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Strangers rally to help Uvalde students, teachers return to school after mass shooting

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — When students in Uvalde, Texas, return to school in September, they will have brand new picnic tables where they can sit and gather.

Many of their classrooms will be stocked with school supplies ranging from new books to new pens and pencils, all donated by strangers. And some kids will ride to school on the first day on new bikes, also donated by strangers.

It’s all part of a national, grassroots effort to help the community after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School on May 24.

“For the Uvalde community, it’s just letting them know that they are not forgotten,” said Amanda Stevens, a mom of two from Dallas, Texas. “We will be here and we will honor their losses and support them with whatever they need.”

Stevens is one of the organizers behind an effort to fulfill Uvalde teachers’ wish lists — specifically teachers from Robb Elementary.

Across the country, as the back to school season approaches, many teachers post public wish lists of supplies they would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket, including everything from snacks for kids to books, educational materials and classroom supplies like tissues and hand sanitizer.

The wish lists are often shared on social media, where strangers can find them and donate the supplies.

For teachers in Uvalde, their lists have been shared far and wide this year, with people like Stevens working hard to make sure teachers there don’t have the extra burden of finding supplies.

Stevens is working alongside Frank Gomez, a teacher at her kids’ school and a Uvalde native, who said he specifically wanted to help the teachers at Robb Elementary School who are being relocated. The superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced in June that students and staff would not return to Robb Elementary when the new school year begins on Sept. 6, and would instead be served “on other campuses” around the district.

“Myself as a teacher, I started to think about what about the teachers,” said Gomez. “As they go into new buildings, what are they going to have to take with them? How are they going to get started?”

Gomez and Stevens said they have collected thousands of dollars worth of supplies for teachers in Uvalde by sharing teachers’ wish lists with their own school community and on social media. A GoFundMe started by Gomez also raised over $5,000, which he said is being used to purchase everything from books to classroom decorations to help the first day back at school seem more normal.

“The kids will see their teachers, their smiling faces,” Gomez said. “They’ll be a little bit nervous and scared and everything, but hopefully they’ll see their teacher and they’ll concentrate on getting back to school and getting back to the business of learning.”

On the first day of school, Uvalde students will also see new picnic tables at their schools, thanks to more than $15,000 that was raised in less than one day earlier this summer.

Katie Grossbard, 29, of Los Angeles, along with two of her friends, Val Vogt and actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, was an organizer of that fundraiser. She said she and the others spoke with Uvalde school officials to find something specific they needed for the new school year.

Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.

“We said to them, ‘How can we help?,’ and they said, ‘We need picnic tables,'” Grossbard recalled. “We said, ‘Great, send us links to what you want. We’ll figure out how much money it’s going to cost and we’ll make it happen.'”

In less than 18 hours, $15,000 was raised, according to Grossbard. She said the money has been used to purchase one dozen picnic tables that will be placed at schools to help accommodate students from Robb Elementary.

“One of the things that the people at the school district talked about when we were talking about making this happen was just creating a sense of community that was welcoming these students in with open arms and ready for them — and it not feeling like they were out of place or like that they weren’t supposed to be there,” Grossbard said. “They didn’t want it to feel like, ‘Oh, now we’re crowded and now you’re reminded every day that you’re not supposed to be here, you’re supposed to be somewhere else.'”

The picnic tables, according to Grossbard, will also be used as locations for students to sit and talk with mental health counselors as needed.

“People can sit down and be together and know that they’re not alone and know that they didn’t go through these experiences alone,” she explained.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District did not reply to ABC News for this story.

The district’s school board has held special sessions throughout the summer to plan accommodations for the new school year, including upgrading security measures and allowing all students K-12 the opportunity to attend classes virtually after parents said their children do not feel comfortable returning to school in person. The district also pushed the start of school back from mid-August to Sept. 6.

Tensions within the community have often spilled out at the board’s meetings, particularly in the wake of a 77-page report by a joint committee of the Texas Legislature slammed the police response to the incident and the school district’s lack of preparation for such an attack.

Earlier this month, the school district announced Mandy Gutierrez, the principal of Robb Elementary School, who was briefly suspended following the probe into the attack, will be leaving the school for a position in district administration.

The district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, remains on unpaid administrative leave, and the school district has recommended he be fired.

Amid the grief and tension in the community, Uvalde’s local library, the El Progreso Memorial Library, located just a few blocks from Robb Elementary School, has become a center of healing and community for people, largely thanks to strangers’ donations, according to library director Mendell Morgan.

Morgan said thousands of children’s books have been donated since the shooting, along with items like kids’ bicycles and toys.

“At a time like this, books can be such a comfort, a wonderful means to escape and a wonderful way to transport yourself into a different world where there is not hurting or pain,” Morgan said. “It’s always been our effort to bring the community here for times when we need to be together, in times of joy as well as times of sorrow when we need to comfort one another.”

The library has become a place to mourn and grieve through both reading and mental health counseling, as well as a place to have fun. Throughout the summer, the library has hosted everything from ponies and bounce houses to a special day that featured superhero characters reading books to kids, according to Morgan.

