News – Page 2735 – 105.7 WDNY

Woman testifies against chef Mario Batali in sexual misconduct case

May 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(BOSTON) — A woman who accused celebrity chef and restauranteur Mario Batali of groping her said Monday she was speaking out “to be able to take control of what happened,” while a defense attorney for Batali called her a liar who is twisting the truth “for money and for fun.”

Natali Tene, 32, alleged Batali, 61, forcibly kissed her and grabbed her breasts, buttocks and groin after meeting him in a Boston bar while having a drink with a friend in March 2017. Batali, she claimed, was “grabbing me in ways I had never been touched before, squeezing between my legs … pulling me closer to him.”

Batali has said he is not guilty of the allegations. At the start of the trial on Monday in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, Batali told Judge James Stanton he wanted to waive his right to a jury trial, which means Stanton will render the verdict directly.

The alleged assault took place after the accuser asked the chef for a selfie. He smelled of alcohol and appeared intoxicated, she alleged. Tene has also filed a civil complaint for unspecified damages based on the same allegations that will be tried separately from this case.

If found guilty, Batali could face nearly three years in prison and be forced to register as a sex offender.

Under cross-examination from attorney Anthony Fuller, Tene repeatedly said she did not remember text messages she sent friends that described her meeting Batali as “exciting.” In one message, she purportedly suggested to a friend that she could “hopefully” get $10,000 for photos of the encounter.

“I really, honestly thought this is how it all worked. I thought [with] celebrities, when they get in trouble, that’s how it works,” she said. “$10,000 is just an arbitrary number to me.”

Fuller characterized Tene as uncredible and flatly denied that the encounter took place.

“The defense in this case is very simple: It didn’t happen,” he said. The photo evidence “[does] not show any indecent assault and battery.”

In his questioning of Tene, he also referenced her claim that she is clairvoyant, an answer she used to allegedly get out of jury selection in a previous criminal trial.

Four women accused Batali of inappropriate touching in December 2017, which prompted him to leave the ABC daytime cooking show The Chew and remove himself from his restaurant business. In a statement following the accusations, Batali said he was “so very sorry” for disappointing his friends, family, co-workers and fans.

“My behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility,” he said at the time.

Batali’s company paid a $60,000 settlement following a state investigation that alleged the company promoted a sexualized culture that violated multiple human rights laws.

Corrections officer dead after being caught with missing inmate in Indiana

May 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(EVANSVILLE, Ind.) — Florence, Alabama, jail employee Vicky White has died Monday after she was apprehended along with murder suspect Casey White in Evansville, Indiana, which ended a 10-day manhunt, according to the Vanderburgh County Coroners Office.

After Inmate Casey White, 38, and Lauderdale County Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White, 56, were spotted at a hotel, Casey White and Vicky White led police on a car chase that ended with a wreck, Indiana authorities said. Vicky White, who was driving the Cadillac, was hospitalized with “very serious” injuries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Vanderburgh County, Indiana, sheriff’s office.

“Can’t clarify how long they have been in Evansville … lucky we stumbled upon them today,” Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said Monday.

He said the pursuit only lasted a few minutes.

“We got a dangerous man off the street today,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said Monday during a press conference.

Casey White and Vicky White, who are not related, fled the Lauderdale County Jail on April 29.

Authorities said they believe Vicky White willingly participated in the escape, which took place on her last day before retirement.

The duo fled Alabama in a Ford Edge and ditched the car in Williamson County, Tennessee — about a two-hour drive north of Florence — just hours after the jail break.

On Monday, U.S. Marshals said investigators were in Evansville, Indiana, following up on a tip after a 2006 Ford F-150 believed to have been used by Casey White and Vicky White was found abandoned at a car wash on May 3. Police were alerted to the vehicle on Sunday.

At the time of his escape, Casey White was facing two counts of capital murder for allegedly stabbing a woman to death in 2015, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Vicky White has been charged with forgery and identity theft for allegedly using an alias to buy the Ford Edge used to facilitate the escape, according to the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office. A warrant was also issued for Vicky White charging her with permitting or facilitating escape.

No one was injured as a result of the escape, Singleton said.

Vicky White died Monday evening at Deaconess Hospital. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.

Casey White will be brought back to Lauderdale County to be arraigned, Singleton said.

“He’s not getting out of this jail again,” Singleton said. “I assure you that.”

What South Korea’s new president means for North Korea

May 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SEOUL, South Korea) — The inauguration of Yoon Suk-yeol as the 20th president of South Korea took place at the National Assembly compound in Seoul on Tuesday, marking the start of his five-year term.

