown, on par with the economic impact of Shanghai’s lockdown in the spring.

China, in a way, is a victim of its own success. The zero-COVID policy undoubtedly saved lives during the pandemic, with only 5,232 official COVID deaths over nearly three years, but has also isolated much of the Chinese population from any type of natural immunity.

For Xi Jinping and the Chinese government, it remains a question of which would cause more instability: loosening up and letting a COVID “exit wave” quickly cause up to hundreds of thousands of deaths and overwhelm the national health system in the very best-case scenario presented by some health officials, or tolerate the whack-a-mole of still-sporadic and unorganized protests across the country.

For a country that spends more on public domestic security than on their military, the answer is still on the side of zero-COVID. But as the anger spreads, many believe time may not be on zero-COVID’s side.

White House denounces Trump’s dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A spokesman for President Joe Biden is sharply criticizing former President Donald Trump for having dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago club last week.

“Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America – including at Mar-A-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Trump met with Fuentes while hosting rapper and designer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his resort last Tuesday, ABC News previously reported.

Fuentes has a history of racist, sexist and antisemitic comments, including apparent skepticism about the Holocaust, and has been banned on all major social media platforms.

Tuesday’s dinner lasted about two hours and was attended by Fuentes, Ye — who recently lost major business deals over his own antisemitic remarks — and Florida Republican political operative Karen Giorno.

The White House’s denunciation of the Mar-a-Lago dinner adds to a growing chorus of critics, including some Republicans.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an erstwhile Trump ally, told The New York Times it was “another example of an awful lack of judgment from Donald Trump, which, combined with his past poor judgments, make him an untenable general election candidate for the Republican Party in 2024.”

Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemingly distanced himself from figures like Fuentes when he tweeted on Saturday that “anti-Semitism is a cancer. … We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.” (He didn’t reference Trump by name.)

And in a statement to The Washington Post, the Republican Jewish Coalition called on “all political leaders to reject their messages of hate and refuse to meet with” Ye and Fuentes.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, spoke even more bluntly.

“For Donald Trump to dine with notorious white supremacists and unrepentant bigots, I think at a minimum it’s clarifying. He is trying to make America hate again and running arguably the most unapologetic white nationalist presidential campaign we’ve ever seen,” Greenblatt said on CNN.

In a series of statements, Trump played down Fuentes’ involvement, insisting he didn’t know who Fuentes was before they met and that he was unaware Fuentes would be joining the meal.

“This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about,” Trump said in one statement on Friday.

In a subsequent statement, he said that Ye had asked for the meeting for “very much needed ‘advice'” and brought “3 people, two of which I didn’t know.”

Trump recently announced he is running for president in 2024. Ye, who launched a longshot third-party bid of his own in the 2020 race, has also claimed he is running in 2024.

A source at the dinner previously told ABC News that during the meeting, Ye asked Trump to be his vice president. The rapper has often voiced support for Trump and met with him in the Oval Office while Trump was president.

In a video released on Twitter, Ye said their dinner became heated when he and Trump discussed politics. He contended that Trump was “really impressed with Nick Fuentes.”

In his social media statements, Trump said he and Ye “got along great” and that Ye “expressed no anti-Semitism.”

Biden has refrained from commenting on the dinner but suggested he had strong feelings. He was asked about it while out shopping in Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon.

“You don’t want to hear what I think,” he replied.

ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway, Olivia Rubin and Will Steakin contributed to this report.

1 dead, 5 injured at Atlantic Station shooting: Police

November 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — One person is dead and five others are injured after a shooting that took place near Atlantic Station on Saturday evening in Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Department said.

One male was pronounced deceased on the scene and five other victims were shot and later transported to nearby hospitals, Atlanta Police Lt. Germain Dearlove said in a press conference Saturday night. The extent of their conditions was not specified.

A group of people were escorted off of Atlantic Station property by off-duty Atlanta police officers and station personnel at about 8 p.m., police said. They were juveniles, said Dearlove, and were removed for “unruly behavior” along with curfew violations. Police believe that the victims were between the ages of 15 and 21.

Once the group was escorted off the property, a dispute occurred near Atlantic Station, which led to the shooting, said Dearlove. The reason for the dispute is currently under investigation.

Atlantic Station is a major retail and recreation area in midtown Atlanta and includes a sprawling mixed-use development. The neighborhood has seen periodic incidents of gun violence.

Police are looking to identify the parties involved, as preliminary information suggests this dispute was between two groups, with two possible shooters, said Dearlove.

Authorities are not sure how many shots were fired at this time.

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