“People are so incredibly kind,” he said. “Great evil came to our community on May 24, no one can deny this, but the outpouring of good, the response has been overwhelming in the other direction, and we are so grateful.”

Allen Weisselberg, longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer, pleads guilty to tax evasion

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Allen Weisselberg, who first met Donald Trump in the 1970s when he began working for Trump’s father, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in New York that accused him of running a yearslong scheme to avoid taxes while he was the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to all 15 counts — including conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records — and conceded he skirted taxes on nearly $2 million in income, including fringe benefits like rent, luxury cars and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

The plea implicates former President Trump’s namesake family business, which was charged in the same indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

“In one of the most difficult decisions of his life, Mr. Weisselberg decided to enter a plea of guilty today to put an end to this case and the years-long legal and personal nightmares it has caused for him and his family,” said Weisselberg’s attorney, Nicholas Gravante Jr. “Rather than risk the possibility of 15 years in prison, he has agreed to serve 100 days. We are glad to have this behind him.”

Weisselberg repeatedly answered “Yes, your honor” as Judge Juan Merchan asked a series of questions about the scheme to evade taxes, admitting that he falsely underreported compensation, including a luxury apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, multiple Mercedes Benz cars, cash, private school tuition for his grandchildren, and additional homes.

As part of his plea deal, Weisselberg agreed to serve five months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. He also agreed to testify against the Trump Organization when the company goes on trial in connection with the alleged compensation scheme beginning in October.

If he does not testify truthfully, the deal is off, exposing Weisselberg to additional prison time of between five and 15 years.

“The defendant must agree to testify truthfully at the trial of the Trump Organization,” assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass said.

The plea agreement contains no requirement for Weisselberg to cooperate in the criminal case against Trump himself, which centers on whether the former president knowingly misled tax authorities, lenders and insurance brokers by providing inaccurate financial statements about the value of his real estate portfolio.

Weisselberg must also pay back taxes and penalties totaling $1.94 million.

“Today Allen Weisselberg admitted in Court that he used his position at the Trump Organization to bilk taxpayers and enrich himself,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “This plea agreement directly implicates the Trump Organization in a wide range of criminal activity and requires Weisselberg to provide invaluable testimony in the upcoming trial against the corporation. We look forward to proving our case in court against the Trump Organization.”

A corporate tax fraud case was not what prosecutors were after. When they first filed charges against Weisselberg last summer, prosecutors hoped Weisselberg would turn on Trump, sources have told ABC News.

Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a deposition last week as part of a parallel civil investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office.

“For years, Mr. Weisselberg broke the law to line his own pockets and fund a lavish lifestyle. Today, that misconduct ends. Let this guilty plea send a loud and clear message: we will crack down on anyone who steals from the public for personal gain because no one is above the law,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement following Weisselberg’s guilty plea.

The criminal investigation, which began under former Manhattan DA Cy Vance, appeared to stall earlier this year when the two senior prosecutors leading it resigned amid frustration that Bragg was not immediately seeking an indictment against Trump, sources told ABC News.

Bragg’s office has said the investigation remains ongoing.

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Firefighter describes destruction after Kharkiv strikes

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

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

The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

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

Aug 18, 12:04 PM EDT
Russia rejects calls to create demilitarized zone around Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

The international calls and proposals for Russia to create a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine are “unacceptable,” according to Ivan Nechayev, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department.

“Their implementation will make the plant even more vulnerable,” Nechayev said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Moscow is expecting experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant “in the near future,” according to Nechayev.

The secretary-generals of the U.N. and the IAEA have called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

Shortly after invading neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian troops stormed the Zaporizhzhia plant, near the town of Enerhodar, on the banks of the Dnipro River in the country’s southeast. The Ukrainian workers have been left in place to keep the plant operating, as it supplies electricity across the war-torn nation. However, heavy fighting around the site has fueled fears of a catastrophe, like what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine over 36 years ago.

Aug 18, 9:34 AM EDT
Firefighter describes destruction after deadly strikes in Kharkiv

A Ukrainian firefighter who responded to the Russian missile attacks in Kharkiv overnight told ABC News that the scale of the blasts was “one of the biggest” he’s ever seen.

One of the rockets struck a large apartment block on Wednesday night, killing at least nine people and injuring another 16, according to Ukrainian authorities.

“It went through all four floors and hit the ground and almost blew up everything,” the firefighter, Roman Kachanov, told ABC News during an interview on Thursday. “All the buildings around were without windows.”

“There was a dormitory, and the building was almost completely ruined,” he added. “There was a playground that was smashed like a big titan blew it up.”

Kachanov is among the rescue workers searching for survivors amid the smoldering rubble.

“I’ve seen three bodies on the floor covered by objects,” he said. “We tried to extract them and while we tried, the other wall started to fall and we had to run away as fast as we can.”

Kachanov said another missile hit the city before dawn Thursday, not far from where he and his team were working. He said the blast “was very loud” and “sounded close.”