Facing an economy hit hard by the pandemic, surging home prices and a politically polarized country, Yoon’s biggest and imminent challenge is the constant threat of North Korea, which has sped up its nuclear weapons program while test-firing missiles 15 times just this year alone.

“The door to dialogue will remain open so that we can peacefully resolve this threat,” President Yoon said during his inauguration speech.

Under the condition that North Korea “genuinely embarks on a process to complete denuclearization,” the new South Korean government will present “an audacious plan” to help Pyongyang strengthen its hardstricken economy and “improve the quality of life for its people,” Yoon added.

But prospects are grim for a peaceful resolution between the two Koreas. Yoon, characterized as a “man of principle” and “predictability,” has repeatedly warned that North Korea’s bad behavior will not be rewarded.

Analysts also doubt that Pyongyang will change its path, especially after its leader Kim Jong Un declared last month that “the nuclear forces, the symbol of our national strength and the core of our military power, should be strengthened in terms of both quality and scale.”

Analysts say more variety of weapons tests, especially tactical nuclear weapons and submarine-launched missile systems, are very likely to follow with the aim to minimize nuclear warheads.

“For tactical nuclear weapons to be deployed, they have to test a tactical nuclear warhead. So it’s not going to be a bigger sized scale of the nuclear test, but they probably need to have a nuclear warhead test very soon to show that they have that capability,” Dr. Woo Jung-yeop of the Seoul-based Sejong Institute told ABC News.

Yoon, married to first lady Kim Gun-hee with no children, spent 27 years of his entire career as a prosecutor with no political experience. He rose to prominence for standing up against political and social pressure when convicting numerous big political players, including two former presidents, Park Geun-Hye and Lee Myung-bak. He was appointed as Prosecutor General in 2019 by then-President Moon Jae-in for that reason, but was ironically pushed out by Moon’s Democratic Party politicians last year for his principled manners against their radical reformist policies. Yoon had run for office as the opposition conservative People Power Party’s presidential candidate.

Eleven staffers at Missouri hospital are pregnant at the same time

May 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LIBERTY, Mo.) — At one Missouri hospital, it’s going to be quite a baby bonanza soon.

Ten nurses and one doctor at Liberty Hospital in Liberty, Missouri, are pregnant at the same time. And, in case you were wondering, none of it was planned and nothing’s in the water.

“There’s a lot of nurses saying they won’t drink the water,” Hannah Miller, 29, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “One of the nurses actually brought her own water bottle the other night and I was joking with her. I was like, ‘Oh, you’re really not drinking the water,'” the postpartum nurse, who’s expecting her first child, added.

Dr. Anna Gorman of Northland Obstetrics and Gynecology is expecting her second child and said it wasn’t likely that all 11 of them would be pregnant together.

“I think it’s really unique because it’s all in the same unit … and especially like our population ratio, I think is quite high. So sure it happens, but it’s pretty exciting when it’s this big,” the OB-GYN said.

Most of the pregnant staff are nurses with Liberty Hospital’s Birthing Center and said they hope to deliver there when the time comes. They’ve also bonded over their shared experience so far.

“This is definitely a great experience and it’s something that I feel like we’ll probably bond over for a lifetime, having the babies due around the same time,” Alex Atcheson, a labor and delivery nurse, told GMA. “It’s been great to have each other for support and go through pregnancy together.”

The 29-year-old is expecting her third child, along with her colleague, labor and delivery nurse Alison Harrell.

“Alex and I figured out pretty early that we were due the same day,” the 30-year-old said. “And then we started making a list of everyone and people just kept adding to the list as time went on.”

Atcheson and Harrell are 37 weeks along and will welcome their little ones in the next two weeks, with both sharing the same due date of May 27. Their labor and delivery co-worker Katie Bestgen is due in a little over two months, on July 20.

Meanwhile, Christen Burns, 26, joined the club more recently.

“I was one of the last ones to tell everybody that I was pregnant,” she said.

The labor and delivery nurse is expecting her first child and said, “I think it was just more exciting to add to the group and have everybody right there with me.”

In addition to delighting in each other’s happy news, the nurses and co-workers have been sharing their own experiences as well.

“It’s been really helpful. Just like getting advice and tips from my coworkers and especially the ones that have had babies before and just relating and like, ‘Oh, do you have problems with your hips too, or different pains or that kind of thing?'” Cheyenne Beaty said.