“Everyone had to lay down,” he recalled. “The team had to split — fire truck had to leave to go to that other fire.”

-ABC News’ Britt Clennett, Dragana Java, Natalya Kushnir and Sohel Uddin

Aug 17, 5:40 PM EDT
Large apartment block struck in Kharkiv, at least 7 dead

At least seven people are dead and another 13 injured by strikes on a large apartment block in Kharkiv, officials said.

Based on recovered shrapnel, authorities determined an Iskander-M missile system was used in the strike, said Ivan Sokol, Ukraine’s director of the regional Department of Civil Defense.

Search and rescue efforts are ongoing at the three-story residential building, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said.

-ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko

Aug 15, 1:49 PM EDT
Shelling resumes near power plant, both sides claim the other is firing

More shelling was underway Monday in city of Enerhodar, which is under Russian control and where the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is located.

Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov urged residents to stay inside. He said Russian forces seized another government facility in Enerhodar, a lab where 30 of the employees are refusing to cooperate with the Russian-appointed administration.

Meanwhile, Russia’s semi-official Interfax reported that Ukrainian forces opened fire in Enerhodar.

Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator Energoatom said the plant remained occupied and controlled by Russian forces on Monday. The Ukrainian staff continues to work and make every effort to ensure nuclear and radiation safety, but Energoatom warned that periodic shelling by Russian troops with multiple rocket launchers since last week caused a serious risk to the safe operation of the plant.

-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Fidel Pavlenko, Natalia Shumskaia and Yulia Drozd

Aug 15, 5:53 AM EDT
Griner to appeal Russian conviction, lawyer says

Brittney Griner’s defense team filed an appeal for the verdict by Khimky City Court, according to Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Partners law firm.

The WNBA star was found guilty on drug charges in a Moscow-area court this month.

-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova

Aug 14, 4:44 PM EDT
1st UN-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian wheat set to depart for Africa

The first UN-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian wheat is set to head for Africa from the near the port city Odesa, Ukrainian officials said Sunday.

The MV Brave Commander is loaded with 23,000 tons of wheat that will be shipped to Ethiopia as part of a mission to relieve a global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has halted grain exports for months, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Alexander Kubrakov announced at a news conference.

Kubrakov said the UN-chartered ship is scheduled to leave the Pivdenny port near Odesa on Monday.

“When three months ago, during the meeting of the President of Ukraine (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy and the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Kyiv the first negotiations on unlocking Ukrainian maritime ports began, we have already seen how critical it is becoming a food situation in the world.” Kubrakov wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “This especially applies to the least socially protected countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, for whom Ukraine has always been a key importer of agro-production.”

He said Ethiopia is in desperate need of Ukrainian grain.

“This country has been suffering from record drought and armed confrontation for the second year in a row,” Kubrakov said. “Ukrainian grain for them without exaggeration — the matter of life and death.”

He said he hopes the MV Brave Commander will be the first many more grain shipments under the U.N. World Food Program.

Aug 12, 2:28 PM EDT
‘They treat us like captives’: Exiled Zaporizhzhia manager on conditions at plant

An exiled manager at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant told ABC News that the Ukrainian staff is treated “like captives.”

Oleg, who asked to be referred by a pseudonym, said he felt threatened by the Russian soldiers.

“They didn’t say, ‘I’m going to shoot you now,’ but they always carry guns and assault rifles with them,” said Oleg, who managed one of 80 units at the plant but was able to leave last month. “And when an assault rifle or a gun has a cocked trigger, I consider it as a threat.”

Amid reported shelling in the vicinity of the plant, Oleg said he was primarily concerned about its spent fuel containers, “which are in a precarious position, and they are not shielded well.”

-ABC News Dragana Jovanovic, Britt Clennett, Nataliya Kushnir and Sohel Uddin

Aug 11, 4:43 PM EDT
UN secretary-general calls for all military activities around nuclear power plant to ‘cease immediately’

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “calling for all military activities” around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in southern Ukraine “to cease immediately,” and for armies not “to target its facilities or surroundings.”

Ukraine’s nuclear regulator Energoatom said Russian forces shelled the plant for a third time on Thursday, hitting close to the first power unit. Earlier on Thursday, Energoatom said five rockets struck the area around the commandant’s office, close to where the radioactive material is stored.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed interim governor of Zaporizhzhya Oblast, issued a statement claiming Ukrainian forces struck the plant, hitting close to an area with radioactive material.

Guterres said he’s appealed to all parties to “exercise common sense” and take any actions that could endanger the physical integrity, safety or security of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.

“Instead of de-escalation, over the past several days there have been reports of further deeply worrying incidents that could, if they continue, lead to disaster,” he said, adding that he’s “gravely concerned.”

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, pleaded with the U.N. Security Council Thursday to allow for an IAEA mission to visit the plant as soon as possible. He said the situation at the plant is deteriorating rapidly and is “becoming very alarming.”

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

Why Walmart entered the streaming wars

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BENTONVILLE, Ark.) — Walmart, the Arkansas-based retail giant known more for value than flare, made a splash in Hollywood this week upon the announcement of a deal with streaming service Paramount+.

The retailer will provide the video content free of charge to Walmart+ subscribers, who pay $98 a year or $12.95 a month for a membership package that includes gas discounts, free two-day shipping on online purchases, and member-only deals, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The move marks a major departure for Walmart, which appears to have weathered sky-high inflation with better-than-expected earnings in the second quarter, as revenue climbed 8.4% compared to the same three-month period a year prior. However, the company had cut its second-quarter forecast just weeks earlier.

The new streaming content will help the retailer retain current Walmart+ subscribers and attract new ones, as the company vies with rival Amazon and continues to grow beyond its telltale big box stores with an e-commerce offering that gained emphasis during the pandemic, retail analysts told ABC News.

While the move highlights the digital value of Walmart’s subscription service, the company’s effort to improve the in-store experience exclusive to subscribers could translate the potential influx of members into more brick-and-mortar business, they added.

An assessment of the deal with Paramount+ — and its capacity to strengthen Walmart’s subscription service — should take into account the customer base that the company has already built, Steph Wissink, a retail analyst at Jefferies, told ABC News. Ninety percent of Americans shop at Walmart each year, the company said in March, adding that more than 150 million people shop with the company each week either in-store or online.

As Walmart strengthens its subscription service, that customer base affords it a wide pool of prospective members, enhancing the potential value of the Paramount+ offering for the company, Wissink said.

“That touch point element is meaningfully higher than what we would see for other retailers,” she said, acknowledging that “some portion of their household income distribution is not going to be able to afford” the subscription.

By comparison, as of last April, Amazon boasted more than 200 million Amazon Prime subscribers worldwide. Walmart has not released subscriber totals for Walmart+, but the expected figure is much lower, analysts said.

The deal with Paramount+, therefore, comes down to competition with Amazon, Joe Feldman, a retail analyst for Telsey Advisory, told ABC News.

“This is an effort to be more competitive with Amazon as a membership provider,” he said. “You’ve seen both companies increasingly compete with one another and almost mirror one another.”

The entry of Walmart into streaming parallels Amazon’s decision to jump into the in-store grocery business that Walmart had participated in for years, Feldman said.

Even though brick-and-mortar shopping has bounced back since the early months of the pandemic, e-commerce remains a key focus for Walmart, Wissink, said.

“Digital fluency went up substantially in 2020 because stores were closed,” she said. “Even your granny was ordering things online and having them delivered to the front door.”

But the focus on Walmart’s subscription service, brought to the attention of many by the partnership with Paramount+, also points to an advantage for Walmart that sets it apart from Amazon: the vast network of stores, Wissink said. Down the road, if Walmart improves the subscription service with further in-store benefits, it could compound the revenue from new digital subscribers with enticements for in-store shopping.

“Let’s say it’s my birthday and I go to Walmart, Walmart+ on mobile can prompt me with a free coffee or free cupcake at the bakery,” Wissink said. “Those are benefits for a Walmart+ member.”

“The partnership with Paramount+ isn’t a signal that Walmart thinks its stores are no longer relevant,” she added. “It’s the exact opposite.”

Looking ahead, Walmart could even form partnerships with additional streaming services to improve its subscription offering, Feldman and Wissink said.

“Walmart is likely to explore lots of different options,” Feldman said.

Treasury Department rejects GOP claims on new IRS agents

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Internal Revenue Service does not plan to use the nearly $80 billion it’s set to receive in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to hire 87,000 new agents in order to target middle class Americans, a Treasury Department official told ABC News, rejecting a claim widely circulated by Republican lawmakers and right-wing media personalities.

A sizable portion of the money will go toward improving taxpayer services and modernizing antiquated, paper-based IRS operations, Treasury Department spokesperson Julia Krieger said, in an effort to update the agency — well documented as being chronically starved of resources for decades.

The agency also is planning on hiring auditors who can enforce the tax laws against high-income Americans and corporations, not the middle class, along with employees to provide customer service to taxpayers, the official said. The majority of hires will fill the positions of about 50,000 IRS employees on the verge of retirement, Krieger said, which will net about 20 to 30-thousand workers, not 87,000.

“The resources to modernize the IRS will be used to improve taxpayer services — from answering the phones to improving IT systems — and to crack down on high-income and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars each year. The majority of new employees will replace the standard level of staff departures over the next few years,” Krieger said in a statement.

“New staff will be hired to improve taxpayer services and experienced auditors who can take on corporate and high-end tax evaders, without increasing audit rates relative to historical norms for people earning under $400,000 each year,” she said.

The IRA, the wide-ranging tax, climate and health care bill signed into law by Biden on Monday and touted as a major legislative achievement for Democrats, includes roughly $78 billion for the IRS over the next 10 years.

The heightened funding will also act as a key part of how will provisions under the IRA will be paid for — increased tax enforcement of the wealthy and large corporations is expected to raise revenue by $204 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Congress has cut funding for the IRS for most of the past decade, leaving the agency with technology systems dating back to the 1970s and as of July, a backlog of over 10 million unprocessed individual returns, according to the IRS.