For the 26-year-old labor and delivery nurse expecting her first child, she’s appreciated having a built-in support group at work.

“It’s just nice that there’s people around me going through the same thing for sure,” she said.

Therese Byrum, 27, said lately, there have been at least two pregnant staffers working together during a shift and they’ve also had instances where everyone was pregnant during a shift. The obstetric float nurse who rotates between labor and delivery, the NICU, and in postpartum, will be one of the last staffers to give birth. The mom of three is expecting her fourth child on Thanksgiving Day.

Nebraska, West Virginia primaries highlight GOP divisions over Trump and the ‘big lie’

May 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Of the numerous primary races being held Tuesday, two resonate beyond state politics: The Republican gubernatorial primary in Nebraska and the 2nd Congressional District Republican primary in West Virginia.

After former President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates won in the Ohio and Indiana primaries, the Nebraska GOP gubernatorial primary will once again test the power of Trump’s endorsement — this time in a race in which established GOP state leaders have backed another candidate.

Former President Donald Trump has put stock in the Nebraska gubernatorial GOP primary by backing wealthy businessman Charles Herbster, who has been accused of sexual assault by eight women — allegations he has denied. He is engaged in a legal battle with state Sen. Julie Slama, the only accuser to be identified by name.

Trump held a rally in Nebraska last week in support of Herbster, but almost all of Nebraska’s GOP establishment leaders, including Gov. Pete Ricketts, support businessman Jim Pillen in the primary.

A third contender, state Sen. Brett Lindstrom, has gained traction partly due to his endorsement from the mayor of Omaha, Nebraska’s largest city.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District GOP House primary race the impact of congressional redistricting will be on full display.

West Virginia lost one of its three House seats, and while both existing districts lean strongly Republican, there is one fewer seat for Republicans to hold onto, according to analysis from FiveThirtyEight.

One of the House races features a rare matchup between two incumbent lawmakers. Republicans Rep. David McKinley and Rep. Alex Mooney are facing off against each other and three other challengers in the primary.

The McKinley-Mooney matchup is another test of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement power. Trump has backed Mooney, who has echoed the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election. McKinley, however, has the support of Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Manchin even released an ad denouncing Mooney and declaring his support for McKinley.

“Alex Mooney has proven he’s all about Alex Mooney. But West Virginians know David McKinley is all about us,” Manchin said in the ad.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, however, told ABC News Live’s Diane Macedo on Monday that he doesn’t think the Trump or Manchin endorsements will decide the race.

“He’s certainly very popular… I think people still are tuned in to what he has to say. But I really don’t think that’s going to be the decisive factor in this election,” Warner said of the former president. “Endorsements are important, but I think people really vote their conscience.”

As for Manchin’s endorsement, Warner was unsure of whether it would have “much play at all in this particular race,” which is also a test of one of President Joe Biden’s signature policies.

West Virginia is one of the nation’s poorest states, and McKinley is one of 13 Republicans who voted for Biden’s infrastructure bill that is expected to funnel $6 billion to the state. Mooney voted against it and won Trump’s endorsement when Biden signed the bill into law.

Greg Thomas, a Republican political consultant in the state who knows both candidates and once worked for McKinley, is of the belief that Trump’s support for Mooney could, in fact, be a tipping point.

“Trump’s personality isn’t something that we see a lot here in West Virginia. But his issues, these are West Virginia conservative issues and have been before Trump came along,” he told ABC News.

McKinley has also been hurt by Trump’s focus on his vote to establish an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Unfounded claims about the 2020 election overshadow the two races, as both Herbster and McKinley have pushed the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Herbster attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, which preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mooney has also supported a Texas-led lawsuit seeking to throw out the election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin; and he objected to certifying the election results in Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Tuesday’s primaries are coming just over a week after a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion was leaked. The impending decision has galvanized abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion rights activists alike.

Warner told ABC News Live the abortion issue could play a role in Nebraska and West Virginia.

“It may excite the [voter] base, but I think we’re gonna have an exciting election either way,” Warner said.

1st group of refugees start arriving under ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program

May 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is officially welcoming the first group of refugees coming to the U.S. under the “Uniting for Ukraine” program, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday.

So far, about 6,000 Ukrainians of the 19,000 who applied have received authorization to travel to the U.S. after passing background checks and biometric screenings, DHS said in a statement.

The program requires Ukrainians to have a private sponsor in the U.S. who must also complete a background check and prove they have the financial means to support those granted refuge.

The program is part of President Joe Biden’s promise to allow 100,000 Ukrainians to seek refuge in the U.S. Other legal pathways are also still available through the State Department that will count toward the 100,000 objective.

“We are proud to deliver on President Biden’s commitment to welcome 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russian aggression to the United States. The Ukrainian people continue to suffer immense tragedy and loss as a result of Putin’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on their country,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement last month. “DHS will continue to provide relief to the Ukrainian people, while supporting our European allies who have shouldered so much as the result of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

Before “United for Ukraine” was established, about 20,000 Ukrainians without prior authorization entered the U.S. along the southern border, according to a DHS court filing.

With the pre-authorization program up and running, authorities have taken a harder line on admitting Ukrainians who show up at the border without proper documentation. That shift left dozens stranded on the Mexican side of a border crossing near San Diego and potentially many more elsewhere along the border, the San Diego Union Tribune reported last month.

More than 5.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, according to the UNHCR, with the majority traveling to eastern European nations including Poland and Romania.

West Virginia 2002 primary election results

May 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — West Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday to vote in primaries for the House of Representatives and state legislature, as well as other statewide and regional offices. Early voting in the state ended Saturday.

Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET.

State significance

The Republican primaries for the House of Representatives in West Virginia are significant because they will help determine which party controls the House and will put the impact of congressional redistricting on full display.

As a result of redistricting — and a decline in the state’s population — West Virginia lost one of its three House seats. Both existing districts lean strongly Republican, but now there is one fewer seat for Republicans to hold onto, according to analysis from FiveThirtyEight.

Redistricting also means one of the House races features a rare matchup between two incumbent lawmakers. Republicans Reps. David McKinley and Alex Mooney are facing off against each other and three other challengers in the primary for the newly drawn 2nd Congressional District.

The McKinley-Mooney matchup is another test of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement power. Trump has backed Mooney, who has echoed the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election. But McKinley, who voted for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, has the support of Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Escaped inmate, jail employee apprehended in Indiana

May 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(EVANSVILLE, Ind.) — Florence, Alabama, jail employee Vicky White and murder suspect Casey White were apprehended in Evansville, Indiana, on Monday, ending a 10-day manhunt, Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton announced.

After Inmate Casey White, 38, and Lauderdale County Assistant Director of Corrections Vicky White, 56, were spotted at a hotel, Casey White and Vicky White led police on a car chase in that ended with a wreck, Indiana authorities said. Vicky White, who was driving the Cadillac, has been hospitalized with “very serious” injuries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Vanderburgh County, Indiana, sheriff’s office.

“Can’t clarify how long they have been in Evansville … lucky we stumbled upon them today,” Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said Monday.

He said the pursuit only lasted a few minutes.

“We got a dangerous man off the street today,” Singleton said.

Casey White and Vicky White, who are not related, fled the Lauderdale County Jail on April 29.

Authorities said they believe Vicky White willingly participated in the escape, which took place on her last day before retirement.

The duo fled Alabama in a Ford Edge and ditched the car in Williamson County, Tennessee — about a two-hour drive north of Florence — just hours after the jail break.

At the time of his escape, Casey White was facing two counts of capital murder for allegedly stabbing a woman to death in 2015, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

No one was injured as a result of the escape, Singleton said.

The pair will be brought back to Lauderdale County to be arraigned, Singleton said.

“He’s not getting out of this jail again,” Singleton said. “I assure you that.”

ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.

Hospital admission totals tick up after weeks of rising COVID-19 cases

May 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Following weeks of increasing infection rates, a growing number of Americans are heading into the hospital in need of care.

On average, nearly 2,400 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to the hospital each day, up by 17% in the last week, according to federal data. Forty-one states and territories have reported increases of 10% or more in their daily number of COVID-19-related hospital admissions.

In the U.S., there continues to be an uptick in the overall number of patients requiring care for COVID-19, with now about 19,100 patients hospitalized across the country. Overall, the total remains significantly lower than every other COVID-19 surge. In January, there were 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus.

The U.S. is reporting more than 68,000 new cases every day, up by 20% in the last week, and 52% in the last two weeks. The nation’s daily case average has more than doubled in the last month.

Over the last week, nearly every state in the county — 45 states and territories — have seen increases of 10% or more in their daily COVID-19 infection rates.

Last week, counties across the Northeast moved into the “high” risk category for COVID-19 risk, after weeks of increasing cases and hospitalizations.

The “high” community-level transmission suggests there is a “high potential for health care system strain” and a “high level of severe disease.” Thus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear a mask in public indoor settings, including schools.