“Bringing IRS technology into the 21st century is long past due. Our technology system is over 60 years old, the oldest in government, and fuels both taxpayer frustration and government waste,” said Executive Director Chad Hooper of the Professional Managers Association – formed in 1981 by IRS managers.

Republicans, ahead of the midterm elections, have been denouncing the package as irresponsible spending while inflation reaches record highs. They’ve hammered the claim that the bill’s IRS provisions would would bad news for the middle class.

“Do you make $75,000 or less?” tweeted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “Democrats’ new army of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you—with 710,000 new audits for Americans who earn less than $75k.”

The 87,000 new agent number that GOP leaders have been circulating is in reference to a year-old report released by the IRS, which described what the agency could do with nearly $80 billion in new funding if Congress would pass the American Families Plan.

In a table in that report, the IRS shows by 2031 the IRS could increase the size of its workforce by 86,852 full-time employees. But most of those hires would not be IRS agents and wouldn’t be new positions, according to the Treasury official, and the report is not in reference to IRA funding.

The claims appeared to have been ramped up after last week’s FBI search of Trump’s Palm Beach residence, with GOP leaders capitalizing on current Republican mistrust of bureaucratic agencies.

The search is said to have been part of a wider investigation into whether Trump took classified documents from the White House at the end of his presidency, with no reports of a connection to the IRS.

“After todays raid on Mar A Lago what do you think the left plans to use those 87,000 new IRS agents for?” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, after news of the raid broke.

GOP voices have also claimed that the hypothetical IRS agent hiring splurge would include armed tax enforcers. Fox News host Tucker Carlson and guest U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. on Aug. 4 claimed the government is beginning to treat “the IRS as a military agency.”

“Well, Joe Biden is raising taxes, disarming Americans, so of course they are arming up the IRS like they are preparing to take Fallujah,” Gaetz said.

Treasury officials rejected the claim that agent hires would be carrying weapons — saying the faction of armed agents are an “extremely critical but small” piece of the IRS, representing less than 3% of its total workforce.

The armed agents do not interact with average Americans, they focus only on specialized issues like narcotics, money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act violations, they said. Recently, they’ve been involved in the task force that is tracking assets of Russian oligarchs.

But the widely debunked claims may have begun to have an impact on some American voters.

“Even the Democrats, they heard, they just hired 85,000 IRS agents, they’re not not happy about it,” said John Ellingson, an Iowa GOP strategist, noting that the claims have been widely discussed since the information has been circulated by leading Republican voices.

Democrats have attempted to quell concerns over assertions that average Americans might be targeted by the federal government.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia refuted GOP claims on Twitter, telling Americans they are “being lied to.”

“In typical fashion, Republicans have chosen to lie and embellish in order to scare the American people. There is no army of 87,000 new IRS agents. It’s entirely made up. The truth is that the Republican Party hollowed out the IRS and has repeatedly slashed its budget over the years. Rich tax cheats run wild, meanwhile the average American can’t even get someone from the IRS on the phone. The Inflation Reduction Act will restore the IRS so it actually works for the American people,” Connolly said in a statement to ABC News.

CDC director acknowledges mistakes to staff in internal message

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky made a remarkable acknowledgment of her agency’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic as she delivered a message to her staff Wednesday.

Her message, given in an internal video viewed by ABC News, addressed employees about the plan to overhaul the agency, following an internally initiated review which found that the CDC’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic fell short of the crisis.

“To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes. From testing, to data, to communications,” Walensky said to the camera in front of a blue CDC backdrop.

“As an agency, even with all the terrific work we do, we still suffer the consequences from these mistakes. After over 18 months serving in this position, learning and living the many lessons from our COVID-19 response, and receiving feedback from many internal and external interested parties, this is the right time to take a step back and strategically position CDC to facilitate and support the future of public health,” Walensky said.

Those conversations, she added, yielded “loud and clear” key principles to “promote public health action and communication; conduct and disseminate exceptional science,” and “serve our partners, prioritizing the American people first.”

“All of us collectively are being asked to look to the future and build a stronger CDC to tackle what lies ahead. This is our watershed moment,” Walensky said.

“We must pivot, take appropriate action, and lead the systemic changes required to equitably protect health, safety and security of all Americans,” she said — especially because neither the pandemic nor her agency’s response to it, is finished.

Walensky’s message, delivered in a more than 14-minute recording, follows a scathing internally initiated review of how the CDC handled COVID-19, which found its approach toward the pandemic failed to meet the moment of crisis and offered a series of changes intended to revamp the agency and make it more nimble.

That review, ordered by Walensky in April, comes after the CDC had come under frequent fire for its muddled and inconsistent messaging on COVID mitigation measures.

During interviews with roughly 120 agency staff and key external stakeholders, the review found that it “takes too long for CDC to publish its data and science for decision making,” that its guidance is “confusing and overwhelming” and that agency staff turnover during the COVID response “created gaps and other challenges for partners,” according to findings obtained by ABC News.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and our agency-wide response is not over. Our important work continues,” Walensky said in her video. “There have been too many tragic deaths from this virus and we must do all we can to prevent more.”