As infection rates continue to increase across the country, some health experts are questioning how much higher totals are than initially reported.

“We’re probably missing a lot,” David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News last week. “I would not be surprised to find out that our confirmed case count is under-counting the total number of cases by a factor of two or three. I think it’s quite possible that we’re having right now, as many cases as we were during the, you know, the delta wave of August or September, certainly not what we had this past winter, but we probably are having a lot more cases than what’s currently being reported.”

While some epidemiologists suggest that hospitalization data has become less reliable, as states stop reporting key metrics, health experts said they are more reliable than case numbers.

“We see that the number of hospitalizations being reported has again increased by about 20 to 30% from the low back in April. So while we may not have a perfect read on those numbers, they are more reliable than the case counts,” Dowdy said.

Despite increases in other metrics, the average of daily COVID-19-related deaths remains at a persistent plateau. The average currently stands at 340 fatalities a day. That is still much lower than during the omicron peak in early February, when the U.S. was reporting more than 2,600 deaths every day.

The U.S. is also now less than 2,500 deaths away from hitting 1 million COVID-19 related deaths, putting the nation on track to reach the milestone in the next week.

White House responds to abortion-related protests at homes of Supreme Court justices

May 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The homes of Supreme Court justices are the newest site for protests over abortion access in the United States.

Activists gathered Saturday in the rain outside the Maryland residences of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh to protest a leaked draft opinion reportedly supported by the court’s conservative majority.

The document, reported by Politico last week, showed the panel is poised to repeal Roe v. Wade. The court confirmed the draft’s authenticity but reminded Americans it is not the final ruling. A decision in the case, which centers on a Mississippi abortion restriction, is expected by the end of June or early July.

Protesters held signs that read, “Never Again” and “Don’t Tread on My Choice.”

The demonstrations sparked a response Monday from the White House that justices shouldn’t have to worry about their “personal safety.”

“[President Joe Biden] strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest,” press secretary Jen Psaki said in a Twitter post. “But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.”

Republicans had accused the administration of not condemning violent threats after Psaki’s initial response to protests taking place at the justices’ homes.

“These activists posted a map with the home addresses of the Supreme Court justices. Is that the kind of thing this president wants to help your side make their point?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked during her daily press briefing May 5.

“I think the president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki responded. “We obviously want people’s privacy to be respected. We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest. That is certainly what the president’s view would be.”

Officers from the Montgomery County Police Department were on the scene as the protests unfolded, as seen in photographs from ABC affiliate station WJLA. The department did not immediately respond to ABC News request for comment. There didn’t appear to be any reports of violence or vandalism during the protests.

Senators Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, on Monday introduced legislation that would allow the Supreme Court Police to provide all nine justices and their families with around-the-clock security protection.

ShutDownDC said 100 people were part of Saturday’s protests in the Chevy Chase neighborhood where Kavanaugh and Roberts live. It’s unclear if the justices or their families were home at the time.

The group has another protest planned for outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito on Monday night that will include speakers, a candlelight vigil and quiet moments of reflection.

Alito was the author of the Feb. 10 draft opinion, in which he wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

“It is important that we gather in this way because attacks on abortion rights represent not only a violation of our autonomy over our own bodies and an invasion of privacy between us and our doctors, but also a real and symbolic victory for those who would like to strip even more rights from us – among them contraception, gay marriage, privacy and safety from state scrutiny of our beliefs – and still more from our Black, brown and Indigenous friends and siblings,” ShutDownDC’s Hope Neyer told ABC News.

The bombshell draft opinion on Roe sparked rallies from both abortion rights activists and anti-abortion protesters across the country. A nationwide day of action is planned for Saturday, May 14.

An “unscalable,” eight-foot-high fence was placed around the Supreme Court building last week. Neither the court or law enforcement officials have said anything publicly about possible threats to the institution or the justices, who are set to return in-person for a private conference on May 12.

Republicans are condemning the protests, with Sen. Ted Cruz equating them to “mob violence” even though there were no reports of violence.

“It is disgraceful,” Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News on Sunday.

ShutDownDC responded to Cruz’s comments, telling ABC: “We are exercising our constitutional right to gather and demonstrate and intend to continue to do so regardless of whatever aspersions people like Ted Cruz who are scared of our collective power might cast.”

Democratic strategist Paul Begala also chimed in on the protests in front of Roberts and Kavanaugh’s homes, saying they could do more harm than good.

“This is wrong, stupid, potentially dangerous, and politically counterproductive,” Begala wrote on Twitter.

+ More