The threat of other infectious diseases’ spread means now is the time for public health infrastructures to shore up their defenses, she noted.

“Now the global monkeypox outbreak requires increased attention and efforts,” Walensky said. “We will continue to activate the personnel and resources necessary to fulfill our public health mission.”

In the video, Walensky promised to “develop new systems and processes to equitably deliver all of CDC science and program activities to the American people,” with “data modernization, laboratory capacity, rapid response to disease outbreaks, and preparedness within the US and around the world.”

“These changes will inform what CDC can do during a pandemic, along with every day during normal operations in our infectious and non-infectious disease portfolios to ensure a CDC science reaches the public in a timely and implementable manner,” she said.

“We must also strengthen the agency’s ability to respond to public health threats,” she said. “This is an agency-wide top priority to respond when we are called upon.”

Walensky emphasized the importance of “breaking down organizational silos in favor of a ‘One CDC mindset,'” increasing accountability and supporting equity efforts across the agency, she said.

“Change is hard. I know that. This is our time to change. And we will all need to roll up our sleeves to move CDC forward,” Walensky said, and “apply” the “COVID-19 lessons learned” by “sharing scientific findings and data faster.”

“The future of CDC is dependent upon applying the lessons learned from the last few years, whether it’s under my direction or a future CDC director, regardless of who is sitting in the seat, an honest and unbiased read of our recent history will yield the same conclusion. It is time for CDC to change,” she said.

“I recognize that our growth will involve some uncomfortable moments for many of us. We will hold ourselves accountable and we will be open to feedback,” Walensky said. “I owe it to you to work hard with the agency’s leadership to make CDC better and I’m grateful to have you in this with me.”

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

What to expect from Thursday’s hearing on unsealing the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A magistrate judge in Florida is set to hear in-person arguments Thursday on a request from a coalition of media outlets to make public the affidavit supporting the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.

The Justice Department earlier this week urged the judge, Bruce Reinhart, to keep the affidavit under seal, arguing that if it were to be made public it could “cause significant and irreparable damage” to an ongoing criminal investigation involving highly classified materials related to national security.

“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” officials said in a Monday filing, noting that the affidavit contained “highly sensitive information about witnesses” already interviewed by the government.

“In addition, information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation,” the DOJ’s filing said. “Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations.”

ABC News and a number of other media organizations have called for the release of the affidavit, noting the historical significance of the unprecedented law enforcement search of a former president’s residence and the “immediate and intense public interest as well as a vociferous reaction from Mr. Trump and his allies.”

It is unclear how Judge Reinhart will ultimately rule on the request, but the Justice Department has requested that if he were to order even a “partial unsealing” of the affidavit that they be given a chance to provide the court with proposed redactions.

Officials said in their Monday filing, however, that they believed the redactions that would be necessary to protect the investigation “would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content.”

DOJ would likely seek an immediate appeal on any ruling by Judge Reinhart that would reveal further substantive details underlying their investigation.

The government said, though, it would not object to the unsealing of other materials filed in connection with the warrant, such as cover sheets for the application, the government’s motion to keep the warrant under seal and Judge Reinhart’s original sealing order — none of which will likely reveal much beyond the materials already disclosed.

The redacted copy of the search warrant released last Friday sent shockwaves through Washington, as it revealed the Justice Department was investigating the potential violation of at least three separate criminal statutes in its search of Mar a Lago, including obstruction of justice and one crime under the Espionage Act.

A property receipt accompanying the warrant shows agents seized 11 boxes of documents of various classifications, including one set referring to “classified/TS/SCI documents” (the acronym stands for top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information that not everyone with even top-secret clearance can view) and four other sets of top-secret documents.

The documents were discovered by authorities after a lawyer for Trump signed a statement in June to the FBI affirming that all classified documents on the premises had been handed over to investigators, sources confirmed to ABC News.

It’s not immediately clear whether lawyers for President Trump will be present at Thursday’s hearing in Florida.

Trump in recent days has called for the “immediate release” of the affidavit while leveling various attacks at the FBI and Justice Department, while also demanding over his social media website that the documents be returned to him. But Trump’s legal team has yet to take any sort of legal action on either front in response to the search.

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are among multiple other witnesses interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation, ABC News confirmed Tuesday, with sources saying both sat with investigators sometime in the spring. But there’s no indication that the Justice Department’s filing referencing officials’ hopes of protecting witnesses who testified in the investigation was a direct reference to Cipollone or Philbin.

ABC News’ John Santucci contributed to this report.

Minneapolis Public Schools defends policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Ahead of the new school year, Minneapolis Public Schools has defended its agreement reached with the teacher’s union this spring to prioritize retaining educators of underrepresented backgrounds when determining layoffs.

Effective in the spring of 2023, the contract provision states that teachers who are members of “populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district” may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional “last-in, first-out” system.

The stipulation is a part of a recent collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS, which concluded a weekslong teachers’ strike in March.

“To remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination, Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,” a spokesperson for Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday.

The policy comes as efforts to diversify teachers in Minnesota are ramping up in the state legislature with the introduction of HF3079, the 2022 Increase Teachers of Color Act.

The legislation seeks to “increase the percentage of teachers of color and American Indian teachers in Minnesota” to ensure that “all students have equitable access to effective and racially and ethnically diverse teachers who reflect the diversity of students,” according to the text of the bill.

However, as news of the MPS policy has made national headlines in recent days, critics say the policy’s attempts to rectify past discrimination could constitute discrimination itself — potentially even a violation of the 14th Amendment.

James Dickey, an attorney in Minneapolis, told ABC News that his firm has recently received a “flood of emails” from taxpayers and teachers in Minneapolis who are opposed to the policy and have reached out regarding potential legal actions.

Dickey is senior legal counsel at the Upper Midwest Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm in Minnesota, and said that his firm could be “prepared to go forward with litigation” soon.

When asked about efforts to diversify the teaching staff in Minnesota public schools, Dickey acknowledged the concern but said that addressing the issue instead requires reforming the seniority system, suggesting that layoffs should be based on merit, not seniority or race.

“Teachers are not being evaluated based on merit, they’re being evaluated based on, you know, first in first and last out. And I think that’s the bigger problem,” he said.

Responding to criticism, MFT has doubled down on its support of the policy, citing the need for educators to reflect the diversity of their schools’ student bodies. While 65% of the students attending MPS in the 2021-22 school year were people of color, only around 30% of the teaching staff were, the district reported.

“No matter where they live in Minneapolis, or what they look like, every student in the Minneapolis Public Schools deserves great teachers and education support professionals who challenge, support and educate all their students in a safe and stable learning environment,” the union wrote in a statement to ABC News.

The union wrote that it wanted to create a “transparent, legal, ethical process” to retain the “unique skills and experiences” of educators of color and those of other underrepresented backgrounds in the case of budget cuts and layoffs.

MFT described the agreement as a small step toward dismantling discriminatory systems in education but noted that diversifying educators will be a long haul given the nationwide teacher shortage. There are currently more than 370 open jobs for teachers in MPS, the union said.

Tra Carter, a former behavioral specialist at Clara Barton Community School in south Minneapolis, said he believes MPS could do even more to support teachers of color. Carter, who was laid off last year during the strike, said that at the time, he was the only Black male educator employed at his school.

“Black and brown educators of color are losing their jobs exponentially faster than their white counterparts, so I’m happy again that something got done,” Carter said.

“But I don’t think that it’s ever going to be enough,” he added. “I think one of the first steps that the district needs to do is to begin hiring more educators of color and helping those educators that are already in the schools who don’t have those teaching licenses or who don’t have those degrees, helping those educators so that they can then be in that community.”

Baby girl born with one lung and given 20% chance of survival goes home

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SAN DIEGO) — A California girl has beaten the odds to reunite with her twin and return home with her family after a six-month stay at a San Diego hospital.

Charlotte and her twin sister, Olivia, were born to Karla and Joshua Valliere last December, but in January, Charlotte was suddenly admitted to Rady Children’s Hospital with breathing difficulties and a respiratory infection.

At first, the Vallieres didn’t know what was wrong. Olivia was healthy, and although Charlotte had been born with one lung, she hadn’t had any issues after birth.

“Her one lung grew like 1.5 sizes, so it was compensating for the lack of the second one. So [doctors] did run all the studies. She was totally fine — oxygenation, everything 100%, so we were cleared to go after four days in the hospital,” Karla Valliere told Good Morning America. “It was six weeks at home — total bliss. Everything was great … and all of a sudden she started having breathing problems.”

The Vallieres took their daughter to Rady on Jan. 29, and she was admitted and placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, or ECMO.

Dr. Matthew Brigger, chief of the pediatric otolaryngology division at Rady Children’s Hospital, started seeing Charlotte, who was just six weeks old at the time. Charlotte would eventually be diagnosed with tracheal stenosis and complete tracheal rings. This meant she had a birth defect with her airway where the rings in her trachea were abnormal and she had an abnormal narrowing of the trachea, or windpipe. She also had a blood vessel wrapped around her trachea.

“This set of anomalies, with the single lung, with the way the aorta was wrapped around the trachea itself and the trachea being this narrow, is actually fairly rare,” Brigger told GMA.

“We knew that she had a critical airway that if anything were to progress, trying to keep her intubated, that was gonna potentially injure the airway and give us more difficulty in repairing it. So the ECMO was sort of a bridge to surgery,” he continued.

But the surgery was a major one and in order to do it, Brigger and the rest of Charlotte’s doctors had to wait until she was big enough, since she and her twin had been born a few weeks early and therefore, Charlotte was small for her age.

“Initially I [told the parents], ‘Well, if we can get through surgery, I’m gonna give her 50-50,” Brigger said. “[But] I’m thinking more 20% of getting through surgery at the time, just knowing how much that we had to go through.”

Despite the low chance of survival, Charlotte’s surgery was a success.

“Fortunately, Charlotte’s a fighter and we got to do the surgery. She sailed through surgery,” he said.

The Vallieres said that throughout the monthslong stay in the hospital and all the ups and downs, with Charlotte’s complications, multiple surgeries and treatment, they drew strength from their own daughter.

“The thing that I think that I believe got us through was her. She never gave any sign of weakness,” the mom of two said.

After spending 185 days in the hospital, Charlotte was finally discharged on Aug. 1, and her parents and twin sister were there to celebrate and bring her home.

“It was just a lot of emotions and it was just a roller coaster. But now we have them together, so it’s worth it,” Karla Valliere added.

Today, Brigger said he doesn’t anticipate Charlotte needing a second lung at all and her future looks bright.

“Prognosis is very good. She may not be running marathons in the future but she is Charlotte so it’s hard to say. She’s proved people wrong all along. I expect her to be able to live a good life,” he said.

Weeks before Mar-a-Lago search, ex-Trump DOD official vowed to publish classified documents from National Archives

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website.

Trump had just issued a letter instructing the National Archives to grant Patel and conservative journalist John Solomon access to nonpublic administration records, according to reporting at the time.

Patel, who under Trump had been the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, claimed in a string of interviews that Trump had declassified a trove of “Russiagate documents” in the final days of his administration. But Patel claimed Trump’s White House counsel had blocked the release of those documents, and instead had them delivered to the National Archives.

“I’ve never told anyone this because it just happened,” Patel said in an interview on a pro-Trump podcast on June 22. “I’m going to identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified at the National Archives, and we’re going to start putting that information out next week.”

Patel did not provide a clear explanation of how he would legally or practically obtain the documents.

“White House counsel and company disobeyed a presidential order and implemented federal governmental bureaucracy on the way out to basically send the stash to the National Archives, and now that’s where it’s at,” Patel said in a subsequent interview on June 23 on a different pro-Trump internet show.

Trump and his allies have for years pushed aggressively to declassify materials related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation that examined alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia — a probe that was later put under the control of Robert Mueller following his appointment as special counsel. Patel, who previously served under then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) during Nunes’ time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has claimed that nonpublic information provided to Congress undercut the Russia probe and helped support Trump’s claim that the investigation lacked merit.

The day before he left office, Trump authorized the declassification of a set of documents related to the Russia probe. The memorandum, released in January 2021, acknowledged that “portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public.”

So according to Patel, Trump asked him to work on retrieving the classified documents from the National Archives and then release them to the public. “President Trump was like, ‘Who knows those documents better than anyone?’ And I was like, ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go,'” Patel said.

“I know what’s there” in the Archives, said Patel. “I can’t still talk about them, but the whole process is going to be: Identify the documents, whether it’s Russiagate, Hunter Biden, impeachment, Jan 6th — and put them out.”

Erica Knight, a spokesperson for Patel, told ABC News that Patel was acting as “a representative on behalf of President Trump to work with the National Archives to get them to disclose information.”

“The GSA has their own policies and procedures for how presidential records must be handled, which Patel is in full cooperation with,” Knight said of the federal government’s General Services Administration, an adjunct of the National Archives.

Patel’s comments claiming that Trump had directed him to retrieve classified documents came in the middle of the former president’s growing dispute with National Archives officials. By June, the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to investigate the former president’s handling of White House records, after National Archives officials had in January retrieved 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Trump’s home in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

And while Patel has said the former president said to declassify “a mountain of documents,” experts say there are protocols in place to ensure that national security is not harmed when information is declassified — even by the president.

“[Patel] is lashing out at the bureaucracy, but it’s that bureaucracy and those protocols that are in place to prevent damage to our national security by an inappropriate disclosure of national security information,” said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.

“I can’t stress how important those protocols are,” Cohen said. “For everyone who has a clearance, it is ingrained in your brain that even an inadvertent disclosure of top secret information could cause great harm to national security.”

According to Patel, the plan in June was to retrieve the documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website “for free,” then “make a big announcement every time” a new document was published.

Patel, a former GOP congressional aide who worked on Trump’s National Security Council before joining the Pentagon, was also involved in security preparations for the Jan. 6 counting of the electoral vote on Capitol Hill, according to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, citing records obtained from the Defense Department.

Last September, the Jan. 6 committee issued subpoenas to four former senior Trump administration officials, including Patel, who appeared before the committee for several hours in December.

This past April, Patel was brought on as a member of the board of directors for the former president’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which launched the “Truth Social” platform in February. Patel also published a pro-Trump children’s book titled “The Plot Against the King.”

As of last month, Patel was still pursuing his plan to publish documents currently in the National Archives.

“Now we’re in this fight,” Petal told conservative commentator Benny Johnson in a July 4 interview. “I’m working on it. And of course, the bureaucracy is getting in the way, but that’s not going to stop us.”

“I will be going to the National Archives in the coming weeks, I will be identifying those documents,” he said.

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